Secular Fundalmentalists are the new Totalitarians

Article by Tobias Jone for the Guardian - Printed Saturday 6th January 2007

There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.


In recent years these unpleasant people have had a strategy of exploiting Britain's innate politeness. They realised that for a decade overly sensitive souls (normally called the PC brigade) had bent over backwards to avoid giving offence. Trying not to give offence was, despite the excesses, a noble courtesy.

But the fundamentalists saw an opening. Because we live in a multiconfessional society, they fostered the falsehood that wearing a crucifix or a veil or a turban was deeply offensive to other faiths. They pretended to be protecting religious sensibilities as a pretext to strip us of all religious expressions. In 2006 Jack Straw and BA fell into the fundamentalists' trap.

But Britons are actually laissez-faire about such things. And so the fundamentalists deployed an opposite tactic. Instead of pretending to protect religious sensibilities, they went on the offensive and sought to give offence. The subsequent reactions to the play Behzti in Birmingham, to Jerry Springer the Opera and to the Danish cartoons were wheeled out as examples of why religious groups are unable to live with our cherished freedom and tolerance.

In recent years the nastier side of this totalitarianism has become blatantly apparent. It emerged with the hijab issue in France. With the hijab ban in French schools, a state was banishing religion not only from its corridors, but also from its citizens.

It was an assertion that after centuries of the naked public square (denuded of religion referents) the public now too had to go naked. The former had been true tolerance, something exceptional and laudable. It allowed everyone to bring their own cosmic testimony to the square. But this new form of "tolerance" changed things. From everyone being welcome, it had become everyone but.

There's a background to all this. Since 2001, lazy intellectuals have been allowed to get away with repeating the nonsense that terrorism and war are the consequences of belief in God. Believers are ridiculed for being, in contrast to the stupendously brainy atheists, very dim. Listen to Richard Dawkins' comment on Nadia Eweida (the BA employee who refused to take off her cross): "she had one of the most stupid faces I've ever seen." Nice.

There's also the fact that we live in a cultural milieu dominated by postmodernism. Broadly speaking, it attempts to deconstruct power and its narratives. It tries to rescue the marginalised. A noble intent, but because it doesn't believe in truth, anything goes. The tyranny of orthodoxy has been replaced by the tyranny of relativism. You're supposed to believe in nothing, and hence nihilists and atheists are suddenly rather chic. Postmodernism has taken tolerance to the extremes, where extremists thrive. It's a dangerous form of appeasement.

The greatest appeasers, however, have been the believers. Until recently many hid their religion in the closet. They conceded that it was something private. Until a few years ago religion was similar to soft drugs: a blind eye was turned to private use but woe betide you if you were caught dealing. Only recently have believers realised that religion is certainly personal, but it can never be private.

The reasons for that "outing" of believers are complex. But what is certain is that wise agnostics pleaded with believers to take a public lead again, because the point about believers is that they are obeying (and disobeying) all sorts of commandments that the state doesn't see or understand. Because they are able to differentiate sin from crime, they have a moral register more nuanced than most. Even a wise atheist (and I've met a few of them in church, as they desperately try to get their kids into the local C of E school) knows that believers can deal with social anarchy much better than the state ever can.

That is why these fundamentalists are so in evidence. They're not only needled by their own hypocrisy; they are also furious that believers have broken the old pact to stay out of public debate. Witness, for example, Mary Riddell's astonishing sentence in the Observer last month (try replacing "religion" with "homosexuality" to get the point): "secularists do not wish to harm religion or deny its great cultural influence. They simply want it to know its place." In other words: get back in the closet.

Christians feel particularly aggrieved because we believe that Jesus invented secularism. Jesus's teachings desacralised the state: no authority, not even Caesar's, was comparable to God's. As Nick Spencer writes in Doing God, "the secular was Christianity's gift to the world, denoting a public space in which authorities should be respected, but could be legitimately challenged and could never accord to themselves absolute or ultimate significance". Christianity, far from creating an absolutist state, initiated dissent from state absolutism.

And so for centuries a combination of British agnosticism and pragmatism meant that believers were judged not by the causes of their belief, but by its consequences. Everyone could taste the fruits, even those who couldn't believe in a sustaining, invisible root. These new militants, however, believe themselves to be the only arbiters of taste; they want to eradicate the root and cause. They will dictate what you can wear and what you can say. That, after all, is what totalitarians do.

· Tobias Jones is the author of The Dark Heart of Italy; his new book, Utopian Dreams, is published this month

The Religion versus Atheism Argument

The great argument and my mind is going around in circles!!

Why can we just not tolerate each other??

Criticism of Religion

Criticism of Atheism

Now I am most decidedly a Christian and proud of it, and I am not here to defend my beliefs, I do not need to. I am secure enough in my faith that I can listen to extremist points of views from both angles and not be swayed in my beliefs.

I am just not into fundamentalism and intolerance whether it be religious or atheist

I give you two quotes of extreme points of view:

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior. -Vox Day

Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea.

If I am so secure in my beliefs, then why am I even presenting this as a point of interest? It is through a very human emotion ... that of anger. Two people with whom I am in contact with through Facebook are not just atheists, but are avowed critics and haters of religion. It is something that seems to consume them. And quite frankly, it is sort of beginning to offend me. Do I continue to sit quietly by or do I get up onto my high horse, which is probably what they want?

Now the one chap who is more of an acquaintance than a friend is far more tolerant. He and I have both agreed to disagree and see it as a sign of maturity that we can  have other common interests but  differ on this one point of view.

The other person affects me more personally. he is my ex fiancee. Now he has always  been of a new age / philosophical point of view. He come from a family that is Christian by tradition but has never practised. He has experimented over the years with Christian Fundamentalism, Wicca,  etc.
The fact is that he is someone who is searching and is not finding. He feels he has finally found his place in the atheist movement and calls himself a philosopher.

Whilst we were together he always openly stated that he found no reason to believe and always quoted that the fundamentalists in the Church he had joined had  poisoned him against religion. But he never tried to deter me from going to Church or mingling with my Christian friends. In fact he always encouraged me!

In our last conversation he had wanted to go to a show that was quite expensive. He was unemployed and had been supported by his parents and me. I took a stand and said that I could not pay for this show. He then said that he would ask his mother for the money. My response was that I could not in all good moral conscience allow her or anyone else to pay for this show when we had so many other debts and things that needed to be paid for.

Now please note I said in all good "moral" conscience. not in all good "Christian" conscience, because I know the difference, that not all Christians are as moral as they should be and that Christians are not the only people who have morals.

Well this just opened a floodgate of hatred towards me and bitter condemnation of  mine and other religions. It is since this and  our break up that he has become fanatical and full of hatred for Christians, Muslims, Jews etc.

A common theme throughout his ranting seems to be this thing of "morals" so I can only believe that my use of this word in denying him what he wanted tipped him over the edge.

I have no problem with him or anyone else thinking or believing differently to me, but with fanaticism of any kind there is no debate , no rationale, just an enforcing of your point of view on other people.

The very people  who use the excuse of religious proselytizing as the reason for their anger, are themselves becoming intolerant proselytizers of the first water!

Why? Is it simplistic of me to think that these fanatical atheists / critics of religion must have some core part of them  that has either not been answered by religion or has been hurt by religion. Why are they so angry.

Are people who are atheists through a sheer process of growing and learning more calm about their beliefs and are they more tolerant?

I don't know, and I don't want to be angry ( I almost entered a "like them" here - how human of me)

I am just puzzled as to why it has to be an argument and not a debate?

WHY CAN WE NOT ALL BE MORE TOLERANT? WHAT A WONDERFUL WORld THIS WOULD BE THEN HHHHHMMMMM?

I would like to end with an old poem that my grandmother used to quote which I think says it all...

If all good people were clever

And all clever people were good,

The world would be better than ever

We thought that it possible could.

 

But somehow it's seldom or never

The two get along as they should.

The good are so harsh to the clever,

The clever so rude to the good.

BITCHBOOK

Now here is a novel concept...

A site where one can go to moan and complain about any situation, called bitchbook.

It is still under construction, but I am eager to see if people respond to the site.

I would add sub-categories though such as:

• Bitching about bosses
• Bitching about family
• Bitching about Taxi Drivers ( South African Thang)
• Bitching about boyfriends and husbands (would think they would need an extra server just to deal with this one!!!)

I once had a lovely cartoon poster on a wall at work which read something like this

LIST OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE PISSED ME OFF

TODAY ..............................................
               ..............................................
               ..............................................
               ..............................................
               ..............................................

THIS WEEK ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
                       ..............................................
THIS MONTH

THIS YEAR

THIS LIFETIME

The idea being that for each lengthier time period , the list got longer and longer!!!
( you get the idea???)

The reactions I got were quite amusing as I used to fill in all sorts of names

SHARDS

SHARDS

Hard words like bullets hit me
Searing comments tear my skin
Mutes me , Takes away my power
Your anger flails me
With one word your scorn burns me
Knocks me to the ground
Wounds me deeply
Searing my soul
Killing me
Slowly

and it never heals

I am wound upon wound
scar upon scar, building up
layer upon hurting layer

somewhere inside deep inside
in a tiny dark little corner
my soul lies curled , furled
amoeba like

you say you know me , do you know me ?
how?
I don’t know me, I know a thousand me’s
I act
every day I act out a thousand personas
trying to find the one that fits the moment
trying to find the one that pleases the world,
you, myself, friends

sometimes I reflect back what is shown to me,
thrown at me
good or bad
aggressive or loud
weak, soft ,emotional
maybe it works better being you
if I reflect you
maybe you will like better
if I am more you than me

but these people aren’t me

they are all just shards of the mirror of me
that s fracturing with the pain of my life
my hurt , my sorrows, my tears
my wastes, my losses, my losing
my cheating myself

she’s crying out that child, that soul, that me
she’s not gone forever

I see glimpses of her all the time
when I push aside the debris

most times though I leave her be
maybe to protect her
maybe because she is so long gone
such a distant memory
that I am losing the reality of her
maybe

maybe cos I still don’t know who
I want to be when I grow up

maybe cos it’s easier to blitz out,
avoid, compartmentalize, be the me
I am in the given moment, just exist
respond / react, just do what is expected
damp down the little sparks, one moment,
over-react the next anaesthetise, avoid , procrastinate,
be mundane
just exist
just be an amoeba

so who is the amoeba now, her or me

but she won’t leave me alone this soul of mine
she has a siren’s call, this Pandora soul of mine.
She cries to me for release

do I let her out ?
do I dare

who will love her, hate her the most
you or me?

will we
can we

accept her
allow her?

do you care?

Copyright © Gillian Stokes 31 May 2009

Cannot believe it has been so long.....

So.... two years since I have blogged here! Admittedly I do have a blog on another site where I am anonymous, but it is more of a "friend/ communication medium than this with people's commentary and I always feel i am kind of writing for approval.

Of course it is nice to have feedback and commentary. I know with my writing and poetry, I enjoy the feedback of fellow writers, but this blog for me is more of a "speak my mind" and blow the consequences sort of place. Or rather that is how I am going to treat it from now on. I have a lot to say and very definite opinions about all sorts of things and I am bursting because of keeping my opinions bottled up inside me. Soooooooo

the opinionated , rubinesque, ( comes armed with a mouth and knows how to use it) terminal blond is back as I have never been before!....

Anniversaries you don't like to Remember but can't avoid!

Time heals all wounds so they say. And in a sense it is true. The raw grief and pain after bereavement does ease with time , but it never totally goes away. I have lost friends and extended family, as well as losing both my brothers and my parents. We have nieces and nephews, as well as their offspring and other extended family, but of our core family unit of six, it is now just down to my sister and I.

My folks and I shared a house for 13 years after their retirement. They were in latter years both sickly and frail admittedly, but they passed away within five months of each other and it was a great loss. My Mum died on 10 October 2006 of massive heart attack just two months short of their 50th wedding anniversary, and my Dad on 6 March last year.

Funny, my folks had a warring relationship, not a peacable one, but the day my Mum died , my father gave up the will to live as well, he was broken hearted at losing her. After my Mum's death, I could not care for my Dad on my own, he had suffered strokes and was wheelchair bound, so we were forced to move out of our house and into a granny flat beneath my sister's house. It was very traumatic for both of us as we had not only lost my Mum, but we had lost our home of 13 years moving from a 3 bedroomed house into a one bedroomed granny flat. We both hated it.

It is toay the first anniversay of my Dad's death and it has been a horrid week for me. My Dad has been in my thoughts a lot. The Thursday before he passed away, I knew he was dying, and I told my sister I wanted to try and nurse him and let him die in peace in his own bed. The Saturday before he died , I got him out of bed for the last time because he wanted to watch the rugby on telly. He was up for all of about 20 minutes, and then asked me to return him to bed. He stopped eating and was sleeping a lot, barely talking.

By the Sunday night, I knew he was in heart failure and battling to breathe, so I with my sister made the decision to have him transported to hospital so that he would not have any discomfort. The ambulance people wanted to intubate him before transportation and had to sedate him for this, and so they advised us to say our goodbyes as they did not think he would survive. That was the last time he spoke to us and said goodbye to little Erin too.

He lapsed into a coma and finally passed away at a quarter to 2 in the morning of Tuesday the 6th March.

I stayed with him the whole time. I did not want him to die alone. It gave me time to sit and talk to him even though he was comatose. I spoke about the boys and my sister, about the fact that the boys and Mum would be waiting for him. I talked about the grand kids and great grand kids. I sang him songs that he had sung to us when we were younger etc.

It was also a time for me to confess my guilt and ask for his forgiveness for the way I had treated him after my Mum died. I had "cared" for him and nursed him as best I could, but it was not an easy task I was full of resentment and tempers were frayed and conversations often ended in battles and arguments.

It was very hard tiring work, feeding him, lifting him in and out of his wheelchair , cleaning him and medicating him etc. His hands had been affected by the strokes, so he could not even hold a bottle himself, so although he was in adult nappies, I had to get up to him sometimes four or five times a night for toilet patrol. I didn't have a whole night's sleep through in five months. Befor her death it was my darling Mum who had tended to him at night, arthritis and dicky heart and all.

He was aways an angry impatient man and not the easiest patient. Add to that the fact that I was (we were both) grieving my Mum greatly, and that yes I 'spose in my messed up state I took it out on him for past hurts and injustices.

Still he was my Dad, and I have guilt battles with things like the Saturday before he died ( the night before he was hospitalised) , when he got me up at about 11pm for about the fifth time and I screamed at him as I was so tired, and he burst into tears and sobbed and said to me, "Do you think I can help it? Do you think I would do this to you if I could help it?"

Those are things which I will live with for the rest of my life. I have asked his forgiveness and for God's forgiveness too and I know if He could, my Dad would put his arm around me, hug me and say . "It's OK my girl it doesn't matter"

So you see why it's an anniversary that I have not welcomed. I have not slept well and each night since Thursday I have been remembering what happened at that time a year ago.

On Saturday night the family went out to a braai and I stayed at home. I just wanted to salute my Dad in my own way, a way he would understand.

I poured a stiff whisky, watched Strictly Come Dancing which I last watched when my Mum was alive. (We all three loved the show). I have to admit that I balled my eyes out when Joseph Clark sung "Time to say goodbye"

Then when it was time, I sat and watched City of Angels, and cried my way through that too.

This film has particular significance. When my Mum died, my Dad and I were totally adrift without her. My fiancee - who I will refer to as Woo (bless his soul) gave us a a whole lot of DVD's to watch that would appeal to Dad. Nature DVD's war movies etc. But among them was "City of Angels". this turned out to become an obsession with my Dad as it made him think of my Mum and he said it made him feel a little easier about her passing. I cannot tell you how many times we watched this film together in those five months, my Dad and I.

So Saturday night for me was a little vigil in a sense, and I woke up this mornig early and lit a andle for my Dad at 01h45, the time he passed away last year.
But it is time in a sense to say goodbye, and take that next step towards living my life again, and I know that my parents and brothers are the first to encourage me to do so, and to live life to the fullest.

I got an email from an old school friend on Thursday. We have known each other sice Std 5 and her Mum , who is suffering from cancer , was a good friend of my Mum's too. Anyway Debs mentioned that she had been to see her Mum who had asked after me. Debs told her I was OK, was engaged and was planning a wedding. Mrs H's response to that was that she would pray for this to happen as I deserved to be happy and settled now. I will end with her last words about me as they are what I am taking to heart and will apply:


“life is for the living you know Debra and we cannot ponder on the past – we need to make each day count."


That's what I aim to do!

Me Da I salute you!

Be prepared all the time - Crime is largely Opportunistic!

Be prepared all the time - Crime is largely Opportunistic!


I try to be optimistic. I voiced my opposition about those who slated Alan Knott-Craig's letter about optimism because I truly feel we need to be positive and make a contribution to changing the negativity and fear in our country.

But it is hard to be objective when one becomes a victim or almost...

I have been mugged twice before, the first time in 1993 and the second attempt was just over two years ago when I was attacked at knife point in my own driveway by three men. Fortunately I escaped major physical harm then too.

Today I did a stupid thing. I left for a job interview without filling up. I am currently unemployed and doing temp work and typing from home etc and money is tight and I have got used to being amazed at how far my little old red golf can go when the needle is in the red zone

I had just entered the N2 Highway Durban bound from Edwin Swales when my car coughed, choked, valiantly tried to go and then just spluttered to a halt.

I phoned family to ask them to come the rescue with some petrol and while waiting for my brother in law, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a youth of about 17 or so sauntering slowly up the hill behind me on my side of the highway. As I was on a slope, just as a precaution, while watching him in the rear view mirror, I put my car into reverse and let the hand brake down keeping my foot on the brake pedal just in case and waited. Anyway, he just walked on past me and disappeared over the hill. I still felt guilt about my suspicions and this fear that any person one sees could mean potential danger.

About ten minutes later this young man reappeared on the brow of the hill walking this time towards me. But he now had both his hands inside the front pocket of his t-shirt, and it looked to me as if he was holding something in his hands. I knew then what he had in mind as he could not have been on a return trip from anywhere on that road in such a short space of time. So I started my car and managed to drive about 100 or so metres past him up the hill.

He carried on walking down the hill behind me but stopped about 150/ 200 metres down just where the road took a natural bend, and I could see him watching me. I sat there just praying and willing my brother in law to arrive to protect me. This youth then started walking back up the hill towards me. I was in a state 'cos I didn't know what he had in his pocket and what he wanted to do, so I jumped out of my car, locked the door, I then quickly opened my boot and shoved my handbag and cell phone into the boot, closed it and and stuffed my car keys into my bra. At this he started to run up the hill towards me. I just panicked, and although watching the traffic, I ran across all four lanes of the highway to the grass center lane. I didn't know what else to do.

I stood there screaming and waving my arms like a mad thing and pointing to him whilst he still tried to break my passenger window. This at half past eight in the morning , broad daylight , cars whizzing past.

Eventually a truck, a bakkie and a car pulled over and stopped virtually all at the same time. As they got out he stood up and looked at them and casually sauntered over to the middle of the highway near where I was standing and he then just stood and grinned at us all. It was only when the driver of the bakkie made as if to run after him, that he darted across the other side of the highway and disappeared into the bush.

I am totally freaked out about this, and I need to regain my objective and my positivity. I cannot let this latest incident get the better of me. I did still continue onto my interview, but had a mini melt down when I got home afterwards.

One thing has been highlighted for me as the title of the blog says, and that is that this type of crime is purely opportunistic. But is is such a frightening thought to know that there are vultures out there - everywhere- waiting to take advantage and that one is not safe anywhere.

If you do read this blog, I would urge you to always be prepared, be on the alert, and to try as much as possible to avoid becoming a potential victim.

I would love to turn my vehicle into an armoured car, but failing that, I will now always make sure that I am as protected as possible, that I have enough fuel, and that my car is as serviced and as roadworthy as I can make it. No matter how long or short the trip.

I don't want to be caught short again and be vulnerable like this, and I would urge all of you to take the same kind of precautions. On my way to and from the interview, I couldn't help but notice just how many ordinary passenger cars like mine were stopped on the side of the highway for whatever reason. It is just not safe people and not worth risking one's life.

So now I am going to go away have a cup of tea and try to find my positivity and optimism again. They have kind of gone into hiding and I know its going to be a tough job to regain perspective.

Evidence of the Paradigm Shift - by Franci Prowse

Cleve Backster noticed decades ago the similarity between science and religion. The outdated beliefs of mainstream science were/are just as entrained and defended as any fundamentalist religion. One of those working a parallel path to Cleve's work was Olga Worrall. I compose this article because I have read for decades about her and the remarkable work both she and her husband did, basically blowing off the prison doors of the mind of traditional science. But did they emerge? We haven't failed to notice those doors keep getting replaced. Most scientists have to "stumble upon" their own realizations.

Olga Worrall, now passed over, was born November 30, 1906 in Cleveland, OH. She was the wife of the famous "Mr. A" whose healing abilities were phenomenal enough to keep him mostly anonymous. (Yes, even in the 70's healers had to defend themselves from attacks of negativity similar to the inquisition.) Olga was also a healer, and carried on his work after his death. She graciously agreed to be tested by scientists for years. Cleve Backster was acquainted with Olga and her husband Ambrose back then in the 70's.

The following information related to the remarkable difference she made is from three articles, two found online (google Olga Worrall) and the third from a Science of Mind magazine I saved in a dusty file. Notice how the scientists avoid trying to explain how healing works, even though the evidence is piled high and deep. That would be crossing the line. It is daring enough just to run experiments. Enjoy reading Olga's own words as she spells it out for us at the end.

1. From an IONS article 1993

Beverly Rubik is a biophysicist who became interested in bioelectromagnetics in the 1970s after a personal experience with a spiritual healer. She has applied her training in science to a systematic investigation of scientific anomalies, including phenomena associated with "subtle energies." Dr. Rubik is the founding director of the Center for Frontier Sciences at Temple University, Philadelphia. This article was adapted by Christian de Quincey from Dr. Rubik's presentation at the Heart of Healing conference.

Fifteen years ago, the field of bioelectromagnetics was virtually unknown; very few people paid attention to the possibilities of a scientific basis for phenomena such as therapeutic touch. In those days I was quite an athlete, but had a lot of knee trouble which interfered with jogging and dancing. I had the good fortune to meet a phenomenal person, Dr. Olga Worrall, who claimed to be a spiritual faith healer. I agreed to a session with her, and within minutes of her placing her hands on my knees I felt a sensation of tingling heat, and experienced a spontaneous decrease in pain in my knees. Being a scientist, I was intrigued both by the empirical evidence of the efficacy of her healing touch, and by the fact that this was not explainable within current scientific or medical theory. As a result, I decided to apply my training in biophysics to investigate this and similar phenomena.

My doctoral dissertation had involved motility in bacteria. I took microphotographs of swimming bacteria using stroboscopic light, enabling me to see successive images of individual bacteria as they moved. Their swimming tracks appeared as gentle curves on the photographs. As part of the experiment, I often added a well-known motility inhibitor to completely paralyze the bacteria, and the tracks would come to a stop. I decided to apply these techniques to test Olga Worrall's healing power. I added a large dose of motility inhibitor to an assay which completely immobilized the bacteria. Worrall then cupped her hands around the microscope slide containing the specimens. Twelve minutes later I examined the slide and discovered that between five and ten percent of the bacteria had recovered motility. The results were surprising because in five years of research, using this same dose of motility inhibitor as a control, I had never seen the bacteria recover motility. Subsequently, I tried this experiment with a naive participant (who claimed no healing power) to control for the possibility that the simple warmth of human hands near the slide might account for the recovery - but it didn't. I tried many naive participants, including myself, and none was able to revive any bacteria in this kind of assay.

Next, I started adding an antibiotic to the bacteria to inhibit their growth. I wanted to see if a healer's laying on of hands could enhance growth - even in the presence of an antibiotic which under normal circumstances thwarts growth. We tried an experiment in which Worrall placed her hands near the rack of test tubes but didn't touch any bacteria directly. At a high dosage of antibiotic, Worrall did not register much effect; but at a lower dose - which slowed down but didn't completely thwart bacterial growth - the results showed a significant difference between Worrall's treated bacteria and the controls handled by a naive participant.

There really is no well-understood explanation of what may be occurring in the interaction between a healer and the biological system of the healee. As a biophysicist, I naturally started thinking about the possibility of electromagnetic fields emanating from healers and impinging on those being healed.

2. Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Beverly Rubik by J. Mishlove in 'Thinking Allowed'

RUBIK: I was raised as a very conventional biophysicist, through the years at Berkeley. Of course the current paradigm in the life sciences is what I would call reductionism. It's taking a living system and dissecting it down into bits and pieces, often with no sense of life anymore. You get down to the biochemical realm and you're just dealing with a bag of biomolecules that was once a living, intact, holistic system, and studying the bits and pieces to try to make sense about the whole -- to try to make some statement about the living state, looking at the essentially dead biomolecules. I was bred on that paradigm. One of the turning points for me in my career was writing my dissertation. I got pneumonia; I called it dissertation disease. It was pretty severe, and I wasn't getting over it, and I remember going deep within and asking myself why was I so sick, and what was the meaning of this illness. And the fact that I was always previously healthy, and suddenly this whopping disease. The answer that came was that somehow this work didn't speak true to me; there was something missing that didn't quite speak to the depths of my soul.

MISHLOVE: You mean, there was something in effect about your very research that was sick, and that expressed itself in your body.

RUBIK: Right, exactly. My body was an expression of my deepest self, and it was saying, this work is not truest to you. And I had to make a decision whether to finish -- I mean, after six or seven years it was sizable hunk of one's life and life energy and time, etcetera -- whether to seriously continue with it, or just simply drop it, I was so sick. I decided to continue with it, and I remember writing poetry, which helped me get over my disease. I was really focusing on that inner process of the disorder and what it meant, and the poems became part of the dissertation, in fact.

MISHLOVE: They must have loved that in the biophysics department.

RUBIK: Something I slipped in after it was approved, you know, just to be sure. So I vowed at that time in my life never to do more of that type of science, and consequently did not go on to Harvard to a position I had arranged, but instead took the position over at San Francisco State University at that time, doing teaching where I could be pretty much my own boss and look at the gentler aspects of the universe such as healing and holism, interconnectedness and relationship. Because San Francisco State University is primarily a teaching school and not a research institution, I would have a little bit of time to devote to research, and didn't think much attention would be paid to that realm over there.

MISHLOVE: So as a teacher, you're almost getting, really, into the humanities, because of the human relationship that you have to have with your students. So you began to move away from the reductionistic paradigm which is so implicit in physical science and biological science today.

RUBIK: That's right. Well, another way I saw that break down, in fact, was in some of my experiments with the psychic healers. I recall some experiments just simply did not manifest with so-called positive results. We couldn't seem to replicate from session to session or day to day some of the results we saw with Olga. That was disturbing, and then I later realized, well, the days that things didn't work, that we didn't get the effects that she somehow apparently had manifested on other occasions, were days that her breakfast didn't agree with her. And on another occasion some intruder came and popped in and tried to disrupt the whole experiment, and there was definitely a difference in the psychology, the psychological makeup, of both the psychic participant and the experimenters, myself. We were all agitated, and under those circumstances we did not manifest those results. And I began to see it -- it was really pushing the limits of the scientific methodology, because of course science demands replicability and reproducibility of experiments, by any observer at any time point, if there's true objectivity here. And I began to realize that was a serious limitation for so-called parapsychological experiments.

MISHLOVE: The very notion of objectivity, when we're measuring the direct effects of the mind itself on a physical system, seems to be a paradox. Paradox - a statement contrary to common belief; a statement that seems contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd, but that may actually be true in fact.

3. Science of Mind (SM), April 1983

Olga Worrall: All evidence suggest that there's a close relationship between science and religion. In fact I think they're now engaged and just waiting for the marriage. Because I think science must support religion I went into the laboratory to prove there's an energy flowing from those people who are known as "healers," an energy so powerful that it accelerates the normal healing processes of the physical body. Until lately religion was asking people to accept on faith that the effects of healing energy could be demonstrated. But because of my successes in the laboratory, we now have concerted proof that what we knew intuitively can now be accepted as fact. Science and religion therefore have all the more reason to work hand-in-hand.

Science can help religion move from being regarded superstitiously, to the place where, in our scientific culture, it can once again be used on a practical, day to day basis. Nor more will religion be for Sunday only, and for only an hour. When science and religion work together harmoniously, the jealousy between scientists and religionists will be eliminated, and the world will have a beautiful religion-science-philosophy to guide its course.

SM: Do you know what the healing energy is, or how it works?

Worrall: My husband, (Ambrose), who was an engineer, labeled it paraelectricity. Easterners call it prana, while others call it life force or subtle energy. More than sixty years ago, my husband maintained that this energy, which surrounds all people, can be tapped into to accelerate healing processes and a return to original patterns of perfection. He claimed it has electrical properties. And even now when I heal people, they say that an electric current passes through them.

God created us from a perfect pattern, a perfect mold, so to speak. When we fall out of balance or harmony with that perfection our energies don't behave right. This causes illness, and so the healing energy, the paraelectric current, returns us to our original pattern. We are surrounded by this natural healing energy all the time, without it we would decompose into nothingness. This energy field activates the body during life and when we die, it withdraws and carries us to the next dimension of existence. This energy, which is the power of God, has innate intelligence and when I as a person get out of the way, it flows through me and heals people in the most precise and individualized way possible.

Thank you, Olga Worrall! See the following related pages at Tools for Transformation:Print-friendly version + Recommend this article More at Counterpoint Article Library

Last minutes leaping about!

Isn't it ironic how we as human beings leave things until the last minute?

Take the submission of our (South African) tax forms. We are all filled with the joy of at last being able to submit tax via the internet. ( Well truth be told for most of us I think it was more the fact that we could extend the deadline for tax submision !!)

So ... that deadline has dawned and it is Thursday, and I am rushing about trying to get IRP5 forms ( proof of income) from former employers.

Some I may add are not so friendly, and I need to check I have had all my shots before coming into contact with them. So they are not generally inclined to assist me with quick last minute delivery.

Why then do / we wait so long and leave things until the last minute?

I am a procrastinator by nature, and yes I could give you all my angst filled psychological reasons as to why.

Suffice to say, that when I do eventually have to tend to matters last minute, I am always surprised at how little effort it takes to sort them. And here in my mind I have built up this huge fear of what I am going to have to go through . A bogeyman of fear that generally doesn't exist.

So why knowing this logically and intellectually, do we not change those thigs that cause us such stress when we realise just how much easier it would make life?

A conundrum indeed, and my answer for myself, is that I am so entrenched in the patterns formed over years, that I fall back into them without even thinking twice!

Perhaps I need some kind of rewiring or re-programming. (said with wry grin)

Truth be told, I can no longer kid myself that this procrastination and forgetfulness is just me, part of my whimsical charm. I am afraid no-one is buying that old story anymore.

So then if I am in this rush .... why then am I wasting time on this blog?

HHHHhhhhhmmmm!

Shattered Soul

I was looking through old note books the other day. ( I never throw them away anymore. I used to and lost a lot of material) Most are full of all sorts of things. And … a lot of unfinished poems, and drafts of poems that I have finished. I realized

Firstly that I need to write long hand to be creative. I cannot write directly onto the computer

Secondly that there is a lot of good and some really bad material that I either need to throw away or to complete.


I found the two pieces below in the same book on two different pages. For the life of me I cannot remember when I wrote them, after my brother’s death or after my mother’s death.

They are pretty rough, not proofed at all. More a scrambling of thoughts, and both stop abruptly as if I could not finish them. It’s very painful reading them, and I am awake at 3.30am so not really coherent, but I feel the need to share them:

Shattered Soul

The news imparted
for an instant the world stands still
all life suspended, a nothing, a void

Soul shatters like glass
peace and calm hover briefly then
beat a hasty retreat never to be seen again
then the senses crowd in,
bereavement, resentment,
the beginning of pain

You begin to feel, oh how you
begin to feel, from deep down within
the very depths of your soul, that
which is the well-spring of you,
the pain starts to scream it’s way up out of you

And the world as you know it is change forever

……………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………..

And sometimes in the middle of the night
when the pain is too much to bare
I cast off my shackles, let loose my soul
to pretend that you’re still here

still here that is, in body
and not ashes blowing in the wind

In mind you’re with me always
part of everything I do
there isn’t a thought I have or action I take
that doesn’t belong in part to you

Kid's Birthday Parties - Can one avoid the expense?

My youngest niece Erin (My sister's daughter) turned 7 this Saturday just past. We decided to to save expenses by having the party at home, instead of either hiring a venue or going to a kid's theme restaurant etc.

The theme was "funky" witches and wizards. We baked and decorated the cake ourselves, we made up our own party packs, entertainment came courtesy of them playing good old fashioned games (admittedly with prizes) instead of them having magicians and jumping castles etc. They all loved this!!

All in all it was a total success and a marvellous day, but it still ended up costing us an arm and a leg!

We don't regret or begrudge the the party at all. We are all in agreement that until the next big milestones such as becoming a teenager, sweet sixteen etc , this will be her last "big" party. For the next couple of years she can take a couple of select friends to the movies or to eat out etc!

I am just awed at the expense of it all. We have always vowed not to be competitive in the party stakes and believe you me it is very competitive and mothers do anything to try and throw the best party for their kids. That aside, the cost is incredible. One can no longer claim (as I had naively thought) that "we can do it at home for much cheaper" ... that is just not the case!

Whilst on the subject, I am also amazed at the inconsiderate behaviour of parents. Some just never bothered to RSVP and the kids pitched. Some did RSVP, but kids didn't pitch and we never received phone calls to apologize. One mother insisted that if her older daughter was not allowed to come then the younger one ( my niece's friend) could not either as it would not be fair on the older child!

Parents came with their kids ('spose still to be expected with little ones, and we had catered for this) and then sat apart in little huddles and just chatted to select people, whilst ignoring the rest. Some even totally ignoring their ittle darlings too!

Then of course there were the real gems, the parents who arrived and basically rolled their sleeves up and asked how they could help!

I suppose one could well say that the party was a synopsis if you like, a microcosm of people and the world and how we inter relate and interact! If were to go into an in-depth analysis, one could even pick out distinct personality types etc!
But I won't (grin)

It was a good party in the end and the most important thing was that our little princess had an amazing time!

Have to admit that Mummy and Auntie had a whole lot of fun dressing up too!

Pictures will follow!

Bureaucracy and complaisancy - I despare!

You will probably find the topic of complaisant people especially the bureaucrats popping up quite a bit in my blog. It is something that drives me to despair!

I move house at the end of January and asked for my electricity to be read on 31 January, where after I would expect a cheque with the refund of my deposit less my last month's bill.

Six months later after numerous phone calls and emails, I decided to try one more time today to try and find out what has happened to my refund cheque.
After being put through to firstly to Malusi who put me through to Nokanye who put me through to Lucy, I finally get put through to a Mrs. Kara in consolidated billing. She at first seemed a little puzzled as to my asking her for her name and gave it rather reluctantly . After listening to my query she blithely tells me

"Oh your refund cheque for the amount of R396.01 was posted off at the end of May to the box number you gave us XXXXXXX."

Then there is silence!

ME - "Um well I haven't got it otherwise I would not be phoning you"

MRS KARA - "Oh ................................... oh gosh! can I check the postal address you gave us it was XXXXXXXX"

Me - "that is the correct address, but the cheque hasn't arrived"

MRS KARA - " OH I can't think why not".

silence .....


ME - " me neither"

more silence........................

ME - "well what are you going to do about it?"

MRS KARA - "well there is a whole process to go through, I will have to check with our audit department as to whether the cheque has been cashed or not, and only then can we decide to issue another cheque. This will take at least 24 hours before I can verify if the cheque has been cashed or not an then I will get back to you."

ME - " Will you get back to me, or do I have to phone you back?"

MRS KARA - (In her wisdom obviously because she has heard my tone of voice and I now know her name) "No I definitely will get back to you by tomorrow morning ."

Now I have to tell you that this lady has indeed got back to me. She has ascertained that the cheque has not been cashed so obviously it has gone astray, therefore they have cancelled it and she has asked the auditing department to issue me with a new cheque as a matter of urgency!

Wonderful woman, poor thing doesn't know that her name will be squirrelled away in my mind as the only helpful person to contact in the future should there be a problem.

But honestly jokes aside, why should one have to go through all this procedure? The amount is relatively small but it has taken me 6 months of emails and phone calls to try and get some kind of coherent response to my dilemma. Totally unnecessary if there were proper systems etc in place. And follow -up............

Follow-up is probably the thing that client service people, sales people etc do the least well, and it is the one single complaint that most consumers will voice.

"Nobody bothered to phone me and let me know what was happening! Nobody ever got back to me."

I am in sales and it s something that is always being thrown at me: "Oh you people never get back to us anyway."

How terrible! and if that is such a terrible problem in this world of ours, should it not be something that is honed in on and focused o and taught to kids right from primary school level upwards?

Accountability and etiquette? Would our world be a better place in general if these two simple philosophies were taught to our kids?

I wonder.......

I can't help thinking of the old nursery rhyme:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost
for want of a shoe the horse was lost
for want of horse the man was lost
for want of a man the battle was lost .........

I wonder, truly I do!

My Africa

One of my own poems!

MY AFRICA

Come to my land to feel her warmth.
Come to my land to hear her myriad voices.
Come to my land to see her many magical colours.
Africa the shape changer, the chameleon,
Africa, different things to different people
Never ever dull or commonplace.

Merge with her, become one with her
Feel her joys and her sorrows
Feed on her abundances and
Weep at her devastation and famine.
She is the mother of mankind
The cradle of civilisation.

A multi-layered lady, feel her deep rhythms
Her primordial throb as vital as a heart beat.
Hear her sound images vibrating.
Smell her odours, from the seashore
To the deserts, to the lush green rain forests,
To the high snow capped mountain ranges.

She is a wanton, fickle, ever changing mistress.
She will seduce you, draw you in and
Enslave you forever. The call of Africa is
A siren’s call, savannah lore lei.
She has bartered for the souls of mankind
Since the world evolved and time began.

The promise of land, the lure of precious
Metals and gems, the domination of the beasts,
The beckoning of vast uninhabited spaces.
Man has come to conquer her, make her his.
Instead she enters your blood like a fever,
A sickness that will never leave,

No matter how far you travel from her,
And no matter how you try to leave her behind,
Wherever you roam, she will forever more
Call to you to return to her embrace.
This Africa is life; she is the alpha and omega,
This is my Africa

© African Rose 2002

Turning 40 !

I have just been reading a friend's post ( Damaria at http://damariasenne.blogspot.com/ ) about turning forty. It lead me to reflecting about my entering my forties!

My birthday is on New Year's day. This meant that instead of always having a birthday party (as most people would think) I missed out and had two actual birthday parties that I can think of, one for my 4th birthday and one for my 21st (which I shared with the daughter of a friend of my mothers who was born on Christmas day) I also got to miss out on the experience of sharing my birthday with my school mates etc and taking cake to school as my birthday was during the holidays...

Anyway, my mother was planning a big party for my 40th, but life kind of tripped us up and threw us some very large painful curve balls. Four months before my birthday, my mother had a massive unexpected heart attack and subsequent "failed" bypass. So she was extremely ill and very frail. Then my 2nd and remaining brother (my eldest brother was killed in a car crash when I was 25) who was running his own safari business in Botswana had a botched emergency appendix operation and ended up with septicaemia and peritonitis. They really battled to save his life, but he succumbed on the 30 November, just a month after his 42nd birthday and a month before my 40th!

Needless to say in the midst of our mourning and grief, and dealing with my mother's health, my actual 40th birthday just kind of slid on by unnoticed and I for one didn't mind at all.

After my birthday however, I got to thinking. I had lost both my brothers and my darling mother had been left with a dodgy prognosis.

I grew up as a sickly very shy child, dated sporadically in my 20's and then I put myself permanently on the shelf and became this dull grey little person 'cos I had a fear of rejection, so I thought it better to totally avoid meeting people in order to prevent it happening!

I had no real life at all, I buried myself in my work, my Church and my family.

Anyway, as said my 2nd brothers death got me to thinking about just how short and unpredictable life could be, and that to avoid the chance of being hurt or rejected by life and people in general, I was just waisting my life, this gift I had been given and was too scared to use.

I kind of had an epiphany!

I decided that I had to let the real me out,the person that most people had never seen and only had the odd glimpses of, the woman that I had buried deep down inside. I was prepared to take the risk of being hurt in doing so!

I changed my life completely! I started dating ( and yes it has been a rather slippery ride ) I experimented with life in a lot of ways, going through stages and doing things I should have done and gone through in my 20's! I made a lot of mistakes and really bad choices which have had some really disastrous consequences and yes, I have been hurt.

My family too have not always been totally understanding and receptive of the "new me". My eldest niece for one, told me blatantly a couple of years back that she didn't like the new me and wanted the old one back, and I had to say " so sorry baby, she has gone forever!" You see in my non-identity / life, I only lived for and through my family and was a doormat totally at the beck and call of my family, so of course the didn't like it that part of the change was me saying "sorry can't do it, have my own things to do!"

But ...

For all that, what a glorious ride it has been and continues to be! I would take the pain of failed relationships, and jobs and mistaken decisions etc all over again to be as alive as I am now.

In my 40s I am the most mature and confident person I have ever been. I am for the most part, at last a person that I like and think is good to be around!

I don't need a specific birthday party, to celebrate me, I am doing so by just living my life

Life is life, and she can be a bitch of note at times but for the most part it is a glorious ride!

I can only wish you a wonderful glorious 40's experience Sam, and I promise to lead you astray somehow in celebration!!!!!

I think nobody can sum up better how I feel than the immortal Shel Silverstein:

"Draw a crazy picture, Write a nutty poem, Sing a mumble gumble song, Whistle through your comb. Do a loony goony dance 'cross the kitchen floor. Put something silly in the world that ain't been there before." ~Shel Silvertein ~

Why Blog?

I dunno quite frankly!

Everybody is doing it, I myself have signed on to a few sites and then got no further. However, it is in my soul to write, I have decided opinions on all matter of things and some slightly stange and some very normal viewpoints.

I also think better when I put pen to paper

My life has been such turmoil with so many things happening to me of late, that perhaps I need to use this site as a kind of repository, or "dear diary".

Whatever, I will not let this site lapse!

'til later!