Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Ron Goldstein decided to compile the notes, pictures, postcards of his recent service into a scrapbook. He was awaiting discharge and, as he says, “had plenty of time on his hands”. Then in 1988, Goldstein’s sister persuaded him to write a memoir to complement the scrapbook. He found that its pages were disintegrating with age and rebound them. Fortunately for us, Goldstein decided to reproduce each and every page on his blogsite. This was the result.
The Internet has been called mankind’s mind dump. In time it will also become our collective memory store, memorial and cenotaph. In Mr. Goldstein’s scrapbook the young will never grow old. Steven Pressfield’s compelling introduction to his book, Gates of Fire, expresses better than anything I have ever read the mission of the bearer of the tale. The time is minutes after the fall of Thermopylae to the Persians. The characters are the dead Spartans rushing across the river of forgetfulness. They have discharged all duty, save one.
I had always wondered what it felt like to die. …
I had imagined that the dead would be detached. That they would look upon life with the eyes of objective wisdom. But the experience proved the opposite. Emotion ruled. It seemed nothing remained but emotion. My heart ached and broke as never it could on earth. Loss encompassed me with a searing, all-mastering pain. I saw my wife and children, my dear cousin Diomache, she whom I loved. I saw Skamandridas, my father, and Eunike, my mother, Bruxieus, Dekton and “Suicide,” names which mean nothing to His Majesty to hear, but which to me were dearer than life and now, dying, dearer still.
Away they flew. Away I flew from them.
I was keenly conscious of the comrades-in-arms who had fallen with me. A bond surpassing by a hundredfold that which I had known in life bound me to them. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them. I apprehended that excruciating war survivor’s torment, the sense of isolation and self-betrayal experienced by those who had elected to cling yet to breath when their comrades had let loose their grip.
That state which we call life was over.
I was dead.
And yet, titanic as was that sense of loss, there existed a keener one which I now experienced and felt my brothers-in-arms feeling with me. It was this.
That our story would perish with us.
That no one would ever know.
I cared not for myself, for my own selfish or vainglorious purposes, but for them. For Leonidas, for Alexandros and Polynikes, for Arete bereft by her hearth and, most of all, for Dienekes. That his valor, his wit, his private thoughts that I alone was privileged to share, that these and all that he and his companions had achieved and suffered would simply vanish, drift away like smoke from a woodland fire, this was unbearable.
We had reached the river now. We could hear with ears that were no longer ears and see with eyes that were no longer eyes the stream of Lethe and the hosts of the long-suffering dead whose round beneath the earth was at last drawing to a period. They were returning to life, drinking of those waters which would efface all memory of their existence here as shades.
But we from Thermopylae, we were aeons away from drinking of Lethe’s stream. We remembered.
A cry which was not a cry but only the multiplied pain of the warriors’ hearts, all feeling what I, too, felt, rent the baleful scene with unspeakable pathos.
Then from behind me, if there can be such a thing as “behind” in that world where all directions are as one, came a glow of such sublimity that I knew, we all knew at once, it could be nothing but a god.
Phoebus Far Darter, Apollo himself in war armor, moved there among the Spartiates and Thespaians. No words were exchanged; none were needed. The Archer could feel the men’s agony and they knew without speech that he, warrior and physician, was there to succor it. So quickly that surprise was impossible I felt his eye turn toward me, me the last and least who could expect it, and then Dienekes himself was beside me, my master in life.
I would be the one. The one to go back and speak. A pain beyond all previous now seized me. Sweet life itself, even the desperately sought chance to tell the tale, suddenly seemed unendurable alongside the pain of having to take leave of these whom I had come so to love.
But again, before the god’s majesty, no entreaty was possible.
The last duty is to tell the tale.
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35 Comments
1. rickl:Excellent! I’m going to have to check out that site in detail.
Dec 26, 2008 - 10:34 pm 2. twobyfour:Mission of the bearer of the tale.. It’s a bona fide brilliant NDE description.
Once you start the departure, dying is easy. But then you may be the bearer of the tale, or a bearer of a task, usually very personal one. You want to stay, in that place (if it can be called that), as its depth of reality is far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. But you know you are the bearer and have to go back. Life is harder.
Dec 26, 2008 - 10:46 pm 3. Lifeofthemind:My Father died this Spring in his 95th year. How many times had I asked him to commit his memories to paper? How hard the slipping away is, not was but it is. The loss remains in the present.
Dec 26, 2008 - 11:33 pm 4. twobyfour:Lifeofthemind, if your father could talk to you right now, or maybe he is but you don’t listen, he’d tell you to let go.
Some people are bearers of tales, some people are bearers of tasks and some are bearers of subtle imprints on lives of others. Maybe your father was not a tale bearer. Sometimes it is difficult to convey the depth of one’s life experience in the most honest sense.
And yet, it is not lost. You do recall parts that are related to you, so do others. But beyond that, every life leaves a track in the repository of the universe.
Dec 26, 2008 - 11:54 pm 5. Charles:My brother had a tough year this year. So I sent him a dufflebag of family pictures from the last 30 years and paid him to combine that with a footlocker of even older family pictures he has on file. Together they go back about 80 years. Then drop the two files into a picture frames for six of our brothers and sisters and their families. I have one going now. I’m sure my brothers will enjoy theirs. My younger sisters and their families won’t enjoy the pictures of my family so much — so I’ve taught them to plug the memory cards from their cameras into their picture frames so they can easily replay their pictures of their family gatherings.
A neat trick I’ve taught everyone is to pass a camera around at a gathering–so that no one person take more than a dozen or so pictures. What happens is that each person will respond differently depending on who is taking the picture. What you wind up with are very rich multi sided portraits of everyone at the gathering. Some of the younger children will usually take the best pictures–even of adults.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:54 am 6. Charles:A. Here is the story of Saul’s meeting with the Witch of Endor:
“When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.” “There is one in Endor,” they said. So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me,” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.” But the woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?” Saul swore to her by the LORD, “As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this.” Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” “Bring up Samuel,” he said.
“When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!” The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?” The woman said, “I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.” “What does he look like?” he asked. “An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said. Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
“Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” “I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.” Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy? The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors–to David. Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines.”
“Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel’s words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and night. When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, “Look, your maidservant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.” He refused and said, “I will not eat.” But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch. The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.” (1Samuel 28:5-25, NIV)
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:03 am 7. Charles:For anyone who reads this story — it would be helpful for the sake of context — imho to read and explanation of the story found here
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:08 am 8. twobyfour:@ 7. Charles
OK, so? How does that have anything to do with the initial post or with whatever has been said so far?
Really unsure what you are trying to say.
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:36 am 9. jonk:Wretchard/Richard,
It’s posts like this that have kept me coming back. Well done, Sir.
It’s particularly poignant given that I’m now in the land my grandfather fought to liberate some 60-plus years ago. He was not a tale-bearer; his was a great fortune: to return to the farm, marry, raise a family, and live a good life. He’s been gone now for a few years, but oh, how I wish, now more than ever, when I’m here in a similar capacity, that he could tell me some of his tales, and I some of mine.
Maybe someday in Heaven or Hades or Valhalla we will.
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:48 am 10. Bobal:The appearance of death isn’t the experience of death.
old NDE saying
Dec 27, 2008 - 4:51 am 11. Bobal:About this time, a noteworthy miracle, like those of olden days, occured in Britain. For, in order to assist the living from spiritual death, a man already dead returned to bodily life and related many notable things that he had seen, some of which I have thought it valuable to mention here in brief. There was a head of a family living in a place in the country of the Northumbrians know as Cunningham, who led a devout life with all his household. He fell ill and grew steadily worse until the crisis came, and in the early hours of one night he died. But at daybreak he returned to life and suddenly sat up to the great consternation of those weeping around the body who ran away; only his wife, who loved him more dearly, remained with him, though trembling and fearful. The man reassured her and said; “Do not be frightened; for I have truly risen from the grasp of death, and I am allowed to live among men again. But henceforth I must not live as I used to do, and must adopt a very different way of life.”…Not long afterward, he abandoned all worldly responsibilities and entered the Monastery of Melrose…This was the account he used to give of his experience: “A handsome man in a shining robe was my guide, and we walked in silence in what appeared to be a northeasterly direction. As we traveled onward, we came to a very broad and deep valley of infinite length…He soon brought me out of darkness into an atmosphere of clear light, and as he led me forward in bright light, I saw befoe us a trmendous wall which seemed to be of infinite length and height in all directins. As I could see no gate, window, or entrance in it, I began to wonder why we went up to the wall. But when we reached it, all at once—I know not by what means—we were on top of it. Within lay a very broad an pleasant meadow…Such was the light flooding all this place that it seemed greater than the brighness of daylight or of the sun’s rays at noon”…
(The guide said) ‘You must now return to your body and live among men once more; but if you will weigh your actions with greater care and study to keep your words and ways virtuous and simple, then when you die, you too will win a home among these happy spirits that you see. For, when I left you for a while, I did so in order to discover what your future would be’. “When he told me this I was most reluctant to return to my body; for I was entranced by the pleasantness and beauty of the place I could see and the company I saw there. But I did not dare to question my guide, and meanwhile, I know not how, I suddenly found myself alive among men once more.”
This man of God would not discuss these and other things he had seen with apathectic or care-less living people, but only with those who were…willing to take his words to heart and grow in holiness.
The Venerable Bede, 8th century
Black Elk too would discuss his great vision only with those who were ‘willing to take his words to heart and grow in holiness’, like John Neihardt. Black Elk however had the more usual two ‘guides’ while Cunningham has only one.
This is a much quoted passage and shows the reluctance to return, a reason for a return, and the change of attitude usually associated with the experience.
Dec 27, 2008 - 5:25 am 12. Doug:Bobal is Featured Prominently in this Movie – a Leading Living Deadman, of Sorts
Dec 27, 2008 - 5:39 am 13. Michelle Renee:Charles, King Saul was deceived. That was not really Samuel, for a witch cannot call forth the righteous dead, but only a fallen angel.
Revelation: 16:14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Do not be deceived yourself, Charles. It is not appointed for men to haunt the universe as disembodied spirits until the general resurrection on Judgment Day, when they shall be given new bodies.
Daniel 12:13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:00 am 14. twobyfour:@ 10. Bobal
People say, “You are alive, so you really did not die”.
Technically, correct. But where is the boundary? Rigor mortis? Necrosis? That would not leave much of a container to return to, or so severely damaged that it may not function.
There is a reason it is called NDE, not NDA. The NEAR signifies a reversal process.
It practically does not matter whether you are out for a minute or couple of hours. The time over there is governed by different rules. What you experience is also personal, to a significant degree. Your beliefs are carried with you, a comforter of sorts. If you are 9 years old and did not go through any kind of religious indoctrination, your experience may be more direct in that realm where time transforms into a form of hyperspace… You may be able to get a better glimpse in one minute of our time than people saddled with preconceived notions.
It is not as if you are TOLD to return. You just know. It is, in a way, your decision, the container is not that damaged and can be fixed. And yet, you ask why. Why I have to return? Reluctance is not the right word or descriptive. It is a sadness, because the world you are returning to seem to be composed of mere shadows, it’s like a projection screen. Yet you know time is not yet to stay, because of what you have to do with time that is given to you.
It is hard to return into that container of pain. What is harder is that your experience is as if covered by veil. It does not easily translate into concepts here and you realize you are missing words, not only to convey it to someone, but to yourself. Your recall becomes fragmentary. Yet there is not a smidget of doubt about the realities of your encounter and the differences between here and there. That certainity remains with you for the rest of your time.
Then if it happens again, you may depart, but now you know it is not the time and you zoom back almost right away. Another time and you review your body in a flash whether it would function and although there is the desire, you again know the time is not now. it’s no point in leaving, because you could decide to stay this time even before your task is completed.
Of course, I am now avoiding these incidents. They seem to be very painful and I am not sure how much more mending I can withstand, I don’t have 9 lives.
What’s my task? It is still quite a bit in the future and it involves a child. A little girl. That is all I can say. It is personal and may seem a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it is very important to me and to her. Of course, there are other things I can do with my time. And that is specifically my only task.
Dec 27, 2008 - 7:01 am 15. what is occupation:off topic….
180 sub human death cult hamas members are erased from planet Earth…
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:02 am 16. Michelle Renee:Bush is very disappointed in Israel’s decision to carry on the cycle of violence. This is only going to harm the peace process and make his goal of a two-state solution by the time he leaves office that much more difficult.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:04 am 17. twobyfour:@ 13. Michelle Renee:
Charles, King Saul was deceived. That was not really Samuel, for a witch cannot call forth the righteous dead, but only a fallen angel.
Correct, just a bit expansion… no one can call the dead, righteous or not. It only works the other way around. Due to kind of to physics involved.
The term fallen angels is a mistranslation of Sumerian Anunnaki. It had a different meaning (those that from heavens to earth came, and they were called Lofty Ones, not Gods as it is now presumed and translated), and they would be closely related to the concept of elohim (true plural) than to nephilim.
But the fallen angels got mixed up with another type of entities, often called as demons. Which is again a sort of misinterpretation, daimonoi means messengers of gods (one may say angels), not evil spirits or beings or “fallen angels”. But at some point, there was so much of it (”evil spirits”) that daimonoi and these other entities/beings/critters got mixed up in one bag when stories were told from a tenth hand.
Revelation: 16:14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Revelation is mostly a thing of the past. It recalls certain events and because of the concept of cyclicality still very much prevalent at the time, it projects these events into the future. That is not to say there are not segments that refer to future. There are. But the core is a reflection on past.
Do not be deceived yourself, Charles. It is not appointed for men to haunt the universe as disembodied spirits until the general resurrection on Judgment Day, when they shall be given new bodies.
Bible is a guide. It is a reflection of men on workings of God. Some segments have a sort of a time clause–they relate to a particular time frame and the culture and people living within it. That, combined with numerous mistranslations sometimes obscures the real meaning. I mean, it is even visible in fundamental concepts like Commandments. Thou shall not murder is translated as Thou shall not kill. The difference is not just semantics, these two interpretations are conceptually quite apart and it resulted in many misconceptions.
The concept of Last Judgment and Resurrection is again a contraction of several things and basically only remotely corresponding to reality, a parable of sorts.
Just consider that time here and time there (the God’s realm for the sake of a label) are fundamentally different frameworks. The time in God’s realm is always now and what we call time becomes a space or scape dimension (a gross reduction for the sake of simplicity).
Sorry, have to cut it off here, other stuff to do…
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:18 am 18. Charles:13. Michelle Renee:
doesn’t sound like you read the notes I posted above and also here.
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:19 am 19. ADE:To be the bearer of tales.
Our duty for the next generation.
Thanks W. Tonight I need re-affirmation (something personal).
ADE
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:26 am 20. Leo Linbeck III:Page 59 of Goldstein’s scrapbook is a piece of Nazi propaganda, with the following excerpt on the back:
And so everything was quite different from what his newspapers and wireless, full of hate-propaganda, had been dinning into his ears. He had been the victim of a swindle, for he knew well enough now from all the German soldiers he had met and learned to know, that they were incapable of committing the atrocities recounted daily by his papers. They wanted to live in peace and attend to their work, and for this it was necessary that the world should allow them the same rights as any other nation. They were fighting for these rights and would not cease fighting until they obtained them. But nothing was further from their thoughts than to wish to dominate Europe.
On the contrary, OR their Eastern Front they were fighting the battle of this very Europe against the Asiatic hordes of the steppes beyond the Urals and the Caucasus, who, stirred up by Bolshevism, had attacked Europe with murder, violence and robbery. They would not be satisfied with the conquest of Germany alone, their goal was the revolutionising of the whole world. And while the Germans were fighting desperately against this onslaught,they were defending’ not only their own lives but were fighting for Europe and also for England, for him. Bill, Fred, George, and for everyting that made life worth living.
And so he began to reflect!
If everything that the anti-German hate-propaganda was saying was untrue, if the truth was something quite different, then there must be someone with an interest in this senseless Slaughter, among the nations of Europe. There must be someone who profits by all the suffering and misery of war.
Who is it?
This is a question worth thinking over.
In other words, we’re really on your side. We’re fighting the Bolsheviks, who are really the ones bent on world domination. We’re fighting for you, your future, your freedom.
Part of this, of course, was true. So it is wrong to call it a lie. Better to call it a half-truth.
Telling the tale is a complex undertaking. And it is not the simple lie that is the danger. It is the half-truth disguising the bigger lie.
Like using the truth of oppressions past to cast aspersions on the great American experiment. Or the truth of the Inquisition fires to undermine the authority of Christ’s teachings.
All tales are economies of reality. But it is how we economize that determines the value of the tale.
It’s the economy, stupid.
L3
Dec 27, 2008 - 8:41 am 21. what is occupation:16. Michelle Renee:
Bush is very disappointed in Israel’s decision to carry on the cycle of violence. This is only going to harm the peace process and make his goal of a two-state solution by the time he leaves office that much more difficult.
Dear Michelle…
your statement is either totally a joke or your just deluded, I dont know you well enough to make a judgement….
as for your “cycle of violence” even if you jest it pisses me off…
3000 rockets, mortars and missiles shot by Hamas DURING their ceasefire…
Cycle of Violence my ass…
If you KILL 195 Hamas bastards they cannot CONTINUE a cycle of violence…
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:01 am 22. what is occupation:NEWSFLASH JUST IN…..
Israel declares it JUST LOST the new war in Gaza… Hamas declared it won…
Israel in compliance with it’s new public loss will continue to kill and dismember hamas for the next 6 months using disproportionate responses, and will start investigations on it’s defective methods when fighting Islamic/palio terror…
Hamas vows to purchase new tee shirts next week to start it’s victory party….
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:21 am 23. Michelle Renee:Yes, WiO it is a joke, just like the peace process is a joke, just like Bush’s dream of a legacy of bringing peace to the Middle-East during his Presidency was a joke. What’s not funny is that the Bush Administration this morning warned Israel not to target civilians during this campaign. Well news flash, everyone in Hamas is a civilian, because they have no state, therefore no state military, and they no uniforms. Everyone wears a checkered towel. They put rocket launchers in on people’s rooftops and shoot them at Israeli schools, daring Israel to shoot back so they can hold up rag-doll dead babies on al-Jizzera.
Dec 27, 2008 - 9:49 am 24. Zim:It’s funny this got brought up today. I work with an elderly physician who’s practiced medicine of over 40 years. Last night one of his patient’s took a bad turn. I called to notify him, and even though it was 3 A.M., he readily answered the phone and sounded wide awake. I asked him about it this morning and he told me that about 5 minutes before I called he woke-up and couldn’t go back to sleep. He said he had a “feeling” someone was about to call. He told me that sort of thing happens to him all the time, and called it “supernatural”.
Dec 27, 2008 - 10:58 am 25. twobyfour:@ 24. Zim
There is really nothing supernatural to it. It is just.. the physics of it weren’t really worked out. I’d call it 6th sense. We all are born with it, and it enables us to learn so quickly … to soak up stuff like sponges. But paradoxically, we also learn that this sense in its most apparent manifestations is not appreciated and in a great majority of children it is shut off very quickly. Else you’d have to learn to live with being called a “weird one” in most of cultures… but not all. Some cultures allow it because it may be essential to survival, especially if they are located in isolated regions.
We still use the acceptable part that covers about 500 milliseconds. Without that, we wouldn’t be able to function, or rather the price to pay would be too high. You use it when you drive, play sports, and other activities where stimulus may not reach your brain in time to react. This goes on mostly on subconscious level, but sometimes, consciously, you can perceive it as time slowing down.
Dec 27, 2008 - 12:04 pm 26. twobyfour:The sixth sense covers generally two aspects. One is to perceive events in the near future and another is to perceive thoughts (or broadcast them). In fact, both are facets of the same mechanism, because the perception of future events is based on someone broadcasting, which may be you in most cases. The physics thus are the same.
Sometimes people bundle telekinesis into the sixth sense, but in my view it has not much to do with it, it is a different cup of coffee altogether and I don’t know much about it, except that it seems to involve manipulation of the temperature and redirection of energy gained by that process. At least research seems to suggest that.
There was an amusing story I’ve read a while ago that documents the use of the sixth sense in a mountainous region somewhere in SE Asia (I forgotten the geographic location).
An anthropologist visited a village in the region that was about three days walk from then nearest town, There were no roads due to the terrain. After being there for a few days, collecting his material, he noticed that the locals stood often under a tree in the center of the village, as if in contemplation.
One day, the male of the couple he had accomodation with went in early morning to the town 3 days away to buy some item on the market. That day afternoon he found the wife of that man under the tree. He waited until she was done with whatever she was doing and asked her about it. She said that she forgotten to tell her husband, before he departed, to buy a specific type of shawl and few other items for kitchen. He thought that he misheard, because the reply did not make any sense whatsoever, but he did not want to pry.
In 6 days, the husband was back and the anthropologist was present when he pulled the purchased items from his bag. And there it was, amongst other things the shawl and utensils. The anthropologist was flabbergasted, as the reply he got 6 days ago suddenly seemed making sense, yet he was missing something important. So he asked for an explanation.
The lady of the house replied: “We use that tree to concentrate. We send our thoughts to our partners, if we forgot something or to ask about their well being. We would love to use a telephone, but we don’t have any here”.
Dec 27, 2008 - 1:05 pm 27. Bobal:There was a fellow that ‘died’ in Death Valley, of all places, that I read about in one of the books. Got hit by a tour bus, then a while later picked up by an ambulance.
“Did you feel like you were ‘dead’?” asks the interviewer.
“Oh yes, I was quite dead. Quite dead. No doubt of that. Sort of like, you know, in the westerns, when the sheriff will walk up and kick the guy, and say, ‘yup, he’s dead all right’.”
A lot of people think the mind and the brain are not the same, that the latter doesn’t create the former. William James talked about this perspective.
“Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century” Edward Kelly, Emily Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso and Bruce Greyson
“The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul” Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary
are two recent offering along this line of thought.
Dec 27, 2008 - 2:52 pm 28. twobyfour:27. Bobal
People are stuck in one of two beliefs:
1. Dualistic concept of separatedness of body and mind (or soul).
2. Materialistic concept that the mind is a product (or excrement, take your pick) of the spongy mass called brain.
It may be
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:20 pm 29. Charles:3. The body and mind are not dualistic, but the mind is a primary factor and the body is its projection and a tool for functioning in constraints of the 3d spacetime. The soul can be conceptualized as an overmind–a composite of projections in various spacetimes.
Helpful to this discussion. Best sermon I heard this year.
The Troubled Soul: God’s Word and Our Feelings
A meditation on psalm 42
Dec 27, 2008 - 3:58 pm 30. RWE:One thing I have done over the past several years is help a couple of WWII veterans tell their stories. The magazines I sold them to did a very nice treatment and one even had an original artwork done to illustrate the story. The people who served with them in their units thought it was great, too. They bought up every copy of the magazine they could find. One of the men passed away a few years later, so the recognition was especially important.
I have another one lined up, a guy who flew A-20’s, got shot down, and ended up fighting alongside Filipino guerillas until liberated by MacArthur’s troops.
They are out there, folks, but not much longer, and we have to find them. We can all be Stephen Ambrose to some band of brothers, somewhere.
Dec 27, 2008 - 6:03 pm 31. 3Case:3. The body and mind are not dualistic, but the mind is a primary factor and the body is its projection and a tool for functioning in constraints of the 3d spacetime. The soul can be conceptualized as an overmind–a composite of projections in various spacetimes.
That is Mary Baker Eddy’s point.
Dec 28, 2008 - 9:30 am 32. twobyfour:@ 31. 3Case
Is it?
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:05 pm 33. 3Case:Well she made a hamburger of it, then.
…a LOTTA hamburgers of it.
I lived 2 years down the block from the Mother Church; lotsa bidness at that hamburger stand….
Dec 28, 2008 - 2:18 pm 34. Herb:Library of Congress has a project to compile an oral (and physical) history of WWII:
http://www.loc.gov/vets//kit.html
Dec 28, 2008 - 4:14 pm 35. Gaffe Prices:Wretchard, in your new post you recount what Israel has done so far and ask what it means as far as what will happen next.
The verses regarding Saul are posted here, and while searching for a medium, he eventually finds that while he was searching for said medium he was already in trouble for not, lets say, taking care of, scratch that, dealing with, nay, terminating the Amalekites: the business of a king uniting and creating his kingdom. For that, the job of creating this kingdom is passed to David.
I like this comment from #21, “if you kill 185 Hamas, you end their ability to continue [conduct, really] a[ny kind of] “cycle of violence” (snear quotes intended)”, i.e. resurgence of hostilities. Roger that.
So might I infer that there is consensus here regarding hope that hamas was stuffed into those buildings in large numbers?
So what then, when our lethal enemies use our own democratic institutions and its (relatively) newfound pop tenets, such as concepts of the world divided into mostly innocent civilians and some sort of military industrial complex, against us. Whereas for our enemies no such distinction exists for them. Be it takfiri with sword, an assault rifle, or mass-killing belt, or the person baking the bed they eat, takfiri don’t believe in anyone (us included) as being “innocent” or “civilian”, but they know that members of the presscorps do. And they count on it: for useful idiots on the left do much heavy lifting for them.
I’m not saying that a kingdom or monarchy is a better means to victory against the enemies of humanity than our democratic form of government (yet), but for Saul, David, (and Agamemnon), failure to do what was required to accomplish that -eliminating the philistines and hence founding the kingdom- had devastating results.
David may not have eliminated every last philistine, but he smacked them down hard enough to eliminate them as a threat and founded a kingdom to be reckoned with, that lasted more than a few centuries.
Jesus, so sayeth the dead sea scrolls, belonged to the Essenes sect. An apocolyptic sect that spoke of an afterlife and a day of judgement. So the story of Lazarus has been interpreted as story of an essene who had fallen away from the tenets of this theology and was, according to their view, either “dead” or perhaps asleep.
So this reflects back on Saul, who had become dormant in the pursuit of the kingdom, and sought out a medium to travel for him. He gets the answer he was looking for, but not the one he wanted. And the calling to found the kingdom passed to David.
Accounts of what happens in a NDE, and how it changes the principal involved, go to the idea of “remembering oneself”. That is, knowing yourself apart from the politically correct pieties and superficial distrations of the here and now, just long enough to re-establish who you really are, and, what is your destiny.
This applies to individuals and nations alike.
Dec 31, 2008 - 8:24 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.