I AM A NEW YORKER: "REMEMBER THE WTC"

Posted at 6:08 AM, Dec. 4, 2005

If you are a Unitarian Universalist, this book can help speak your faith.

Posted at 5:04 AM, Dec. 4, 2005

MY HUSBAND, JERRY, and I discovered the Unitarian Universalist church in Westport, Connecticut, in the winter of 1960. We liked the people. We liked the Sunday morning worship in the Saugatuck School auditorium. We liked the potluck suppers. We loved the minister, Arnold Westwood. Even three-year-old Douglass liked the place. It seemed like a perfect fit. Sounds easy, you say. But it wasn’t. Signing the membership book in a Unitarian church was scary beyond belief for me even to contemplate. How would I tell my parents I was rejecting the faith of my forefathers? (Yes, forefathers! Remember, this was 1960.) I don’t just mean my Jewish grandfathers Louis Taft and Harry Zuckerman, who had emigrated from the Ukraine in the late nineteenth century. I mean those other forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How would I tell my aunts and uncles and cousins? How would I tell my in-laws? How would I tell our friends, particularly those in the Temple Israel community in our town? And what would I tell them? Who had a vocabulary in the early sixties to express the stifling bonds of patriarchy I felt in the synagogue? How could I express feelings of exclusion and put-down I later came to know as feminist? How to explain how good that simple English language liturgy and those guilt-free, uplifting sermons felt in the ears and, increasingly, in the heart? Emerson and Channing and Parker were names mentioned in courses I’d taken in American cultural history at Vassar. But join a church? (In my family, if you went to a church, you were a Christian. Many still don’t believe me when I tell them that, while some Unitarian Universalists are Christians, many others claim other commitments and traditions.) Leave the family? Deal with Dad’s wrath, Mom’s tears, and my brother’s bewilderment? Was I crazy? Yes, it was scary. And it took me six and a half years to sign that book. By that time, I was teaching in the Sunday School, serving on committees, canvassing for the pledge drive, and reveling in the beautiful contemporary building we had built on Lyons Plains Road. But even then, all those years later, I still couldn’t articulate this newfound faith of mine. The journey to articulation would take much longer than I could ever have imagined. To be truthful, it continues to this day. Most of us who are active Unitarian Universalists don’t know anything close to "enough" about our faith. We often don’t understand where the Unitarian Universalist Association came from and, as a result, we cannot have a vision of where we might go. We struggle to speak our Unitarian Universalism to each other and, particularly, to the interfaith world beyond the walls of our societies. We get frustrated trying to explain the theological underpinnings of our social witness to ourselves or to the people with whom we share that witness. We are hampered by our ignorance. We are fettered by our lack of theological education. How could people who value learning so much find themselves knowing so little? A Chosen Faith has helped change that. I delight to see that Unitarian Universalists are moving into the interfaith world, forging and joining coalitions to fight for the rights of others, to engage the radical religious right in the political arena, to stand for and seek ways to institutionalize antiracism. We do this work because our religious faith demands it of us. We do this work with others because we recognize that we are too small to do it effectively by ourselves. We do this work because we want people to know

 Awakening

Forrest Church Small as is our whole system compared with the infinitude of creation, brief as is our life compared with the cycles of time, we are so tethered to all by the beautiful dependencies of law, that not only the sparrow’s fall is felt to the outermost bound, but the vibrations set in motion by the words that we utter reach through all space and the tremor is felt through all time. – Maria Mitchell, nineteenth-century Unitarian and astronomer I can believe a miracle because I can raise my own arm. I can believe a miracle because I can remember. I can believe it because I can speak and be understood by you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unitarian minister and essayist MY FIRST SIGNIFICANT religious experience took place when I was about ten years old. As I look back on it, I recognize that in form this experience was typically Unitarian Universalist. I was reading a book. Perhaps more surprisingly, that book was the Bible. I had already read bits and pieces of the Bible before. Having attended Presbyterian Sunday school, I was acquainted in broad outline with its principal characters and plot. Admittedly, the coloring book approach to the Bible was the one I knew best. Lots of sheep, as I remember, and men wearing bathrobes. The little I might have gained from this narrow approach was further limited by my appalling lack of artistic talent. I knew enough not to color Jesus blue, but had a terrible time keeping the sky out of his face. In any event, my early endeavors in religion merited me a small red, not a large gold, star. It was not until my father presented me with my own Bible, all words and no pictures, that things began to change. The Bible my father gave me was a very peculiar one. It was the Jefferson Bible, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. As I later learned, near the end of his first term in the White House, Thomas Jefferson abstracted from the four Gospels his own version of Jesus’ life and teachings. Carefully excising all miracles, most of the narrative, and any of Jesus’ words that offended his "enlightened" sensibilities, Jefferson pieced together a little volume containing what he believed were the essential teachings of Jesus. It opens with Mary already great with child-no mention is made of any extraordinary circumstances surrounding the conception. It closes with an account of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and burial. The final words in Jefferson’s Bible are these: "There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed." What an extraordinary revelation for a ten-year-old boy, a boy who knew how the story was supposed to turn out. The resurrection was missing. This story, the tale of God’s son preaching salvation and proclaiming the advent of the Realm of God, ended in the ordinary all-too-human way: Having for a brief time lived, even having loved and served so well and memorably, the hero died. This realization is the first of many awakenings that have shaped my understanding of what

religion means: Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die. Knowing we are going to die not only places an acknowledged limit upon our lives, it also gives a special intensity and poignancy to the time we are given to live and love. The fact that death is inevitable gives meaning to our love, for the more we love the more we risk losing. Love’s power comes in part from the courage required to give ourselves to that which is not ours to keep: our spouses, children, parents, dear and cherished friends, even life itself. It also comes from the faith required to sustain that courage, the faith that life, howsoever limited and mysterious, contains within its margins, often at their very edges, a meaning that is redemptive. With Jesus, resurrection or no resurrection, that was demonstrably the case: He lived in such a way that his life proved to be worth dying for. And yet, from the Apostles’ Creed, embraced as doctrine throughout much of Christendom, one would have little way of knowing this. Here is what the Apostles’ Creed has to say concerning Jesus: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended to hell, on the third day rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, whence He will come to judge the living and the dead. What does this creed affirm about Jesus’ life and teachings? Not one thing. It states merely that he was born in an unusual way and died in an unusual way, telling us nothing about the fact that Jesus lived in an unusual way. This is what is important about Jesus. Not that he existed before he was born; was implanted in a virgin’s womb; visited hell after he died; and then returned to be resurrected and reign in heaven. These are dogmatic propositions of faith. They can be confirmed by faith alone, and a mighty leap of faith at that, for they stand in direct contradiction to nature’s laws. One question often asked of Unitarian Universalists is, Are you Christian? Our faith does have Christian roots, many of us gather in churches (others prefer the terms congregation, society, or fellowship), and some of our members call themselves Christians. But whatever we call ourselves (Christian, Jew, theist, agnostic, humanist, atheist), most of us would agree that the important thing about Jesus is not his supposed miraculous birth or the claim that he was resurrected from death, but rather how he lived. The power of his love, the penetrating simplicity of his teachings, and the force of his example of service on behalf of the disenfranchised and downtrodden are what is crucial. The Apostles’ Creed and other such statements of dogmatic theology entirely miss this point. They seem to suggest "if you believe in Jesus, you can live forever," not, "if you believe as Jesus, you can live well." Of course, I am a heretic. The word hairesis in Greek means choice; a heretic is one who is able to choose. Its root stems from the Greek verb hairein, to take. Faced with the mystery of life and death, each act of faith is a gamble. We all risk choices before the unknown. Pascal popularized the notion of the wager with respect to religion. He argued that one could gamble on there being an afterlife or not. Admittedly, raised in a Christian culture, he remained convinced that the odds were with him. But even if they were not, it was a good bet. After all, if he was wrong, he lost nothing. After he died, if his life was extinguished it would make no

Chapter Two Experience John A. Buehrens (Note: This excerpt contains only the final four pages of this chapter.) The difference between the two sides of our denominational family was once summarized by a minister who knew both Universalist and Unitarian congregations. Thomas Starr King grew up a Massachusetts Universalist, then became the pastor of the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco as the Civil War was beginning. He is credited for "saving California for the Union," and the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley is named for him. "The Universalists believe that God is too good to damn them," said Starr King, "whereas the Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned!" And indeed our Universalist heritage continues to challenge the Unitarian tendency to be "fit but few." We are challenged to reach out to all sorts and conditions of people, to be open to the individual character of all human religious experience. A friend of mine once wrote a historical novel set in the American West of the nineteenth century. In it, a young man is asked about religion. "I ain’t got no experience," he replies. What he means, of course, is that he has not converted; he has not confessed his sinful nature, given his heart to Jesus, or come forward at a revival meeting. But as the story develops, he (along with the country) grows and changes, and his reply becomes more and more ironic. The point is we all have experience, but our experience may not always fit conventional or expected religious patterns. "I’m not religious," people sometimes claim. "Then tell me about your experience," I say in return. We may not be conventionally pious, but we all experience life, and there are religious dimensions to explore within that experience. Emerson knew this. After having lost his father at the age of nine and suffering the death of his five-year-old son, he wrote "Experience," the most sad but most profound essay he ever wrote. "We wake," he said, "and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight." As hinted at in this brief passage and demonstrated throughout his life and writings, Emerson’s response to the mystery of life and presence of death was, if not conventionally, profoundly religious. Based not on revelation, but on his own difficult experiences, Emerson discovered within himself and yet transcending him, something deeper and higher than his grief. He discovered it not on a ladder to heaven, but on earthly stairs, representing a sense of indebtedness to those who have preceded us and of obligation to those who will come after we are gone. Yet the renewal, the affirmation, the wonder at being alive, can only come in the present, while we have time to be amazed and grateful. I make the same point to those who tell me, "I don’t believe in God." "Tell me about the God that you don’t believe in," I often reply. "The chances are that I don’t believe in ‘Him’ either." I believe, as Dag Hammarskjold did, that "God does not die on the day when we cease to believe

PROOF THAT MAN (THE CLERGY) REALLY WROTE THE BIBLE - NOT GOD

Posted at 4:48 AM, Dec. 4, 2005

Genesis

God punishes Eve, and all women after her, with the pains of childbirth and subjection to men. 3:16

I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes."
Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Pet.2:7-8.

Lot lied about his daughters being "virgins" in 19:8. But it was a "just and righteous" lie, intended to make them more attractive to the sex-crazed mob. 19:14

Lot [the just and righteous (2 Pet.2:7-8)] offers his daughters to a crowd of angel rapers. 19:8

Lot lied about his daughters being "virgins" in 19:8. But it was a "just and righteous" lie, intended to make them more attractive to the sex-crazed mob. 19:14

Lot's nameless wife looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26

Lot and his daughters camp out in a cave for a while. The daughters get their "just and righteous" father drunk, and have sexual intercourse with him, and each conceives and bears a son (wouldn't you know it!). Just another wholesome family values Bible story. 19:30-38

Honest Abe does the same "she's my sister" routine again, for the same cowardly reason. And once again, the king just couldn't resist Sarah -- even though by now she is over 90 years old. (See Gen.12:13-20 for the first, nearly identical, episode.) 20:2

"The Lord visited Sarah" and he "did unto Sarah as he had spoken." And "Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son." (God-assisted conceptions never result in daughters.) 21:1-2

Leviticus

God kills Aaron's sons for offering strange fire before the Lord 10:1-2

"And Aaron held his peace." Aaron just watched as his sons were burnt to death by God. 10:1-3

Women are dirty and sinful after childbirth, so God prescribes rituals for their purification. If a boy is born, the mother is unclean for 7 days and must be purified for 33 days; but if a girl is born, the mother is unclean for 14 days and be purified for 66 days. This is because, in the eyes of God, girls are twice as dirty as boys. 12:1-5

After a woman gives birth, a priest must kill a lamb, pigeon, or dove as a sin offering. This is because having children is sinful and God likes it when things are killed for him. 12:6-8

"For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Couldn't we try spanking first? 20:9

If a man has sex with his father's wife, kill them both. 20:11

If a man has sex with his daughter in law, kill them both. 20:12

If you "lie" with your wife and your mother-in-law (now that sounds fun!), then all three of your must be burned to death. 20:14

Don't have sex with your sister, uncle's wife, or your brother's wife -- and tell them to wear clothes whenever you're around. 20:17, 19-21

A priest's daughter who "plays the whore" is to be burned to death. 21:9

God describes the torments that he has planned for those who displease him. The usual stuff: plagues, burning fevers that will consume the eyes, etc. but he reserves the worst for the little children. He says "ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it," "I will send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children," and "ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters." 26:16-39

1 Samuel

"He [Samuel's father] had two wives." Once again, by its silence, the Bible endorses polygamy. 1:2

"The Lord had shut up her [Hannah's] womb." Why? The Bible doesn't say. Maybe God had nothing better to do. 1:5

"And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her [he probably said something like, "Oh yeah, she's the one whose womb I shut up."]. And Hannah conceived and "bare a son [Oh boy, another boy!], and called his name Samuel." 1:19-20

David and Saul have a contest to see who can kill the most people for God, and the women act as cheerleaders saying, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands." 18:6-7

David kills 200 Philistines and brings their foreskins to Saul to buy his first wife (Saul's daughter Michal). Saul had only asked for 100 foreskins, but David was feeling generous. 18:25-27

The priest tells David that he and his men can eat the "hallowed" bread if "they have kept themselves at least from women." David assures the priest that they have and that "the vessels of the young men are holy." So it'd be OK for them to eat the holy bread. 21:4-5

"And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died." This was convenient for David who then took his property and his wife, Abigail. 25:38

David takes his second wife (Abigail) after God killed her husband (Nabal). He also, at the same time, took another wife (#3), Abinam. In the meantime, Saul gave Michal (his daughter and David's first wife) to another man. 25:41-44

David just keeps getting more wives. God doesn't seem to mind a bit. 30:5

2 Samuel

David, by this time, has at least seven wives (Michal, Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Ehlah), and he was just getting started. 3:2-5

David says, "deliver me my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines." Well, he actually paid with two hundred foreskins (see 1 Sam.18:25-27). 3:14

Michal was bought by David with 200 Philistine foreskins (1 Sam.18:25-27), then she was "given" to Phatiel (1 Sam.25:44), and then "taken back" by David. Poor Phatiel must have loved her dearly since he "went along weeping behind her." 3:15-16

"And David took him more concubines and wives." (How many? God knows I suppose, but he doesn't tell us in the Bible.) 5:13

David sees a woman (Bathsheba) bathing and likes what he sees. so he sends for her and commits adultery with her "for she was purified from her uncleanness." She conceives and bears a son (of course). 11:2-5

David tells Joab (his captain) to send Bathseba's husband (Uriah) to "the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be smitten and die." In this way, David gets another wife. 11:15, 11:17, 11:27

"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel ... and I gave thee ... thy master's wives." 12:7-8

God is angry at David for having Uriah killed. As a punishment, he will have David's wives raped by his neighbor while everyone else watches. It turns out that the "neighbor" that God sends to do his dirty work is David's own son, Absalom (16:22). 12:11-12

To punish David for having Uriah killed, God kills Bathsheba's baby boy. 12:14-18

After Bathsheba's baby is killed by God, David comforts her by going "in unto her." She conceives and bears another son (Solomon). 12:24

Ammon (David's son) says to his half-sister Tamar, "Come lie with me, my sister." But she resists, so he rapes her and then sends her away. Tamar, knowing that she now belongs to him (since she was a virgin), expects him to marry her, but he refuses. 13:1-22

David leaves ten of his concubines home to clean house. 15:16

Absalom "went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel." This was according the God's plan as announced in 2 Sam.12:11-12. 16:21-22

To punish his ten concubines for being raped by his son, Absalom (See 16:21-22), David refuses to ever again have sex with them and forces them to "keep house" for the rest of their lives. 20:3

1 Kings

Proverbs

God warns us about the dangers of "strange women." Strange men are OK though. 2:16-19

The feet of strange women "go down to death," and "her steps take hold on hell." 5:3-5

Watch out for those evil, strange, and whorish women. 6:24-26

A woman that seduces a man is evil -- the man is just an innocent victim. 7:5-27

We are warned again about "foolish women" who are "simple" and "knoweth nothing," who drag their guests into "the depths of hell." 9:13-18

A fair woman without discretion is like a golden jewel in a pig's snout. 11:22

Avoid living with "brawling" women. 21:9

Try not to live with "contentious" or "angry" women. 21:19

"Strange women" have "deep pits" for mouths into which fall those whom God hates. 22:14

"Whores" and "strange women" lie around waiting to trap innocent men. 23:27-28

Don't even look at any "strange women." If you do, you will utter perverse things. 23:33

Avoid living with "brawling" women. 25:24

"Contentious women" are like "a continual dropping on a very rainy day." There are no contentious men. Well, maybe there are a few, but they are like sunny spring days. 27:15

Adulterous women eat, wipe their mouths, and say "what a good girl am I." 30:20

One of the four things that the earth cannot bear is: an odious woman when she is married." 30:21, 23

Don't give your strength to women. 31:3

"Who can find a virtuous woman?" Virtuous men are much more common. 31:10

Song of Solomon

"There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number." 6:8

Isaiah

Isaiah shows his contempt for women by saying that things have gotten so bad for his people that "women rule over them." 3:12

God will "smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion" and "will discover their secret parts" since he doesn't like the way they dress and walk. 3:16-17

After God takes away the women's jewelry and perfume, "discovers their secret parts," and makes them all bald and stinking, he'll kill their husbands. Women will then become so desperate that "seven women will take hold of one man, saying ... let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach." 4:1

After God "washed away the filth" from the women and killed the men, he set up "a cloud and smoke by day" and a "flaming fire by night

Hosea

God tells Hosea to commit adultery, saying "take ... a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms" because the land has "committed great whoredom." So Hosea did as God commanded and "took" a wife named Gomer. 1:2-3

God (or Hosea?) tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to "put away her whoredoms" and "her adulteries from between her breasts" or he'll "strip her naked ... and slay her with thirst." 2:2-3

God "will not have mercy upon ... the children of whoredoms. For their mother hath played the harlot." 2:4-5

God says he "will discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers." 2:10

God acts like a jealous lover. 2:13

God tells Hosea to "love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress." 3:1

So Hosea buys a wife for 15 pieces of silver and one and a half homers of barley. 3:2

Committing whoredom by going a whoring with the spirit of whoredom. 4:10

If you misbehave, God will make your daughters "commit whoredom" and your wife "commit adultery." 4:13

Israel has "gone a whoring" and has "loved a reward upon every cornfloor." 9:1

God will induce miscarriages and kill the children of Ephraim. 9:11-12

"O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." 9:14

"I will slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." 9:16

God will punish Israel by "dashing" together mothers and their children. 10:14

Because the Samaritans chose to worship another deity, Godwill dash their infants to pieces and their "women with child shall be ripped up." 13:16

Numbers

The people "commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab." 25:1

Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins -- Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty -- including the virgins.) 31:1-54

Deuteronomy

If you see a pretty woman among the captives and would like her for a wife, then just bring her home and "go in unto her." Later, if you decide you don't like her, you can "let her go." 21:11-14

If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when they were married. If her father can't produce the "tokens of her virginity" (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her father's doorstep. 22:13-21

"If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die." 22:22

If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death." 22:23-24

If a woman is raped in the country, then only the man shall die (since there was no one to hear her if she cried out.) 22:25

If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her. 22:28

"A man shall not take his father's wife, nor discover his father's skirt." 22:30

You can't go to church if your testicles are damaged or your penis has been cut off. 23:1

God lays down the law regarding wet dreams. "If there be among you any man that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night ..." 23:10

If a man dies without having a child, his brother shall "go in unto" his dead brother's wife. If he refuses, the dead man's wife is to loosen his shoe and spit in his face. 25:5-10

If two men fight and the wife of one grabs the "secrets" of the other, "then thou shalt cut off her hand" and "thine eye shall not pity her." 25:11-12

Judges 19

19:22-30) After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they "abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an ass and takes it home. Then he chops the body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel (Parcel Post?). The story, which must be one of the most disgusting stories ever told, ends with: "consider of it, take advice, and speak your mind." Those who do consider it will immediately reject the idea that the Bible is inspired by God. Hopefully, they then will speak their mind.

David sees a woman (Bathsheba) bathing and likes what he sees. so he sends for her and commits adultery with her "for she was purified from her uncleanness." She conceives and bears a son (of course

Ammon (David's son) says to his half-sister Tamar, "Come lie with me, my sister." But she resists, so he rapes her and then sends her away. Tamar, knowing that she now belongs to him (since she was a virgin), expects him to marry her, but he refuses. 13:1-22

Proverbs

"Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times." 5:18

"Come let us take our fill of love until the morning." 7:18

One of the four "wonderful" things is "the way of a man with a maid." 30:18-19

Song of Solomon

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine." A fitting beginning for a pornographic poem. 1:2

"He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts." 1:13

"I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." 2:3

"His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me." She asks not to be disturbed "till he please." 2:6-7

Our heroine takes her lover into her mother's bedroom and asks not to be disturbed "till he please." 3:4-5

"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins." 4:5

"Come ... blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." 4:16

"My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him." 5:4

"My hands dropped with myrrh.... I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself." 5:5-6

"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins." 7:1-3

"How pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! ... Thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine." 7:6-8

"Let us get up early to the vineyards ... there will I give thee my loves." 7:12

"His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.... Stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please." 8:3-4

"We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts ... But my breasts [are] like towers." 8:8-10

Isaiah

God "will discover their secret parts." 3:16-17

Isaiah has sex with a prophetess who conceives and bears a son. (You weren't expecting a daughter, were you?) God then tells Isaiah to call his name Mathershalalhashbaz. (It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)

More talk of harlots who have sex under every tree. 3:6

Judah commits adultery with "stocks and stones." 3:9

Jeremiah just can't quit talking about sex under the trees. 3:13

"As fed horses in the morning: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife." 5:8

God compares the destruction of Jerusalem to the rape of a woman who deserves to be raped because she has sinned.

+---------wq`

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–12/04/0513:22

God plans to expose Jerusalem's private parts to the world by lifting her skirt over her head, so to speak. He's seen her commit whoredoms and abominations and whatnot on the hills, and he's getting darned sick of it! 13:26-27

Lamentations

Jerusalem is compared to a naked woman who sighs and turns backward. "Her filthiness is in her skirts." 1:8-9

The adversary puts his hand upon "all her pleasant things. 1:10

When God gets angry at you he calls you a drunken whore. 4:21

Ezekiel

God dresses up Jerusalem, cleans off the blood that she was wallowing in, and compliments her on her nice hair and breasts. 16:6-7, 22 – DOES AN ABUSIVE MAN OF TODAY; SEE IKE TURNER.

Seeing that it is the time for love, God spreads his skirt over Jerusalem to cover her nakedness. 6:8

Jerusalem was a harlot who had sex with everyone that passed by. 16:15-16

The great lies of religion, Parts 2-4

Posted at 4:38 AM, Dec. 4, 2005

Lie #2:

   'God is huge and unapproachable, and He wants you to labor,
struggle and live in guilt.'

~~~

   2000 years ago, they wouldn't even dare say the word
'God.'  God was distant, remote, and terrible.

   But Jesus had his own words for God, and he used them freely. 
They were controversial, even scandalous.

   His words for God: 

  'Daddy.'
 
   And 'Your heavenly father.'

   So when the Religious Gestapo condemned him for hanging out
with ruffians and women of ill-repute, he told an even more
scandalous story:

   'There was a man who had two sons.  The younger one said to
his father, 'Dad, I wish you were dead.  Why don't we pretend you
are dead, and give me my share of the family estate.'  So the
father divided his property between them.

   A few days later, the disrespectful son packed his bags and
headed for a distant land.  He squandered his inheritance on wine,
women and song.  And when he had spent everything, a great famine
arose in that country, and he got hungry.

   So he got a job feeding pigs.  (Jewish people considered pigs
to be utterly repulsive.)

   This young man would gladly have eaten the pods that the swine
ate; but no one gave him anything.

   But when he came to his senses, he said to himself, `How many
of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but
I'm here starving!  He went back to his father. But while he was
still far away, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and
embraced him and kissed him.

   The son said, `Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

   But the father said to his servants, `Go get the best robe,
and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his
feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and
have a huge party; for this my son was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found.'

   Jesus sums it all up like this:  'I tell you, there will be
more joy in heaven over one sinner who comes back than over
ninety-nine people who are already good.'

   The father in the Prodigal Son story was not concerned with
his dignity.  He was not concerned with what was 'fair.'  When
his son wanted to go his own way, he let him go.  But he was
watching out the window the whole time, hoping he would come back.

   That's Jesus' picture of God - just like the father in this
story.  Loving.  Forgiving.  Approachable.  Not distant and
condemning.

  

Lie #3:

'You are not smart enough or good enough to think for
yourself.  We will do your thinking for you.'

~~~

  Do you know what the most important invention in the
history of the world was?

  It wasn't the computer.  And it sure wasn't the light bulb
or the telephone.  (Or even the electronic voting machine.)

  It was the printing press.

  In 1445, Johannes Gutenburg invented the world's first movable
type printing press.  He didn't know it, but he was unleashing a
revolution that continues to this day.  Even the mighty Internet
in 2005 is just an extension of Gutenberg's original,
revolutionary machine.

  The first book he printed was the Bible.  And that led
to controversy, too, because Luther translated it into
German, the people's language, instead of Latin, the
lingo of the religious elite.

   Suddenly, ordinary folks could not only afford a copy,
but they could read it for themselves instead of getting
some guy's self-serving interpretation.  Soon the cat was
out of the bag--there were copies scattered all over Europe.

   When people started to read it, they were alarmed at what
they saw, because between the covers of this book was an
amazing story that had seemingly little to do with the politics
and shell games they saw in some corners the church.

   Luther wrote a list of 95 accusations against the church --
priests taking bribes and granting 'indulgences', an
institution setting itself up as a 'middleman' between
man and God.

   He argued that God didn't need a middleman, or a
distributor, or an agent, or a bureaucracy.  People
could go direct to the source.

   This little 'schism' in Wurms, Germany unleashed a
firestorm of protest and permanently changed the way people
approached education.  No longer was a big, faceless institution
responsible for your spiritual progress -- YOU were.  Now that
you had the knowledge in your hands, you were accountable
before God to do something about it.

   I'm not trying to attack the Catholic church, by the
way.  The problem is not institutions per se; it's just
that it's always easier for us to mindlessly follow someone
else than to listen to God and use the minds He gave us.

   It's no coincidence that the scientific enlightenment and
industrial revolution began in earnest within 50 years of this. 
Not that it wasn't already underway (it had already gathered
considerable momentum) but now that ordinary folks had access
to knowledge and the freedom to pursue it, the possiblities
were limitless.

  The printing press took the handcuffs off of knowledge and
spirituality, and the world has never been the same.  Equal
access to knowledge empowered people everywhere, and it
was only natural that the Rennaisance, and in time, democracy
too would follow.

   What's troubling now is that most people still don't do anything
with the knowledge that's available to them.  Why would you accept
a 'canned' answer or empty platitude when you can open the book
and read about it for yourself?

  People have debates about Jesus, but most have never read the
real story--they just believe what they're told.  How sad.

   If you want a 'Just the facts ma'am' version of what really
happened, grab a Bible (please -- a modern English version that's
easy to read, not something from the 1600's) and read the book of
Luke.  A truly fascinating story will unfold. 

   I dare you to read for one hour and then stop!

   And you know what?  Nobody will need to tell you what it means. 
You'll be quite able to figure it out for yourself.

Lie #4

'Women are spiritually inferior and must bow to the
authority of men.'

~~~

  In the religious bureaucracy of the ancient world, women
were basically property.  If she burned his toast, he could
divorce her and send her away destitute.  If she saw a crime
in progress and reported it to the police, her testimony in
court would be thrown out--simply because she was female. 
Women weren't considered smart enough to recount what really
happened.

  Isn't that special?

  Get this.  Jesus gets crucified.  His body is taken down and
put in a guarded tomb.

   Three days later, some of his female friends come to the tomb,
the door is wide open, and nobody's inside.  They're shocked.  But
they're even more shocked when Jesus shows up.  He talks to them. 
These women are the first people to see this astonishing event and
report it.  The men don't believe it until they see for themselves.

   Well here's the kicker:  Had somebody invented this resurrection
story out of thin air, they would *never* have said that women found
the empty tomb--because women in that culture were considered
inferior and unreliable anyway.

   So what this demonstrates is:

1) It's highly unlikely this story is made up, because no person who
invents such a hoax would ever put women in this role.  The fact
that women are the first witnesses to this event strongly suggests
that Jesus DID actually rise from the dead.  A conclusion that
has staggering implications.

2) This also shows that Christianity considers women to be equal
to men.  Jesus had many women in his inner circle, and there were
female leaders and prophetesses in the early church.

   When religion runs amok, it's always in the interest of one of
three things:

   -Money-
   -Sex-
   -Power-

   Don't you agree?

   And what could be more convenient than for selfish men to shove
women around and say it's the will of God?

   You know, the thing about genuine spirituality is that it
isn't used as a weapon to control people.  Yes, Jesus gave
some pretty stern warnings and he talked about some heavy
subjects.  But how often do you see him bossing his followers
around?

   He didn't do that.  Instead, he took off their shoes and washed
their dirty feet to show them how they should serve each other.  His
life and death are the deep irony of God engaged in the
humble service of mankind.

FOR THOSE THAT DON'T BELIEVE IN "GOD"

Posted at 6:05 PM, Dec. 3, 2005

THE "OTHER" REASON FOR THE RISE OF THE BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT THAT OUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT STILL DENIES: An F.B.I. file exposed

Posted at 5:19 PM, Dec. 3, 2005

    Black and Red

A Journey Through Communism in the Black Community

Celeste Denman

Jackie Scullin

Ryan Goracy

* Background of Blacks and Communism

* Communism in the Harlem Renaissance

*W.E.B. DuBois

*Cyril Briggs

*Richard Wright

*Garvey vs. Briggs

*Current Communist Happenings

* Did You Know?

*texts

Black and Red

A History of Communism in African American Culture

            1919

The Communist party had its roots in black culture as early as 1919. African Blood Brotherhood leader, Cyril Briggs used his new magazine, the Crusader to argue that capital was “not divided by prejudice and nationality”.  He continually voiced and published his belief that trade unions were racist thus oppressing the working class African American population.  He spoke of Marx and how African Americans could find their home and be taken seriously within the Communist credo.  The African Blood Brotherhood union began to cooperate with Soviet alliances allowing men and women to have a platform and voice, in the eyes of Cyril Briggs.  The Communist Party organized by the Russian Federation declared its stance on the Negro question in 1920 promoting an united social class.  “ The Communist Party will carry on agitation among Negro workers to unite them with all class conscious workers.” (Record 20)  The Communist Party capitalized on the growing political consciousness of Negroes as they continued to migrate to large metropolitan areas.  Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, became infuriated with these actions and thus began to focus on Briggs’s light skin, constantly calling him a white man who wished to destroy capital.  This conflict came to a head when Briggs sued for character defamation after numerous attacks verbally by Garvey. In 1927, African Americans spoke at the Communist International Fourth Congress Hearing.  Otto Huiswood argued that blacks could lead the freedom movement for all colored people in his monumental speech.  A year later, statistics showed the break down of actual Negro membership within the party: 14000 blacks had become red.   Lovet Fort Whiteman, the first African American to study in Moscow in 1924, proposed an American Negro Labor Congress to help strengthen the working class.  In 1928, Siberian, Charles Nasonor and thirty year old black American Harry Haywood attempted to resolve the conflict between assimilation and separation with their slogan, “a nation within a nation”, implying freedom through self determination.   They believed that the Negroes in the South shared a different psychological make up from years of slavery and torture and had evolved unknowingly into an untied people. As the popularity of the Communist movement spread through black cities, Cyril Briggs kept a wary eye on white chauvinism within the party.  He believed that with the presence of white power, the newly joined black supporters could not achieve their goals.  Blacks needed to be welcomed and not pitied.  They could not strive as a united people within a racial institution.  Numerous trials followed these accusations as a way to cleanse the communist party of racial ideas and racist white leaders and to prove to black supporters that they too belonged in the communist community.  They realized that the black social status was not much different from that of America as a whole; it had a small elite class a larger middle class of intellectuals and a large working class full of laborers and sharecroppers.  They decided to focus their energy on the lower class. 

Communist Actions

The Communist Party within America was to the first to battle and demonstrate against the Depression hunger era and unemployment.  They constantly fought evictions, supported female equality and defied the social ban on inter racial marriage.  The communist party flourished in the ghettos and slums, especially Harlem.  Here was a party that seemed to have the goal of the working class citizen in mind and was out in public, being vocal and defiant to white power.  In May of 1935, Howard University held a conference discussing the concerns of the status of the Negro.  It was there that the National Negro Congress was formed.  This newly formed congress signified the growing alliance between the Communists and the black intellectuals during the Popular Front Era.    The National Negro Congress participated in organized labor strikes, resistance to fascism and mass protest tactics against racism.  They fought against the disenfranchisement of the blacks and continually held job campaigns.  It seemed to be meeting the concerns and problems of the African American population. Three organizations united together in 1945: the National Negro Congress, the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.  This mergence created the Civil Rights Congress lead by Communist William Patterson.  The Civil Rights Congress fought for civil rights and defended victims of the Mc McCarthy era during his hunt for Communist infiltration. 

Goals of Communism and the Race Factor

            The UCP, or Untied Communist Party learned from the African Blood Brothers except in the theory of race relations and racism.  The Communists needed to respond to black ideology to gain this new majority’s support.  And so, the Communist party tried to humanize themselves in their dealings with African Americans.  They began to fight for reforms and adopted a philosophy of self-determination in the Black Belt in 1928.  (The Black Belt being the area of the south where slavery had been dominate)

            Whiteman believed that blacks saw oppression as stemming from a race more that a class situation and that this idea helped bond blacks together.  During the years 1928 and 1930 resolutions were made regarding black policy.  In the North the party believed blacks to be the national minority struggling for social and political equality, while in the South they held a powerful majority and they had the right to secede if they so desired.  They also adopted the credo that racism strengthened capitalism.  They needed to accept blacks in the party while still allowing them to maintain certain sense of uniqueness.  Up until this point, Communist activity south of the Mason Dixon line was negligible.  In 1931 the party made its first real effort in the South.  They set goals of creating unions of sharecroppers in Alabama and Louisiana.  The Sharecroppers Union was met with violent protests from racist whites and dissolved in 1936.   

The party’s prime aim during the twenties was to create and cultivate black leaders.  By sending such intellectuals as James W. Ford, vice presidential candidate in 1932, Eugene Gordon, journalist, and William L. Patterson to Moscow they thought that these newly trained individuals would come back and assert their leadership roles within the party.

The party also tried to work with other organizations including the NAACP during the 1930’s.  The Communist party applauded the changes that organizations had made, yet were not willing to compromise or change their ways.  They often criticized the leaders of the NAACP quite harshly.  During this time the Communist party put its faith with the Democratic Party, retracting insults they had flung earlier at Roosevelt.  They decided that the elite and big business corporations headed the Republican Party and felt that the Democratic Party met more of their needs.   The Party was organized in large urban districts such as New York.  Los Angles, Chicago and Detroit were also homes of the party.

During the 1940’s membership began to dwindle amongst blacks.  But with the appearance of Hitler on the scene, the Communist party began to look patriotic.   The National Negro Congress began advocating equal employment and sought to work with other groups and the national and community levels.  After the war, the Communist Party focused its attention on the Negro soldier demanding equal treatment and helped to create the Untied Negro and Allied Veterans of America. 

The Harlem Renaissance and Communism

Often associated with a flourishing of art, music and literature the Communist Party found a home in Harlem during the Depression.  They held a flexible and sophisticated set of aesthetic values made the Party attractive to many black artists.  The Party helped fund such cultural organizations as the Federal Negro Theatre, which employed 350 people and gave black playwrights a chance to come to life and the Federal Writers Project that studied the role and history of blacks on the New York scene.  They also funded the Harlem Community Arts Center, which helped to present a free stage for many of Harlem’s artists.  These projects gave a tremendous boost to the morale in Harlem.  In 1936 the Communist Party also began action to ensure equality in sports.

Some black intellectuals accused the Communists of funding such projects as the Federal Writers Project to make sure they only published revolutionary texts.  However, the real problem lay in the fact that these artistic values struck a chord with the middle class and intellectuals but not the working class.  So they set out to better the schools creating an organization called the Harlem Committee for Better Schools, which lasted, form 1935-1950.  This group was made up of parents, teachers, church leaders and community groups and helped to form alliances with schools in the area. 

W.E.B. Du Bois

“In the end Communism will triumph – I want to help bring that day”

“Stalin is a great man; few other men of the 20^th century approach his stature.  He was simple, calm and courageous.”

               Although many equate W.E.B. DuBois with the Harlem Renaissance and the founding of the NAACP, toward the later years of his life, he joined the bandwagon of the Communist party with the belief that it would help end the oppression of the black race.  He had studied the works of Karl Marx in college and at the University of Berlin and had even attended socialist meetings, thus considering himself a socialist.  

                When he traveled to New York after his education he created the news magazine, The Crisis.  The Crisis held itself up to capitalist morals and thrived on donations from the wealthy.   Fellow colleagues, Mary Ovington. William English Walling and Charles Edward Russell helped to persuade Du Bois to join the socialist  party.

                With this newfound hope in the Communist party, DuBois traveled in 1926 to Communist lands.  Like many other black leaders he saw Communism as a way to uplift the black race and bring about equality.  And so, he officially joined the Communist party in 1961,. two years before his death.  Although he was the creator of the talented tenth theory, DuBois saw the validity of free education and discipline for growth and reform, two beliefs held by the Communist party. 

Cyril Briggs

         Cyril Briggs was born in 1888 on the Caribbean island of Nevis.  His father was a plantation overseer and this accounted for Briggs’s light complexion.  Briggs moved to Harlem in 1905 and launched his writing career, finally landing a job with the Amsterdam News in 1912.  In 1917 Briggs founded the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB).  He described his organization as a “revolutionary secret order” dedicated to armed resistance to lynching, opposition to all forms of racial discrimination, and voting rights for black Southerners.  The ABB also opposed American participation in WW1 and linked the struggle for black liberation in the US to the battle against European colonization in Africa.  In 1918 Briggs also started a new magazine called the “Crusader”.  It backed the Socialist Party electoral campaigns of A. Philip Randolph and exposed lynchings in the south and job discrimination in the north.  Briggs believed that the Negro’s true place was with labor and that Blacks would benefit from the triumph of labor and the destruction of the Capitol Civilization.  As a result he joined the Communist Party in 1921.    With the connection to the Communist Party, the ABB began to have Marxist influences.  It focused on higher wages for black workers as well as better working conditions.  He and his ABB comrades now clearly advocated a historic shift in the objectives of the black freedom struggle from assimilation into the bourgeois order to a socialist transformation.  His strong Marxist views angered another black leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Marcus Garvey.  Garvey accused Briggs of being a white man trying to smash government and destroy capital.  Briggs retaliated saying the ABB did not oppose government in principle it just opposed imperialist government.  The feud continued until Briggs was able to help the government nail Garvey for mail fraud.  By 1924 the Briggs and his ABB began to die out because the Communist Party began to change its policy.  It turned toward the American Negro Labor Congress and pulled some blacks in the party away from their community roots.  Although the ABB didn’t last for more than six or seven years it was important because it showed blacks interest in international politics, mainly communism.  Briggs can actually be credited for bringing communism into the black community for this very reason. 

Richard Nathaniel Wright

Born September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi to a sharecropper and a schoolteacher. 

1931 – Wright becomes acquainted with the communist party and their activities 

1933 – Joins the John Reed Club of leftist writers and authors of Chicago and begins submitting revolutionary poetry to Left Front.  He is then elected executive secretary for the Chicago John Reed Club.

 1934 – Wright joins the Communist party and continues to publish his poetry in different magazines in the area.  During that same year, he began to have cynicism towards the party because they disband the John Reed Clubs and stops publication of Left Front.

 1935 – 1938  Continued to write for other left wing publications such as Midland Left, Anvil, International Literature, Partisan Review, and New Masses. 

 1940 – Wright releases his most successful book, Native Son, which becomes a best seller.  Many people felt that the main character was a symbol for the entire black community.

 1941 – Wright marries, Ellen Poplar, a daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, and she was also another Communist.

 1944 – Leaves the Communist party because of personal and political differences.

While Briggs supported the black laborer and black artists during the Harlem Renaissance, Garvey’s plan was to send all of the blacks back to Africa. He developed the Black Star Line as an easy means for blacks to make their voyage back to the native homeland. Unlike Briggs who believed that blacks could get involved in the community, Garvey believed that the only way blacks could gain control would be by living in a land of their own.

The conflict between the two men grew as each man gained more power in the black community. Briggs’s ideas and actions infuriated Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey fixated on Briggs's light complexion, accused him of being a white man and excoriated Communists for allegedly wanting to smash government and destroy capital. Briggs replied that Garvey had confused capital with capitalism. The former was wealth, while the latter was control of that wealth by the few over the many. The ABB did not oppose government in principle; it simply opposed imperialist government. The Briggs-Garvey feud became increasingly bitter and personal, and reached a public climax when the former sued for defamation. Their magistrate had trouble understanding what was libelous about calling someone white, but nevertheless found for Briggs and instructed Garvey to publish an apology in his paper, The Negro World. Yet Garvey offered no effective response when Briggs reminded readers "that racial consciousness alone was not enough to win freedom in the modern world." There, power rests "partially on race," yet "centrally on corporate, class, national, and military forces". In a move that enhanced neither man's standing, Briggs became a marginal source for the government's effort to nail Garvey for mail fraud. Briggs needed no urging to accept money from the Communists, who recognized that the social distance between classes in the black community was far less than among whites. Soon the party's Daily Worker was likening oppression of African Americans to European imperialism. With the demise of the Black Star Line and his alliance with the KKK, Garvey began to lose popularity in the black community.

Present Day Communist Happenings in the News…

ASSASSINATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN LEADER  

U.S. Department of State Dispatch4/19/93, Vol. 4 Issue 16, p273, 1/6p

     Statement released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary/Spokesman, Washington, DC, April 10, 1993.

The assassination of [South African Communist Party Secretary General] Chris Hani is a deplorable and troubling event. This brutal murder will sadden all who are working for peace, democracy, and justice in South Africa. It underscores the urgent need to end violence in the country and to push ahead with the negotiations which will create a democratic South Africa.

Chris Hani actively supported these negotiations and only this week called for an end to violence so the negotiations could proceed in a climate of peace and stability.

                                  ALIVE AND KICKING

Harvard International Review  Spring93, Vol. 15 Issue 3, p46, 3p

Author(s):   Horwitz, Leora

                           Communism Remains a Potent Force in South Africa

The years from 1989 to 1991 will be forever remembered for the death of Communism: the years of Lech Walesa and BorisYeltsin, the Velvet Revolution and German unification. South Africans, however, will look back on this period as one of communist revival. Speeches by prominent black leaders promised nationalization and redistribution of income; 20,000 people

demonstrated in the streets to celebrate the legalization of the Communist Party in July, 1990; and 130,000 came to a rally supporting the Party in November 1990. As McDonald's was opening its first franchise in Moscow, Joe Slovo, Secretary-General of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was shouting to cheering masses, "We remain absolutely convinced that, despite some of the horrors of Stalinism, it is socialism and only socialism which can, in the end, assure every

individual and humanity as a whole of freedom in its true meaning."

This apparent time-warp persists even today. SACP membership quintupled in the first two years after the organization's legalization, and the trend shows little sign of slowing. Certainly, serious problems still plague the Party. Set adrift by the collapse of communism in Europe and faced with a growing split between moderate leaders willing to compromise in the short term and radical ones advocating the ongoing use of violence, the SACP is in danger of fading into political obscurity in the new South Africa. Nevertheless, the Party retains substantial backing from unionized workers and significant popularity in the townships.

Most importantly, the SACP wields considerable authority in other anti-apartheid organizations, particularly the African National Congress (ANC)--the preeminent anti-apartheid organization in the nation.

The ANC and the SACP have been closely linked for much of their existence. The ANC was founded in 1912, nine years before the SACP was established. At first, they differed considerably--one, a nationalist organization dedicated to promoting black political and economic rights; the other, an international organization committed to the goal of a socialist revolution in South Africa. The SACP was, however, the first, and for many years the only, national political party to admit blacks. As a result, the ANC and SACP have shared members since their earliest years. In 1927, for example, the ANC elected as its Secretary-General one of South Africa's first black communists, Eddie Khaile, who, a year later, was elected to the Central

Committee of the SACP. That year, Moscow also ordered the SACP to work toward establishing a black republic in South Africa, rather than concentrating on the immediate creation of a socialist state.

Their common goals established, the two groups then began to cooperate even more closely. In 1939, Moses Kotane was elected Secretary-General of the SACP, a position he would retain until 1978. Kotane, a widely respected and admired leader of both the ANC and the SACP, did much to foster trust and cooperation between the two groups. Connections between them,

however, continued to rely primarily on common membership and individual personal ties. A new and increasingly vocal ANC faction, the Youth League (which included such members as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo) had begun to agitate against communism, while the Party frequently criticized the ANC in public.

Source: U.S. News & World Report, 12/30/91 & 1/6/92, Vol. 111 Issue 27, Outlook 1992 p56, 1p, 2c

 Author(s):    Knight, R.; Jones, J.

 A YOUNGER GENERATION WILL SHAPE THE 'NEW SOUTH AFRICA'

Dateline: Johannesburg

                    Prediction 12  Three emerging black leaders  to watch in the 1990s

In the 22 months since he walked free after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela has come down to earth. Hailed as the man who held the key to ending black oppression in South Africa, he now is increasingly cast as a figurehead -- a ''fine but flawed man suffering from incurable jail lag,'' says one analyst. Nobody doubts that the 73-year-old Mandela will be South Africa's first black president once white rule ends. But other black leaders will shape the ''new South Africa.'' 

Three of the coming generation stand out: Cyril Ramaphosa, 39, the former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and now the African National Congress's chief negotiator; 49-year-old Chris Hani, the newly elected general secretary of the South African Communist Party and onetime militant chief of staff of Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the ANC's armed wing; and Thabo Mbeki, 48, the head of the ANC's foreign-affairs department.

A lawyer described by one of his erstwhile management opponents as ''the most competent negotiator I have ever met,'' the articulate Ramaphosa has won praise from black miners and white businessmen alike for his intelligence and ability to compromise from a position of strength. But Ramaphosa's ability to span the racial divide will be tested when the hard political bargaining begins. Moreover, like much of the socialist-inclined ANC hierarchy, he has a poor grasp of the subtleties of

economics.

The outspoken, colorful Hani has signaled an uncompromising stance by demanding that an interim government be installed within six months. He was one of the first blacks to take up arms, in a detachment that fought in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1967. Abba Omar, a member of the editorial committee of the ANC journal Mayibuye, describes Hani's chief assets as enthusiasm and energy. ''You can hear him for miles, yapping away with everyone he meets,'' he says.

Unenviable role. If Hani is roughhewn, the British-educated Mbeki is suave and urbane. As head of the international section of the ANC, Mbeki is the organization's most wined and dined member -- a role that suits his emollient manner. Since the ANC was legalized in February 1990, he has had the unenviable job of convincing whites that they have nothing to fear from an ANC government. A mischievous sense of humor adds to his popularity: Not long ago he described the white government as a wheelbarrow because ''it only moves when it is pushed.''

The months of tough constitutional negotiations ahead will put a premium on the ANC's ability to think clearly, compromise where necessary, stay united and sell its decisions to its rank and file. Much will depend on Nelson Mandela, who must sanction any deal. But the responsibility for hammering out the details of black-white rule now rests with a younger generation. 

Author(s):     N.A.

   Source:    Associated Press Online, 01/30/2001

 Papers Shed Light on Communism

WASHINGTON, Jan 30, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Papers that had been stashed

in Siberia since America's Red Scare detail Communist Party efforts to recruit blacks in Harlem, steal State Department secrets and organize sharecroppers.

Threaded through the nearly half a million pages retrieved by the U.S government is information on Soviet financing of the Communist Party in America and an ambassador's letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, sent to Moscow by a mole at State.

Experts on the history of the Communist Party's often-hidden activities in the United States say the records, copied in Russia by the Library of Congress, provide an unprecedented view of the radicals at work in the 1920s through 1940s.

"This is the most complete archive of American Communist Party materials scholars have ever had available," said Harvey Klehr, history professor at Emory University.

The collection includes letters by and about John Reed, the radical American journalist and early Soviet hero. Best known for his book "Ten Days that Shook the World," an eyewitness account

of the Russian revolution that was the subject of the movie 'Reds,"' Reed helped organize the Communist Party in the United States and is the only American known to be buried at the Kremlin.

In a 1920 letter to a friend, Reed's wife, Louise Bryant, spoke of her typhoid-stricken husband's death in Moscow and how she watched Soviets pass his grave.

"I have been there in the busy afternoon when all Russia hurries by," she wrote. "Once some of the soldiers came over to the grave. They took off their hats and spoke very reverently: 'What a good fellow he was!" said one. 'He came all the way across the world for us. He was one of ours."'

Most of the newly opened records were sent to the former Soviet Union by communist organizers in the United States. They were shipped there for safekeeping and to keep Moscow abreast of U.S. activities, said Klehr, author of several books on communists in America. He said scholarly works on the U.S. party over the past 50 years have been handicapped by piecemeal records, but the new collection fills in many blanks.

John Earl Haynes, a historian at the Library of Congress, first peeked at the records in 1993, following negotiations with Russian archivists. "I really did have to blow off the dust," Haynes said.

"These are records created in America by Americans, mostly about Americans. Now some people may think they were not particularly good Americans, but they're American records."

The records contain further evidence that communists had infiltrated the State Department in the 1930s. Included are letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to a mole in the department, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviets. Other materials highlight communist attempts to organize sharecroppers in the South in 1934 and blacks, other minorities and even children in Harlem. Communist staff workers at a "farm school" organizing sharecroppers in St. Louis wrote to their superiors: "The students were given names and addresses in St.Louis to cover their identities."

From the party's perspective, blacks were the most oppressed section of the American population and therefore were prospective recruits. The party's Harlem organizer in 1934 reported on efforts to "develop a proletarian backbone in the broad movement for Negro liberation."

He said 20 children in Harlem were being brought into the cause and party officials were looking into getting them uniforms. Working with children "has possibilities of development into a mass movement," he wrote. Mark Rosenzweig, chief librarian of the New York-based Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which is affiliated with today's Communist Party in America, says the party's work with blacks is a source of pride. "Whatever documentation we can recover about this enriches the story of the party, which is often reduced to a kind of Cold War caricature," he said. But he said he's disturbed that the party was not appraised of the project to open "our records."

Author(s):        N.A.

   Source:   Xinhua News Agency, 01/25/2001

S. African President Makes First Cabinet Reshuffle

JOHANNESBURG (Jan. 25) XINHUA - South African President Thabo Mbeki has made

his first cabinet reshuffle after taking office in June, 1999, the South African Press Association reported.

Deputy Home Affairs Minister Lindiwe Sisulu was promoted Wednesday to the post of Intelligence Minister and Azanian People' s Organization (AZAPO) leader  Mosibudi Mangena was appointed as Deputy Education Minister.

Mangena, who was appointed in his personal capacity, will resign as AZAPO's sole

Member of Parliament (MP), paving the way for a senior party leader to replace him in the National Assembly.

In a bid to jack up the Home Affairs Ministry, which is widely regarded as one of the under-performing government departments, Mbeki has also appointed South African Communist Party chairman Charles Nqakula as deputy minister. Nqakula had served as Mbeki's parliamentary counselor, a role that will now be filled by African National Congress MP Sue van der Merwe.

Mbeki also announced that Inkatha Freedom Party MP Musa Zondi became Deputy Minister of Public Works.

Author(s):     N.A.

   Source:   AP Worldstream, 10/21/2000

South African communists march to protest against banks

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct 21, 2000 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) – In countrywide demonstrations organized by the South African Communist Party, thousands South Africans protested against banks, which they say aren't doing enough to eradicate poverty and transform South Africa.

The South African Communist Party said 40,000 people participated in 14 marches and five demonstrations country wide. "The people of South Africa have spoken, banks and the financial sector as a whole must be transformed," the party said in a statement. The party is demanding that government to be more interventionist by creating laws that better promote transformation. It also called for an immediate halt on the practice of "redlining," which is when banks' classify black residential areas and enterprises as high-risk or non-creditworthy.

"The SACP calls for an immediate end to racism and sexism and discrimination against the working class in general in the lending practices of banks," the party said. The party has given the government and banks have been told to give "considered and positive replies" by Dec. 16 - the Day of Reconciliation, a public holiday in South Africa. "Without satisfactory results, we will be calling on our people to step up popular mobilization directed at banks." The communist party has close ties with the ruling African National Congress. Unemployment among South African blacks exceeds 40 percent, while less than 7 percent of whites are jobless.

Did You Know…? 

The following influential black leaders were considered to have ties with the Communist Party.

·     Margaret Walker

·        Lance Jeffers

·        Claude McKay

·        John Oliver Killens

·        Julian Mayfield

·        Alice Childress

·        Shirley Graham

·        Lloyd Brown

Posted at 4:58 PM, Dec. 3, 2005

*WHY I LOVE BEING A HUMANIST (*besides the fact that I am a signee)

Posted at 4:42 PM, Dec. 3, 2005

HUMANISM AND ITS ASPIRATIONS

Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933*

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance. This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following: Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence. Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known. Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.

Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty. Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all. Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life. Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner. Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.  * Humanist Manifesto is a trademark of the American Humanist Association—© 2003 American Humanist Association

A PHOTO OF MYSELF

Posted at 4:20 PM, Dec. 3, 2005

YOGA ARTICLE FOR MEN ONLY

Posted at 11:05 PM, Aug. 20, 2005

Yoga for Men

Yoga is becoming more popular among men, and for good reason: Besides getting rid of stress and increasing flexibility, it may lower the risk of heart disease, depression, and high blood pressure.

By Carol Sorgen WebMD Feature

Reviewed By Brunilda  Nazario, MD

Ira Bloom calls himself a yoga "evangelist." By day, the 52-year-old Bloom is a practicing dentist. Two or three times a week, though, after leaving his office, you'll find Bloom at the Greater Baltimore Yoga Center. There, for an hour and a half, he practices a form of hatha yoga known as Iyengar.

Bloom came to yoga quite by accident about five years ago. An ad offering a free week of yoga classes spurred him on, and he's been hooked ever since. "It's a great way to improve your strength, become more flexible, and relieve stress," says Bloom. "It really calms the mind."

Though Bloom says that his ultimate goal is to practice yoga every day, he admits that a hectic schedule makes that difficult. But, he adds, even the two or three times a week he does make it to yoga class has a strong influence on his daily routine. "It just spills over into your everyday life," he says. "You learn to do your life like you do your yoga ... to be centered, to breathe more calmly, and to be focused. Little things don't bother you as much."

Calming the mind not only makes day-to-day living easier, says Robert Bulgarelli, DO, FACC, who practices integrative and preventive cardiovascular medicine at Cardiovascular Associates of Southeastern Pennsylvania, it also has far-reaching effects when it comes to protecting men (and women, too) from the physical damages of stress.

"Yoga, with its combination of meditation and breathing, helps get the mind and body in sync," says Bulgarelli. Men, he goes on to say, frequently downplay the stress that they're feeling, and as a result, tend to develop heart disease at an earlier age than women.

Dealing With Stress

"Women are more in tune with their emotions," Bulgarelli says, "and are better able to handle daily stressors. Men often ignore signs of stress and as a result, their heart rate goes up, their blood pressure rises, their platelets get stickier. ..."

Along with the physical changes brought by stress itself, says Bulgarelli, are the more subtle behavioral changes that accompany stress -- eating less healthfully, exercising less, and engaging in more high-risk behaviors such as drinking and smoking.

"To take 20 to 40 minutes out of your day to sit and be quiet, to gently stretch, and to breathe deeply," says Bulgarelli, "is a tremendous way to reduce stress." Studies have shown, he says, that the various forms of yoga can help reduce blood pressure, body temperature, and heart rate, improve respiratory function, and even change brain waves.

"Yoga has tremendous implications for everyone," says Bulgarelli, "but especially for men, by allowing them to decompress and de-stress."

Bulgarelli says that in addition to its potential to prevent and even manage heart disease, yoga is a good antidote to depression as well, which is epidemic among men in the United States.

"Yoga gives you the opportunity to strip yourself down, to quiet yourself, to just really 'be,'" says Bulgarelli, "and for any men, that may be the first time they've ever done that. The meditative aspect of yoga is the perfect avenue to help you figure out what's going on in your life."

Part of Fitness Program

As if the possible benefits of yoga in terms of stress, heart disease, and depression weren't enough, there are additional advantages of yoga, especially for men, says Julio Kuperman, MD, head of neurology at St. Agnes Medical Center in Philadelphia and associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Kuperman is also a yoga instructor and director of yoga teacher training at the Baptist Power Yoga Institute in Bryn Mawr, Penn., and has been practicing yoga himself for the past 25 years, long before many men turned to the discipline.

"I believe the present popularity of yoga in America will continue to grow by leaps and bounds as the baby boomers continue to age," says Kuperman. "The male population in particular remains a mostly untapped potential constituency, for yoga has much to offer my gender-mates as we age."

Yoga has much to offer men of any age, too, Kuperman says. It is one of the few physical activities that has a "de-compacting" effect on the body. (Swimming and gymnastics are other examples). This is essential, says Kuperman, to counter the effects of gravity associated with activities such as running or jogging. Yoga also provides much-needed "symmetry relief" to such asymmetric endeavors as racquet sports and golf, which torque the spine in only one direction.

Yoga also supplies flexibility that can help in safely practicing power sports and weight training, says Kuperman. And yoga itself is flexible in the sense that there is a broad variety of yoga styles, ranging from the intense, aerobic, and almost acrobatic practice of Ashtanga ("Power Yoga") to the more meditative style of Kripalu Yoga and the "Hot Yoga" (done in an overheated room) championed by Bikram Choudry, which can become an integral part of any program of physical activity.

"My emphasis as a teacher," says Kuperman, "is to help people incorporate yoga into their existing routines."

Originally published Oct. 1, 2000.

Medically updated Jan. 13, 2003.

MUSIC PEEVES

Posted at 10:02 PM, Aug. 20, 2005

My favorite music albums of all time (top 10):

1. Pearl Jam "Ten"

2. Notorious B.I.G. "Ready to Die"

3. Sarah MacLachlan "Fumbling towards ecstasy"

4. Alanis Morissette "Jagged little pill"

5. Ani Difranco "Not a pretty girl"

6. Dr. Dre "The Chronic"

7. Portishead "Dummy"

8. Ice Cube "Death Certificate"

9. (tie) Live "Throwing copper" & Matchbox 20" Yourself or someone like you"

10. Every Public Enemy album EVER MADE!

Favorite (3) songs ever are:

1. "Black"  Pearl Jam

2. "In the air tonight" Phil Collins

3. "Nights in white satin" Moody Blues

Worst songs I have ever Heard? EASY!

1. "Breakfast at tiffany's" Deep blue something ("Yeah-deep blue SHIT!)  These have got to be the most annoying, irritating, unoriginal song lyrics of all time. I am very surprised it was actually written by a guy with a DICK!

2. (tie) "Boys" and "Toxic" by Brittany Spears. I don't get it - I just don't know why people go crazy over this trailer trash. She's not that pretty in real life (take away the makeup and tight dress). I have met here in real life. She farts too much and wishes (confessed it to me) she were black or latino,like christina or shakira. Or at least Madonna.

3. (another tie!) Every song by a) Easy-E  & b) Pro Athletes

With all do respect to N.W.A. who changed rap music, nobody should have let Easy-E rap on record. Daryl Strawberry and Mike Tyson put out better records than he did. But not worse than Kobe Bryant or Allan Iverson. And P.S. - Fuck You too, Ron Artese and ever other NBA player that thinks they can rap. Shaq's records were enjoyable, but the rest of you JUST suck. 

SEX IS SPIRITUALITY, PART 2

Posted at 9:59 PM, Aug. 20, 2005

Tantra Yoga: Experimental duplication

By Dinu Roman

The Life Chain

Life is ONE; all its forms are in a mutual relationship within the bosom of an extraordinarily complex and infinite WHOLE. Any kind of action from the part of any being, must automatically, through reflection, influence any other form on the same level of creation. We are but links of an infinite chain. We are made of the same substances as that of stars and galaxies. We have inside ourselves the same energies and powers as the ideal Gods have. They lie only dormant, ready at any time to be awakened and used.

The Universe -- Illusion or Reality?

Consequently, the TANTRIC practitioners engage themselves in a continuous process of self-discovery and of discovery of the Universe at the same time. They ask themselves: "Do we see and perceive the world the way it really is or only the illusory appearance? And in the last case, are we condemned to see forever only this illusory appearance, without ever attaining the Essential Reality?" If a person could perceive the fourth dimension through the special capabilities which lie dormant in every human being, his or her vision of a stone, for example, would be completely different from that of an ordinary person. More than that, a TANTRIC practitioner who attains the state of absorptive meditation (SAMYAMA) on the stone could see, feel and even hear the energetic vortexes of the apparently invisible electrons of the stone.

Seeing with the eyes closed

In this respect, TANTRA claims that we must detach ourselves from all external forms in order to fully perceive that which the veil of illusion (MAYA) hides, and only then can we discover the Ultimate Reality and realize the complete freedom from the painful chains of ignorance. Only by closing our eyes can we have an authentic vision. In the ultimate act of vision, the body, i.e. the totality of the energetic and physical structures of the human being, meditates exactly as the spirit does. The very old treatise TANTRA TATTVA says that only the man who sees everything as being within himself sees the Truth. The Unknown and the Mysterious surround us everywhere, inside and outside ourselves. Realizing this, the TANTRIC practitioner must resort to the perfect, practical knowledge of the subtle energies which are latent in every human being and which can be awakened through proper techniques. These energies are the vehicle for the Spirit, freeing it from the hallucinating shadows of ignorance. In this new state the human body becomes the modality of experimentation and of return to the primordial Androgynous unity -- the Lost Paradise.

Experimental duplication

TANTRA Science relies upon the practical realization of its teachings. Here we are not dealing with endless talking and argumentation but instead with engaging ourselves fully and thoroughly in an exceptional practice which can lead the practitioner to Freedom, Pure Existence, Super-Consciousness, Beatitude and super-normal powers (SIDDHIS).

The SAHITYA TANTRA advises,

"Start the practice under the surveillance of a TANTRIC initiate. If, after a certain time, you do not obtain any positive results, then you are free to quit."

In the same way that benefits can be obtained only by using a remedy, the truth of the TANTRIC Science can really be proved only through successful practice. However, it is necessary to stress here that the TANTRIC practitioner develops and perfects his SIDDHIS only for the purpose of raising himself at the level of the Supreme Being and from there to fuse eternally with the Absolute. The SIDDHIS have no value per se; they are only a modality. But all these powers cannot be obtained by only talking about TANTRA, for tireless practice and direct experimentation only can lead to such unusual achievements. About this, there is no doubt.

Courtesy to NATHA (Nordic centre of Spiritual Development) in Denmark

For more articles by Dinu Roman, please visit http://www.natha.dk

SEX IS SPIRITUALITY,PART 1

Posted at 9:51 PM, Aug. 20, 2005

Tantra Yoga: Why sexuality? By Dinu Roman   Why sexuality? In the act of lovemaking the couple embodies the dyadic wholeness of the Supreme. TANTRIC sexual union resonates with the very foundational energies of the Universe: it captures, magnifies and re-directs the essential Cosmic Power of Life. It is therefore not by chance that sexual intercourse brings the most intense emotional experience that the human being can have while in the flesh. Therefore TANTRA uses it predominantly to create that overwhelming unifying energy. The erotic impulse stirs up the KUNDALINI energy so that it can rise, through the subtle duct of power along the spine, to the highest center of power above the head. This process renders the adept immortal:   "Loss of semen is loss of power. Exposure to sexual stimulation arouses this power; controlled the power is like steam in a boiler, no longer random."   "The YOGIN who can protect his BINDU (semen), overcomes death; because death comes by discharging BINDU, and life is prolonged by its preservation."  HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA, III, 87   "BINDU is under the control of the mind, and life is dependent on BINDU. Hence, Mind and BINDU should be protected by any means."  HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA, III, 89   In this vision, intercourse becomes a genuine cosmic process at the level of the unified microcosms of the couple, who tries to reproduce the cosmic union of SHIVA and SHAKTI, i.e. of Consciousness and Energy.   "In YAMALA or VIRA-YOGINI tradition [Tantric schools], there is physical union (SAMGHATTA) between VIRA (the male) and YOGINI (the female). The purpose is only to stimulate NITYA-ANANDA (the eternal beatitude) by means of the contact of the sex organs. This contact gives intense delight [for the body and spirit].  A text by ABHINAVAGUPTA   In this sacred act a savant analogy intervenes where physical postures (ASANAS), gestures (MUDRAS), colors, sounds (MANTRAS), musical rhythms and perfumes blend to create a paradisiacal environment. Thus, intercourse serves a purpose much superior to that of sensuality. This precise analogical correspondence leads to a profound intermixing between the level of the chaotic multiplicity in which we live and the Unique Macrocosmic Reality. Through frantic super-sensual fusion of the subtle complementary principles, man and woman realize the alchemical sublimation of the sexual energy. This phenomenon, which leads to a gradual liberation from the painful limitations of Space and Time that restrain terrestrial life, propels man and woman towards the cosmic ecstasy (SAMADHI).   A double purpose As stated before, ejaculation, identified with the sudden loss of this propelling spiritual power, is completely contrary to the attainment of beatific bliss. The violent explosion of ejaculation and of correspondent female orgasmic discharge acts at inner levels as a harmful release of vital subtle fluids and represents a serious loss of power, making it impossible to use the purified sexual energy (OJAS). Therefore the spiritual ascension is immediately stopped. This is why all TANTRIC treatises put forth the necessity for man and woman to control and even completely eliminate ejaculation. Here, the purpose is double: to retain seminal fluid (conserve energy and achieve higher states of sexual pleasure, enabling the man to fully satisfy his woman and himself) and to transmute its energy (acquire magical power and achieve expanded levels of consciousness). The effect is cumulative.   Breath, thought and semen For this purpose, at peak moments, the couple's attention must be focused to simultaneously control the breathing (by making it calm and relaxed), the mind (by focusing it upon a unique object) and the semen (through rhythmically contracting and relaxing the pelvic floor muscles). This procedure acts simultaneously upon the three basic levels of the human being -- the physical, the emotional and the mental -- creating a perfect harmony between them. Thus, sexual intercourse becomes a genuine love meditation.   "Stay with the fire of the beginning" The most recent conclusions of modern sexology agree with traditional TANTRIC teachings. Sexual therapists are starting to encourage couples to focus more on the process of lovemaking rather than on the end result, i.e. ejaculation. A TANTRIC treatise says:   "Stay with the (erotic) fire of the beginning and avoid the poison of the end."   The satisfaction found in this way is incomparably greater than having an ejaculatory orgasm. The most revolutionary conclusion of the sexual researchers is that man doesn't need to ejaculate at all when making love to a woman. The fundamental error couples make, due to ignorance and bad habit, is to believe that ejaculation and orgasm is one and the same thing and that ejaculating is the peak pleasure for a man and woman. There is nothing more false.   Courtesy to NATHA (Nordic centre of Spiritual Development) in Denmark

TANTRIC VEGETARIANISM

Posted at 9:28 PM, Aug. 20, 2005

Tantric vegetarianism

For a tantric yogi it is not enough to be merely a vegetarian. Even a vegetarian diet can be unhealthy, disturbing to the mind or detrimental to spiritual life. A practitioner of tantra strives to cultivate pure habits and lifestyle, so that his or her body and mind are attuned to the Divine and transparent enough for the Lord to shine through.

— Anatole