Secret history of the world,how much do we know......

[letric]

History shows that by using secret techniques, people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and George Washington have themselves into this altered state and been able to access supernatural levels of intelligence. Solving the Riddle of the Sphinx, Rama's conquest of India, Imhotep and the age of the Pyramids, Moses and the Cabala,

[letric]

Did you know that the English language borrowed 'shampoo' from Hindi? That 'kiosk' came from Turkish?
And that 'marmalade' was taken from the Portuguese? How often do we stop to think about where words
we use have come from? 'Invade' for example, has a surprisingly long history and it is difficult to imagine
the origins of a strange sound like 'pow-pow'.

[letric]

The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, the 12th pharaoh of the 18th dynasty in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings is still regarded as the most spectacular archaeological find yet made. The tomb had remained hidden for over3,000 years, and its discovery elevated this previously unknown little-known pharaoh to the status of international celebrity. The tomb's contents, including the mummified remains of the king himself still in his gold funeral mask, were entirely intact and gave Egyptologist a source of material beyond their wildest dreams, especially because the Boy King lived at a time when the Egyptian Empire was at its peak of wealth and influence, and the power of pharaoh was
at its greatest

[letric]

In today's world Arabs live with conflicts between modernism and tradition, stability and fragility, nationalism and multiculturalism. The caliphate was founded in the 7th century to spread Islam, but quickly moved to Syria and Iraq under pressure from rival cultures. If one examines aspects of the Muslim world such as Shari'a, 'ulama, mysticism and Sufism, legal and political systems including slavery, the harem and position of non-Muslims and the achieve-ments of the Arab peoples in art, music and poetry. The rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century gave way in the 19th to European dominance and in the 20th to clashes on individual rights and status, and the growth of nationalism. One learns of a great civilisation.

[letric]

For many decades before the First World War, Britain and
Germany shared everything. Germany was Britain's biggest
export market and vice versa. Germans adopted English
dress, customs and manners. German thinking on race,
national identity, eugenics and racial supremacy had its
roots in British thinkers like Darwin, Huxley and Galton.
In August 1914 that changed overnight. Berlin's cricket
league became unpopular. Dachshunds were suddenly
out of fashion. But Germans remained loyal to their
fantasies of Britishness. Even Hess, Himmler, and
Goering were passionate Anglophiles.

[letric]

The man of knowledge must be able not only
to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.


Frederick Nietzsche

[Sly1]

My Mister here can quote Frederic Neitzsche and reads the German language with great ease:)

[letric]

It's powerful, he said.

What?
That one drop of negro blood - because just
one drop of black blood makes a man coloured.
One drop - you are a Negro!


Langston Hughes

[letric]

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
But I laugh,
And eat well.
And grow strong.

Tomorrow
I'll sit at the table
When company comes
Nobody dare
Say to me

Eat in the kitchen
Then
Besides, they'll see how
Beautiful I am, -
I, too, am America


Langston Hughes (1902-67)
'I, Too', in Survey Graphic March 1925

[letric]

Sigmund Freud and Adolph Hitler lived alongside lived each other in Vienna in 1919, Freud in robust
middle age, at the height of his powers, and Hitler living in a small apartment, an angry young man dreaming
of making his fortune as an architect and artist. When in 1938 Anschluss reached Vienna, Freud was an ill
man of 81 years, and, along with the city's other 175,000 Jews, was dreading the Nazi occupation. He was
right to do, as Hitler and the Nazi hated Freud with a particular vehemence , not least for what his
"soul-destroying glorification of the instinctual life"...

[letric]

Bribery, promiscuity, nepotism and torture are hardly words that most people would
associate with papacy, the oldest elected office in the world. The Holy Father of the Roman
Catholics is perceived as pure in heart, benevolently ministering tro his extensive flock. How-
ever, as revealed not every occupant of this of this ancient office was virtuous as might be
supposed. 1000 years ago, political instability was rife in Rome. In 882 Pope John VIII failed
to die quickly enough from poison given to him so his murderers smashed his skull with hammers
to move things along. Pope Stephens VII was almost certainly insane and developed a
fanatical hatred for his predecessor, Pope Formosus, and put him on trial, exhuming his
body, for the purpose. In more recent times, Pope XII was in office when /world War II
began, placing him in a unique - ans deeply uncomfortable position.

[letric]

"Do English women never cry? asked as a
Japanese officer who had tied up and humiliated
a nurse struggling in the worst condition of a
Hong Kong military hospital.
Not if they have work to do
was Mary Currie's legendary answer.

[letric]

The wind of change is blowing through this
continent, and whether we like it or not, this
growth of Africa national consciousness is a
political fact.


Harold Macmillan (1894-1986)

[letric]

The often violent conflicts of the 15th and 16th centuries, involving the likes of
Torquemada, Servetus, Zwingli and Castellio, which was sparked by the pursuit
of freedom of thought, uncontrolled by the Church and the Inquisition. This led
to the bitter fighting in 17th century Europe Including the Thirty Years' War and
the English Civil War,. Then, in part arising from the English Constitutional
settlement of 1688. came the 18th century revolutions in America and
France that swept away monarchies in favour of more representative
forms of government. These in turn made it possible the abolition of slavery
and later, rights for working men and women, universal education, the
enfranchisement of women, and the idea of universal human rights
and freedom. Each of these struggles was a memorable human drama
interweaving the stories of celebrated and little known histories like,
Martin Luther, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Rosa Parks, whose
bus protest became the catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement.

[letric]

There is no history of mankind, there are only
many histories of all kinds of aspects of human
life. And one of these is the history of political
power. This is elevated into the history of the
world.


The Open Society and its Enemies (1945)

[letric]

All the great spiritual leaders in history
were people of hope. Abraham, Moses,
Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and
Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their
hearts that guide them towards the future
without the need to know exactly what it
would look like.

[letric]

Brilliant to dip into time and again. recalling events when they
happened, times of day and much more. It took 43 seconds
for the atomic bomb to fall on Hiroshima, and in less than a
minute, history was altered forever. In contrast, it was 355
years, 10 months and 16 days before the end of African
slavery in the Americas. Neil Armstrong's walk on the Moon
in 1969 lasted two hours and 32 minutes and the construction
of the Great Wall of China took 2,267 years.

[letric]

Slavery and the traded that fuelled it
underpinned Britain's economic position
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
Previously unpublished documentary
evidence confirms the horrifying duplicity
of the British government, which protected
the slave trade after its formal abolition in
1807, and exposes the levels of hypocrisy
that made a mockery of the Emancipation
Act of 1834. Until now William Wilberforce
has been cast as the hero of the anti-slavery
campaign but private correspondence., govern-
ment records and Abolition Society minutes all
contradict the assumption that Wilberforce led
the abolition movement. Instead he acted only
as the agent for the London Committee for the
Abolition of the Slave Trade, frequently hampered
the progress of trhe Slave Trade Abolition Bill
and was barely involved with the emancipation
efforts of the the subsequent London Committee
on Slavery.
M.J.

[letric]

Against the backdrop of the Counter Reformation and the
Thirty Years' War, the history of science traces the path
that led to Galileo's denunciation as a heretic, and finds the
story tainted by evidence of conspiracy and cover-up.
In fact. it was not his adherence to Copernicanism that
had him dragged to face the might of the Church of
Rome, but ideas of a much more dangerous nature, so
dangerous that they threatened to shake the foundations
of Catholicism at a time when the Church was most
vunerable. An ailing, blind old man, victim of the dreaded
Inquisition, Galileo was tro while away his last days
under house arrest, his works banned and his ideas
suppressed throughout the Catholic world.

[letric]

Goethe, Germany's most distinguished poet and scientist
is best known for his Faust (Part 1, 1808; Part II,
1832). It based on the medieval legend of a man who
sells his soul to the Devil. This became linked with the
name and adventures of a 16th-century conjuror,
Johann Faust. According to Goethe, Faust sold his
soul to the Devil in exchange for superhuman powers
of intellect and wisdom, and the Devil finally failed to
claim his part of the bargain - Faust's soul. This story
greatly affected *Freud in his early years, and it has
passed into psychoanalytical folklore.

William, J.R. (2001). The life of Goethe: A Critical Biography.

[letric]

It was customary to release one prisoner at Passover and in the
Gospels, according to Saints Mathew, Mark and John, the Roman
prefect of Judaea - Pontius Pilate - offered to release
Christ to the mob outside the hall of judgment because he was
unable tio find that Christ had done anything wrong. Instead,
they called for the release of Barabbas. The accounts in the
four Gospels vary slightly in detail - for instance, Barabbas
does not appear in St.Luke's Gospel. But Christ is also questioned
by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who ordered the
massacre of the innocents, and uncle of Herod Agrippa, who
appears in Acts of the Apostles.


Not this man, but Barabbas! ]


There is very little contemporary
evidence about Pilate - apart from in
the Bible - except for the inscription
on a stone in a ruined amphitheatre
in the city of Caesarea Maritima

[letric]

Professor Stephen Hawkins addressing
a new conference:


In this talk I would like to speculate a little
on the development of life in the universe,n and in particular
the development of intelligent life. I shall take this to include
the human race, even though much of its behaviour through-
out history has been pretty stupid and not calculated to aid
the survival of the species. Two questions I shall discuss
are: what is the probability of life existing elsewhere in the
universe, and how may life develop in the future.



Professor Hawkin's condition is a type
of motor-neurone disease called
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

[letric]

In Leviathan, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth
Ecclesiastical and Civil the social philosopher Hobbes crystallises
ideas that he had been discussing for years with friends and
fellow royalist exiles from Britain, on the state of man, the need
for a social contract and the correct structure for society. The
general theme of the book concerns the lot of man before the
development of the state, and of society - when the natural
condition was war of every man against every man
Hobbes also expounded the idea - controversial at the time -
that no object was intrinsically good or evil. Instead, things that
man want or desire are seen as good and things that he hates or
abominates are evil.


Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
had briefly been tutor to
King Charles in 1647 and 1648.



No arts; no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual
fear and hunger of violent death; and the life of man; solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short.

[letric]

In the transmission of human culture, people
always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next
generation the skills and values of the parents,
but the attempt always fails because cultural
transmission is geared to learning, not DNA.


Gregory Bateson (1904-80)
Mind and Nature (1978)

[letric]

The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras was a famous agnostic who believed that
is not possible to settle whether God exists. He wrote:


About the gods, I cannot be sure whether they exist or not, or what they are
like to see; for many things stand in the way of the knowledge of them, both the opacity
of the subject and the shortness of human life.

[letric]

This idea was picked up by the inventor of the word agnostic. T H Huxley. In an essay
called Agnosticism (1889), he wrote Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method,
the essence of which lies in rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great
antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as the writer said who said:

Try all things, hold fast that which is good
it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should
be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it
is the fundamental axiom of modern science.

[letric]

I do not believe in black majority rule in
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) - not in a thousand years.

(broadcast speech, March 1976,
in Sunday Times march 1976)
Ian Smith

[letric]

The Aztecs were the last of the great pre-Hispanic civilisations of Central Mexico.
In their 200-year history they grew from a band of landless nomads to become
rulers of an extensive, dazzling empire. The capital Tenochtitlan, was a large,
diverse city of nearly 200,000 people. Priests, government officials, military
officers, skilled artisans, and cosmopolitan merchants rubbed shoulders in the
city streets. Well-ordered roadways and canals linked the capital to a
gricultural fields in the heartland to the tribute-paying provinces, and to foreign
markets beyond. Whitewashed temples linked the Aztecs to their gods, who
were nourished with the hearts and blood of sacrificial victims. This brief, brilliant
civilisation was brought to end by the combined forces of Spanish soldiers and
thousands of rebellious indigenous people.

[letric]

Did the Bronze Age exist? Archaeologist date
the Bronze age in Europe from about the 5th to
the 1st millennium BC. That span of time saw
dramatic changes from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Black Sea. The discovery of bronze, an alloy
of copper and tin, was a remarkable techno
-logical development, permitting the casting
of much stronger tools and weapons. Metal
was forged and traded, used to raise mono-
lithic standing stones and in practice of funerary
and religious rites as well as the decorated
products with motifs and symbols. From
Cretan palaces m to Swiss lakeside dwellings,
a common culture arouse.

[letric]

The construction of the Forbidden city was
begun by Zhu Di, who usurped the throne of the
Ming Dynasty in 1403. He ordered the dynastic
capital to be moved from Nanjing to his power
base in Beijing, and by 1416 most of the major
structures of the Forbidden City were in place,
although over the ensuing years frequent fires
and subsequent reconstruction and emperor's
whims saw a great deal of the City rebuilt and
changed. It was supposed to be a terrestrial
reflection of the celestial realm of the Jade
Emperor, and is effectively an immense walled
palace compound of vast courtyards, looming
gates. Damaged at various times v=by war, it
was rebuilt into the most spectacular incarnat-
ion by the emperors of the Manchu Qing dynasty,
particularly in the 18th century.

[letric]

Master chronicler Richard Wright, acclaimed black American
author who died in 1960, brilliantly expanded his literary
horizons with Pagan Spain. The Spain he visited in
the mid 20th century was not the romantic locale of song
and story, but a place of tragic beauty and dangerous
contradictions. He offers a blistering, powerful yet
scrupulously honest depiction of land and people in
turmoil, caught in the strangling dual grip of cruel dictator
ship and undercurrent of primitive faith.

[letric]

Black Englishmen and women who win Olympic medals are
described as English while those who riot and throw petrol
bombs are invaribly West Indians.
EH

[letric]

On the Continent, people have good food; in England
people have good manners.
GM

[letric]

Throughout history humankind's search for knowledge has revealed stranger
truths. The arcane wisdom developed in ancient Mediterranean civilis-
ations had been preserved and held sacred over centuries but in the Medieval
and Renaissance eras these ideas reemerged with extraordinary power, and
have fascinated us ever since. The Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, the
Hermetic Philosophers as well as present-day Freemasons, the KKK, P2 and
the Mafia all have members who are sworn to secrecy on pain of dreadful
punishments and those who are not members long to know their dark
secrets.

[letric]

The Rosicrucian Emblems is a significant yet
little known work of emblematic philosophy,
only one year after the appearance of the
Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.
The works consists of 40 emblematic plates
each bearing a title, together with a verse
from the Bible and two lines in Latin. They
revolve around the symbolism of the heart
which undergoes a variety of processes and
experiences through a cycle of 40 stages
It has been said, Cramer, a Protestant
theologian, tried to produce a series of
spiritual exercises for a Protestant, esoteric
Christianity.

[letric]

A biography of the old pagan deity Odin,
dethroned by Christ. The pagan myths and
gods are ancient blueprints that are still very
much alive in the modern mind. After World
War Two, paganism spread across the English
speaking world and can be found in the writings
of Tolkien, the hippy movement of the 60s, the
actions of serials killers in the US, in neo-Nazi
terrorism and in occult circles. If the positive
and conscious power of the Odin myth is drawn
upon, it has been argued, civilisation can be
transformed for ther better.

[letric]

The Illuminati and the Battles for Soul of Freemasonry, Occult Roots of the French
Revolution, Napoleon's Star, Occultism and the Rise of the Novel, Freud, Wagner
and the opening of the Seven Seals. History shows that by using secret techniques,
people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and George Washington have
worked themselves into this altered state, and have able to to access supernatural
levels of intelligence. Solving the Riddle of the Sphinx, Rama's conquest of India,
Imhotep and the age of the Pyramids, Moses and ther Cabala, King Arthur and the
Crown Chakra are other tantalising questions.

[letric]

Myth is rooted in the fear of death and extinction, and is
inseparable from ritual. Post - 4000BC civilisations reinter-
preted some earlier myths, for instance in the Babylonian
epic of Gilgamesh,. Christianity and Islam were both Axial
restatements of traditional monotheism and the restate-
ment of tradition gained new life in the Jewish Kabbalah, the
mystical tradition. The Lurianic Kabbalah was developed to
come to terms with Jewish persecution through the concept
of divine mistakes.

[letric]

Dante Alighieri believed that he was a direct descendant of
the Ancient Romans. He was born in the year 1265 and his
father, a man of property, was about 45 years old when
Dante was born. He was one of the towering figures in world
literature yet many riddles and questions about his life work
persist. It has been suggested that Dante was arguing against
the Pope and for an emperor as supreme secular authority of
medieval Europe. Placed Dante within the context of his culture
and society to broaden our understanding of a complicated man
who was irritable, opinionated, vengeful and an extraordinary
genius. In his love for Beatrice one discerns an intellectual passion
that transforms an otherwise obscure young Florentine girl into a
complex figure capable of descending into crude invective and
rising to heavenly truth. Dante is also seen as a highly political man,
a public performer and reciter of his poetry.

[letric]

Born into high aristocracy, where rank meant more than
wealth, Charles - Maurice de Talleyrand -Perigord was to
become one of the greatest politician of all time. His early
career in politics was marked with turmoil; a liberal who saw
the need to curb the powers of the monarchy, Talleyrand
fled from France when the violence of the revolution turned
extreme in 1792, first to England and then to the United
States. it was not until his return to France after the dust had
settled in 1796 that his star would begin to rise in earnest.
First, he was appointed Foreign Minister in which position
he allied himself with the charismatic general who would
become Emperor of France - Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the
course of the next three decades, Talleyrand would prove
himself perhaps the most adept politician of all time; his
political pliability allowed him to survive the fall of Bonaparte
and the consequent second Bourbon restoration. He managed
to survive and prosper through revolution, empire, restoration,
empire, restoration and revolution again is alive with the world
of the Paris salon and the glittering connections of a sociable diplomat.

[letric]

Built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to
his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal's flawless
symmetry and gleaming presence have for centuries dazzled
everyone who has seen it. Mumtaz died giving birth to her
14th child, a daughter, and she asked her husband to build
her a mausoleum resembling paradise on earth, just as she
had seen in her dreams. The roots of the Moghul Empire lie
with the legendary warriors Genhis Khan and Tamburiaine.

[letric]

Khurram Shah Jahan, a title meaning King of the World,
ruled the mighty Mughal Empire from 1628 to 1659, a reign
which marked the zenith of the Mughal dynasty, a period
of multiculturalism, poetry, fine art and, most famously,
stupendous architecture. Although his name will be for-
ever be associated with Agra's Taj Mahal, the tomb of
his beloved second wife Arjumand Mumtaz-Mahal, his
stone legacy also includes immense fortresses, spectacular
mosques, exquisite gardens. He was a ruthless political
operator, and in fact only achieved power by mudering
two of his brothers and at least six other relatives.

[letric]

Napoleon Bonaparte contributed much
towards constructing his own myth, from
his youth even until he fell from power
when in exile, he dictated his memoirs to
a group of disciples who took down his
every word in the hope his version of
history would prevail. His Corsican
origins to his French education, his
melancholy youth, to his involvement
in Corsican political faction-fighting
during the Revolution, and from his
flirtation with the radicals of the French
Revoluition to his first military campaigns
in Italy and Egypt, to the political-military
coup that brough him to power.

[letric]

There has never been a pure Celtic
culture the people are a mixture on
incoming tribes and idigenous peoples,
prone to fighting amongst themselves
as much as invaders, who eventually a
linguistic and religious unity. The deities
worshipped by Celtic people were not
surprisingly many and varied, some very
local, and some recognised throughout
the Celtic world.

[letric]

Origining near the source of the Danube in the Iron Age,
the Celts created the culture now known as Hallstatt and
La Tene. Trading in salt, the gradually fanned out through-
out Europe, and because they had no conception of land
ownership they came into conflict with civilisations such as
Rome. Rigid notions of honour and the duty of revenge made
them heroic and they produced some legendary warriors such
as Caratacus and Boudicca. Druids were forbidden to write, so
the written word was slow to evolve, but major works such as
the Tain and later Mabinogion were developed by storytellers.
Centrasl to Celtic mythology is life in harmony with nature.

[letric]

Since the Paleolithic era, man believed in a supernatural reality and considered
death as a passage to a parallel world in someway attached to the real one. In
Egyptian cosmogony for example, the god of the air, Shu, separated the
Earth personified by the god Geb, from the Heavens, personified by the
goddess Nut. The Sumerians believed that the god Enlil decreed the same
separation and so created the world that we know. The highest expression
of the artistic creativity and architecture of history's greatest civilisations
is represented by their 'eternal resting places' built to preserve the mortal
remains of their deceased, who were often entombed with priceless treasures.
For the first time, these superb creations of universal art have been brought
together in one massive volume covering megalithic tombs in Brittany and Ireland,
the cult of the dead in the Etruscan territories in Lizio, the undergrounbd tomb of
Hal, the tombs and treasures of the kings of the Mycenae, the Pyramid of Cheops,
the great rock tombs of Petra, the royal cemetry of Ur, the Angkor Wat complex,
tombs and funerary practices of the Han dynasty and Mesoamerican tombs.

[letric]

Napoleon Bonaparte contributed much
towards constructing his own myth, from
his youth even until he fell from power
when in exile, he dictated his memoirs to
a group of disciples who took down his
every word in the hope his version of
history would prevail. His Corsican
origins to his French education, his
melancholy youth, to his involvement
in Corsican political faction-fighting
during the Revolution, and from his
flirtation with the radicals of the French
Revolution to his first military campaigns
in Italy and Egypt, to the political-military
coup that brough him to power.

Although Bonaparte was victorious at the
Battle of the Pyramids and occupied Cairo,
his fleet was completely destroyed by Nelson
at Abukir Bay and his ambition to conquer the
Holy Land was frustrated by Acre. Despite these
reverses, Bonaparte returned to France where he
was greeted as a hero and seized political power
in 1799. In reality, Bonaparte's invasion was any-
thing, but 'beautiful' or 'ideal'. For the average
French soldier the campaign constituted a night-
marish ordeal by heat, hunger, sickness and fatigue,
punctuated by blood-curdling battles against Mame-
lukes, Turks and British redcoats.

[letric]

Tibetan wisdom teaches us there is nowhere to go and nothing to be done.
You are perfect just be yourself. But, for most of us, trying to be ourselves
is like trying to hurry up and relax. The dangling carrot of self-improvement
is the essential paradox of the spiritual path. There is, however, a pathway
out of this seemingly inescapable predicament. Using meditative and contem-
plative practices, finding and communing with a spiritual teacher, understanding
your own and others psychological characteristics and lucid dreaming techniques
that really work. Combining the Buddhist,Taoist, Christian and humanistic traditions
with today's psychological and scientific insight, will help you find your truth path
an bring a sense of joy into your relationship and daily life.

[letric]

To all, have a great and blessed New Year!

[letric]

On the Continent, people have good food; in England
people have good manners.
GM

All animals, except man, know that the
principal business of life is to enjoy it.

[letric]

To all, have a great and blessed New Year!

When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is
hard' I am always tempted to ask,
'Compared with what?'

[letric]

In matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. Nicholas of Cusa, a 15th-century cardinal sometimes called the
father of Renaissance humanism held that it is the essence of divinity to be unknown to humanity. His best known work is notably De Docta Ignorantia or 'In Learned Ignorance (1440) He argues that the wisest individuals in history have effectively been agnostics on the biggest questions since they realised that the most interesting things in the world are also the most difficult to explain.
The more a man knows that he is unknowing, the more learned he will be.

[letric]

Cases of alleged kidnapping of human subjects by he extraterrestrial occupants of UFOs have been
claimed since 1950s. Alleged abductees often report that they recall being taken inside UFO, and
being subjected to medical tests by the occupants. By 2006 approximately 6000 abduction cases
had been documented, although only about one-fifth of these were in any significant detail, or
involved any medical follow-up. However, some do accept that the experiences have as yet not
fully explained vivid subjective reality for the people involved. Several elements of the alleged
incidents indicate that the subjects were not fully conscious during their experiences, which suggested comparison with cases of false awakenings, where a witness experiences vivid dream as a waking reality,
or out-of-body experience.

[letric]

Black Englishmen and women who win Olympic medals are
described as English while those who riot and throw petrol
bombs are invaribly West Indians.
EH

Interesting ....

[letric]

The most dangerous creation of any soceity is the man
who has nothing to lose.

[letric]

Interesting ....

Civilisation is a method of living, an attitude of equal
respect for all men.

[letric]

Are the limits of your language the limits of the world? Philosophy began and
uncovers the thinkers and movements that have used it in both brilliant and
frightening ways. It includes short biographies of all the great Philosophers
from early Greeks to the modern greats, all the main -isms and -ologies from
atomism to utilitarismism, via epistemology and ontology. The wise words
of Thomas Hobbes ( 1588-1679) 'The Life of a man [is] solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short. Plato 9427-347BC) Philosophy begins in wonder.

[letric]

The first known writings originated in the 6th and 7th
centuries, the Tang Dynasty, This is known as Zen's
Classical Period, a particularly fruitful period in Zen.
Using these writings as a foundation, they reach their
peak in the 10th to 13th centuries in China, during the
Song Dynasty. Lessons in Zen were not based upon
written material, but were taught within schools where
teachers would come to these communities and guide
disciples through The Way of Zen. In the 12th century
these lessons were gathered together in various writings,
part of which has been lost over time.

[letric]

When the Galileans in the Life of Brian are asked "what have the Romans done for us?"
and they mention the aqueducts, roads, drains, medicine and so on they tell us what
we are in the third world millennium are well aware - that our debt to the achievements
of the Classical civilisations is enormous. However, we have always tended to regard
their institutions, behaviour, religion, entertainment, priorities etc as nothing like those
of present day, they being barbaric, crude or in some other way inferior. Not true,
argues Ferdinand Mount, he points out that much of what is emerging in 21st century
Western society bears an astonishing resemblance to the most promising features of
what we call the Classical such as obsession with fame, free sex and the body beautiful.
Whether we are eating and drinking, exercising, lovemaking, pondering; admiring or
enquiring, our habits of thought and action, our diversions and concentrations recreate
those of the ancient Greeks and Romans very accurately.

[letric]

Most United Sates Vice presidents seem to disappear once they are elected,
becoming people without a real job to do. Not so Bobby Black. It had been
something of a surprise when he and Theo Carr were elected as they had been
ten points behind the polls just a short while before the election, but a suicide
bomber on a plane to Manila changed all that. Once in power it was Black who
dominated; bullying and pulling strings to get what he wanted and people even
joked that it was the President was a heartbeat away from the Presidency should
anything happen to Black. And something di happen to Black. The British Ambassador
tom Washington organised a trip to Scotland and arranged that he would go grouse
shooting, dine with the Queen and walk in the hills with the Prime Minister. The
grouse shoot was going well when fog descended . In moments Black disappeared
and despite best efforts of hundreds of people could not be found.

[letric]

The history of world trade from Mesopotamia in 3000BC to globalisation of today, we follow the extraordinary progress of global commerce. Five millennia ago early traders floated barley, copper and ivory up and down the Tigris and Euphrates. We see the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade and the rise and fall in the 16th century, the the rush for sugar and slaves in the Caribbean and West Africa. The 20th century was dominated by the great trade battles of the US, and in the 21st century we get TVs from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico and a great many things from China. Distils thousands of years of social, political, cultural, military and economic history showing how trade has brought out the best and worst in human nature and made us both prosperous and vulnerable.

[letric]

The Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing was the hub of Imperial China from the 15th to the 20th century. A
city within a city, its inhospitable red walls enclosed the seat of government, the Imperial Palace, the huge
lakes dottedf with islands and pleasure boats, workshops promoting luxury items for the court, and a zoo. For
hundreads of years, thousands of eunuchs served their imperial masters, taking control of the flow of adminis-
trative documents and the daily needs of the emperor and the women of the palace. Imagine the strong in-
tellectual and political character of the Ming dynasty to the robust warrior spirit of the Qing? ... A place in
history.

[letric]

At the heart of ancient Egypt's civilisation lay its highly
complex religion which evolved expanded and diversified
over three millennia. Perhaps the most important aspects
of their life were reflected in their attitudes towards
creation, life, death, the afterlife, and the associated
gods.