AWAKE TO THE POWER OF EXPECTATION

Expectation influencing results in education:

The Rosenthal and Jacobson Experiment:

 Robert Rosenthal was a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Lenore F Jacobson was principal of an elementary school in the South San Francisco Unified School District

Rosenthal interests included self-fulfilling prophecies.

Rosenthal and Jacobson collaborated in a famous expectation experiment, sometimes termed at the Pygmalion Effect: the effect of teachers’ expectations on students.

I had a high school (Polytechnic High School, San Francisco) friend who later worked in the South San Francisco Unified School District for 31 years, ended up as a principal and, in retirement, and as acting Assistant Superintendent for 9 months, so I asked him, Bob Parr,  (Boris Pistruiloff) about the Rosenthal experiment, approximately as follows:

“I heard that the principal told three South San Francisco elementary teachers (I think three) that because they were such good teachers that they would get the best students in the new semester, and because of the expectation that they were teaching the better students, the students did better than not only the school, but 20% better than the WHOLE SCHOOL DISTRICT. At the end, the principal told them that they pulled the names of the students “out of a hat”. Well, the teachers said, “you said we were the best teachers”. Then the principal told them “we pulled your names out of a hat”!   It was all about expectation theory. Do you think the story I read was embellished? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect “

Here is my friend Bob Parr’s response about whether he had heard of the Rosenthal experiment. :

“Yes I have. A student of Rosenthal, a woman PhD, Stanford grad, principal of one of our elementary schools, did a smaller/reduced version of the original and, ostensibly, met with the same results. i.e. it is all about expectations that you place on the student and the ensuing results. Bob “

https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/sommersemester2012/schluesselstudiendersozialpsychologiejens/02_rosenthal_jacobson_teacherexpectations_scientificamerican1968.pdf

The work of Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968), among others, shows that teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively.

Many psychologists think that teachers do actually convey their expectations to their students, even if neither they nor the children ever actually realize it. Body language is just as important as verbal communication when conveying both positive and negative expectations, as is tone of voice. The use of body language is most commonly a subconscious form of communication, but it can prove to be very powerful. The response and interpretation of non-verbal signals is also often subconscious but tends to be long-lasting, especially when referring to one person’s expectations of another negatively. Rosenthal and Jacobson originally described the phenomenon as the Pygmalion Effect.

What about if you are told that if you go to a certain place, you may see a “vision”, or “apparition” and that other people have. If you go there and  strongly expect to see one, you may “see what you expect to see”.

The power of expectation in music.

At its 1897 premiere, Rachmaninoff’s first symphony, though now considered a significant achievement, was derided by contemporary critics.^[5] Compounded by problems in his personal life, Rachmaninoff fell into a depression that lasted for several years. His second piano concerto confirmed his recovery from clinical depression and writer’s block, cured only by a course of hypnotherapy. The concerto was dedicated to Nikolai Dahl, a physician who had done much to restore Rachmaninoff’s self-confidence.

From: https://redmountainhypnosis.wordpress.com/2010/01/

The story of Rachmaninoff’s creative crisis after the performance of his 1st Symphony and its resolution through hypnotherapy seems to be fairly well-known. The information is supposed to derive from his Recollections. The story goes that three months of hypnotherapy by the Russian physician Dr. Nikolai Dahl, together with the support of Rachmaninoff’s family enabled him to transcend the crisis and begin to compose again.  Using hypnosis and affirmations, the physician told him repeatedly that he would compose and do excellent work, and Rachmaninoff’s subconscious mind was soon convinced. Dr. Dahl had been the student of Jean-Marie Charcot, the French neurologist whose work with hypnosis also inspired Freud.

The Result of Dr. Dahl’s work with Rachmaninoff’, was the awesome Second Piano Concerto, one of the best piano classical compositions in the world. Here is Sergei Rachmaninoff himself playing the Second Piano Concerto:

 

While you are here, why not investigate, without any obligation , my book “Beyond All Religion”?  You can “sample” the 152 page awesome revealing book before purchasing  (if you desire to purchase).

See: http://tinyurl.com/khmtk26

A PEACEFUL WORLD AWAITS YOU BEYOND ALL RELIGION

Most all religions are based upon a bedrock of lies.

Christianity was chosen by a vote at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE over several other contending religions, for political purposes,  based upon the myth of Mithra, a Persian savior god born on December 25 , son of a virgin. Mithra  performed miracles and was later crucified. Pope Leo X (died 1521) called Christ a “Fable”. Later Pope Paul III expressed similar sentiments.

Moses is based on the Sumerian life and legends of Sargon I, King of Akkad, “set in a basket of rushes and “cast into the river”.  Egyptians kept exhausting hieroglyphic records. There is a complete absence of any record of Moses leading over 600,000 men, women and children away from Pharaoh’s army.

Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, was convicted in a court of Law of being an “impostor”,  today a fraud,  con man, in 1826. He wrote the Book of Mormon soon after.

Question: You decide: Does the text of the verses of the Qur’an correspond exactly to those revealed to Muhammad directly as the words of God, delivered to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, as claimed?

Sample or Order New Book “Beyond All Religion”, 152 pgs, $9.95, here at Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/khmtk26 or send mailing address and $9.95 payable to Sam Butler, SB 197, PO Box 25292, Miami, FL 33102

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A possible illegal war in the footing?

It appears both Congress and the White House are conspiring together to conduct war without the proper authorization.  In other words, illegally. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/congress-aumf-isis-war/394268/ War is a profitable racket for the “Big Shots” who call the shots. In their wars, they often cite religion, and the “Big Shots” are not among those shot. Promote the peace that awaits us beyond all religion and war profits.. Short change their profits by promoting peace!

BE AWARE OF SELF SABOTAGE

BE AWARE OF SELF SABOTAGE

Committing suicide is the ultimate self sabotage. Right?

Beethoven was about to sabotage himself:

In December of 1802 , Beethoven , becoming more deaf, contemplated suicide?

Beethoven even wrote a will addressed to his brothers Carl and Johann, (known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, after the location where it was written) He was contemplating  suicide. In the middle of writing the will, he changed his mind, and wrote “

“I will take fate by the throat; it will never bend me completely to its will.”

That was 25 years before Beethoven died and before some of his greatest works, including

Fifth Symphony 1807 (Da da da DAH!)

Piano Concerto #5 “Emperor”

Symphony #9 “Ode to Joy” 1822-24 (Many say this is the greatest music composition written. EVER)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4_Z6ablci4

He died in 1827, 25 years after he contemplated suicide.  Incidentally,  among his papers was found a love letter to his “Dearly Beloved”.(She has never been definitely identified.   It is still a mystery.)

Abraham Lincoln’s clinical depression and thoughts of suicide:

Lincoln had not one, but two mental breakdowns.  The first was the sickness and death of a friend Ann Rutledge, who died in 1835 of typhoid

Robert L. Wilson, who was elected to the Illinois state legislature with Lincoln in 1836:“when by himself, he told me that he was so overcome with mental depression, that he never dare carry a knife in his pocket.”

The second breakdown was in the winter of 1840—1841  Lincoln was trying to keep the debt-ridden State of Illinois from collapsing (and his political career with it).

Lincoln’s closest friend, Joshua Speed: “Lincoln went Crazy,” Speed recalled. “—had to remove razors from his room—take away all Knives and other such dangerous things—&—it was terrible.”

On January 23 (1841) Lincoln wrote to his law partner in Washington: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”

When I was a student at University of California, Berkeley, I lived in private residence that rented out rooms to students like me. Conveniently they served breakfast and dinner. One student that rented a room in the residence, had killed himself by hanging himself by his neckties in his closet. He was doing very well academically, and in fact was a “straight A” student. Why did he do such a self-sabotage act? The answer: He got one “B”, and didn’t want to disappoint his folks back home.

Another student a University of California, Berkeley, who became a movie star, winning an Academy Award, and had tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide: Not only an Academy Award, but an author: Her book:  “Rita Moreno: A Memoir” instantly became a New York Times Bestseller.  There’s more:

In June 2004, Ms. Moreno was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award, and her other awards include an Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and Golden Globe. In January, 2014, she received the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Why did she attempt suicide? Think of what she would have missed if she succeeded.  Why the suicide attempt?

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20065165,00.html

Then came Brando, a love affair that was “off and on” for eight years. “Marlon has always liked Latin women,” she says. “I don’t think he ever went out with a blonde. He has the reputation of being tough or cold, but in reality he is a very gentle, loving man.” It was as much Moreno’s career frustration and “the dead-end environment” of Hollywood as her relationship with Brando that led to her near-fatal overdose of pills.

I met this great star when I was a First Lieutenant Navigator in the US Air Force:

She had already been on the cover of Life Magazine on March 1, 1954

Portrait of actress Rita Moreno. (Photo by Loomis Dean//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

I was the navigator on an Air Force C97 Stratocruiser, which was flying military passengers and dependents from San Francisco to Hawaii. There was a stationary Navy vessel in the middle between those two places called Ocean Station NAN, to help navigation in that Pacific Ocean route.  On the plane was a movie star, Rita Moreno, who had been a star in the “King and I” and later winning an Academy Award as Anita in “West Side Story”. Rita Moreno came up to where I was working on my navigation maps, where I was about to make a required position report to Ocean Station NAN. We thought it would be fun for Rita to call the ship. She was a good sport and made the call for me.  She did my work for me, reporting in a sexy voice something like “ Hi down there. This is Rita Moreno on Air Force 494 reporting our position 10 miles east of your station and I want to greet you with the big hearty hello, over.”

AL GORE

Al Gore, if he really wanted to be President, he could have been, but he sabotaged himself.

Besides winning the popular vote in 2000, there were controversies around the vote count, and the Supreme Court was involved in sabotaging him, he sabotaged himself, conceding the election to Bush.  Later, Gore was a speculated candidate for the 2004 Presidential Election (a bumper sticker, “Re-elect Gore in 2004!” was popular).^[151] On December 16, 2002, however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004.^[152] Despite Gore taking himself out of the race, a handful of his supporters formed a national campaign to draft him into running. One observer concluded it was “Al Gore who has the best chance to defeat the incumbent president.” (George W.Bush, who started a disastrous war with Iraq , based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, on March 20, 2003.)

If elected, the US would most probably not have gone to Bush’s “the war of choice”, Iraq.  The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional$490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday, March 14, 2013. (http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USBRE92D0PG20130314 )

In 2015, Al Gore is 67 years old.

Prison of your own beliefs.

Gourdieff and Swami Osho: You are in a prison and don’t know it.  The way to get out of prison is to realize you are in a prison.

” Man is born only as a potential. He can become a thorn for himself and for others, he can also become a flower for himself and for others.” Swami Osho

Matthew Maltz- I treated my brothers Bob and Ben to a lecture by Matthew Maltz in San Jose, California. His first words in the lecture was “Release yourself from the prison of your mind!”

As a plastic surgeon, he found that many cosmetic surgery patients, after being treated, still felt “ugly”. It remained in their minds.

http://www.durbinhypnosis.com/maltz.htm#chapter 5: notes from maxwell maltz: the search for self respect

“Know that everything you need is within you, waiting to be discovered.”—Patricia Cori

Sometimes someone has to have faith in you, and tells you : “YOU CAN DO IT!”

That’s what Ben Carson’s mother told him when her son, a neurosurgeon was tackling a difficult operation that had never been done before-separating Siamese twins joined at their heads. Ben Carson’s mother, formerly an illiterate adult,  told her son, pointing to her head, saying the answer is right here.  Previously, her son as a child thought he was stupid, but it turned out he just needed glasses, which his mother, financially challenged,  scraped together and bought him a pair.

Dr. Carson saw a faucet stop dripping, and he had a flash of genius –stop both the babies’ hearts (you can do that for up to an hour) while he performed the history making operation that was successful. He has done that operation 4 times more after the first one.

His mother had told him as a child that he could be anything he wanted to be.

He is currently running for President of the United States, as a candidate for the 2016 election.

Instead of sabotaging yourself, it is beneficial to have someone who has faith in you, and believes in you.

Temple Grandin , who is autistic, couldn’t talk until she was four years old and doctors advised her mother to institutionalize her. One doctor, after Temple’s mother objected to that recommendation, said “Why don’t you talk to your husband, he will tell you.”  Mrs. Grandin said “I have a degree from Harvard. Why don’t you tell me, Doctor?” Temple’s mother instead chose to seek intensive treatment for Grandin, and as a result of mother Grandin’s confidence, Temple eventually earned a PHD.  Dr. Grandin has become famous as a lecturer, and Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University is a top innovator in the field of animal behavior.  Grandin’s life was the inspiration for an HBO film “Temple Grandin”,  released in 2010, which won five Emmys.

Trailer of movie “Temple Grandin”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkN0JdXRpM

From  Inspiring Stories of Transforming Failure to Success http://www.wanttoknow.info/060520inspirationalstories

:Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. The University of Bern turned down his Ph.D. dissertation as being irrelevant and fanciful.

Further samples from this great and wonderful http://www.wanttoknow.info source:

“Colonel Sanders had the construction of a new road put him out of business in 1967. He went to over 1,000 places trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found a buyer interested in his 11 herbs and spices. Seven years later, at the age of 75, Colonel Sanders sold his fried chicken company for a finger-lickin’ $15 million!”
— from: A failure to success story from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soulby Jack Canfield and Mark V. Hansen

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Charln,es Darwin, father of the theory of evolution, gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.

The movie Star Wars was rejected by every movie studio in Hollywood before 20th-Century Fox finally produced it. It went on to be one of the largest grossing movies in film history.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15 out of 22 in chemistry.

The above is just a sample. There are nine more at http://www.wanttoknow.info/060520inspirationalstories

My high school civics teacher, Mr. Kermoyan, had faith in me and told me I should run for senior class council.

I would have to give a speech before the whole student body, and I was afraid because I had never done public speaking and I didn’t think I would be a good speaker. But he had confidence in me told me I could do it. I ran and in front of the audience I boldly said “I am the man for this job!”, and repeated “I am the man for this job!” to surprising (to me) applause from the students. (The position I was seeking was Athletic Manager, who just sold tickets to the Football Games.) I ran and won over a cool cashmere wearing hail- fellow- well- met opponent!  Later in my life, I became President of the San Francisco toastmasters club (Public speaking club).

Instead of Self SABOTAGE :

Convince yourself you can do it (whatever you want).

Sometimes someone has to tell you    YOU CAN DO IT!

Believe that you can have a “FLASH of genius”.

1. The inventor of the sewing machine (had a dream of natives with spears with holes in the end of their spears).
2. People with cars in the rain used to get out and personally wipe rain off their windshield. The inventor of windshield wipers for cars was in court where Ford Motor Company, who stole his idea, was contesting his windshield wiper patent. The court wanted something to seal the uniqueness of his patent. He told the court he noticed how a person’s eyelid closes up and down over a person’s eye). That was a “flash of genius” that the court recognized, and ruled against Ford, awarding the inventor 18 million dollars. Later, the inventor settled with Chrysler. His flash of genius earned him a total of $30 million. There is a movie “Flash of Genius” heralding the inventor winning against these huge corporations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbeElXuXZqU
3. Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson and the faucet that stopped dripping. See the story above.
4. The mother of Temple Grandin was told by a doctor that Temple was hopeless and should “be institutionalized”. She now has a PHD and Dr. Temple Grandin teaches classes about autism, and promotes the use of art as a help to those afflicted: http://strokesofgeniusinc.org/about_us/what_is_train_the_talent%E2%84%A0

“DREAM A BETTER DREAM”:  ONE OF THE FAVORITE SCENES IN A MOVIE MY WIFE  LIKES WAS WHEN SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL BOARD THEIR BANANA-SPLIT BOAT TO GO DOWN THE RIVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS SEARCHING FOR THE CASTLE WHERE THEY WOULD MEET AN ICE PRINCESS, AND OBTAIN A CRYSTAL HEART THAT WOULD FREEZE TIME.   SUDDENLY THERE APPEARS A HUGE, MENACING GIANT TRYING TO FILL THEM WITH FEAR AND BLOCK THEIR PATH.  SHARK BOY SAYS TO LAVA GIRL….”NOW LET’S JUST CLOSE OUR EYES AND DREAM A BETTER DREAM, AND MAKE IT OUR REALITY.”  AFTER THEY DO THAT, THEY OPEN THEIR EYES, AND THE HUGE SCARY GIANT HAS DISAPPEARED, AND INSTEAD, COMING DOWN THE RIVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS TOWARDS THEM ARE GIGANTIC, SCRUMPTIOUS-LOOKING CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES! (the story was inspired by a young kid to his father who is a movie director and producer). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D  Theatrical release poster

Many Years ago, I was lucky enough to attend a RAM DASS lecture at The First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco.  He was the author of the famous book “Be Here Now”.  The  initial publication sold over 2 million copies. People were very excited, and there must’ve been about 1000 people attending.

He told us a story about the Sage King.

There was a very wise and spiritual King, RAM Dass told us. He lived in a very opulent Palace.  One time a young Turk (a contentious young person who goes against the system) came to the Palace and challenged the wise King , saying “ You are not  spiritual.  You are surrounded by gold and precious gems”, pointing  to  the walls of the Palace.

The wise King just clapped his hands.  Without  the King saying  a word,  a servant suddenly appeared.  The King  told the servant to put a pitcher of milk on the head of the young Turk.  Then the King told the young man to go out into the marketplace in the noon day sun, and go around the marketplace and come back into the Palace, but  not to spill one drop of milk from the pitcher. And just to make sure that the young man did not spill any  milk, he had another servant follow him with a  razor-sharp sword(scimitar), and the man with the scimitar was told to cut off the head of the young man if he spilled as much as one drop of milk.

So the young man, being followed by the servant wielding the scimitar, went past the basket weaver, the snake charmer, the gourd designer, the purse maker, etc., etc. and lo and behold, came back into the Palace, head intact.   He said, “See, I made it back without spilling a drop of milk!”

The Sage King, asked the boasting young man to tell him,  in sequence, all the stalls he passed in his tour, in their proper order. The young man said,

“I can’t do that- I was concentrating on not spilling milk from the pitcher.”

The Sage King  raised his hands, turning  his body,  gazing  at the gold, and precious stones, etc. on the walls  in the  palace,  indicating  that although he was surrounded by these things of wealth, that was not what he was about, or on which he  concentrated or gave attention .

That was a very insightful story about on which you focus, which is often not what people think. The audience was very impressed.  Some claimed they even saw Ram Dass levitate!

Importantly, this story is about what you focus upon,

If you have negative unacceptable thoughts, you can change your thoughts immediately to other positive substitute thouhts.  I like the idea of the chocolate chips and ice cream, or a beautiful peaceful scene in nature.  Also good is become aware of your breath. Focus on your breath.

Swami Mooji says “I tell my best students “Empty your Mind. No identity. That’s it!”

GAMBLER’S RUIN.

Someone I knew  at one time was a professional gambler. He was very interested in psychology. When he was at Yale (he first went there on a Scholarship from high school),  a well-known Psychology professor, Chris Argryis, (author of Immaturity/Maturity Theory)  told him he would do well in Psychology if he followed in that direction .

In Poker, players were in fear sometimes and even perspired when he, after he graduated from Yale, sat at the table of the poker gambling club in South San Francisco.  Why? Because he could “read them”. He kept notes-“Gus’s left eye twitches when he is bluffing”. Etc. Successful as he was, he finally quit gambling, and went into business for himself, hauling trash and cleaning basements in his own truck   Why did he quit his successful gambling? Because “I felt that I wanted to ruin everybody at the table. I didn’t think that was healthy”, he told me.

One time we were both in  the back seat of a car on Market Street, driven by a long-time friend,  Leon , who sometimes wore a chauffer’s cap, approaching a concrete “island” where prospective passengers would alight on the local public transportation, whether it be rail streetcar or bus.. Standing on that island, a man was looking at the contents of his wallet, shaking his head, and looked dejected. As we were  arriving on the inside of the traffic island, ____(He doesn’t want his name mentioned -maybe because in this instant he took money from an indigent : -)) said to us in the car “Watch this”. When we were abreast of the man on the island,  ______rolled down his window and without saying a word,  put his hand toward the dejected man, like asking him for the money in his wallet. The man sadly took out the last few bills in his wallet, emptying it into _______ hand. We were amazed!. ______ explained it this way. “It’s called Gambler’s Ruin” When a gambler is down and out, he is thinking, might as well lose it all, and inside actually yearns to lose it all, and re-start from nothing. The only way from there is up. An example of a self sabotaging act.

DON’T LET RELIGION LEAD YOU INTO SABOTAGING YOURSELF

Religion is masterful at leading followers into feelings of guilt and shame.

There are ways out from these traps, some hidden in the Internet.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/religion_may_not_survive_the_internet/

Also a peaceful life awaits you beyond all religion: http://www.beyondallreligion.net

War… and the Sleeping Prophet (Edgar Cayce)

This may be suddenly timely. Could a former Russian KGB Lieutenant Colonel spy have stopped a United States Nobel Peace Prize winner from starting a catastrophic war?

Edgar Cayce (“The Sleeping Prophet”) 

“It will take years for it to be crystallized, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world again?” (1944) No. 3976-29

This was written in 1944, one year before Cayce died, predicted by Cayce himself. (Along with predicting 1945 being the year of his own death, he predicted 1945 to be the year WWII would end. He had already correctly predicted the beginning and ending years of WWI before it started). Recall that Russia stopped Nazism and Hitler at Stalingrad in 1942, and went on again as a U.S. ally to win the war against Germany in 1945. Could Putin be the new hope? Well, maybe Putin just saved the world from WWIII.  Russia , on September 9, 2013, got Syria to agree to put their chemical weapons under international control, and not use them. On September 12, 2013, the UN confirmed it received Syrian documents joining the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibitingchemical weapons. Destruction of their weapons has started on October 6^th.  The U.S. didn’t attack, which would have brought missile retaliation by Iran, and most probably WWIII.

China? Cayce promised amazing changes in the country that would lead to more democracy and greater religious freedom. He also suggested that eventually the height of civilization would move from the West to the Chinese people: “And these will progress. For, civilization moves west.” (#2834-3)

While you are here, why not check out  “Advisor to the Pope Exposes Bible Fraud and Forgery”http://beyondallreligion.net/2011/08/28/advisor-to-the-pope-exposes-bible-fraud-and-forgery/

How the United States was Railroaded into World War One

HOW THE UNITED STATES WAS RAILROADED INTO WORLD WAR I

A bunch of letters that Woodrow Wilson wrote to the wife of a Princeton professor that caused him to be blackmailed, that led to the U.S. being brought into WWI when it was stalemated and ready for peace to be made between the parties, which ended instead with onerous reparations to Germany, and the rise of Adolf Hitler, World War II and 60 million deaths, and now the Israeli – Palestinian Middle East conflicts today.

Background of how the United States became involved in the War against Germany.

There were communications and pledges to limit unrestricted submarine warfare by the German Government not to attack passenger ships or non-military merchant ships, after the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915 were 1198 people perished, including many Americans, including a member of the famous Vanderbilt family. Germany didn’t want the U.S. involved in a war, and Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the U.S. out of this European War.

It was the Sussex matter, not the sinking of the Lusitania, which many believe was the reason the U.S. went to War against Germany.

One of the communicated pledges has been called “the Sussex pledge”, which was later rescinded by Germany.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Germany broke this pledge on March 24, 1916, when a U-boat torpedoed the French ship Sussex. This led to the Sussex pledge.

Sussex pledge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• The Sussex pledge was a promise made in 1916 during World War I by Germany to the United States prior to the latter’s entry into the war. Early in 1916, Germany had instituted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare,[1] allowing armed merchant ships – but not passenger ships – to be torpedoed without warning. Despite this avowed restriction, a French cross-channel passenger ferry, the Sussex, was torpedoed without warning on March 24, 1916; the ship was severely damaged and about 50 lives were lost.[2] Although no U.S. citizens were killed in this attack, it prompted President Woodrow Wilson to declare that if Germany were to continue this practice, the United States would break diplomatic relations with Germany. Fearing the entry of the United States into World War I, Germany attempted to appease the United States by issuing, on May 4, 1916, the Sussex pledge, which promised a change in Germany’s naval warfare policy. The primary elements of this undertaking were:
• Passenger ships would not be targeted;
• Merchant ships would not be sunk until the presence of weapons had been established, if necessary by a search of the ship;
• Merchant ships would not be sunk without provision for the safety of passengers and crew.

In 1917 Germany became convinced they could defeat the Allied Forces by instituting unrestricted submarine warfare before the United States could enter the war. The Sussex pledge was therefore rescinded in January 1917, thereby initiating the decisive stage of the so-called First Battle of the Atlantic. The resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman Telegram caused the United States to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

What was the famous Balfour Declaration?

Balfour Declaration offered, without consulting the Arabs, Palestine as a Jewish homeland to the Jewish people.

In essence, it said that if the Zionists support England and its Allies, Britain would offer them Palestine.  It would follow that important Zionists would get America into the War.

 James A. Malcolm and the origin of the Balfour Declaration.

An Armenian Jew, James A. Malcolm, was giving expert help and advice to the Government about Middle Eastern matters.

He (Malcolm) was passionately devoted to an Allied victory. While his home in London was being bombed by the Germans in 1944, he prepared the following account which speaks for itself. Mr. Malcolm feared he would not survive, and prepared the following which he deposited in the British Museum for the benefit of posterity. It has become one of the most important documents explaining how the United States was railroaded into World War I, and follows here:

“During one of my visits to the War Cabinet Office in Whitehall Gardens in the late summer of 1916 I found Sir Mark Sykes less buoyant than usual… I (Malcolm) enquired what was troubling him… He spoke of military deadlock in France, the growing menace of submarine warfare, the unsatisfactory situation which was developing in Russia and the general bleak outlook… The Cabinet was looking anxiously for United States intervention…

He had thought of enlisting the substantial Jewish influence in the United States but had been unable to do so… Reports from America revealed a very pro-German tendency among the wealthy American-Jewish bankers and bond houses, nearly all of German origin, and among Jewish journalists who took their cue from them… I inquired what special argument or consideration had the Allies put forward to win over American Jewry… Sir Mark replied that he made use of the same argument as used elsewhere, viz., that we shall eventually win and it was better to be on the winning side…

I informed him that there was a way to make American Jewry thoroughly pro-Ally, and make them conscious that only an Allied victory could be of permanent benefit to Jewry all over the world… I said to him, ‘You are going the wrong way about it… do you know of the Zionist Movement?’… Sir Mark admitted ignorance of this movement and I told him something about it and concluded by saying, ‘You can win the sympathy of the Jews everywhere in one way only, and that way is by offering to try and secure Palestine for them’… Sir Mark was taken aback. He confessed that what I had told him was something quite new and most impressive…

He told me that Lord Milner was greatly interested to learn of the Jewish Nationalist movement but could not see any possibility of promising Palestine to the Jews… I replied that it seemed to me the only way to achieve the desired result, and mentioned that one of President Wilson’s most intimate friends, for whose humanitarian views he has the greatest respect, was Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court, who was a convinced Zionist…

If he could obtain from the War Cabinet an assurance that help would be given towards securing Palestine for the Jews, it was certain that Jews in all neutral countries would become pro-British and pro-Ally… I said I thought it would be sufficient if I were personally convinced of the sincerity of the Cabinet’s intentions so that I could go to the Zionists and say, ‘If you help the Allies, you will have the support of the British in securing Palestine for the Jew’…

A day or two later, he informed me that the Cabinet had agreed to my suggestion and authorized me to open negotiations with the Zionists … the messages which were sent to the Zionist leaders in Russia were intended to hearten them and obtain their support for the Allied cause… other messages were sent to Jewish leaders in neutral countries and the result was to strengthen the pro-Allied sympathies of Jews everywhere…

A wealthy and influential anti-Zionist Jewish banker there was shown the telegram announcing the provisional promise of Palestine to the Jews… he was very much moved and said, ‘How can a Jew refuse such a gift?’…

All these steps were taken with the full knowledge and approval of Justice Brandeis, between whom and [Zionist leader] Dr. Weizmann there was an active interchange of cables… [A]fter many anxious weeks and months, my seed had borne fruit and the Government (British) had become an ally of Zionism… the Declaration is dated 2nd November, 1917, and is known to history as the Balfour Declaration… its obligation to promise British help for the Jews to obtain Palestine.”

Chaim Weizmann notified the leading Zionist in the USA, Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, that Great Britain had promised Palestine to “the Jews of the World” if President Wilson would declare war on Germany and come into the war as Great Britain’s ally.

Supreme Court Justice Brandeis had been appointed to the United States Supreme Court at the suggestion of the powerful Jewish attorney Mr. Samuel Untermyer. Mr. Untermyer had been retained by a former sweetheart of then-President Woodrow Wilson to bring a breach-of-promise action against him shortly after he was installed in the White House. Mr. Untermyer’s client was seeking forty thousand dollars from President Wilson which he was unable to raise. To be of assistance to his friend, President Wilson, in the predicament in which he found himself, Mr. Untermyer volunteered to pay the forty-thousand dollars to President Wilson’s former sweetheart from his personal funds if in return President Wilson promised to appoint to the first vacancy on the United States Supreme Court the person Mr. Untermyer designated.

The day soon arrived when the vacancy on the Court occurred. Mr. Untermyer submitted the name of his friend, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, a [Jewish] Boston lawyer, to fill the vacancy. Mr. Untermyer explained that he was motivated by the fact that no Jew had ever occupied a seat on the United States Supreme Court, and for that reason he would like to see Mr. Brandeis appointed.

President Wilson and Justice Brandeis both knew the circumstances under which his appointment took place. They became close personal friends. President Wilson came to rely upon Justice Brandeis as an advisor in matters of state. When Chaim Weizmann confided in Justice Brandeis that he had made this arrangement with the British War Cabinet, he also told President Wilson that Germany had supplied provocation and justification for a US declaration of war against Germany. [But] President Wilson was running for re-election that year under the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War.” Justice Brandeis was unable to urge President Wilson to declare war against Germany at that time. Further evidence of German “guilt” was needed. [And so, it was provided]

The publicity (FALSE PROPAGANDA -Sam) given to the alleged attack by Germany on the S.S. Sussex passenger ferry plying between Dover and Calais and the loss of 38 American lives led to the declaration of war by the USA against Germany on April 6, 1917. The S.S. Sussex had actually been concealed in a small port in the north of England and no American lives had been lost. The entrance of the USA into the war as Great Britain’s ally in World War I resulted in the crushing defeat of Germany in 1918.

Because of the onerous reparations that Germany had to pay, Hitler was able to come to power, resulting in World War II, which combined with World War I, led to 60 million deaths, ironically initiated by a sheaf of letters blackmailing Woodrow Wilson.

This story is also here, plus more: www.beyondallreligion.net

One more thing: Before the U.S. was railroaded into World War I:

 In 1916, just three years after the Federal Reserve System went into operation, President Wilson seems to have suddenly realized what a virtually uncontrollable power monopoly had been vested in the nation’s new Federal Reserve System. He wrote:

“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated [in the Federal Reserve System]. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men…. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world-no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.”  (Quoted in “National Economy and the Banking System,” Senate Documents Co. 3, No. 23, Seventy-sixth Congress, First session, 1939.)

Crimes of the Popes

Beyond All Religion Book Available on Amazon.  Click here:

http://tinyurl.com/khmtk26

I was surprised to find that Emperor Constantine (“The Great”),  even after murdering his wife and son, was made Saint Constantine by the Catholic Church.  After a little research (search “crimes” and “Popes”) on this, I found this was chump change and just the tip of the iceberg.  To wit: (From Freethought Archives):

http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c7.htm

Christ as a myth and Bible banned for 1230 years

For Christ as a myth, see the following from a world-class scholar (with permission to all to copy):

http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/originsofchristianity.pdf

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Reading the Bible was banned for 1230 years

The Church banned the reading of the Bible by laity. Penalties included being stoned to death or being burned at the stake after confiscation of real and personal property.

Reading of the Bible was banned for 1230 years, starting with the First Council of Constantinople in 381 (attended by Pope Damasus).

After he suppressed the Bible, Damasus (Pope from 366-384) created an array of formidable penances and additional anathemas ‘designed to keep the curious at bay’⁵, the chief tendency of the priesthood was to keep the Bible away from people and substitute Church authority as the rule of life and belief.

Owning a Bible was a criminal offence

In 860, Pope Nicholas I, sitting high on a throne built specially for the occasion in the town square, pronounced against all people who expressed interest in reading the Bible, and reaffirmed its banned public use (Papal Decree). In 1073, Pope Gregory supported and confirmed the ban, and in 1198, Pope Innocent III declared that anybody caught reading the Bible would be stoned to death by ‘soldiers of the Church military’ (Diderot’s Encyclopedia, 1759). In 1229, the Council of Toulouse, ‘to be spoken of with detestation’, passed another Decree ‘that strictly prohibits laics from having in their possession either the Old or New Testaments; or from translating them into the vulgar tongue’. By the 14th Century, possession of a Bible by the laity was a criminal offence and punishable by whipping, confiscation of real and personal property, and burning at the stake.

With the fabricated Christian texts safely hidden from public scrutiny by a series of Decrees, popes endorsed the public suppression of the Bible for twelve hundred and thirty years, right up until after the Reformation and the printing of the King James Bible in 1611.

Is it Possible? A Universe From Nothing?

DID YOU KNOW?

YOU ARE MADE OF STARDUST… REALLY.

(“Forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”)

Famous Physicist Lawrence Krauss (“A Universe From Nothing”) says (From Wikiquote):

“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”

From YouTube: “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 (16:50-17:23 minutes into the YouTube)

But wait. A Universe from Nothing? Is it Possible? Yes, according to Physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Comments about the book “A Universe from Nothing”

http://img.agoravox.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L300xH448/auniverse-krauss-01-33bf4.jpg

But wait. A Universe from Nothing? Is it Possible? Yes, according to Physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Comments about the book “A Universe from Nothing”

http://img.agoravox.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L300xH448/auniverse-krauss-01-33bf4.jpg

 

Comments about the book “A Universe From Nothing”, by  Fabian Gutierrez, followed by other quotes and a synopsis of the book.  One of the biggest questions of mankind is from where have we come? How was the universe created?

All the religions tell us about a superior being who created everything with his omnipotent powers, the traditional starting point for the argument of the existence of God. But science puts God out of the job and gave us the explanation of the “ Big Bang” instead.

But neither science nor religion have shown a demonstrable conclusion about how everything began.

The big bang? The power of God? Nobody knows and nobody can prove it.

However, why not assume that everything came from nothing?

Laurence Krauss explained how modern science demonstrated empty space is not really empty, and that the conclusion is the support of the theory (very believable after reading the book) that the universe came from nothing. He takes us on a clear, guided journey around the issues of “nothing”…that which we cannot see in the universe, but through the laws of physics and math is actually measurable, in a theoretical sense. He lays the explanation out in language that is accessible to non-scientists.

He used the latest in scientific knowledge, his expertise and the innate ability to explain very complex topics in an accessible manner. Lawrence Krauss takes us on an exciting voyage of discovery that helps us understand the universe.

With this grounding in the “how” of the universe’s formation, he then tackles the “why”. The Big Bang, he notes, has been embraced by some religions—it was endorsed by the Pope decades ago, for example—because it appears consistent with their creation stories. Krauss, though, argues that the Big Bang doesn’t imply, or require, the presence of any kind of supernatural creator. The universe could arise from “nothing”, he explains: quantum gravity allows the formation of the universes (yes, plural) from the absence of space and time; in fact, he goes on, the formation of universes might be inevitable given the unstable nature of that “nothing”. No creator or other precipitating event is required, and there may well be multiple universes with different physical constants—which could explain why the constants of this universe seem fine-tuned to allow the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, and life.

As a former university professor my admiration goes to the author for providing a book that is accessible and enjoyable to the masess. This is how science books should be written.

Quotes from the book

“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today

“In 5 billion years, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to the point where all other galaxies will have receded beyond detection. Indeed, they will be receding faster than the speed of light, so detection will be impossible. Future civilizations will discover science and all its laws, and never know about other galaxies or the cosmic background radiation. They will inevitably come to the wrong conclusion about the universe……We live in a special time, the only time, where we can observationally verify that we live in a special time.”

“Of course, supernatural acts are what miracles are all about. They are, after all, precisely those things that circumvent the laws of nature. A god who can create the laws of nature can presumably also circumvent them at will. Although why they would have been circumvented so liberally thousands of years ago, before the invention of modern communication instruments that could have recorded them, and not today, is still something to wonder about.

“Now, almost one hundred years later, it is difficult to fully appreciate how much our picture of the universe has changed in the span of a single human lifetime. As far as the scientific community in 1917 was concerned, the universe was static and eternal, and consisted of a one single galaxy, our Milky Way, surrounded by vast, infinite, dark, and empty space. This is, after all, what you would guess by looking up at the night sky with your eyes, or with a small telescope, and at the time there was little reason to suspect otherwise.”

“I should point out, nevertheless, that even though incomplete data can lead to a false picture, this is far different from the (false) picture obtained by those who choose to ignore empirical data to invent a picture of reality (young earthers, for example), or those who instead require the existence of something for which there is no observable evidence whatsoever (like divine intelligence) to reconcile their view of creation with their a priori prejudices, or worse still, those who cling to fairy tales about nature that presume the answers before questions can even be asked.”

Synopsis
(from New Books in Brief)

The apparent contradiction between the universe beginning at a finite time, and the premise that something cannot come from nothing, has often been used as an argument for the existence of an uncaused cause, or creator. However, in his book ‘A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing’ physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss argues that a full understanding of the science that has yielded our current picture of the universe also allows us to see that something can indeed come from nothing.

Our best science tells us that the universe is an ever expanding entity consisting of some 400 billion galaxies that began with a very powerful and very hot explosion from a single point precisely 13.72 billion years ago. The degree to which our best science here has advanced in the recent past is reflected by the understanding of the universe that we had just a century ago. At that time, it was thought that the universe was static and consisted of just one galaxy: our own. In the past 100 years, though, Einstein’s theory of relativity revolutionized how we understand space and time and the physical processes operating at the very largest of scales, while quantum mechanics has revolutionized how we understand these processes at the very smallest of scales. It is the development of these theories in particular that has provided us with our current understanding of the universe.

However, the picture of the universe that these theories have furnished us with still leaves us with an apparent problem: What existed before the big bang? Surely something must have existed beforehand, for if nothing existed then something (indeed everything!) came from nothing, which seems absurd. Indeed there are few things more intuitively implausible than that something can come from nothing. In the philosophical community ex nihilo, nihilo fit (from nothing, nothing comes) is appreciated to be a self evident premise, and one of only a handful of postulates that are completely indisputable.

The apparent contradiction between the universe beginning at a finite time, and the premise that something cannot come from nothing, has often been used as an argument for the existence of an uncaused cause, or creator (most often understood as God). However, in his new book ‘A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing’ renowned physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss argues that a full understanding of the science that has yielded our current picture of the universe also allows us to see that something can indeed come from nothing. Thus, for Krauss, science can in fact do the work that it is often thought only God could manage. As Krauss puts it (borrowing a line from the physicist Steven Weinberg), science does not make it impossible to believe in God, but it does make it possible to not believe in God (p. 183). In introducing us to the science that allows for the possibility of something coming from nothing, Krauss takes us through the history and evolution of physics and cosmology over the past century, beginning with Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1916. In the course of this journey we learn about what our best science says about the basic make-up of our universe (including the existence of dark matter and dark energy), as well as what our best science tells us about how the universe (likely) began and where it is (likely) heading in the future.

 

Converts Away From Religion

(Not just Christianity. Further down see converts away from Judaism,  Mormonism, and Islam )

Bart Ehrman,  Author, Once a fundamentalist evangelical Christian, and later a Youth Pastor, took eye-opening historical-critical bible study courses at Princeton Theological Seminary and now describes himself as an Agnostic.  He wrote a book titled “Who wrote the Bible and Why it Matters” exposing forgery in the New Testament.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/agnostic-scholar-bart-ehrman-on-who-wrote-the-bible-and-why-it-matters-97169/

Class President of Christian University comes out as an Atheist. 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/northwest-christian-university-class-president-reveals-atheist/story?id=20845696

Woman Minister from Florida comes out as an atheist at American Atheists’ Convention in Bethesda, Maryland. 

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151681248/from-minister-to-atheist-a-story-of-losing-faith

Leaving Westboro Baptist Church:  Son of the Minister of a hate-filled Church left on his 18^th birthday for atheism.

http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/09/29/leaving-westboro-nate-phelps-traded-his-fathers-hate-fuelled-faith-for-atheism/

One More Thing: 17 year Advisor to the Pope Exposes Bible Fraud and Forgery

http://beyondallreligion.net/2011/08/28/advisor-to-the-pope-exposes-bible-fraud-and-forgery/

National survey shows Jews leaving Judaism, assimilating, becoming Christians or “Nones”

http://www.nycreligion.info/?p=10529

Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/09/12/leaving-ultra-orthodox-judaism/ 

Rick’s Story: Why I left the Mormon church:

“I came to realize that the idea of one having a testimony of the truthfulness of the church was a totally deceitful concept. The church pushes people to say they “know” the church is “true”. (The gospel is true, the bishop is true, the Book of Mormon is true, and on and on.) No one ever says they “believe” it is true.”  Click the link below to read more…

http://carm.org/christianity/testimonies/why-i-left-mormon-church-ricks-story

Leaving Islam

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/why_i_left_islam.htm

Edgar Cayce: Out of Russia

This may be suddenly timely. Could a former Russian KGB Lieutenant Colonel spy have stopped a United States Nobel Peace Prize winner from starting a catastrophic war?
From Edgar Cayce (“The Sleeping Prophet”):
“It will take years for it to be crystallised, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world.” (1944) No. 3976-29

“Again”? This was written in 1944, one year before Cayce died, predicted by Cayce himself. (Along with predicting 1945 being the year of his own death, he predicted 1945 to be the year WWII would end. He had already correctly predicted the beginning and ending years of WWI before it started). Recall that Russia stopped Nazism and Hitler at Stalingrad in 1942, and went on again as a U.S. ally to win the war against Germany in 1945. Could Putin be the new hope? Well, maybe Putin just saved the world from WWIII.

Russia , on September 9, 2013, got Syria to agree to put their chemical weapons under international control, and not use them. On September 12, 2013, the UN confirmed it received Syrian documents joining the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibiting chemical weapons. Destruction of their weapons has started on October 6^th.  The U.S. didn’t attack, which would have brought missile retaliation from Iran, and most probably WWIII.

What did he say about China? Cayce promised amazing changes in the country that would lead to more democracy and greater religious freedom. He also suggested that eventually the height of civilization would move from the West to the Chinese people: “And these will progress. For, civilization moves west.” (#2834-3)

Not all Cayce’s predictions have come true, by any means, but the true ones have been startling accurate.

If you were in a casino at the roulette table,  and could accurately predict  red or black,  or odd or even,  only 60% of the time, you could become a millionaire easily and fast.

Some say Cayce was accurate at least 80% of the time.

Maybe all his predictions rightly did not  come true:

From Cayce himself:

“Prophecy is never given for any other purpose than as a warning. For this reason, a successful prophecy is one that has been averted and therefore does not happen.”