tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77761842024-03-08T05:04:01.596+11:00The Palimpsest"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people, so full of doubts." -- Bertrand RussellNathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-69856750416749141892021-09-04T01:18:00.001+10:002021-09-04T01:19:04.353+10:00Appearing on the 'Leaving Hillsong' Podcast<div><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ed6d229c8eb860513895a1/e8ba7601-80ac-4fa1-9f4c-df6445b8fe03/tanya3-05.jpg?format=1500w" alt="Leaving Hillsong" width="811" height="451" /></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">I've made <a href="https://baliset.blogspot.com/search?q=family+first">occasional commentary</a> about what it was like to grow up in a pentecostal, Hillsong-style church in the Hawkesbury. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">My youthful zeal was real – no one could say I was insincere. I made life-long friends, the best of whom I keep today. I even rose to be a member of my church's staff. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">But I... saw things, which (to use the lingo) did not sit well in my spirit. Losing your faith is an amputation. You're never free of the yearn to believe, or to regress to a simpler worldview, even long after you've concluded you can no longer support a doctrine you now regard as risible. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">29 years of life split between the Church and work in Christian schools has led me to conclude that there's good advice to be given when your idols turn out to be false, and you see evil practiced in the name of Jesus. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">Advice about avoiding bitterness, or about holding on to your integrity, or about the obligation to speak out. And how to salvage the good parts of your faith and sublimate them into healthier ways of serving your fellow man. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">Many of those stories couldn't be told, except as campfire chats among fellow exvangelicals. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-0-0"><span data-text="true">But recently, I was interviewed by <a href="http://www.tanyalevin.com">Tanya Levin</a></span></span><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-2-0"><span data-text="true">, who wrote <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/people-in-glass-houses-20070804-gdqrvg.html" target="_blank">People In Glass Houses</a></span></span><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-4-0"><span data-text="true">, to finally talk about that journey. </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-4-0"><span data-text="true">If you're one of my many friends who grew up with me in Hawkesbury Church, you're the cast of this story. It's at the </span></span><span class="diy96o5h" spellcheck="false" data-offset-key="9ep8k-5-0"><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-5-0"><span data-text="true">Leaving Hillsong</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-6-0"><span data-text="true"> Podcast, which is on all the podcasting apps you use, so go looking (<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/leaving-hillsong/id1577065324" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6kySTzXRKghyNtWVkxKSgq?si=scg_YBSzQ6ukccAiljCIYQ&dl_branch=1">Spotify Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/leaving-hillsong-tanya-levin-v1896Q4kTd0/">Listen Notes</a>, among others). </span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-6-0"><span data-text="true">But here are the direct links to this two-parter:</span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-6-0"><span data-text="true">Part 1: <a href="https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-znf5j-10bde3f">https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-znf5j-10bde3f</a></span></span></div>
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<div><span data-offset-key="9ep8k-8-0"><span data-text="true">Part 2: <a href="https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-x38ac-10c7d27">https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-x38ac-10c7d27</a></span></span></div>
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<div> </div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-61086667627096337822021-07-13T15:05:00.004+10:002021-07-13T15:05:56.738+10:00In the Fastness of the Earth - a trip to Jenolan Caves<p><b> I wrote the following account in 2011 as a non-fiction creative writing piece for a unit on Creative Non Fiction that I took for University.</b></p><p><b>If your question is "Is this story true?", </b><b>I give you the answer of writer David Sedaris: <i>It is true enough</i>. I was there.</b></p><p><b>For those whose interest is piqued in the real world exploration of the reaches of the Mammoth Cave at Jenolan, let me direct you to <a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/australian-geographic-adventure/adventure/2017/05/jenolan-caves/" target="_blank">this gripping account from 2017 in Australian Geographic</a>.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNw0G2RKJYNVZ1aMw9Fhtn8ih60u58PpOqvOGfbSNMmzUaZt76fI2klqySFGMcHaFBc8CB7qkAqXQI0-5Z-21lWYMF-5RwFZQldrLYKOUBse1jPk3XyBl-azx4EIHTGg4OB8JHw/s1280/Jenolan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNw0G2RKJYNVZ1aMw9Fhtn8ih60u58PpOqvOGfbSNMmzUaZt76fI2klqySFGMcHaFBc8CB7qkAqXQI0-5Z-21lWYMF-5RwFZQldrLYKOUBse1jPk3XyBl-azx4EIHTGg4OB8JHw/w358-h478/Jenolan+2.jpg" title="Devil's Coachhouse at night - Jenolan Caves (2021). Pleides in background" width="358" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666;"><i>The Devil's Coach-house at night. Photo by the author, 2021. Pleiades in background.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">"My eyes were open, but I saw nothing. Profound blackness was before my eyes. Blackness like a thing, fitting to my shape and standing a hair above my skin.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">My breathing had been ragged from exertion, but settled now I had rested a little. Even my heartbeat seemed too loud for that space. I deliberately slowed by breathing, stretching all my senses. Past my tinnitus, I strained to hear my comrades, but heard nothing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Nothing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">I took off my pack and the long coil of climbing rope and lowered them carefully beside me, resolved to avoid the use of my headlamp. I adjusted my position on the bus-sized, irregular boulder I was perched on and tried to ignore the mud caked on my overalls. The earthy smell of wet limestone was in my nostrils. I loved that smell. The perfume of the Earth, powerfully evocative of caving experiences stretching back to childhood. I ignored small discomforts. My socks were wet.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">I felt a strange exhilaration. The Apollo 8 astronauts, when they careened behind the Moon for the first time, were then the loneliest souls in human history, further removed than any human had ever been from their fellows.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">No.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><i>I</i> could have been as remote, at that moment. I was the only living creature in the Universe. <i>The world could end, and I wouldn’t know</i>. I imagined I could sit there for a million years. That the rock would invade my bones. That returning friends or curious descendants would pass my place of rest. unheeding of a vaguely anthropoid stalagmite.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Surrounding me in every direction was a million tons of limestone. I was in the heart of the earth, within a domed chamber as large as a city railway station, rarely seen by any living being. I experimentally made sounds, coyly at first, then loudly. Clapping, hooting, singing; seeing if I could evolve a seventh-sense of echolocation. The sound was curiously, but not uniformly deadened around me. I <i>felt</i> the space around me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">My friends and I had descended from the crisp air and dappled sunlight at Jenolan Caves, and into another world. It had taken us two hours to get this far. The others decided to take a detour and investigate a passage, looking for a further chamber we had located on our large and mud-smeared map. I had nominated to stay behind at the junction a while and… be. Yes, just <i>be</i>. Just, <i>exist </i>for a little while. As an exercise. As a meditation. I had come to this place, Jenolan Caves, at every stage of my life since small childhood. I belonged to it. I had a powerful sense of place, and a felt strange peace that, unlike other places, this had been here millions of years before humans had words to describe it, and would be here millions of years after even the memory of man had faded from the Earth.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Soon enough, my friend’s caving lamps and voices had trailed off to nothingness. I examined the phenomenon of sensory deprivation. The neurons of my retina, firing randomly and unaccustomed to the lack of stimulus, occasionally threw blobs of phantom colour or light into my brain, like an old analogue radio tuned to a vacant station, crackling to a distant thunderstorm. I recalled something I had heard once, that in such circumstances the eye could detect single photons from cosmic rays, arriving from space, piercing the rock and penetrating my skull. Buried there in this secret place under the earth, was I seeing distant supernovae?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">This musing drew me outward. I was not <i>nowhere</i>; I was in a very particular place. Sitting still, I pressed my senses to their extremities. I imagined I was expanding my consciousness, locating the mote of my existence within successively larger spheres.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">First, was the chamber I was in, with its high, domed roof and sloping floor, punctuated by the giant boulder upon which I sat. Next was the cleft high in the wall above me and to my left through which I and my friends had arrived, which snaked upward through many other chambers, climbs and passages to the surface, far above.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Some of those passages were tight, smooth walled and snake-like; <i>phreatic</i> <i>tubes</i>, following the weak faults in the rock in a three-dimensional and drunken meander. To navigate those, you take your helmet off and nudge it ahead of you as you worm your way along, narrow enough in places to require you to decide in advance whether to put your arms ahead or keep them to your side. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">I smiled as I recalled a recent trip where a tall friend, long of limb, failed to negotiate a double hairpin in a descending tube. Stuck, he had to back up with the rest of us cursing behind him. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">On the way in, we passed a place called “Skull and Crossbones”, one intriguing name among many on our map. As we traversed a large corridor, like some Goblin’s lair from Tolkien, my friend motioned his lamp to the wall. There, in soot was the unmistakeable outline of a skull with crossed femurs below it. I smiled a question. My friend said, “Here, below the skull & crossbones, see these initials? ‘J.W’: Jeremiah Wilson, the first guide. He found this.” There were the initials, in a distinctly Victorian, if wavery, copperplate. “<i>This</i> is what he was warning about.” Below the sign, the floor dropped away like the yawning entrance to some chthonic well. Its black magnetism drew me to the edge; disturbed me. My friend picked up an orange sized rock and gave it to me. I understood. I threw it into the mouth of the abyss. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><i>Clack!... Clack! ClackClack!... </i>A pause… <i>ClackClackClack!<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">And on it went, the tumble of the rock over invisible ledge and down long freefall, diminishing in volume but going on far too long. My eyes widened. Many seconds later, the sound died away. I asked “Has anyone been to the bottom?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">“I don’t know. If they tried, they’ll find a hundred years’ worth of fist sized rocks thrown down from up here.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">We laughed, a little nervously, as we backed away from the maw.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">We moved on. The landscape was ever varied. The marvels! Some chambers like cathedrals, like railway tunnels, like Egyptian tombs where your light bounces off jewels and pillars, exquisite crystals and underground rivers. And then there was the highest goal to any caver, to see <i>something no one has ever seen before</i>. <i>Virgin</i> cave. A<i> new place.</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">The greybeard of our group, Keir, had told us such a story the previous night as we sat in the deep lounges ringing the fireplace at Caves House. We were like Victorian gentlemen explorers about to plumb the mysteries of Africa. I don’t recall waistcoats and watch-chains, but they would not have been out of place. His story was about a real, and yet mythical place, not far from us, yet tantalisingly out of reach.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“You’ve heard, of course about the <i>Woolly Rhinoceros</i>, yes?”, Keir said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">We gave blank looks, and Keir’s eyes glittered, seeming suddenly very, <i>Welsh</i>. He reminded me strongly of Terry Jones from <i>Monty Python </i>and had an endearing, intellectually curious, restless quality. He cupped his second Baileys and leaned in as he warmed to his story:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Tomorrow, we shall go past the known and public caves, through the Devil’s Coach house, up the McKeown valley. By and by we shall arrive at the Mammoth Cave, which we will descend into with ropes. Now, we know that all the caves up and down the valley were formed by the same underground watercourse, and so that all the caves are connected with one other. The original guides and a century of spelunking, have made all kinds of connections between them; going in one, coming out another. Other connections have been hinted at by putting fluorescent dye in the water high up the valley and seeing it come out, all the way down here at the bottom, into Blue Lake. But gentlemen, the one great discovery that awaits us all is the passage that links the Mammoth cave, high in the valley and the largest of the non-public caves, back to the show caves here around the Grand Arch. This mythical connection, appropriately carries the name of a mythical animal.” Keir’s voice dropped, as though his next words had mystic power. Thus, the <i>‘Woolly Rhinoceros’</i>. We’ve been looking for it for a century.” We instinctively understood Kier enclosed all cave explorers dating back to the Empire in his collective “we”. It sunk in. <i>We</i> were a part of that we.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">And well Keir knew this. He looked at each of us, grinning. This had been his avocation for 30 years.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Well, where is it?” I blurted.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Keir sat back and adopted the look of a sage, pleased an acolyte had asked the perceptive question.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Well might you ask,” he said slowly. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“There are… theories. The extremity of Mammoth closest to the show caves is a long smooth passage that descends and narrows, ending in a sump, a disappointing pool of muddy water about as big as a bathtub. It’s called Slug Lake. We wondered if it continued in much the same way, underwater. Or perhaps it’s like an S-bend, and if you went into the water, you’d come up quickly into dry passage and keep going. We had to know!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Now, back on the surface, this correlates to an area along the McKeown valley we call the playing fields. You’ll see it tomorrow, it’s a big flat area. We laid out a grid and did what’s called a gravimetric survey of that area. It’s high-tech gadgetry that detects really microscopic variations in gravity that measure cavities, potential caves, beneath the earth. It’s so sensitive, we have to calibrate it for the position of the moon for it to work.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Keir was becoming excited.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Gentlemen, the readings were off the scale. There is something very big, very <i>hollow</i> down there, underneath the playing fields. Something vast and unseen. It doesn’t correspond to any cave section we know of, and Slug Lake is the closest entry point. Our suspicion was that the passage continues under the water and emerges… somewhere else.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“What was done?” we asked.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">“Divers went down and reported the tube continued to descend and narrow. There was a bit of a squeeze that had to be excavated with trowels, and that kicked up a heap of mud that took days to clear. But they went back, and it opened up, all underwater mind you, and much clearer now. They found themselves swimming along the roof of a chamber that descended into the darkness beyond their torches and out of sight. Further along, they surfaced into a chamber with sheer walls and more leads going away and upward.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">Keir shook his head. “Very hard going. Dangerous to get there and dangerous to pursue. One out of three people who habitually do cave diving, die in pursuit of that avocation”.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Within my reverie, deep within the earth, I mapped this out in my imagination. How might Slug Lake, (some meters away to my south), and its mysterious further passages link to the other caves like pearls on a string to arrive back at the Grand Arch, near the Blue Lake at Caves House? I imagined <i>myself</i> finding the Woolly Rhinoceros, stumbling out of a hole in a disused passage of a show cave, like Arne Saknassum out of Jules Verne’s <i>“Journey to the Centre of the Earth”</i>, and startling a tour group in my grimy overalls and miner’s lamp. The fantasy pleased me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">And beyond the sensory deprivation. I felt I could sense something else; the slow pulse of the earth. I felt an almost palpable sense of the deep time that had carved this secret chamber from the mother rock. I felt an unfamiliar, yet thrilling dissonance of emotion; a sense of insignificance, but accompanied by a sense of the miraculous. I was the rarest thing in the Universe; a mote of consciousness. And there I was, buried in the fastness of the earth, like a undiscovered gem."<o:p></o:p></p>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-183242535225105132019-09-29T18:14:00.000+10:002019-09-29T21:33:01.483+10:00Proposed Religious Freedoms legislation must grapple with the problem of cults<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
The opening question from host James Carleton on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/godforbid/dont-call-it-a-cult/11525486" target="_blank">a recent episode of the ABC Radio National program "God Forbid" </a>is a perennial one: <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-29/why-cult-wrong-word-for-most-new-religious-movements/11546284" target="_blank">"What is the difference between a religion and a cult?"</a><br />
<br />
I was immediately reminded of the old and pithy observation:<br />
<i>"In a cult, there's a person at the top who knows it's all a scam. In a religion, that person is dead."</i><br />
<br />
Sadly, the program, titled <i>"Don't call it a Cult" </i>disappointed and concerned me to the degree that the social harms of Cults... sorry, <i>"New Religious Movements"</i>, were glossed over.<br />
<br />
This question has new currency since Australia is debating the necessity of new <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/Consultations/Pages/religious-freedom-bills.aspx" target="_blank">Religious Freedom legislation</a>. If Religions are about to secure new and legislated freedoms to practise, discriminate and operate tax-free, just how should we distinguish between benign or socially beneficial groups, and bad apples?<br />
<br />
We live paradoxically in an age where new religious groups continue to arise, usually with taxation concessions, in Australian society. Unfortunately, the evidence is in: <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/universal-medicine-cult-founder-exposed-as-charlatan/news-story/626fe650621ee65ba16b1a7af2f62aa7" target="_blank">Courts</a> and multiple regulatory bodies have determined that some of these groups abuse both Australian law and outrage moral norms in the way they are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkSQTMHJK4c" target="_blank">rapacious, abusive</a>, or extremist.<br />
<br />
So, I listened keenly for the views presented by Professor Susan Jean Palmer from McGill University in Canada, and Professor Carole Cusack, an expert in religious studies at the University of Sydney.<br />
<br />
I was underwhelmed.<br />
<br />
I should make it clear that I'm making allowances for the way academics approach their subject matter. Criminal psychologists, for example, seek to understand the motives of people who commit sometimes shocking and heinous acts. They leave the prosecution and collective social judgement of those acts to others, because academic study should be "dispassionate".<br />
<br />
However, perfect objectivity is a fiction -- Any sociological study of religion, old or new, is itself (in the words frequently invoked by much post-modern cultural and social analysis), "Socially Constructed". This means it is a human enterprise, and one that cannot be divorced from real-world costs and consequences. There <i>are</i> value judgements that should be made, a-priori (or at least consequent to) study of cult groups.<br />
Cults, like crimes, are frequently stories of tragedies, and tragedies have human victims.<br />
If that truth extends to a belief that victims deserve to have some justice, they wouldn't have found much in this ABC program.<br />
<br />
I took a role for some years as a member of the national committee of the <a href="http://cifs.org.au/" target="_blank">Australian Cult Information and Family Support network (CIFS)</a>, after such a tragedy <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2012/03/spirited-away-sydney-morning-herald.html" target="_blank">struck my own family</a>. At CIFS, I lost count of the heart-breaking stories I heard of broken families, dignity lost, greed, abusive emotional domination, and sometimes examples of sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by cults.<br />
<br />
While listening to the episode, my heart sank when I heard:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Professor Palmer says it's not right to call all new religious leaders crazed.<br />
<i>'We don't really know what goes on in the brains of these talented people. I see them rather like creative artists who inspire other people,'</i> she says.<br />
'It's sort of like saying,<i> 'All concert pianists are crazy. They have very different personalities. And they create these little cultures, and some of them take root and grow up to be major civilisations.'</i>"</blockquote>
Professor Cusack added,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"There is nothing inherently crazier in believing in an alien messiah, than in believing in the virgin birth, which is a core doctrine of Christianity." </i></blockquote>
Palmer even finds the word "cults" distasteful, referring to it as a derogatory word, saying<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> "I like to call them baby religions", </i></blockquote>
and claiming<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Most of them are entirely harmless."</i></blockquote>
This is naive, lazy thinking.<br />
<br />
I understand if both these academic researchers feel some need to tread lightly when examining their subjects, lest they cease co-operating as objects for study. But James Carleton could have done more to contrast their academic approach with illustrations of the human wreckage that is frequently the real-world outcome of fringe religious belief.<br />
<br />
Some forms of religious practice confer a deep sense of meaning, are conducive to human flourishing, encourage social engagement, provide practical charity and promote ethical norms. However, some beliefs cause people to become isolated, fearful, paranoid, deluded, physically ill and even suicidal.<br />
<br />
These differences are not arguable in the sense that they are merely points of view that allow people to conclude either way based on their cultural conditioning, or the "mainstreamed" nature of the faith in question -- these are objective and repeatable consequences.<br />
<br />
Similarly, focus is overdue on the way in which some people gain protection for predatory behaviours by claiming the protection of religious freedom.<br />
<br />
One good point made in the story is that because religious belief is so diverse, one focus for imposing limits on acceptable practice is Australian Law -- where practice transgresses the law, people or organisations should be brought to book.<br />
<br />
However, the observation of CIFS is that Australian Law, and various regulatory agencies which include the <a href="https://www.acnc.gov.au/" target="_blank">ACNC</a> (Charities regulator) and various Health regulators (such as the <a href="https://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/" target="_blank">HCCC</a>) are profoundly ill-equipped to deal with bad apples in our midst. The Introduction of new Religious Freedoms legislation will be deeply problematic unless these distinctions can be made more clearly.<br />
This is an element of the national debate where <a href="http://councillorzamprogno.info/2019/02/20/confronting-those-who-prey-on-the-vulnerable/" target="_blank">I have been active for many years both before and since I have taken a public role as an elected politician</a>.<br />
<br />
The program repeated the saw that <i>"a religion is just a cult, plus time".</i><br />
This a gross oversimplification, and one that this program should have avoided.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-9049009614500988112017-05-22T02:31:00.002+10:002022-01-14T10:37:40.026+11:00Alien: Covenant. A review and meditation on the grim view of humanity's future<style>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As a
morality tale, the message is so well worn now as to be hackneyed: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We</i> are the monsters. Worse, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make</i> the monsters. And we make the
monsters that make the monsters. Right. We get it." </blockquote>
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<br />
13 years ago, <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2004/08/battlestar-galactica-2003-and-why-it.html" target="_blank">I blogged</a>, asking the question <i>“Is the remake
of Battlestar Galactica merely the worst kind of crap, or does it actually
represent the end of Western Civilisation?”</i>
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Today, I want to talk about the <i>Alien</i> movie franchise,
having seen the latest instalment, <i>Alien: Covenant </i>last night (and yes, this essay
contains spoilers). As you can see, I weigh in on such questions rarely, and
the purpose of my musing is not merely to offer either just a review or fanboy speculation,
but to ask a wider question about the way our civilisation regards itself. The
entertainment of our age, be they movies, TV shows or books, reflect in some
way self-esteem of late Western society. And by “late”, I presage the view of
future historians who will see this time in our history as an ending of whatever it is that
we are, before it is replaced by something else.</div>
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The Alien franchise has held a curious fascination for me
since my teens. I remember going to the State Library and poring over
a rare copy of H.R Giger’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Necronomicon</i>
as though it were every bit the “terrible and forbidden” grimoire its namesake, via H.P Lovecraft’s
Abdul Alhazred, <a href="http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/necron/letters.asp" target="_blank">described</a>. There was something genuinely original and
disturbing about Giger’s vaguely pornographic, biomechanical nightmares.<br />
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<br />
After
decades of science fiction depictions of aliens that were little more than men
in rubber suits, the sense of otherness exuded from Giger's work; of the cadaverous and monstrous, was unsettling
in the extreme. I pored over them with a mixture of horrified curiosity and revulsion.
I wondered how such creatures would “work”, and I reflected on what it was that Giger tapped in our collective subconscious that made us so uneasy.
Subverted motifs of sexual congress, and violent birth; of the mechanical
infiltrating even the integrity of our bodies, borg-like; they all combined to made me shudder.</div>
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And then there was the Pilot, later depicted in the original
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alien </i>as the “Space Jockey”.<br />
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This strange creature and its lonely enthronement in an
ancient, fossilised and ill-fortuned ship, struck me as sad, and deeply mysterious.
What happened? What race did it represent? Was it even separate from the device
it controlled, seemingly growing from its chair? The architecture of its ship,
resembling the inside of a ribcage, suggested technologies so unfamiliar as to
be beyond even our speculation.<br />
The genius of any fiction lays in its ability to invoke our imagination, rather than laying everything out, pre-digested. And the 1979 Alien did that. The titular monster
was far scarier because of how little we saw of it. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
was its appeal. We were meant to yearn for answers, and equally, never to have
them. Like a magic trick that loses its appeal once it is explained; like Oz
behind his curtain; like the Force before we were told about Midichlorians; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the riddle of the Engineers is perhaps better
left unexplained. </div>
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Crucially, <i>neither the Engineers or the Alien had anything
to do with humans</i>. We were just the hapless and recently spacefaring species
that stumbled along to realise how scary outer space is. And here’s the
parallel with the remake of Battlestar Galactica. Suddenly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we </i>are responsible for the creation of
the Cylons, and some of the mystery of their origins is dispelled. Plus, all of
humanity become both Victor Frankenstein and Eldon Tyrell, rueing the return of
our creations to wreak havoc among us, and to teach us the terrible price for our sin of Pride; of usurping the prerogative of God in creating life. Now,
we have Peter Weyland to add to that dubious pantheon. In creating a synthetic
life-form capable of better-than-human reasoning but possessing no empathy, he
creates in David the monster that creates all other monsters. Considering
Ridley Scott directed Bladerunner as well, it’s safe to say that this motif is
deliberate. Expect the imminent
Blade Runner sequel (also a Ridley Scott vehicle) to repeat the same mantra:
the Creation is in some way better than the Creator, and the impulse of all created beings is
to become disillusioned with, and then kill, their gods.</div>
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The decision to declare that Giger’s otherworldly vision of
the Pilot should give way to the revelation that its form was merely a
spacesuit and that the inhabitants were basically ancient giant humans, right down
to our DNA (and now living in "space Rome", rather than a biomechanical city), was the biggest cop-out ever, and one that the writers of
Prometheus like Damon Lindelof should be ashamed of. The <u>whole point</u> of the Pilot and the
Juggernaut, and the Xenomorphs were that they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">weren’t human.</i> That’s what “Alien” means. Now, courtesy of the latest installment, we learn that even the lifecycle
of the egg/facehugger/xenomorph we considered "original" is because of a human-made android tinkering in solitude and madness.<br />
Implication? Somehow, we <i>deserve</i> our fate. We brought it upon ourselves in our pride and
cruelty. In fact, the Engineers saw how bad we were, and were about to wipe us
out, until we got to them first. And ethically, the Engineers were far from
benign themselves. Was it a shared failing, that they seemed capable of indiscriminate
genocide? Were we more alike than either thought?</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is nothing if not a post-modernist conceit, an
increasingly popular trope not just in entertainment, but in history, to regard
humanity as irredeemable, despite our miraculous advances of technology.<br />
James
Cameron’s films do the same thing:</div>
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Titanic: Build a boat, a wonder of the technological age.
Sunk by pride. People behave ignobly in the aftermath.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Avatar: Develop a spacefaring civilisation. Rape innocent
worlds for their resources. Cue heavy-handed metaphors between westerners and
native americans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Terminator: Develop A.I. Watch it immediately conclude that all humans
should be wiped out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could say that this is entirely the wrong emphasis, and
that the outlook of our speculative fiction should be less bleak. But then I realised that the genre of the Alien films is less Sci-Fi than <i>Horror</i>. One of the purposes of horror
stories are to reveal not only the darkness under the bed, but within the human
heart as well. As we contemplate the (quite genuine) horror of the situation in
the final twist of the Alien: Covenant movie, we realise that, in part, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> have created that situation.<br />
As a
morality tale, the message is so well worn now as to be hackneyed: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We</i> are the monsters. Worse, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make</i> the monsters. And we make the
monsters that make the monsters. Right. We get it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Worse, the implication is that space is not a majestic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tabula rasa</i> for us to paint our future
on, but a darkness concealing uncountable horrors beyond imagination, and that
humanity is presumptious to the point of folly to even seek to tread there. H.P
Lovecraft would be proud. <i>Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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But here’s the flipside: We’ve created faster-than-light
drives. We’re colonising the galaxy. We’ve built artificial intelligences,
which (in every alternate model, at least) can be noble and good. The good ship
Covenant is peopled by crew we could like; who want a better life, a cabin by
the lake, and clean air to raise a new generation in. The future does not yet
seem to be ruled by the questionable ethics of the Weyland-Yutani corporation.
And much of the ill-fortune we seem to experience “out there” arises from bad luck, plus supposedly smart people doing really dumb things. This is a mandatory requirement for
any horror film, when you think about it… Don’t go alone into the dark place. Ignore
even the most basic rules about safety or quarantine. Don’t wake up the dude
who runs the facility making the goo intended to wipe out humanity and ask him
for immortality before he’s had his coffee. That kind of thing. Despite this, there's a lot to like about this vision of humanity's future, and that perhaps explains the enduring popularity of Star Trek.</div>
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The conclusion I reach is that Ridley Scott must
have a really low opinion of both humanity, and of his audiences. We
shouldn’t be fooled by the fact that these movies are all luxuriantly produced
and visually stunning. (I found myself in New Zealand last year and arrived at
Milford Sound smack-bang in the middle of filming for the movie – all the
scenes where the landing craft arrive at the fjord and land in the water).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlux9ily4Z2SwVCJh5qKI4pvhl8lGYQMUIBFo-Sj7QwzuVi5AvdM_D1xPnjJEbns44UfhBj9ys6NRdgLJ-ablSYhbJSu2C1AMGQHrAtnA2mnC4US1nxNxzmfBk1E6Gn4rB9v2FvA/s1600/New+Zealand+Alien+Covenant+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlux9ily4Z2SwVCJh5qKI4pvhl8lGYQMUIBFo-Sj7QwzuVi5AvdM_D1xPnjJEbns44UfhBj9ys6NRdgLJ-ablSYhbJSu2C1AMGQHrAtnA2mnC4US1nxNxzmfBk1E6Gn4rB9v2FvA/s640/New+Zealand+Alien+Covenant+2.JPG" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holiday photos from Milford Sound, 2016. The set for the spaceship-lander is in the distance.</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsU8JGcuvfQOt-6CR4mGfMh_JZueKI_i_lDAu__So8L761c1CW9JZEO7tXwvpHhaDngxzuF0AafM31LRXNYUt7yHBQBLDVT4mX4lRrYOIw-FoXrAsusjWB5TeB7KAh0H57RcRyQ/s1600/New+Zealand+Alien+Covenant.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsU8JGcuvfQOt-6CR4mGfMh_JZueKI_i_lDAu__So8L761c1CW9JZEO7tXwvpHhaDngxzuF0AafM31LRXNYUt7yHBQBLDVT4mX4lRrYOIw-FoXrAsusjWB5TeB7KAh0H57RcRyQ/s640/New+Zealand+Alien+Covenant.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The
production design of Arthur Max and Chris Seagers are first rate and just jaw-dropping, as are
the (very faint) echoes of Giger, where they let it leak in around the edges. In
terms of the hardware, it’s a vision of a future in space that’s completely
compelling. But, even withstanding the genre of film into which these films
fit, Ridley Scott’s laziness and shallowness ruin the opportunities to tell
more genuinely interesting stories based on the premises they start with. It’s
like what someone has said recently of the vacuity of President Trump: “We try
to analyse what we see for deeper motivations or meanings, but what if there’s
no ‘<i>there</i>’, there?” And that’s the key. Even in 1979, Scott had no idea what to
make of the Pilot, referring to it merely as the “big dental patient” while the mad
genius Giger did his work. When returning to the franchise and seeking a hook for his plot, Scott speculated that <a href="https://geektyrant.com/news/2012/6/11/ridley-scott-reveals-the-engineers-true-intentions-is-it-con.html" target="_blank">Jesus Christ was an Engineer </a>sent to Earth and our treatment of Jesus was ultimately what made then
Engineers mad at us. WTF? What kind of brain fart is that?<br />
What this tells me is that there's no real philosophy going on here, and no actual overarching meaning. Don't look for it. It's merely a bunch of hack writers spitballing inane ideas with no idea of what "canon" ought to mean, at least in the sense of avoiding simple errors that prevent you from telling a story that's coherent to the broader fictional universe in which it's set. Attempts like mine to remonstrate with Ridley Scott are like arguing over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia" target="_blank">pareidolia</a>; people are just going to see what they're going to see.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s vexing that Ridley Scott can make films that are
beautiful to look at, and even films with an important message (last year’s “the
Martian” was outstanding, but that was exclusively because of <a href="http://www.andyweirauthor.com/" target="_blank">Andy Weir</a>’s brilliant source-novel),
but then treats so contemptuously the opportunity to tell a good story with glib
ideas like “Jesus was an alien” or “humans are indirectly responsible for the variety
of Xenomorph that will be found on a thousand-year-old crashed ship only 18
years later”, or “Xenomorphs can grow from chestburster to full-adult in five
minutes”. Retconning is one thing, but <i>Alien: Covenant</i> does very little to
correct the egregious sins of its predecessor: namely, making smart characters
do dumb things, and invoking plot twists so illogical as to lift us out of the
narrative.<br />
<br />
How hard can it be to make films that don’t insult the intelligence
of their audiences? Obviously, in Hollywood, no one can hear us screaming.</div>
Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-31926721800992235492015-01-09T17:41:00.005+11:002018-12-18T02:49:16.305+11:00Sovereign Citizens, and the pathetic disintegration of Kent Hovind<script>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kent Hovind: "Not subject to any authority other than the Lord Jesus Christ" (He was mistaken)</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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</th><th><h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">First, a recap</span></h3>
<div style="font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've written about the American wacko Kent Hovind <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2007/07/when-you-cant-convince-unreason.html" target="_blank">before</a>, eight years ago. He was in prison for fraud then, and still is now. Over the years I've spared him a thought only occasionally, vexed with the dilemma of whether he was worthy of my contempt, or merely beneath it. But here I am, strangely compelled to revisit him because he's as loony as ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A renewal of the warning he serves as to us all is timely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="320" src="//images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image/*" width="289" /></a></span></th>
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Most of you have seen <a href="http://xkcd.com/386/" target="_blank">this cartoon</a> on the left (or a <a href="http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3459892/While+on+reddit/" target="_blank">variation</a>).<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I confess, I find it all too easy to be this person. So I want to spend a moment explaining why this matters. 80 generations ago, the Church Father Augustine of Hippo said</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"...It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on any topic; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn... Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task ... they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions" </i> (<a href="http://www.christianmind.org/history/Augustine1.htm" target="_blank">here</a> for the full quote).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We should all be concerned when anyone on the fringe arrogates authority and brings those with more considered and grounded views into disrepute by their association. </span>When we hear arguments presented that are palpably wrong, cause for <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Fremdscham" target="_blank">fremdscham</a>, or gibberingly nonsensical -- then we have a solemn responsibility to speak up, to <i>contend</i>. Civilisation is at stake.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kent Hovind boasts he has a doctorate, and styles himself "Dr Hovind", or "Dr Dino". In actual fact <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/x835zvdp10baeia/Inside_the_Mind_of_a_Creationist-libre.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">his doctorate is a fake</a>, from a diploma mill traced to a suburban house.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If people purport to speak with authority, whether it be on a scriptural matter in the name of Jesus Christ ("God demands that we..."), or by saying "the science shows..." when the science most definitely does <i>not</i> say, or to say "the law means..." when one is not a lawyer, legislator or even an educated layman, then we are right to exercise discernment over whether that authority is valid. 1 Peter 2:15 says that "silencing the ignorant talk of foolish people" is good, and is accomplished by <i>doing</i> good.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am a high school teacher, and am mindful that Aristotle said in the <i>Nicomachean Ethics</i> that although moral virtues are learned by habit, intellectual virtues are learned through teaching. The purpose of education is to cultivate the intellectual virtues and these virtues include curiosity, open mindedness and critical thinking. This was the subject of my Masters thesis. So particularly when it comes to young people, I have a passion about giving this generation the right 'thinking toolkit' to look at the world and weigh evidence. To be able to identify and then reject nonsense when they hear it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In other words: We <i>should</i> care about whether what people purport to teach is true. And we should care all the more when those people insist that their views are the views that other Christians should have, if they are "proper Christians". <i>Why</i> we believe what we believe is important. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kent Hovind came to my attention because he represents the execrable end of the spectrum of loud, </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090304045601/http://www.kent-hovind.com/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">know-nothing</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Young Earth Creationists. Disgracefully for a former science teacher, he preached that dinosaurs are alive and well in Borneo (if only people would send him money to prove it). And that feathered dinosaur fossils are forged by low-paid workers in China. And that AIDS was developed in a Maryland laboratory. And that Sonar is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. He told cancer sufferers that 'Big Pharma' were covering up a cure and that they should stop their chemotherapy </span>because<span style="font-family: inherit;"> it was <i>shortening their lives</i>. He tells parents not to vaccinate their kids. He told listeners that water fluoridation was an attempt at Government mind control. He promoted the anti-Semitic, hate-filled </span><i style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion" target="_blank">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no conspiracy theory so crazy that he wouldn't peddle it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, he didn't pay the tax he ought to have, because he declared all his money 'belonged to God'. This drew the attention of the IRS. In 2007 he was convicted for 58 Federal crimes, including tax fraud and given ten years. He was due out this year. Was.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It always concerns me that nutty beliefs seem to occur in clusters; what has been termed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person)#Crank_magnetism" target="_blank">"Crank magnetism"</a>. </span>The same defects in critical thinking are arguably at the centre of many different errors. Certainly, our friends <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect" target="_blank">Dunning and Kruger</a> are at work. But s<span style="font-family: inherit;">ome of these beliefs </span>aren't just<span style="font-family: inherit;"> idiosyncratic, towards which we should have an irenic 'to-each-his-own' </span>attitude.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Some beliefs are indicators of mindsets that that bring Christianity into disrepute, damage faith, or destroy lives. Many ex-fundamentalists <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/2015/01/05/why-creationism-matters/" target="_blank">recognise this problem</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>As I noted 8 years ago, i<span style="font-family: inherit;">f you support Kent Hovind then you are far more likely to be the kind of person who believes that 9-11 was a conspiracy, that Obama was born in Kenya, or that the moon landings were faked. Several supporters have even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwmQk_bO70o&channel=LoneStar1776" target="_blank">reproved him</a> for equivocating on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_GNUlF5lro&spfreload=10&channel=LoneStar1776" target="_blank">question</a> of Geocentrism. Seriously. Kent gladly enabled each and every one of these theories, and regularly went further in church talks, videos and radio appearances than even his followers, with hapless wife Jo (also sent to prison for tax fraud) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xmYYnE_7ck&channel=Thunderf00t" target="_blank">arrogant son</a> Eric (still running the family business) close at heel.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2007, I wrote that Hovind was telling people that UFO's were real and were being piloted by demons. Little did I realise that I would <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/in-which-nathans-wife-is-stolen-away-by.html" target="_blank">lose my wife to a cult</a> two years later by people here in Australia who believed that too, and more besides (for example, that the British Royal Family are <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">reptilian shape-shifting demons</a> in disguise).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Permit me to suggest that perhaps I speak with some authority of my own concerning the real-world damage these beliefs cause.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After eight years in gaol, you would think that Kent Hovind would have learned his lesson and would have expressed some contrition, both so he could get back to his family sooner, and to mend the 'vast ignorance' Augustine warned of, ignorance which causes people to scorn Christianity. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Instead, he has doubled-down on the crazy, and has become a figure of parody, which will almost certainly extend his prison time considerably.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
Sovereign Citizens</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To explain, we need to talk about the Sovereign Citizen movement, or SovCit.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Writing from here in Australia, the paradox that is America is stark. America, the cleverest nation in the history of the world that put a man on the Moon, and also the nation who produced a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn1VGytzXus&channel=BigSeanVEVO" target="_blank">song</a> whose <a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/dance-ass-lyrics-big-sean.html" target="_blank">lyrics</a> go "Ass ass ass ass ass / Ass ass ass ass ass / Ass ass ass ass ass".</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From this distance, it seems inconceivable that the American ferment that produced Sagan, Salk, Mencken, Jefferson, Paine and Whitman, has also birthed or nurtured truly awful human beings like Nicki Minaj, Peter Popoff, Ken Ham* or Kent Hovind. For shame, America. For shame!</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">(* I am well aware and apologise abjectly for the fact that Ken Ham was Australian).</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In my political life (for I am a man of Conservative political hue and membership), I have contended that the greatest threat to Western Civilisation and to Enlightenment values does not come from outside the West, but rather from within. Contempt for the separation of Church and State, rejection of tolerance and pluralism, disdain for the rule of law, derision for respect and tradition, and mockery for the value of evidence-based policy will end our civilisation far sooner than Muslim bombs.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As it happens, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism agrees with me. <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/news/sovereign-citizen-movement-perceived-top-terrorist-threat" target="_blank">They conclude that </a>the gravest <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R42536.pdf" target="_blank">domestic terrorist threat</a> to America in this decade is the so-called Sovereign Citizen movement.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So what is it? The early 21st century has seen a rise in the number of people who have effectively given up on the very idea that politics can improve the lives of average people. A choice between two major party candidates is Tweedledee and Tweedledum. A logical extension of this then is to regard the political process itself as illegitimate; to conclude that the reason the country is broken is because a kind of illegal zombie government, no longer true to the principles of its founders or its Constitution is unlawfully enforcing taxes, privileging banking cartels, and ceding sovereignty to multinationals and international NGOs. </span>SovCits<span style="font-family: inherit;"> claim they are <a href="http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html" target="_blank">exempt from any law</a> they do not like by claiming that they are not a citizen within that jurisdiction, that the law was never ratified correctly, or that the enforcing agency </span>simply does not exist. <span style="font-family: inherit;">SovCits are serial nuisance litigants, tax protestors, armchair commentators and promoters of sham financial schemes aimed at shirking tax. Further, more often that not SovCits are militantly religious and extremely conservative on social issues. They regard themselves as patriots, rather than the defacto anarchists they really are. They are completely disconnected from </span>reality. A Canadian judge has made <a href="http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html" target="_blank">an exhaustive study</a> dissecting their standard arguments.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They engage in bizarre legal activism where they stuff the courts with spurious lawsuits full of nonsensical legal jargon and painful casuistry. These filings have something of a spell-like quality to them, in the always mistaken belief that the right incantation will cause the Federal government to glow, split open, and reveal its withered Satanic heart.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Standard SovCit shenanigans include declaring that any legal summons issued to a person's name written in ALL CAPS must be referring to a fictitious legal doppelgänger and can be safely ignored. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Enter, Kent Hovind</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Although far from the first SovCit star, ol' Kent has become something of a poster boy for them, with his long incarceration for tax-crimes a badge of honour for 'standing up for his principles'. Kent disobeyed a court order to not impede the sale of his real estate, authorised to clear some of his tax debts, by filing vexatious <i>lis pendens</i> against the liens, and now faces multiple new counts of criminal activity, along with another SovCit all-star, <a href="http://www.pauljjhansen.com/?p=1320" target="_blank">Paul J Hansen</a>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, for my American readers, I can only remind you how surreal and baffling this seems from my vantage point here Down Under. Our BS detectors (an Aussie and more pejorative term for 'baloney detector') would be off the scale if this were tried here. Even the most rabid Australian right wing fruitcake (and again, I'm right-of-centre myself) concedes that the Government exists and that you should Pay Your Taxes if you want nice things like, say, roads and hospitals.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kent Hovind and his co-accused's court filings - a surreal parade of crazy</span></b></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'd like to shout out to a few people who have taken a more thorough interest in the Hovinds and their criminal behaviour. First is Robert Baty, who maintains the Facebook page "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kent-Hovind-and-Jo-Hovind-v-USA-IRS/339508739517135?fref=photo" target="_blank">Kent Hovind and Jo Hovind v USA - IRS</a>". Another is Peter J Reilly, a correspondent for the Forbes business magazine, whose <a href="http://www.forbes.com/search/?q=Kent+Hovind" target="_blank">many articles on Hovind</a> have cast an impartial and forensic eye over his unbelievable claims. Reilly also writes <a href="http://activepassivitiesandothermoronicoxen.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Kent%20Hovind" target="_blank">at his personal blog</a> on the same subject and is always compelling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Both have referenced various court transcripts and filings as source documents for their articles, but these source files have been hard to come by.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'd like to post and analyse here publicly a few of those documents for the public record. </span><b>Click<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the thumbnail for the full file.</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/a9z792t3cdvg7mf/Kent_Hovind_Jan_2015_Crazy_Court_Submission.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt=" Kent Hovind's early 2015 court filing" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzCKeg0qrBOZilhhDhsaqziBICMzZewUZjbLsa-xUCL9HtoIW0wIvT7w-89lsA_9PQv3IkB7GNiXVSLNSjCXGCibJOks6sAkGH-z6eMcRmv7q1xLI109kL5VgNKZ63xBJEw_U1fQ/s320/Hovind_court_submission_thumbnail.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image" height="320" width="249" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I am led to </span>believe<span style="font-family: inherit;"> that Kent Hovind's has made this filing to the court in an attempt to "withdraw his consent" for the current criminal proceedings against him. Analysis below.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/wba3c83oax67nsw/Kent%20and%20Jo%20Hovind%20trial%20transcript-%20Oct%202006.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt=" Kent Hovind's 2006 trial transcript" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhezWAnuGCaOqtMiwuz15TJtuYxZAmQKT3i9igq5hKKxeRTpahEB8T93BU5eX9GWMFMnE_G0l2Gsb-aW85t4yYJAfcqyjbYhyphenhyphengKOSb7wC5SRn1-ZxdC5Gy6Df23QtI_jZMhnDdRrA/s320/Hovind_trail_transcript_thumbnail.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image" height="320" width="225" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The original transcript of Kent and Jo Hovind's 2006 trial for tax fraud. All 1853 pages of it (that's over 440,000 words). However, the only bit you need to read is the prosecution's closing argument to the jury, which only runs from pp.1797-1809 in the attached PDF.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It completely debunks Kent's claim that he broke no law, never obstructed officials in the execution of their duties, and never had adequately explained to him what it was he was supposed to have done wrong.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The jury returned unanimous verdicts of "Guilty" on all 57 counts in the indictment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/cm9m1csdb76lmih/Hansen%20handwritten%20filings%20Dec%202014.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEnXkKTuWlkNoEPIpG5SLfDtqA-h5kwuXuLoitZ53mcPiQIYHpmtynKTspOjNvgVJQ-1hci1SyhyLP0QDx-8q5v_2FC8cKoXypwVnlcnfhlcq_h0-HRPoDJCQbsRlJ-7WaKrjPXA/s320/Hansen%252Bfiling%252Bthumbnail.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image" height="320" width="249" /></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> A recent court filing listing the demands of Paul J Hansen, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kent Hovind's co-accused in new criminal charges that are </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">the subject of the upcoming (February 2015) trial.</span></div>
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Analysis</h3>
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The situation: You've been convicted of 57 separate Federal crimes and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. You weren't a young man when you went in.</div>
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There was no doubt about your guilt... you were accorded due process and convicted unanimously. Every appeal you lodged was dismissed as frivolous, embarassingly clumsy and irrelevant, full of basic errors of spelling and grammar, salted with random latin phrases to make it sound more profound, as well as declared as being lodged in bad faith, merely to impede the justice process.</div>
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You've dragged your poor wife into the mire and she's spent a year in prison too, away from her children and grandchildren, exclusively because she did her husband's bidding.</div>
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You've strayed a long, long way from your putative mission, which is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and instead you are now known exclusively for crank tax avoidance escapades, sinister end-times conspiracy theories about One World Government, denying the existence of the United States as a legal entity, renouncing your citizenship and saying "Democracy is evil and contrary to God's Law".</div>
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You're eight years in, and there's a chance that through an early release scheme, you'll go home soon.</div>
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What would the sensible man do? He would express contrition, do his time, and seek to live a quiet life.</div>
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What does Kent Hovind do? Let's have a look. Kent's submission is verbatim in <span style="color: red;">red</span>.<br />
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<b>1. "WITHDRAW YOUR CONSENT" </b>for the proceedings. Not just withdrawal of consent from the criminal trial, but withdrawal of consent to the <span style="color: red;">"current fraudulent de facto STATE OF FLORIDA, and United States". </span>This apparently renders <span style="color: red;">"unlawful and fraudulent" all "Commander in Chief presidential Executive Orders". </span>Thus, despite being in prison for eight years, <span style="color: red;">"I am not the property of the Court. Under no circumstances may I be detained in any way whatsoever, nor at any time, past, present or future."</span><br />
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Ta-da! America doesn't exist! Now let me go home!</div>
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<b>2. CLAIM THAT NO COURT HAS JURISDICTION</b> because he is, quote <span style="color: red;">"A shipowner who sends his vessel into a foreign port"</span>, and is<span style="color: red;"> "In Uniform, with a fully marked vessel flying flags claiming dual citizenship status."</span><br />
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<b>3. RENOUNCE YOUR U.S CITIZENSHIP</b> (again): <span style="color: red;">"I have never been, I am not now, nor will I ever be, a 14th Amendment UNITED STATES or Article XIV citizen"</span>.<br />
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<b>4. DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM A FICTITIOUS BANK ACCOUNT</b> held in every citizen's name that has millions of dollars in it, but which the U.S Government doesn't want you to know about: <span style="color: red;">"You may use the negotiable instrument, certified funds, drawn against Drawers Private Treasury UCC Contract Trust Account established in the U.S. Treasury, for set-off of any said debts on your statements of the account of KENT E HOVIND, as ascribed in the banknote birth certificate origin registration form"</span><br />
And yes, that's a demand of the same United States that is illegal, has no jurisdiction, and which Kent is categorically <i>not</i> a citizen of.<br />
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<b>5. THREATEN THE JUDGE THAT PUT YOU AWAY EIGHT YEARS AGO AND IS ABOUT TO HEAR THE CASE FOR THE NEW CHARGES AGAINST YOU</b>.<br />
By declaring that no public official has immunity from personal consequences in the execution of their public duties:<br />
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<li><span style="color: red;">"Any person acting as an agent for a nameless, faceless corporation is wholly personally responsible for their actions on behalf of the corporation. All actions incurring any degree of injury will incur Notice of Injury, including severe financial penalty"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"The Law is under scrutiny for it’s (sic) contribution to the current state of the planet, the distribution of rights and resources and the obstruction of Divine Law"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"We the People have been providentially provided legal recourse to address the criminal conduct of</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">persons, themselves entrusted to dispense justice (when) ...public officials, including judges go rogue, act in bad behavior and criminally violate the law."</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"Judges rest upon fraudulent appellate court rulings and statutes that are repugnant to the Constitution</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">while they convince themselves that by following such statutes they are immune from penalties should the People become aware of their fraud"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"Once we the People ordained common law the law of the land no man can abrogate it; to claim to do so is an act of war against the People and their God. Unconstitutional acts are not law and no one is bound to obey them. Judges are expected to maintain a high standard of judicial performance and when they violate the Constitution they cease to represent the government, become liable for damages and lose any immunity they may think they have"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"Failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution for the United States Article II Section 1 is to war against the People".</span></li>
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<b>6. DEMAND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL INDICT EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER PROSECUTED YOU</b><br />
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<li><span style="color: red;">"Subject: NOTICE OF COUNTERFEIT SECURITIES ... </span><span style="color: red;">Dear Eric Holder, </span><span style="color: red;">You are hereby put on NOTICE pursuant to Title 18 USC § 4 of the commission of crimes cognizable by a court of the United States under Title 18 USC §513 to wit: '513(a) Whoever makes, utters or possesses a counterfeited security of a State or a political subdivision thereof or of an organization, or whoever makes, utters or possesses a forged security of a State or political subdivision thereof or of an organization, with intent to deceive another person, organization, or government shall be fined not more than $250,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both'"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"The Order of Contempt by alleged Judge M. CASEY RODGERS is a counterfeit security and </span><span style="color: red;">constructive fraud"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"DEMAND is hereby made upon the, United States Attorney General, to investigate the above named government officials, employees, agents, and public officers for creating, using and promoting fraudulent and counterfeit securities in a fraudulent scheme"</span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">"Eric Holder, a man, and Alleged Attorney General !! </span><span style="color: red;">I hereby DEMAND that you honor your oath of office to defend and support the Constitution for the de jure united States of America (if you still are loyal to that entity). In so doing, I DEMAND that you investigate the illegal acts of the above named United States officials"</span></li>
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<b>7. MAGNANIMOUSLY, FROM PRISON, ALLOW THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AN EXTENSION OF TIME, BUT ONLY IF HE WRITES TO KENT TO ASK FOR PERMISSION:</b><br />
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<span style="color: red;">"If you are unwilling or unable to investigate into this case ... identify the lawful reasons why and relate said reasons to me in writing within 15 days from receipt of this filing. When you need longer than 15 days to respond, send me a written request for an extension of time within the 15 days and it will be given to you."</span></div>
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What are we to make of this sad, rambling, pathetic farrago?</div>
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One conclusion some have reached is that Kent Hovind is seriously mentally ill. He had spent a good deal of his eight year incarceration publishing "<a href="http://www.kenthovindblog.com/?s=knee+mail" target="_blank">knee mails</a>" where he likens himself to St Paul, and describes his talks directly with God, who unfailingly approves of Kent and agrees that he's not guilty of anything, and that those nasty government types would be all getting their come-uppance any day now. Others have suggested that the right diagnosis is a bad case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I can't speak to the likelihood of either, but this talk makes me uneasy if it is used as an excuse rather than an explanation for Kent Hovind's crimes.</div>
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Internet sleuth <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mirele?fref=ufi" target="_blank">Deana Holmes</a> has done good work in tracing the various forms of words used in Hovind's filing and has identified them as an aggregation of a number of standard SovCit boilerplates, most of which have been used in earlier legal actions and <u>all</u> of which have been spectacularly unsuccessful. I look forward to her publication of her research as the new Hovind trial draws closer in early February.</div>
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Obviously, the predicament Hovind finds himself in (and the new charges of fraud relating to the <i>lis pendens</i> liens on his forfeited property) have everything to do with the legal counsel he's received over the years. The Lionel Hutz role used to be played by secessionist <a href="http://lclane2.net/stoll.html" target="_blank">Glen Stoll</a>, but is currently played by Paul J Hansen, whose calibre is in evidence in that he is now Hovind's co-accused and has been denied bail before his co-appearance before Judge Rodgers. For an example of Hansen's towering intellect, cast your eye over the crayon daubings he has made by way of a legal submission, which has been so incomprehensible, his own lawyer has petitioned for clarification over his role in Hansen's defence.</div>
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As this train wreck moves closer to trial, I suggest that interested readers follow along on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kent-Hovind-and-Jo-Hovind-v-USA-IRS/339508739517135?fref=nf" target="_blank">Robert Baty's Facebook group</a>.</div>
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<i>The author is an office holder in the conservative Australian political party presently in government, the Liberal Party, and has worked in both State and Federal Parliamentarian's offices. He sits on the committee of a national organisation, <a href="http://www.cifs.org.au/" target="_blank">CIFS</a>, which monitors the harmful effects of cults. He holds a degree in Philosophy, a Masters degree in Education, and has worked in Christian Schooling since 1998.</i></div>
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Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-10656527792005064412013-09-03T11:18:00.001+10:002013-09-03T11:20:33.377+10:00In which Nathan is interviewed on the radio about cultsFor the last few years, I've taken up a committee role in the <a href="http://www.cifs.org.au/" target="_blank">CIFS</a> organisation. CIFS is the Cult Information and Family Support network, a support and advocacy organisation. My role is to encourage people who feel any sense of injustice at the predatory behaviours of cults to <i>do something.</i> I gave a presentation to CIFS recently that summarised the avenues of complaint one might choose to pursue, and I'll put that up as a separate post in the future.<br />
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Yesterday, I was interviewed by a Sydney community radio station about cults and they've graciously provided the audio. If what I'm saying strikes a chord, please get in touch.<br />
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<a href="https://archive.org/details/CifsWr.20130902" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4NTr0cDKTFdfKAxTtDesimmdwfjI2AYnZZ8rDF5iMYRoSM3-wOzOv24N6HlwKhZkxJ_ZpYG7ZtekvNlfUreJo9asmjQ8USP-C4YLQHHWCVYdO3k0kmaZFTVO3Ju1hdCNst4cufg/s640/CIFS_Radio.jpg" title="CIFS Radio" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><a href="https://archive.org/details/CifsWr.20130902">https://archive.org/details/CifsWr.20130902</a></b></div>
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(on the audio page, you can stream directly from the website, or download the MP3 by clicking the <a href="https://archive.org/download/CifsWr.20130902/cifs_wr.2013-09-02.mp3" target="_blank">VBR MP3</a> link)</div>
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Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-7677838763582319392012-03-19T11:39:00.002+11:002021-08-07T18:17:06.081+10:00Spirited Away - A Sydney Morning Herald investigative articleOur family's story appeared over the weekend in the <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i> and the Melbourne <i>Age</i>. Many thanks are due to Fairfax journalist Tim Elliot (who has written about the "12 tribes" cult in the past) for his exhaustive investigatory work. He tells me he ended up interviewing over 30 people to draw this story together.<br />
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The online version is now available, for those who didn't get the paper over the weekend. <div><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/spirited-away-20120312-1utb6.html" target="_blank">Click this link to be taken to the <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i> </a>article at their website.</div><div><a href="https://councillorzamprogno.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Spirited-away-SMH-article-with-comments.pdf" target="_blank">Click here to download a PDF version of the story</a> (plus the highly interesting comments people made), if the Fairfax paywall defeats you.</div><div><br /></div><div>Don't forget that a more detailed account of our family's story is on this website:<br />
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<a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">Part 1: Who are the Shepherd's Heart and what to they believe?</a><br />
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<a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/in-which-nathans-wife-is-stolen-away-by.html" target="_blank">Part 2: In which Nathan's wife is stolen away by a cult.</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRASFBK7E2ycDmq7Be7aFTGqZS3Z2wiRd3jAgypdT6_0d5twgJcQvT08YCq58Bxt4YDH_mY-5wGbxQwWMGTBrJMqmfWujdOy6xWGj_UwM5O4P88cVR2u_0e1oDipPcxzIa4Yg6Sg/s1600/Spirited+Away+SMH+article+screenshot_blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRASFBK7E2ycDmq7Be7aFTGqZS3Z2wiRd3jAgypdT6_0d5twgJcQvT08YCq58Bxt4YDH_mY-5wGbxQwWMGTBrJMqmfWujdOy6xWGj_UwM5O4P88cVR2u_0e1oDipPcxzIa4Yg6Sg/s640/Spirited+Away+SMH+article+screenshot_blog.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-10646092411858433722012-01-19T00:42:00.006+11:002021-08-08T13:24:10.486+10:00In which Nathan's wife is stolen away by a cult<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare" target="_blank">The Nightmare</a>, Henry Fuseli, 1781</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;"><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">Newcomers to this page may wish to note my December 2019 update to this story. Scroll to the bottom.</span></strong></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></em> <em> This story is the second of a three part series. You are encouraged to read <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">the first part</a>, also at this site.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><em> I am telling this story in the sincere belief that I am speaking for the voiceless. For all the victims of cult abuse. For the victims of when any religious belief, even an originally well-intentioned one, turns sinister.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><em> I am also writing in the conviction that if no one speaks out, other people will inevitably suffer at the hands of the same group. Where I make an assertion that is coupled with a quote written by the cult, I claim the defence of fact. All other statements in this article are presented as the honest opinion of the author, speaking out on a matter of public importance.</em></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></em> I feel the need to impress on readers the ordinariness of our lives before this tragedy befell us; we were an average, happy family, with community interests and good jobs. This did not happen because we were into some "weird stuff" ourselves; quite the opposite. My skeptical streak is a mile wide and always has been (evident if you see the other articles on this website).</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;"> Telling this story will not bring Kylie back. We are divorced and our son and I have moved on with our lives. We are fortunately, amazingly happily, but the pain of our loss will endure.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">-------- ~~~ --------</span></span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span>I have a sad story to tell. Friends and family have shared this journey with me for the last three years, but the time has come to speak publicly. The telling of this tale has put me on TV twice over the last two months. It has also placed me at a lectern speaking to an international conference hosted at Parliament House in Canberra in front of a room full of MPs and dignitaries. My dual intents are to lay out a fuller version of this story, and to provide a warning. Perhaps telling my story will prevent another family from having to endure what mine has.<br /><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> <span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span> <br /> </span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp_kO_-vSgFHJQvTtdZvl_zG3X3wQ2P93nrksaklGmjQRm1qUEp76ZtscIru-yhZAkF4OnWSGAlvf__9Q3xh6dGFuZKTcqtDJZ93BZxdD8FcCX60577XUnVRMujuOitIkQ0M3CmQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_31-+run+talk+or+disobey+means+death.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp_kO_-vSgFHJQvTtdZvl_zG3X3wQ2P93nrksaklGmjQRm1qUEp76ZtscIru-yhZAkF4OnWSGAlvf__9Q3xh6dGFuZKTcqtDJZ93BZxdD8FcCX60577XUnVRMujuOitIkQ0M3CmQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_31-+run+talk+or+disobey+means+death.jpg" width="320" height="108" border="0" /></span></span></span></a></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"If I run I die<br />If I talk I die<br />If I disobey I die"</span></span></span></td>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span></span></span> I lost my wife, Kylie, to a cult, based in the Blue Mountains, West of Sydney. I believe their influence ruined her health, her career, and robbed a 6 year old boy of his mother. That they unpicked the threads of her life and of her mind. That she cast aside her home, her wider family, even her <span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>name </em></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">for the sake of a pseudo-Christian group that she had never met six months previously</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>.</em></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> She now goes by a name given to her by the cult, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>Hope</em></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">, after she was told that the person named Kylie had </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>never</em></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> existed. At a point where she was mentally unwell and exceptionally vulnerable, this cult misdirected her therapy, providing instead what a psychologist identified as a "treatment program" written by a group who believe Nazi-built, demonically piloted UFOs kidnap women and impregnate them to create a race of half-demon super soldiers. They took the most febrile delusions occasioned by her illness and convinced her they were real; that she was the victim of Satanic abuse; that she could speak to Jesus Christ and had a gift of prophecy; that her multiple personalities were evidence of demons that had to be exorcised; that she was involved in spiritual warfare against "astral travellers" from local covens who psychically bombarded her and the group; that her </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>real</em></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> family were evil. Crazy, evil stuff.</span></span></span></span><br /> </span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span> <a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8VPUctofja1wixpiX3Nz1of15N5xPJVj8V_GzdFeVQzudRw2qACguzDTLDWJR76Xyt3ald5Srywn52aeTQ0ggwO26u_jXklO279_5czWUg2lwF76YsNDQ1vn2Wa8dAsXYA15Fkg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_42-+I+am+scared.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8VPUctofja1wixpiX3Nz1of15N5xPJVj8V_GzdFeVQzudRw2qACguzDTLDWJR76Xyt3ald5Srywn52aeTQ0ggwO26u_jXklO279_5czWUg2lwF76YsNDQ1vn2Wa8dAsXYA15Fkg/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_42-+I+am+scared.jpg" width="400" height="86" border="0" /></span></a></span></span></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">What Kylie wrote...</span></span></span></td>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span></span>But, as this horror-story unfolded, I found people placed in my path through the most extraordinary coincidences imaginable. People who added pieces to the puzzle; people who were worried enough to implicate members of their own family if it meant a little light could be cast into some dark recesses. People who came forward, prepared to stand by me on TV, as it happened, to say "my family were damaged by the same group." Slowly, what the cult wrote, what they said, and what they believe was, amazingly, dropped into my lap. Often accompanied by a hand on my arm, an earnest look, and the charge; "Nathan, do something." I've been joined by eminent university lecturers, members of Parliament, cult experts, and support groups. I've joined a crusade to have laws against cults improved. I've made lifelong friends, and one or two enemies.<br /> <br /> I name the people responsible.<br /> <em>Oderint dum metuant</em>, I say.<br /> This is our story. It's a corker.<br /> </div>
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<div><br /> <br /> Here, I name the people in question. In my opinion, they are members of the cult operating in the Blue Mountains: </div>
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<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AomLG7Woc0YhQ2elz9FNI5mYNX72YOOvm_QPxt-Ncfa17mMTXfXPz3ds9BMQ8CRFCh8Brqh7BxOe2-tnUEp7URvBa5OCeZ7G5VkxxeVAHB8pBWw18Adr7BVAxSKEBKxswjXsOQ/s1600/Gina+Donges+Jan+2014.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1AomLG7Woc0YhQ2elz9FNI5mYNX72YOOvm_QPxt-Ncfa17mMTXfXPz3ds9BMQ8CRFCh8Brqh7BxOe2-tnUEp7URvBa5OCeZ7G5VkxxeVAHB8pBWw18Adr7BVAxSKEBKxswjXsOQ/s1600/Gina+Donges+Jan+2014.jpg" width="167" height="200" border="0" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4b-OwKVEDqI-6Pd98lxvUVe3byiU698mi7488yDDn6viuruH9_LTv2WWkNguMiKl44i9WHBVvV9CxfkLCdRuoqWU9F3Gt9IOT0xFUyagL-4qtRsJoz_Lpd9QBH__w8uP8wTSEg/s1600/Virginnia+Donges2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4b-OwKVEDqI-6Pd98lxvUVe3byiU698mi7488yDDn6viuruH9_LTv2WWkNguMiKl44i9WHBVvV9CxfkLCdRuoqWU9F3Gt9IOT0xFUyagL-4qtRsJoz_Lpd9QBH__w8uP8wTSEg/s200/Virginnia+Donges2.jpg" width="200" height="158" border="0" /></a></td>
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<div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/gina.donges" target="_blank">Virginnia Donges</a> (who now goes by the name "Gina Donges", or by her maiden name, "Gina Doran".)</div>
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<td style="width: 279.71875px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7e3IctlWjDO_OnFtmFDz6CRRAeJV7RXScCoDZZiQs8teAKZZL2Kez-hJYo2VIP_28OlyM3EsS_81vhQFTX94Divrse9cTPccLn14j8DPEcRakO36y8LjxUK-TNcfDEfOG2LANCg/s1600/Jenny+Buckingham.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7e3IctlWjDO_OnFtmFDz6CRRAeJV7RXScCoDZZiQs8teAKZZL2Kez-hJYo2VIP_28OlyM3EsS_81vhQFTX94Divrse9cTPccLn14j8DPEcRakO36y8LjxUK-TNcfDEfOG2LANCg/s200/Jenny+Buckingham.jpg" width="200" height="192" border="0" /></a></td>
<td style="width: 485.28125px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jenny.buckingham.524" target="_blank">Jenny Buckingham</a>-Jones </td>
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<td style="width: 279.71875px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPXFq8vsQXdH8tui48itgMnRjYhmwBl-f_NDrNSyb68vgYg9NhPcMzSRaGxFgRtvydPz3CVw1_1hOztSGsah8qujuCdP148kJ-o4ECTQbrb4DUPZH6HsVeq1_AG7CfD1AXEb8EA/s1600/David+Buckingham.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPXFq8vsQXdH8tui48itgMnRjYhmwBl-f_NDrNSyb68vgYg9NhPcMzSRaGxFgRtvydPz3CVw1_1hOztSGsah8qujuCdP148kJ-o4ECTQbrb4DUPZH6HsVeq1_AG7CfD1AXEb8EA/s200/David+Buckingham.jpg" width="200" height="200" border="0" /></a></td>
<td style="width: 485.28125px;">...and her husband <a href="https://www.facebook.com/david.buckingham.73" target="_blank">David Buckingham</a></td>
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<td style="width: 279.71875px;"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-jc_h5iDK1b_lMcMKGRCq7NarsQ1w3uqe3A-y_NQYrkf9aog39XyOaK0MgAgMpFfraMKgcG8jwulVrLLAp1MnpxS4vZogCW2KFg6QbisgUKQsdg1Twet_UMVTkLXVuVstaJK1dA/s200/Annette+Wotherspoon.jpg" width="200" height="200" border="0" /></td>
<td style="width: 485.28125px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/annette.wotherspoon.1" target="_blank">Annette Wotherspoon</a> who runs <a href="http://www.roselindsay.com.au/" target="_blank">Rose Lindsay cottage</a></td>
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<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVbWojY-8KJuwvnJmi6QZigirHfOHNAqdCoGBeLtsk565Ck5xsj4tuBSp6v1gnc5CTiH7Waqvt4r-RX5lOLM97LcnyY4u-pvHRxkDJ-3wHo0sizSISNpRDT28ThYKdtzdZybgO0A/s1600/Danny_(Adrian)_Wotherspoon_Abel_Ecology.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVbWojY-8KJuwvnJmi6QZigirHfOHNAqdCoGBeLtsk565Ck5xsj4tuBSp6v1gnc5CTiH7Waqvt4r-RX5lOLM97LcnyY4u-pvHRxkDJ-3wHo0sizSISNpRDT28ThYKdtzdZybgO0A/s1600/Danny_(Adrian)_Wotherspoon_Abel_Ecology.jpg" width="163" height="200" border="0" /></a></div>
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<td style="width: 485.28125px;">Danny Wotherspoon, also known as Adrian Wotherspoon, of <a href="http://www.abelecology.com.au/aboutus.htm" target="_blank">Abel Ecology</a></td>
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<td style="width: 279.71875px;"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://councillorzamprogno.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Liz-Lees.jpg" alt="Liz Lees" width="200" height="200" /></td>
<td style="width: 485.28125px;">and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/liz.lees.35" target="_blank">Liz Lees</a>, who may have parted company with the group.</td>
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<div><br /> If any of the above have parted company with the group, they are welcome to reach out to me to set the record straight.<br /> <br /> <br /> All live in the Warrimoo / Springwood/ Faulconbridge area of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, and their group have collectively gone by the name the "Springwood Faulconbridge Home Church" for over 15 years. If you or loved ones have had a harmful encounter with this group, please contact me or one of the anti-cult support groups mentioned in <strong>my <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">other article</a> about John Darnell and his wife Glenys Darnell of the <a href="http://shepherdsheart.com.au/" target="_blank">Shepherds Heart Church</a> in Canberra.</strong><br /> <br /> Let me take you back three years. Kylie, a beautiful, vivacious lady, was working odd shifts at the reception desk at the private <a href="http://www.wycliffe.nsw.edu.au/" target="_blank">school</a> that I had worked at for ten years. She was doing that because our son had started Kindy at the same school, and after years of being a stay-at-home mum. She was grateful for the distraction while she waited to get back to her "dream job", which was working as an E.N in the emergency department of Nepean hospital. So, the three of us often travelled to school together as a family. It was awesome. I ticked all the boxes. Beautiful wife, great job, own home, station wagon, a raft of civic engagements. The good life.<br /><span style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /></span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><br /> </span></span></span></span> But there was a cloud on our horizon. Hear me: Statistics shows Mental illness affects <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-n-report10" target="_blank">half the population</a> over a lifetime, and 20% of the population in any given year. This means mental illness will either affect you or someone you love. Yes, mental illness costs over $20 billion to the economy, but it's far more important to recognise: "It's not their fault". <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/mentalhealth/Publishing.nsf/Content/Home-1" target="_blank">Mental</a> <a href="http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx" target="_blank">illness</a> <a href="http://www.sane.org/" target="_blank">shouldn't</a> be <a href="http://www.headspace.org.au/" target="_blank">stigmatised</a>. There is support out there (despite some <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/mercy-ministries-home-to-close-20091027-hj2k.html" target="_blank">bad apples</a>). For us, it was just one of those challenges that lay on our journey. Kylie was occasionally unwell, but she was loved and always brought back to health with the support of her family. Every time she recovered, we were <em>so proud of her</em>, and we felt we had a stronger empathy for those in the same situation. People with mental illnesses deserve our love and support.<br /> <br /> Now this school we worked at, <a href="http://www.wycliffe.nsw.edu.au/" target="_blank">Wycliffe Christian School</a> at Warrimoo west of Sydney, is a non-denominational Christian school. I loved working there, but you know how it is. There are always the crazies that take up the outer orbit in any community, especially in the Blue Mountains, where crazy seems to be in the water. Except these crazies weren't in the outer orbit. Two of them were on the school board, at different times. And a third worked at reception, alongside my wife. There were stories; they'd stick their head up and say something... heterodox, that would make those within earshot blush, or cringe. The board president and the Principal were cautioned about letting them have any influence. Shoulders were shrugged. We had to be "ecumenical".<br /><br /> Soon, Kylie was being sucked in. It was "Hey, come to our Bible study group". I kick myself now, because that's when the trouble started. No one recruits you to a cult by saying "Hey, join our group and we'll ruin your life." But at the time... I just had no idea. So off she went on odd evenings to socialise with this group. I even felt pleased that she had made new friends.<br /><br /> No sooner had Kylie struck up this friendship that I started to see her change. Some of these outings had her coming back later and later. Midnight would come and go. I had a sleeping child in his bed. Her phone was off. Was she dead on the side of the road? I could tell she was at the cusp of becoming unwell again. And unwell meant... vulnerable. What were these people doing to her? The explanations, when they were offered at all, was Kylie was going through some pretty heavy "counselling". But hey, these were respectable people, right? On the School board and all?<br /><br /></div>
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<td>On the 4th of January 2009, she told our son and I that she was going to her Bible study, and she would be back for dinner. We waved her off.<br />She never came home.<br /> <br /> Kylie, when she was descending into an episode of mental illness, had the misfortune to fall into this sinister and manipulative group at precisely the worst moment.</td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpnvXpqkzmqk5XI9rolFmtgNtYwCZJTzvCQdMv3pRn13qKNVba5eVtUt4xPA34k9ymu_3IRQgY2niKMBEL2ik1T_9y_W2QNK-O-2dW0qJhAtQM3NNyxFbjhcYtWqYxumbJSpGnw/s1600/SMS,+Virginnia+Donges+-+2.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpnvXpqkzmqk5XI9rolFmtgNtYwCZJTzvCQdMv3pRn13qKNVba5eVtUt4xPA34k9ymu_3IRQgY2niKMBEL2ik1T_9y_W2QNK-O-2dW0qJhAtQM3NNyxFbjhcYtWqYxumbJSpGnw/s200/SMS,+Virginnia+Donges+-+2.jpg" width="200" height="151" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td>Virginnia had taken over Kylie.</td>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /> </span></span></span></span> Now, I know better. Now, I know this group have form. That they have damaged other people, other families. Years ago, they prophesied their group's pre-eminent role in the return of Jesus Christ. They went through spiritual passions when a member of their group was seriously ill, engaging in a prayer life that crossed a line into the bizarre. Their spiritual warfare centred on a belief that organised Satanic covens were attacking them, spiritually, all the time. Others, like my wife, had been taken in and "counselled" that they had repressed the memories of Satanic abuse by “Dissociating" the memories. We’ll come back to that.<br /> <br /> One former member who escaped from the group with her children 12 years ago has been happy to speak out, and was interviewed for Channel Nine's <em>A Current Affair</em>. Here's what she said:<br /> </div>
<blockquote><em>"We were attracted to them at first. But their beliefs changed. They became more extreme. Certain members of that group were prophesying about end times. They predicted the return of Christ, at a particular time, and ascribed certain roles for members of the group in relation to it. One of the group would lay on the ground and speak with what he said was the voice of God.</em><br /><em>I became increasingly uncomfortable. We left because it became damaging to my family. I went to a friend I trusted, I went to a couple of Pastors I knew, and they all thought it was too strange, and dangerous, and that our family shouldn't be involved in it any more.</em><br /><em>When I hear about the stuff this group are doing now, I'm very glad I'm no longer involved. It's contrary to my own experience of God, of prayer, and of reading the Bible. What it has to do with is peoples' egos; their unwillingness to stand back from their behaviour and examine it critically.</em><br /><em>I think what they are doing now is dangerous, because they seem to have power in these relationships. Power that's quite negative. It brings discredit to God.</em><br /><em>I don't know if these people are Christians, but I don't believe they are displaying Christian behaviour.</em><br /><em>I hope they are called to account for their behaviour."</em></blockquote>
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<td> Within a year, I found Kylie now went by the name the cult provided for her; "Hope Hopie” (and now legally changed to “Hope Doran-Jones” – a compound of her cult assigned name and two of the cult family surnames. Hope had a Facebook page. It's Kylie's face, but gaunt... haunted. She had lost maybe 25 kilos. As one of the cult members, Virginnia (Gina) Donges (Doran), explained to her own family, <em>"There was no Kylie, ever." </em>The smiling, vivacious, grounded women I courted, married, bought a house with... That person was gone. Erased. "Hope" was encouraged to refer to her own mother as "Filth", and to have nothing to do with her family. <br /> <br /> She missed her sister's wedding. She missed the birth of three nieces and nephews. Contact with her family, including our son, progressively diminished.</td>
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<div><span style="color: #ff1009; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;">"Hope Hopie"'s Facebook page (since deleted). A suffering woman, </span></span><span style="color: #ff1009; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;">who bears my wife's face, stripped of her identity.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="color: #ff1009; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(click for larger)</span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> </span></span>The first Christmas she was gone, I called her.<br /> "There's an empty chair here, and you're missed terribly. Where are you?"<br /> <em>"I'm with my real family now."</em><br /> <br /> I was gutted.<br /> What happened?<br /> This is what happened:<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> <br /> <br /> </span></span></div>
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<td><span style="color: #ff1009;">"My family is the cult"... What Kylie was taught.</span></td>
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<div> Kylie's natural affections for her family, which were so loyal; her maternal bond with our son, which was so <em>fierce</em>, were pared away. She was persuaded that they were evil; that she had spent her childhood exposed to satanic torture (Necessary interjection: Kylie's family are good, kind, civically engaged people, and their support has been indispensable). Her illness, the presentation of alternate personalities, was perverted into some kind of spiritual attunement, a conduit to hear messages from Jesus springing from Kylie's lips; her altered states the channel to a prophetic gift, to foretell the future; to detect and oppose "astrals", which were satanists purportedly making psychic out-of-body attacks on the group. These ecstatic spiritual experiences often caused Kylie to lapse into a catatonic state. At the time, Kylie wrote:</div>
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<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgGLtgoT0UZgMVBkVGhJgdpej5hFsx-exHCxq4i4U1Knw7XKl_VEl8Yk3dV3Tdmn0nvC7jrWlyduokTeT610_DRABEqStCCuM6m70IUzxlEffMKqgebcun8IpSjHMKXN2eMDq7Q/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_47-astrals+and+catatonia.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgGLtgoT0UZgMVBkVGhJgdpej5hFsx-exHCxq4i4U1Knw7XKl_VEl8Yk3dV3Tdmn0nvC7jrWlyduokTeT610_DRABEqStCCuM6m70IUzxlEffMKqgebcun8IpSjHMKXN2eMDq7Q/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_47-astrals+and+catatonia.jpg" width="400" height="145" border="0" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"God just told me the next one will be different, it will be like the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">other night when I couldn't fall unconscious or stare too long</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">'cause of the risk of catatonia. He said trap the astrals, get rid of them,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">then keep me awake for half an hour. I'm sorry!"</span></div>
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<div> What the cult believe is that Kylie has a condition known as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_Identity_Disorder" target="_blank">Dissociative Identity Disorder</a>", and that the person I knew as Kylie was merely a suffering community of "alters" who had "split" in order to protect her from the traumatic memories of Satanic abuse as a adolescent. This was controversial enough as a medical diagnosis; equally as many people in the psychiatric community believe DID simply does not exist. "Why," they legitimately ask, "did Holocaust survivors preserve relatively whole memories of their trauma, and yet you say that this abuse forces multiple amnesias and the fragmentation of a person's entire personality?"<br /><br /> One personality she presented could supposedly speak directly to Jesus Christ, and that one must have been useful. However, Virginnia (Gina) Donges (Doran) gave an account of the terrible toll this "gift" was having on Kylie, saying </div>
<blockquote>
<div>"She has the gift of prophecy... But some (of these alters) wanted to hurt her, so they would go and drink bleach, they would eat firelighters, they would try and get her hand in the fire, they would run in front of trucks, all that sort of thing. So we kept the doors locked to keep her safe." </div>
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<div>Some alters were infantile and mute. They were put to bed with a sucked thumb and a teddy. And others... well, there's no polite way to put it. They were demons, and the only remedy for demonic possession is exorcism. Virginnia boasted the group cast out 88 of them in a single evening.<br /> <br />So Kylie was subjected to exorcism. In Australia, in the twenty first century.<br /><br /> Within months, Kylie wrote a suicide note, addressed to our son. I can't repeat that. But these notes made about Kylie's ongoing treatment at around that time are disturbing:</div>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyorEVUOtrj6BYJP6CVGDahGavNvVhDfwCDc3pMvD0Aams7N2QhYv7suxEfCuE8Jb89mNNgvRJu5acKnhpGxRG1bwb1lnHlg92ddEK_6AwDEdiL5d497Ok1afugWISRAOkkk7rPg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_37-+the+only+way+out+is+death.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyorEVUOtrj6BYJP6CVGDahGavNvVhDfwCDc3pMvD0Aams7N2QhYv7suxEfCuE8Jb89mNNgvRJu5acKnhpGxRG1bwb1lnHlg92ddEK_6AwDEdiL5d497Ok1afugWISRAOkkk7rPg/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_37-+the+only+way+out+is+death.jpg" width="400" height="48" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"The only way out is death"</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyo3FXfXscF1ZFZ_rV93JTxOpJMiB6yATStPk1oluKYqFjMvNPLV9hecMM0lDRt_gt1UZ9LsMnO_guH19914VJXQH9SHxP-BgK6mAOy4fOu_KjrfbX1XopflS23RZE2kcrHFvpkA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_07-+watching+death+makes+stronger.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyo3FXfXscF1ZFZ_rV93JTxOpJMiB6yATStPk1oluKYqFjMvNPLV9hecMM0lDRt_gt1UZ9LsMnO_guH19914VJXQH9SHxP-BgK6mAOy4fOu_KjrfbX1XopflS23RZE2kcrHFvpkA/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_07-+watching+death+makes+stronger.jpg" width="400" height="32" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"Watching death makes me stronger"</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdCqQ5AYtouBw1oSJgWtJsgRfQHz83-Q1Hke-K5iVeY8GSHm9S_ezsXHskSsIs4zkcrO1Rafmhq6O6B2FUhVG4o3JmCM5DYaORMBkjH8jeR6f_9rVxFcW_qP22MkBHCofBdMmEQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_09-+will+obey+at+all+costs.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdCqQ5AYtouBw1oSJgWtJsgRfQHz83-Q1Hke-K5iVeY8GSHm9S_ezsXHskSsIs4zkcrO1Rafmhq6O6B2FUhVG4o3JmCM5DYaORMBkjH8jeR6f_9rVxFcW_qP22MkBHCofBdMmEQ/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_09-+will+obey+at+all+costs.jpg" width="400" height="33" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"I will obey at all costs"</span></td>
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<div><br />My blood ran cold.<br />Local ministers, former colleagues, people of better sense, did what they could to intervene. They were told to "butt out".</div>
<div> </div>
<div>My wife... my boy's mummy, was gone.<br /> <br /> Fade to black.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /> -------- ~~~ --------</div>
<br /> <br /> A year later, I sit with Wayne Donges, Virginnia's husband, his face creased with worry. Now he has lost his wife to the same cult. We're at his kitchen table in Faulconbridge.<br /> <br /> He pushes a binder of papers three inches thick across the table at me.<br /> "These were laying about the house, before my wife left. I collected them. They were..." (he searches for a word) "<em>treating</em> Kylie. I can't believe it, but they kept notes on everything. Go on, look."<br /> <br /> What I read shocks me to the core.<br /> <br /> And it's what you have been reading, scattered through this article. Just a small sample from these documents. It represents a rare insight into the inner workings of a religious group, turned toxic. I am not aware of many people fighting cults who have had such incriminating material dropped in their lap. I've thought long and hard about what to do with it, and my decision to publish has not come easily.<br /> <br /> Most assuredly, this group are... <em>unhappy</em> that I have this material.<br /> Actually, that's something of an understatement.<br /> <br /> For example, witness this death decree against myself, written by Virginnia (Gina) Donges (Doran) on behalf of the group:<br /><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
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<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWuYVtI-2x9yp_5EBoPADbWCRWMaotLKXpNjR0ASkJKHSdHCkHrLlySMLUZCNr5uKXO8MRKmjkQAKw-22-gLQxr1uU021LKyIOEBEyanGTqPY5oV2hXICYkTGjD85txCy6Now1Q/s1600/Virginnia+Donges+Death+Decree.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWuYVtI-2x9yp_5EBoPADbWCRWMaotLKXpNjR0ASkJKHSdHCkHrLlySMLUZCNr5uKXO8MRKmjkQAKw-22-gLQxr1uU021LKyIOEBEyanGTqPY5oV2hXICYkTGjD85txCy6Now1Q/s640/Virginnia+Donges+Death+Decree.jpg" width="640" height="480" border="0" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">The Death Decree written by the cult against myself. Similar threats of</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">calamity were made against Kylie's mother.</span></div>
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<br /> <em>"They are going to hang themselves"</em>. That this was not meant to be taken figuratively was underlined by Virginnia (Gina) on one occasion she spoke to me. It meant just that, and they were praying for it to happen.<br /> <br /> <br />
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzZBXR7pr1RM211Yvp_eXErVQ9Vh0r6VJcfOONVUMVCDu1Dnf_etwIwSmFDePX-cTjRK7WplKE5KIhAeKIjM5_6T19Jpk30obU4Q9tKmHQWwBNwPJTAYCZW_wNbn-uKr7j8-KoA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_Death+or+Conversion.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzZBXR7pr1RM211Yvp_eXErVQ9Vh0r6VJcfOONVUMVCDu1Dnf_etwIwSmFDePX-cTjRK7WplKE5KIhAeKIjM5_6T19Jpk30obU4Q9tKmHQWwBNwPJTAYCZW_wNbn-uKr7j8-KoA/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_Death+or+Conversion.jpg" width="400" height="95" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"Pray that the wombs are closed of all women.<br />Pray that the leaders come down first - taken out.<br />Pray them out - Death or Conversion."</span></td>
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<div> I'm pretty sure they didn't want me to have that.</div>
<div>Or that it would be published.</div>
<div>Or that I gave it to Channel Nine.</div>
<div>Or that I presented it at Parliament House to a conference where our Federal member of Parliament took time out of her schedule to be in the audience as a support to me (which was greatly appreciated).</div>
<br /> The man gestures. He points to some smudges above his doors and windows.<br /> "Do you see those greasy marks, Nathan? They met here. That's where they made little crucifix marks with holy oil. To keep the demons out. They thought that there were coven people hiding in the bushes outside this house, every night. They thought they saw objects moving by themselves in the house. My wife said I brought demons in to the house, on my back."</div>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoXlyUux3v6G0uHtGAKuZC7gPPyaL5J7F-7a8IXOa62EPEKExP1-vZVBElJKFJDIze9jrxI0D3mj4QiwA0nGjYa29JZ1ejqsFU0914NciyO9wOFIlUosxLU1Gd0t-EWqdPhEidg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_22-satanists+in+the+garden.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoXlyUux3v6G0uHtGAKuZC7gPPyaL5J7F-7a8IXOa62EPEKExP1-vZVBElJKFJDIze9jrxI0D3mj4QiwA0nGjYa29JZ1ejqsFU0914NciyO9wOFIlUosxLU1Gd0t-EWqdPhEidg/s640/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_22-satanists+in+the+garden.jpg" width="640" height="182" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff1009;">"Jesus revealed 1 person in back of yard in bush every night 4<br />last 2 weeks keeping surveillance of coming and going and<br />keeping notes on lights off. He said pray, link angels around<br />boundary every night. Man ran away"</span></td>
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<br /> <br />
<div> I leaf through hundreds of pages of handwritten and typed documents, some in Kylie's writing, and some in the hand of various cult members. Pronouncements, curses, abjurations. Notes made by cult members as they guided my wife's "therapy", encouraging her to verbalise ever more lurid accounts of satanic murder and torture, with no evidence that they ever stopped to ask if it was true, but instead ecstatically <em>wishing</em> it to be true. Insisting, <em>surely</em> it must be still worse, and pray, go further? Crudely drawn pictures of stick figures having indignities performed on them with bombs, torture devices, even a helicopter suspending victims over a mine field. Kindergarten scrawls of obscenities, ostensibly written by Kylie as she "regressed" to infantile alters to re-live her traumas. Crayon daubings of rainbows, roughly done.<br /> Immediately, my thoughts turned to Kylie, working in the emergency ward of Nepean hospital; competent and vibrant. A loving mother. A homemaker. My best friend.<br /> I feel sick.<br /> <br /> I see Kylie, systematically persuaded that her youthful life was in thrall to a Satanic coven, and that only now can she be free, with the cult, her new family.<br />
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<div><strong>This is where it gets confusing:</strong></div>
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<div><strong>Where the material I am showing you uses the word "cult", it is the Springwood Faulconbridge Home Church referring to basically the whole world. Everyone is compromised. In their mind, you might be a Satanist. The minister of your "mainstream” church might lead a coven on odd numbered Wednesdays. </strong></div>
<div><strong>(Virginnia (Gina) Donges speaking: "The higher up they are in the coven, the higher up they are placed in the Church"</strong><br /> <br /><strong> They are referring to Kylie's supposed abuse at the hands of a Satanic cult in her youth, and of Satanic cult activity they believe is presently rife in the Blue Mountains community.</strong></div>
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<div><strong>When I use the word cult, I am referring to the group Kylie is with now.</strong></div>
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<div><strong>Yes, you're allowed to be confused.</strong></div>
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<div><strong>I do not believe Kylie was either subjected to, nor witnessed, any of the indignities described.</strong></div>
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<div><strong>Ten years of marriage to her, and all the testimony of her friends and family who knew her long before I did, convinces me that Kylie has been schooled into this bizarre, sinister vein of end-times spiritual warfare at a point where she was seriously mentally ill, and uniquely vulnerable to their depredations.</strong></div>
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<div><strong>Keep this question in mind; what catastrophic harm befalls a seriously mentally ill person when they are encouraged to believe such things, in lieu of proper psychiatric care?</strong></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div>Every page I turn to reveals a new horror. The cult believe they were engaged in invisible war with satanists operating up and down the Blue Mountains. That my family were Satanists as well:</div>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3A0YJivg_m6MUhtXLGoRDhvBqbOe23jyfNtWB2Z_XZ_u8CPsvhoZmrjgMXXBM3mCRiC4mxkxWqNkmvb5d8p83fVZ89DeWJpR_TjKbMbesb_GBtM7Ky0W_45jIL0_unCEaCjfMw/s1600/Coven+members.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3A0YJivg_m6MUhtXLGoRDhvBqbOe23jyfNtWB2Z_XZ_u8CPsvhoZmrjgMXXBM3mCRiC4mxkxWqNkmvb5d8p83fVZ89DeWJpR_TjKbMbesb_GBtM7Ky0W_45jIL0_unCEaCjfMw/s640/Coven+members.jpg" width="640" height="480" border="0" /></a></td>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff0000;">The cult believe they are involved in spiritual warfare against</span><br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"> covens in the Sydney area, whom they identify "in the spirit" by</span><br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"> name, age, vocation, location, seniority, and the nature</span><br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"> of the attack these "astral travellers" visit upon the group.</span></td>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> <br /> </span></span>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUMcWVJz4Tb96Q__Q8Z7qnGZrOIEEt4c2RlGJslObUzfQo5N_PSA7WuOqQ5zR8bxG7n581sfUDrztWyDG9zHfZgNu41oWNo4cvYeZ10t9FOtQc34lOdHmSf8qnnRlcejC6EWBLw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_57-coven+activity.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUMcWVJz4Tb96Q__Q8Z7qnGZrOIEEt4c2RlGJslObUzfQo5N_PSA7WuOqQ5zR8bxG7n581sfUDrztWyDG9zHfZgNu41oWNo4cvYeZ10t9FOtQc34lOdHmSf8qnnRlcejC6EWBLw/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_57-coven+activity.jpg" width="400" height="72" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Psychically identifying cult members: "10:45pm Blackheath:<br />Jason 27 car salesman (level 2)<br />Brad 24 labourer (level 1 - highest)</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMGeJIYYVZNgWKi1I0oEe-jQKxuvXxmuORbZCdkmhhujG3-qoAHn32ZW1Pz6szsD6fTJWoUZlnbB9PMIWRnOsqjt-9tk16OnIkYbi4zr4l41mLR54rXeo7B_LFZVn4LW2phSURg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_58-coven+activity2.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMGeJIYYVZNgWKi1I0oEe-jQKxuvXxmuORbZCdkmhhujG3-qoAHn32ZW1Pz6szsD6fTJWoUZlnbB9PMIWRnOsqjt-9tk16OnIkYbi4zr4l41mLR54rXeo7B_LFZVn4LW2phSURg/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_58-coven+activity2.jpg" width="400" height="85" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Psychically identifying cult members:<br />"Katoomba youth coven - higher rank than shane<br />Chad - Uni 22, Jake - unemployed 19."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrsDfciNo64LhQlNQpeccoxzsYsVpiTBpSj2v6uqlSBHq3UFl1XhUnUK0E90kVKjuFwRoDwDmCxF4XpL95yXIqlCFrmDHHtEh7o0Kqy5Dlahx5tW3eJtGFGzyx2UPAIDjGWlZmw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_62-astrals+and+catatonia4.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrsDfciNo64LhQlNQpeccoxzsYsVpiTBpSj2v6uqlSBHq3UFl1XhUnUK0E90kVKjuFwRoDwDmCxF4XpL95yXIqlCFrmDHHtEh7o0Kqy5Dlahx5tW3eJtGFGzyx2UPAIDjGWlZmw/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_62-astrals+and+catatonia4.jpg" width="400" height="115" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Psychically identifying cult members: "Seth - 24 Lithgow, stray astral</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">hit later and set off catatonic", to which is added the strange</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">warning "From Joy: Kylie is so close they are pulling</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">out all stops". (Strange, because "Joy" may be an one of the alternate</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">personality of Kylie's)</span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxNFb6Aq2dwGuimDDruPOTnoN9NnOyZno3CY3g7nDaeILo1yF9RP_6D5xi73pxgvCUGIdR5Q-RljNOiG4eTib86y9H_zutP0FkF1hoDiSXbnLuCrbUhw8XMDDbn5OaLQcVPG4FQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_19-prayer+against+astral+travellers.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxNFb6Aq2dwGuimDDruPOTnoN9NnOyZno3CY3g7nDaeILo1yF9RP_6D5xi73pxgvCUGIdR5Q-RljNOiG4eTib86y9H_zutP0FkF1hoDiSXbnLuCrbUhw8XMDDbn5OaLQcVPG4FQ/s640/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_19-prayer+against+astral+travellers.jpg" width="640" height="208" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"For those who hurt big Kylie, Prayer: Dear Jesus in your authority of your mighty name we decree that Matt and Jan that just astralled in and brought pain to Kylie we decree in Jesus' name that pain be thrown back on to you and that you will be subjected to it three times worse. (?) power until judgement day."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">As I read, I see evidence of Kylie being encouraged to believe that she witnessed and participated in shocking acts. Torture and mass murder:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBddTT9Fzaqvy7bZ0pqFSUTjfQchI_sOCY48j77PX4m2SWdO7ixzVZ_SP-YHlfcL9rHhovhBkvewBvLIxknYusZH2LFvHD1KZWd9j8dLUkQ-lnwfe58SDnvPthhnwYDCqzFXYyw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_03-hole%252C+tarp%252C+dirt+over.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBddTT9Fzaqvy7bZ0pqFSUTjfQchI_sOCY48j77PX4m2SWdO7ixzVZ_SP-YHlfcL9rHhovhBkvewBvLIxknYusZH2LFvHD1KZWd9j8dLUkQ-lnwfe58SDnvPthhnwYDCqzFXYyw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_03-hole%252C+tarp%252C+dirt+over.jpg" width="320" height="68" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I am invincible because I defeat death...</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">In a hole, tarp over, dirt over"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaPAjNOfbfw-InNFe7YAdwXkVg49HP7uaVvch91ljOHkiI8k7JgIrXhca6-QOMsQi2CfPPvYNm22-cFcQOLNuY1vdIVRwHXwywVN71vNfuX-CrWrL_2fDfT2C2PoC57QN2J6FuA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_05-eyes+burned+flaming+stick.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaPAjNOfbfw-InNFe7YAdwXkVg49HP7uaVvch91ljOHkiI8k7JgIrXhca6-QOMsQi2CfPPvYNm22-cFcQOLNuY1vdIVRwHXwywVN71vNfuX-CrWrL_2fDfT2C2PoC57QN2J6FuA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_05-eyes+burned+flaming+stick.jpg" width="320" height="73" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"If I disobey, I die.<br />Lite stick, pushed down throat. Eyes burned with flaming stick"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSyYlJPVfAIZUj2vV4stJvVOtWuuX9hHVl6j6xvyjiyDjGtw0PwkYwa-RiNDeOFoWMC45IO2QIoKiJ4DIYnIJNStlaglpcI7MghroWZtn3SJ06kb01z7T4Q_qQ-4rG5hEfWzQEQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_06-man+tongue+cut+out.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSyYlJPVfAIZUj2vV4stJvVOtWuuX9hHVl6j6xvyjiyDjGtw0PwkYwa-RiNDeOFoWMC45IO2QIoKiJ4DIYnIJNStlaglpcI7MghroWZtn3SJ06kb01z7T4Q_qQ-4rG5hEfWzQEQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_06-man+tongue+cut+out.jpg" width="320" height="50" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"If I talk, I die. Man chair/ tongue cut<br />out, stapled. (head cut off)"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLTb5fsUYKZzncwjamRcuWTvWYD6xmC9NOEwHmNSdlw7R7rVJnhyphenhyphenxaT9hGi1A8QHAhqpf19jF1s8DWB8hyjNKJaG6t678lpmnYAElaFZeukycdSWQhwGUm6z0OzqB8RV_SpbSog/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_08-baby+out+of+mother.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLTb5fsUYKZzncwjamRcuWTvWYD6xmC9NOEwHmNSdlw7R7rVJnhyphenhyphenxaT9hGi1A8QHAhqpf19jF1s8DWB8hyjNKJaG6t678lpmnYAElaFZeukycdSWQhwGUm6z0OzqB8RV_SpbSog/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_08-baby+out+of+mother.jpg" width="320" height="61" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I will kill for the cult... baby out of mother"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7mH9_ndSjHFfLtS1nri-_qbXhsu1qz7mQW8OWnfC63ubhzimq6rMRCzBuyhMKckueseJ9qSnq-3Mnfk_yf6ZNcf9HRBbN8LVDSV4l9iwjWlMMxKnmURUfTAOTr1h-9HdWcSTUQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_11-baby+head+cut+off+buried.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7mH9_ndSjHFfLtS1nri-_qbXhsu1qz7mQW8OWnfC63ubhzimq6rMRCzBuyhMKckueseJ9qSnq-3Mnfk_yf6ZNcf9HRBbN8LVDSV4l9iwjWlMMxKnmURUfTAOTr1h-9HdWcSTUQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_11-baby+head+cut+off+buried.jpg" width="320" height="26" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"small baby- head cut off, put in hole"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQqcPUHHHyFfwJpjd-qwzGtbKBU8bGQARQ15M0BEwMXBBOYEpR4DTDR4Q8JIc4c6oDD_ID-IK1sOD6Iotk66AwIpVuhn8RD0lMo2yLD0EHZotSCXm7hoidY81tSLoO1EEwNSAMg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_12-boiling+faeces.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQqcPUHHHyFfwJpjd-qwzGtbKBU8bGQARQ15M0BEwMXBBOYEpR4DTDR4Q8JIc4c6oDD_ID-IK1sOD6Iotk66AwIpVuhn8RD0lMo2yLD0EHZotSCXm7hoidY81tSLoO1EEwNSAMg/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_12-boiling+faeces.jpg" width="320" height="59" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I am invincible because I beat death.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Heated faeces up on fire in large</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">barrel and tried to drown in hole."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7VQ-kkCRyjolbU7p2xo1qaQsqoWXcLO8_FTkvqL2lBW1vj9VM1EO_nT_ekmMbQTqc3vbHZaJ69acFJldCslW3fgUHCkrwXCfNrdW4D8EdyeHSnjnfHMRAYmxUOlhVKcxqw7dpw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_13-mouth+stapled+shut.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7VQ-kkCRyjolbU7p2xo1qaQsqoWXcLO8_FTkvqL2lBW1vj9VM1EO_nT_ekmMbQTqc3vbHZaJ69acFJldCslW3fgUHCkrwXCfNrdW4D8EdyeHSnjnfHMRAYmxUOlhVKcxqw7dpw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_13-mouth+stapled+shut.jpg" width="320" height="77" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"If I talk I die</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Very angry - cut tongue out stapled mouth shut and died."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIGyhvv-9W82mx5g1fVDpzruNaaxUq6yYXDX47bDJc-u03_XlBLoS-pR5-Woc96ro7lLQU0ivQR7Rivp3QBo1Z4iULzzB4-K61oVUAwXInaD3FotV_-Ex_av0HFuBzrzXfp4yhw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_14-throat+burned+fire+and+acid.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIGyhvv-9W82mx5g1fVDpzruNaaxUq6yYXDX47bDJc-u03_XlBLoS-pR5-Woc96ro7lLQU0ivQR7Rivp3QBo1Z4iULzzB4-K61oVUAwXInaD3FotV_-Ex_av0HFuBzrzXfp4yhw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_14-throat+burned+fire+and+acid.jpg" width="320" height="53" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Young guy - stick on fire down throat and then put in fire.<br />Acids put in throat and other places"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fIIYbTKQiplIKuJSx7kIEOq1n8gS6O2rnZhNgLouQJca4LCI3q4-Ltb3AmKCeLND-GOjYmUA3dO0fnSHxcKB2Rx_HZ2_vHtDLbIXrv_J_AV0JqjgPIYrQ6ZIsshQVTPWlmryqA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_16-forced+pregnancy+and+birth.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fIIYbTKQiplIKuJSx7kIEOq1n8gS6O2rnZhNgLouQJca4LCI3q4-Ltb3AmKCeLND-GOjYmUA3dO0fnSHxcKB2Rx_HZ2_vHtDLbIXrv_J_AV0JqjgPIYrQ6ZIsshQVTPWlmryqA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_16-forced+pregnancy+and+birth.jpg" width="320" height="72" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">My womb belongs to the cult - Anything from it is theirs</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Watched baby being extracted (woman died)</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic76ykq__A5LcepLQYfgm7gV8e3mEYcxxnk8GqVL7F5V21qrYvJs_NlAF2q94gVMQQzvty1amJyLuQyQGTYaVTu2xja1_0VrEZAXL3-jziCzCPmZcL25K-qIOCj873mramLY9bLQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_17-killed+but+already+dead+body.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic76ykq__A5LcepLQYfgm7gV8e3mEYcxxnk8GqVL7F5V21qrYvJs_NlAF2q94gVMQQzvty1amJyLuQyQGTYaVTu2xja1_0VrEZAXL3-jziCzCPmZcL25K-qIOCj873mramLY9bLQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_17-killed+but+already+dead+body.jpg" width="320" height="50" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Kill or be killed - thought she killed a girl - but already dead</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5QyeWh5abQ4g-76feVC2WLSGwvV5J1GKdN8kS4r-JR3v2uL-dMU_W68ADiXSJId0EaKDUrLefB_5mE_4cFFO9ysYHz9pAC2HOunTp2-Dk430qPmnY26zWqgwmYJRtKNUZw-m7Q/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_24-explosives+on+women.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5QyeWh5abQ4g-76feVC2WLSGwvV5J1GKdN8kS4r-JR3v2uL-dMU_W68ADiXSJId0EaKDUrLefB_5mE_4cFFO9ysYHz9pAC2HOunTp2-Dk430qPmnY26zWqgwmYJRtKNUZw-m7Q/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_24-explosives+on+women.jpg" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
</td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"(explosives on women)"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLfdMtDgVN05GG6aF2PX_GwabDiPigrAL0ag4szDQImFohBiEqaRfIZkQGyB6NSP_ltfzdIa0kB8G9WrBiOBcE3lFolKAmd1aNCoNFmtvJyTfc_fMg5F7UKPj6BH3RUPuOkuCnA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_33-cut+throat%252C+body+bag.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLfdMtDgVN05GG6aF2PX_GwabDiPigrAL0ag4szDQImFohBiEqaRfIZkQGyB6NSP_ltfzdIa0kB8G9WrBiOBcE3lFolKAmd1aNCoNFmtvJyTfc_fMg5F7UKPj6BH3RUPuOkuCnA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_33-cut+throat%252C+body+bag.jpg" width="320" height="40" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
</td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I will obey at all costs. Cut throat - layed all night in body bag."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5VCsmk2XviqwB2AreCOkqTYgFEzcTm3qKxPo8-1GzXVeFdLiPMFt0QG59VtTqis1M3lLr3ITTry7iLaoVd3rIYlZZnmj_pekLhUM8T6r6Yxmqo8RsPF0rsBnhQsX5FQwSc6_PHQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_34-+body+intestines.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5VCsmk2XviqwB2AreCOkqTYgFEzcTm3qKxPo8-1GzXVeFdLiPMFt0QG59VtTqis1M3lLr3ITTry7iLaoVd3rIYlZZnmj_pekLhUM8T6r6Yxmqo8RsPF0rsBnhQsX5FQwSc6_PHQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_34-+body+intestines.jpg" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
</td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"body - intestine"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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</table>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXoIPJPQaxv-bcBhyDQ83iObnl_1Dif7ju6N60jbudy93RV4od_TkOBg1wZ-dOGwsSK9Ewo3S_IADA4U0k1NSjFTATF9YxmXxE0_RvIsULtr0bYy7DCxusFVIkUjpoea5xh0XYg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_35-dead+body+overnight.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJXoIPJPQaxv-bcBhyDQ83iObnl_1Dif7ju6N60jbudy93RV4od_TkOBg1wZ-dOGwsSK9Ewo3S_IADA4U0k1NSjFTATF9YxmXxE0_RvIsULtr0bYy7DCxusFVIkUjpoea5xh0XYg/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_35-dead+body+overnight.jpg" width="320" height="54" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
</td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I'm nothing but a burden. Dead body overnight"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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</table>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<table class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 6px; text-align: left;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUsTznPR8_EtMRdNwJlRS6Cmi06eEyKcs93PVloisXEY7kXMMtQjBYs3IkJnztYZH-slBIn31sd9Pv_sffBJFXcPQwGs9RThSWn2bR9hQzaVp3n_JN03UNRrykpwieKjQcH4-Qw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_45-+pig+explosives+sex.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUsTznPR8_EtMRdNwJlRS6Cmi06eEyKcs93PVloisXEY7kXMMtQjBYs3IkJnztYZH-slBIn31sd9Pv_sffBJFXcPQwGs9RThSWn2bR9hQzaVp3n_JN03UNRrykpwieKjQcH4-Qw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_45-+pig+explosives+sex.jpg" width="320" height="51" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
</td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Pig - explosives - sex X2"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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</table>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 6px; text-align: center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTe6u_poYzrfIGqVaRqZSdkGIkJ3kk0803Ys7McoyiiyCfBaHCDV3LvSL6yn-LkKlIo1zMDf_lklrFiabJnWd91ogcuuTUfvb9unQD0WXgb1zhqYSObPeBkijQKlEkg8KC2IYMew/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_46-+9yo+murder.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTe6u_poYzrfIGqVaRqZSdkGIkJ3kk0803Ys7McoyiiyCfBaHCDV3LvSL6yn-LkKlIo1zMDf_lklrFiabJnWd91ogcuuTUfvb9unQD0WXgb1zhqYSObPeBkijQKlEkg8KC2IYMew/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_46-+9yo+murder.jpg" width="320" height="42" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"9 year old murder"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 6px; text-align: center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center">
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2hlYRjA1qlqMkoPWSk_4yRban2bZThf0RlKhdXenwg0MPfaDQ4CiMmKeIWcALwKjBCA_Cb3A8KIeeGzXVYKLvnbZHn5Vz1WaUjQswoAxA1UyDZLMSiP9JVlS8UcRKWwnmxOjQA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_53-+murder+spikes+and+seed+power.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2hlYRjA1qlqMkoPWSk_4yRban2bZThf0RlKhdXenwg0MPfaDQ4CiMmKeIWcALwKjBCA_Cb3A8KIeeGzXVYKLvnbZHn5Vz1WaUjQswoAxA1UyDZLMSiP9JVlS8UcRKWwnmxOjQA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_53-+murder+spikes+and+seed+power.jpg" width="320" height="48" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"body bag. Cult killed with bats and spike straps,</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">made to orgasm before death - seed gives power"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtj-RIhBNve4-tE8EmeYYzCNZDvZr73FhtbCE3Yadd5osBNoHyjyNbySm4kfNMPWS7Z6cV0x67Ug7nO9eC4fR3XjMglLc6Wfxz0DcL7Sti2_jdysdvd1Y2dgzQ8fWvnUCxzFrhg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_54-witness+murder+and+severed+head.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtj-RIhBNve4-tE8EmeYYzCNZDvZr73FhtbCE3Yadd5osBNoHyjyNbySm4kfNMPWS7Z6cV0x67Ug7nO9eC4fR3XjMglLc6Wfxz0DcL7Sti2_jdysdvd1Y2dgzQ8fWvnUCxzFrhg/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_54-witness+murder+and+severed+head.jpg" width="320" height="67" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"My only way out is death</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Witness murder - she held head of man, chopped off, stick."</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqSScBniSpDf0LURYMsI7KjgKPZG9TKwE6Gl1EI2cARV9DhmseDGB5maId_6tFxAPGNl3w4pgUp_yAG7oxJllLQ-t2oBCdFPK1uaOMnUFkf97ZJC1lL3yQBf3AFi3XX3hhJTJyOQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_55-bleach+and+paintstripper.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqSScBniSpDf0LURYMsI7KjgKPZG9TKwE6Gl1EI2cARV9DhmseDGB5maId_6tFxAPGNl3w4pgUp_yAG7oxJllLQ-t2oBCdFPK1uaOMnUFkf97ZJC1lL3yQBf3AFi3XX3hhJTJyOQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_55-bleach+and+paintstripper.jpg" width="320" height="33" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Purification ritual - bleach and paintstripper"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqZPkBtB5Yz0lGXSR9aGlWkdisjbHefUAEZ2fvE4nsluBWsXpdutmeYSCWWmg8TOBriK_2FmTe7ObmS1HYBtWlTz7871IQqGklA6kriJ31OUXRaMi65WUzzgPblrPWT8mWPMj4NQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_56-metal+spikes+covered+with+flesh.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqZPkBtB5Yz0lGXSR9aGlWkdisjbHefUAEZ2fvE4nsluBWsXpdutmeYSCWWmg8TOBriK_2FmTe7ObmS1HYBtWlTz7871IQqGklA6kriJ31OUXRaMi65WUzzgPblrPWT8mWPMj4NQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_56-metal+spikes+covered+with+flesh.jpg" width="320" height="60" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Man dragged out, hit with bats till dead & broken,<br />then hit with metal ball with spikes. Covered K with bits of flesh"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yJP-_tO0zA9QFZGVwAzEFzGFwRjLhrW3jVwW2oR0WPiodfda_-pfhZqW4zz8O1yNgK8XI-hXnIyk5hD4r429Lis1ExdIt4FLt7f7BbUt6oJj6X3go8boarjY6uuYigPj67Qqrg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_60-stapled+lips+and+nose+hung+from+tree.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img style="cursor: move;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yJP-_tO0zA9QFZGVwAzEFzGFwRjLhrW3jVwW2oR0WPiodfda_-pfhZqW4zz8O1yNgK8XI-hXnIyk5hD4r429Lis1ExdIt4FLt7f7BbUt6oJj6X3go8boarjY6uuYigPj67Qqrg/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_60-stapled+lips+and+nose+hung+from+tree.jpg" width="320" height="41" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"cut out tongue - stapled lips & nose - hung him from a tree"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCua0VbU9tRw9jM7pPl7IraFE7jKjZREiC0khP35l8OQzAAnVs4LEGBUQv1qZV6IMOLeZi1DxWHo0JGXNdZ_nBMCY4V_Lm2McrUBseQ02FYiWxchl68FNK-MDlep1Bbkm-jc4M1w/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_63-commit+murder%252C+body+bag.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCua0VbU9tRw9jM7pPl7IraFE7jKjZREiC0khP35l8OQzAAnVs4LEGBUQv1qZV6IMOLeZi1DxWHo0JGXNdZ_nBMCY4V_Lm2McrUBseQ02FYiWxchl68FNK-MDlep1Bbkm-jc4M1w/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_63-commit+murder%252C+body+bag.jpg" width="320" height="117" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I will kill for the cult when instructed...<br />made to kill 20+ old then lay in body bag all night"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cKp346I23qZZsiLKDHuVFYNKgBRa_v53__MkKwHhB3WQ6ziKw3kubOkw1sD9JpssKUNCFSYDQ78JtJKx_okhlPD5_GyUibKplFSiSnsqIwJTqu4LVPXHCnpIAeGJWYhLWwgplQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_64-hands+in+blender%252C+liquid+poured+over+her.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cKp346I23qZZsiLKDHuVFYNKgBRa_v53__MkKwHhB3WQ6ziKw3kubOkw1sD9JpssKUNCFSYDQ78JtJKx_okhlPD5_GyUibKplFSiSnsqIwJTqu4LVPXHCnpIAeGJWYhLWwgplQ/s640/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_64-hands+in+blender%252C+liquid+poured+over+her.jpg" width="640" height="116" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Man made to put hand x2 in large blender<br />powered by generator. Then poured over Kylie all night"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div>One obvious question is; if these people believed that any of this was true, why did they not go to the police? Surely this represents first hand testimony of a survivor who has witnessed torture and mass murder on an unprecedented scale! Why, it's because the police were infiltrated by satanists as well!</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjy6_qwUo6eFA_o_9wH4KesMjwwkOzrdAbp594nxtDJHzH81Yl4juZQRW8N9mEtFxOluVIPNE3QDZ3S56PYm9zgajKfOtuCZwVEKlaCH8MpR1S9Y6SS-I6cuSv0vYnxWYRwGKjQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_61-coven+activity3.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjy6_qwUo6eFA_o_9wH4KesMjwwkOzrdAbp594nxtDJHzH81Yl4juZQRW8N9mEtFxOluVIPNE3QDZ3S56PYm9zgajKfOtuCZwVEKlaCH8MpR1S9Y6SS-I6cuSv0vYnxWYRwGKjQ/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_61-coven+activity3.jpg" width="400" height="96" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Psychically identifying cult members:<br />"Justin - Policeman 32, Phillip - Uni student 28."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> <br /> </span></span>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
<div>I begin to understand why Kylie is not getting better. Why she has cast aside her family. Her head was being filled with bile:</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmZ9gRMVBYDimhnffPZCEx45oG48043eaf-jxzh_Ls5YSoqhtld3_4z6jG328uNhAAkr0wdqcUV-ROVEAxDBBCPfGYHlc5ffPI70VYaSx7m4Ki0DpFq1eagR-Og4CY_QaieoODDA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_01-+nothing+but+shit.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmZ9gRMVBYDimhnffPZCEx45oG48043eaf-jxzh_Ls5YSoqhtld3_4z6jG328uNhAAkr0wdqcUV-ROVEAxDBBCPfGYHlc5ffPI70VYaSx7m4Ki0DpFq1eagR-Og4CY_QaieoODDA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_01-+nothing+but+shit.jpg" width="320" height="55" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I'm nothing but shit"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLQnuk4pR_E037goTmBfVqnxd7KYC2qIxKzgxjNGs4nN7Ye_go1Y5gyHJL9Csnrw3qiD3ZmsJo5DDdaVurr0ks_kacgPhtjV0_2INVDBIf5FPJX1P7eIjxTiseuKJQlDjTasPxA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_02-+life+belongs+to+satan.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLQnuk4pR_E037goTmBfVqnxd7KYC2qIxKzgxjNGs4nN7Ye_go1Y5gyHJL9Csnrw3qiD3ZmsJo5DDdaVurr0ks_kacgPhtjV0_2INVDBIf5FPJX1P7eIjxTiseuKJQlDjTasPxA/s400/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_02-+life+belongs+to+satan.jpg" width="400" height="106" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"My life belongs to Satan... body chainsaw / put in bag with parts (blood oath)"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-um7qSZ8vLqDGESATMUyH3Ka4VJD3SSOsDcgT4gHVnXTmqEYcK4jrTdxLkWT1EH22IT_bRQwIIlTFWCjTBmshmvwmymC8CnE9MspH8gH5l4rxfleCHNxv56fRYB0k0uLmlFR5w/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_04-+bad+girl%252C+deserve+this.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-um7qSZ8vLqDGESATMUyH3Ka4VJD3SSOsDcgT4gHVnXTmqEYcK4jrTdxLkWT1EH22IT_bRQwIIlTFWCjTBmshmvwmymC8CnE9MspH8gH5l4rxfleCHNxv56fRYB0k0uLmlFR5w/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_04-+bad+girl%252C+deserve+this.jpg" width="320" height="75" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I am a bad girl and I deserve this"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbeB0yI9vP-kzBuOWSlIZ9fBvGZ2n3JJIeL12Xe9oiFKZOCmjZAFMckQDCc0VS9pIou9wwwhDX9K4MdxNBzHEh9RCgjqsB6R1rL0MIRv2Y-wgjxztukn-uqigFRgo75OXmUhtNDw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_15-+fat+fat+fat%252C+dog+poo+eat.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbeB0yI9vP-kzBuOWSlIZ9fBvGZ2n3JJIeL12Xe9oiFKZOCmjZAFMckQDCc0VS9pIou9wwwhDX9K4MdxNBzHEh9RCgjqsB6R1rL0MIRv2Y-wgjxztukn-uqigFRgo75OXmUhtNDw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_15-+fat+fat+fat%252C+dog+poo+eat.jpg" width="320" height="51" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I'm fat I'm fat I'm fat - dog pooh eat"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgToc5pQOq-_680NYwwsz8MGx-1T-TGaznUUKR1-YDzH2lp4Leem7n7zuRx3XCZJPqtrY7x7Hv0dldfdlE94IVlUujlw6biAYjwNJJGFkFxC5T-KrvbGRwct5db15VF91TIXKPepw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_18-+buckets+of+body+parts+and+blood.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgToc5pQOq-_680NYwwsz8MGx-1T-TGaznUUKR1-YDzH2lp4Leem7n7zuRx3XCZJPqtrY7x7Hv0dldfdlE94IVlUujlw6biAYjwNJJGFkFxC5T-KrvbGRwct5db15VF91TIXKPepw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_18-+buckets+of+body+parts+and+blood.jpg" width="320" height="57" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Blood makes me stronger. Put in a hole - buckets<br />of body parts and blood tipped over her"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRco7_9_8zix6gFZRV5XjOZP0qe2JSwEtkZoZ79EoSDZN222seT4vVsrLn7vaFXzn08I4LjB7lW36J9FgGGbApvWrjWaaBwk62CSslHYSYC5W5nsR6sbpZbRkSCDSkRgfYohJnXQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_23-+ugly%252C+only+matter+to+the+cult.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRco7_9_8zix6gFZRV5XjOZP0qe2JSwEtkZoZ79EoSDZN222seT4vVsrLn7vaFXzn08I4LjB7lW36J9FgGGbApvWrjWaaBwk62CSslHYSYC5W5nsR6sbpZbRkSCDSkRgfYohJnXQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_23-+ugly%252C+only+matter+to+the+cult.jpg" width="320" height="39" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I'm ugly, I am nothing. I only matter to the cult"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiZSbXrcKTh0S_SHlNqXeEIJjjWpn364dwnwf_S7OVoJtqy6XgYRBkhODtX1q804j47Y-XJ0mPCpUiK_wo0bq4JRN3QTOkKZBw_9Poqkt5efXp11qiTWHC38JW7MosDfaXJgAVlw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_27-+decree+all+humanity+of+kylie+will+leave.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiZSbXrcKTh0S_SHlNqXeEIJjjWpn364dwnwf_S7OVoJtqy6XgYRBkhODtX1q804j47Y-XJ0mPCpUiK_wo0bq4JRN3QTOkKZBw_9Poqkt5efXp11qiTWHC38JW7MosDfaXJgAVlw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_27-+decree+all+humanity+of+kylie+will+leave.jpg" width="320" height="74" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I decree all humanity of Kylie will leave"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUcj-XEPc7e96vD9cBV1mcTfJt0x5VRPXyqUSMUX6l696ZNkSSIqi1EiIOgJjv8pD3lLccP_d9yPqhEFrSkAQOoyDHEkS6-4K18eNqrxPbUMt-04NNp1tmtHOp-tDIY20PjzxAw/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_30-+will+kill%252C+satans+whore.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUcj-XEPc7e96vD9cBV1mcTfJt0x5VRPXyqUSMUX6l696ZNkSSIqi1EiIOgJjv8pD3lLccP_d9yPqhEFrSkAQOoyDHEkS6-4K18eNqrxPbUMt-04NNp1tmtHOp-tDIY20PjzxAw/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_30-+will+kill%252C+satans+whore.jpg" width="320" height="101" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I will kill when instructed. I am Satan's little whore"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI6x0EuURAJ2kfmyA2ieIv-47QakSseS-XXpNcZme-AqyJaziKcWnv9vXAtQPv1F779iBvy7VSIp-jw9OyWbOcpffhVcFpGyQUoiDJDdOSsCn4yru6lqh2-00Pz0SaxZuecXlmYg/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_32-+bad+girl+deserves+this.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI6x0EuURAJ2kfmyA2ieIv-47QakSseS-XXpNcZme-AqyJaziKcWnv9vXAtQPv1F779iBvy7VSIp-jw9OyWbOcpffhVcFpGyQUoiDJDdOSsCn4yru6lqh2-00Pz0SaxZuecXlmYg/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_32-+bad+girl+deserves+this.jpg" width="320" height="24" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I am a bad girl and I deserve this"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigKcBlwPuitC6kxgC8PHbMauAFmc-VNqPlBFxUTP6klJptVqz6-a3gBCDTapaZfNy5rzNjlipwFi-rMstoCW-zxsuxkCgp0LmR_uI_Kbu5rd7qQUqu61wt81ftAM5R_wkk3Cg_w/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_36-+dog+hang+from+tree+all+night.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigKcBlwPuitC6kxgC8PHbMauAFmc-VNqPlBFxUTP6klJptVqz6-a3gBCDTapaZfNy5rzNjlipwFi-rMstoCW-zxsuxkCgp0LmR_uI_Kbu5rd7qQUqu61wt81ftAM5R_wkk3Cg_w/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_36-+dog+hang+from+tree+all+night.jpg" width="320" height="21" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"hang from tree (dog). Dead over top all night"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3TtGUfaujN_fUTzBNchnHouXW0ACisH2voOr4TzAATPm-vN9tOCj6LSfccSKiXvp4EhAFoNj4irRvAV9VcMTBvKrG9E9o9KbQP5rGURTivjsTzoGCzyWCDYWkjBFznIUHR5HFQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_51-+will+kill+for+the+cult.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3TtGUfaujN_fUTzBNchnHouXW0ACisH2voOr4TzAATPm-vN9tOCj6LSfccSKiXvp4EhAFoNj4irRvAV9VcMTBvKrG9E9o9KbQP5rGURTivjsTzoGCzyWCDYWkjBFznIUHR5HFQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_51-+will+kill+for+the+cult.jpg" width="320" height="46" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I will kill for the cult"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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</table>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqvcMdtePzBpbYgYxv5uhp9mZ3gzyrFpN7EKbBdipwapm3RPJtqor8eKXznTHraSa7TVj9JpUvMX6SvrfCzTCcRuAZ-ZfEojc1epoLuaBOdMlDQPt4eYJKsPZduj0wJD8MuOzW-g/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_52-+bad+girl+bad+heart.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqvcMdtePzBpbYgYxv5uhp9mZ3gzyrFpN7EKbBdipwapm3RPJtqor8eKXznTHraSa7TVj9JpUvMX6SvrfCzTCcRuAZ-ZfEojc1epoLuaBOdMlDQPt4eYJKsPZduj0wJD8MuOzW-g/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_52-+bad+girl+bad+heart.jpg" width="320" height="31" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I am a bad girl and I have a bad heart"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<td style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR36IO3XkIIrl4wdhT0wbFJ0umRwSdbYhaa48Y6uzMdzuaQzMEfUlU1wwDCbHAfPkmztSZIOcnI7HPaCjzLiG0bd7oLXCkzo2EcwuYNAR9iaZWKRDjwVsp-NyOef6cGyAjiD8PaA/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_59-+seeing+death+makes+stronger.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR36IO3XkIIrl4wdhT0wbFJ0umRwSdbYhaa48Y6uzMdzuaQzMEfUlU1wwDCbHAfPkmztSZIOcnI7HPaCjzLiG0bd7oLXCkzo2EcwuYNAR9iaZWKRDjwVsp-NyOef6cGyAjiD8PaA/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_59-+seeing+death+makes+stronger.jpg" width="320" height="28" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Seeing death makes me stronger"</span></span></span></div>
</td>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><a style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8AlQaY6UfCQ7Np51qdyHYPONt-srAkCSaE-Pz77HJzLcuMOyYA0aNskDvgm8raW-ld-2i9P40MVkqn1pxpXHeg3ucUE5pen6ZQczeWmWX_2PURn3sQSJvSG0N9Y-rzi3adnW_pQ/s1600/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_26-+cult+are+my+family%252C+poisoned+against+non-family.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8AlQaY6UfCQ7Np51qdyHYPONt-srAkCSaE-Pz77HJzLcuMOyYA0aNskDvgm8raW-ld-2i9P40MVkqn1pxpXHeg3ucUE5pen6ZQczeWmWX_2PURn3sQSJvSG0N9Y-rzi3adnW_pQ/s320/Blue+Mountains+Cult+fragment_26-+cult+are+my+family%252C+poisoned+against+non-family.jpg" width="320" height="155" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"I can trust no one but the cult" (Family) Code word<br />The cult are my family. (people not in the cult are called non family).<br />Pray a covering every time he speaks to her"<br />(this may be in relation to my efforts to speak<br />to Kylie to express my concern).</span></span></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span></span> The "Repressed Memory Therapy" which Kylie was buckling under was taking a terrible toll. <span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://suebartho.com.au/" target="_blank">A Psychologist</a> named Sue Bartho who was being duped into approving this therapy provided the confirmation:</span></span><br /> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheFWtpYg6w_YTvYbBNw2IS4tq0ZD-iZ1ZVEwZV0nj4RPYtXJXHK3418iNAzcIN-hOnrhvDMiKlvgYwB1VDijyR-lmY4cnypN_KNISWan9i_rQXuXzjIGmcwqh_eIA2IaIRK8iULw/s1600/Bartho+referral.jpg"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheFWtpYg6w_YTvYbBNw2IS4tq0ZD-iZ1ZVEwZV0nj4RPYtXJXHK3418iNAzcIN-hOnrhvDMiKlvgYwB1VDijyR-lmY4cnypN_KNISWan9i_rQXuXzjIGmcwqh_eIA2IaIRK8iULw/s640/Bartho+referral.jpg" width="640" height="80" border="0" /></span></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> </span></span>See the <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">first part</a> of this story for more commentary on this point. <br /> <br /> While her contact with us, her real family, tapered off, I noted with concern on rare occasions we saw her, how thin she looked, and that she always had a thousand-yard stare. Meanwhile, Virginnia (Gina) Donges was boasting to her own children:<br /> <br /> <em> "Absolutely. We have written a new textbook about psychology, and that's what we are in the process of doing. To deal with this particular type of D.I.D that no one knows about, how to deal with it... We have rewritten it, and we've been told that we've rewritten it, and it will change mental health care, when the time comes"</em><br /> <br /> This was what that therapy was producing:<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> </span></span>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"threted (sp) to give me a needle/ Hurt me in my special place.<br />Held my nose and made me swallow. If I didn't the needle would kill me."</span></span></span></td>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Kill coz I told u"</span></span></span></td>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
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<td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"Killed dog... Can't move or cry or will push button, blow up"</span></span></span></td>
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<div>One note suggests. "Kylie has chosen this road". </div>
<div>Like fuck she has.</div>
<div>And on, and on, in notebook after notebook. </div>
<br /> <br />
<div>Lastly, I read: <em>"If I talk, I die."</em></div>
<br /> <br />
<div>At that moment, I decide to speak for the speechless.</div>
<div> </div>
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<div> Kylie had been brainwashed, poisoned against her own family, persuaded at a point of utter vulnerability (and certainly at a point where she needed professional psychiatric care), that members of her own family were Satanists, and that she lived a tortured life of oppression and terror. When they changed her name, Virginnia Donges came to a decision with Jenny Buckingham-Jones:<br />
<blockquote><em>"The name Kylie became sickening to us. She was cursed with that name, it wasn't a name that was an honouring name to her. It had the word 'Lie' in it, and right from the time she was born, everyone was told that she was a liar, and she was herself told 'no one will believe you'. This little one that came… I really believe that it had to be Hope, so I called her Hope. Hope then became Hopey. Because “little Hope” didn't sound very good. So the one that I live with today, with no other parts, her name is Hope. She has the emotional level of a five year old."</em></blockquote>
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<div> And at the time this happened, Virginnia (Gina) Donges, was working at <a href="http://wycliffe.nsw.edu.au" target="_blank">Wycliffe Christian School</a>, where I worked. Where my son was enrolled. Jenny Buckingham-Jones was on the board of the school. Her husband David Buckingham-Jones was a former board member. It was absolutely intolerable. And at the point I needed the support of that community more than ever; after I had given a decade of my working life to that community, it failed me. I took the material I am presenting here to the Board and leadership of this school. The board flatly refused to repudiate these practices, or to apologise for the treatment Kylie and I had experienced, even though the wider school community was now well aware of what had happened and expressed their support for me along with their disappointment with the spinelessness of the board.</div>
<br /> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">-------- ~~~ --------</div>
<br /> <br /> <br />
<div> Throughout the notes I had been provided, there was the repeated reference to two names: <strong>"John and Glenys Darnell"</strong> and <strong>"The Shepherd's Heart Church"</strong>, based in Canberra. Who were they?<br /> <br /> I have covered the beliefs and practices of the Darnells in <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/who-are-shepherds-heart-and-what-do.html" target="_blank">the first part of my story</a>, however, all I need to note here is that the Blue Mountains cult had consulted John Darnell on at least one previous occasion when they were helping another woman named Elizabeth, and then quote Virginnia's words concerning the Darnell's role in Kylie's "treatment program":</div>
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<blockquote><em>"So I started to talk to John, I started to read his material, I started to see what caused D.I.D... John came from Canberra to give us the techniques... One of the first 'parts', the first time out of all of them (there had been hundreds and hundreds up until then, which came out), and he recognised that one and said 'I think you're going to be asked to stay, and not to not be taken out'. And as it turned out, it did, but this one was our first one and she was 10. And he said to me, 'Gin, can you name her?' So I called her 'Hope'."</em></blockquote>
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<div>So Kylie didn't change her name. She had it changed for her. Kylie had "never existed", and yet was apparently sufficiently competent to sign a power of enduring guardianship over her medical care to members of the cult.</div>
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<div>
<div>I did some digging. John Darnell believes demons walk the earth in human guise, called "Nephilim". They breed with women, creating half demon-half human hybrids. They fly around in Nazi-built, demonically piloted UFOs. They kidnap women and take them to a secret underground base where the half demon embryos are removed. Oh, and the British Royal Family may be reptilians. All of this wackiness is recorded in the church's own materials, or in a series of radio interviews John Darnell gave to some fringe U.S based Christian radio stations over the last 2 years. In one interview, John Darnell talks specifically about the "help" he gave Kylie and the fact it came under official investigation by the Health Services Commissioner. His response?</div>
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<div><em>"Well, so what? I'm prepared to go to gaol, I'm prepared to die, to help these people who don't have a voice."</em> <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/firefall-talk-radio/2010/10/17/reflections-in-the-dark--deep-into-the-darkness-1" target="_blank">(Radio interview, 17-10-2010)</a></div>
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<div>Yeah, thanks so much for all your help, John.</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">"11/5/09 - Monday of John's visit... Will bring out the big ones tonight. A "system". How big Kylie's system is and how complicated it is. Tell us about codes. Be really careful because what you see in there is hidden setups. Go really slowly." (See my other article for Darnell's beliefs on "systems")</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">I suspect this template, used in the example above, was provided by<br />John Darnell as part of Kylie's "treatment plan"</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">Examples of the strange abjurations Kylie and the group participated in.</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">-------- ~~~ --------</span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> <strong> </strong></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #011fae;"><strong> January 2012 Update:</strong> Three remarkable years of trying to understand what went wrong. Kylie has divorced me, but a magistrate granted me sole custody of our son, not seeking even to impose any schedule for contact between our boy and his mother. I've joined several organisations to try to do what I can to help others who are going through similar situations. One is the Australian False Memory Association (<a href="http://www.afma.asn.au/" target="_blank">AFMA</a>). The other is the Cult Information and Family Support Network (<a href="http://www.cifs.org.au/" target="_blank">CIFS</a>). I am now aware that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2862588.htm" target="_blank">there are others</a> out there who are doing the same thing, who believe in Ritual Satanic Abuse and Repressed Memory Therapy, and the shattered victims and their families need help. People like me, who have had the fortune to arrive at compelling proofs of the phenomenon, must speak out, or others will suffer. As I said, I've been on TV and I've spoken at Parliament House to tell a part of this story. I've met with the NSW Attorney General, and various other MPs to try and push for stronger laws against this kind of psychological abuse, but this will be the subject of the third part of this series of articles.<br /> <br /> Now, I'm back at Uni completing my Masters in teaching with a near High Distinction average. My boy is thriving. I'm actively engaged in various civic pursuits. I would like to think that I inspire both the esteem of my colleagues and friends, and perhaps a modicum of dread among my enemies.<br /> <br /> I freely admit that telling this story, and especially in naming those whom I believe are responsible, carries some risk. But there's no malice in me telling you this tale. I'm no Ahab, nor is this blog my Pequod. You see, someone will die if these kinds of therapies are allowed to persist without censure or restraint. I'm doing what I feel I must to raise the profile of this issue, in which, I assure you, I had neither knowledge nor interest before it fell like a flaming airliner on my house.<br /> <br /> Lastly, a legitimate question is "What of Kylie?" It is enough to say that she is a victim, who has not been able to speak this truth for herself. She is loved still, and missed always. When she escapes (not if, when) then she is entitled to a narrative which will grant her back some modicum of dignity, and which will let her hold her head back up. She is more sinned against, than sinning.<br /> <br /> Your feedback regarding this story, especially if you or a loved one have endured something similar, is welcomed.</span><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> </span></span>
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<div><span style="color: #b90000;"> <strong>December 2019 Update:</strong> These events have caused trauma that will never entirely heal. In one sense there will never be a 'happy ending' because what has been lost can never be returned. At least, not to Kylie.<br /> <br /> But for what it's worth, you should know that my son and I are flourishing. He was six when his mother left, never to return. And I have raised him nearly to manhood, now over a decade has elapsed. At time of writing, he's in his last year of high school. I couldn't be prouder of him.<br /> The events in this piece I wrote eight years ago feel like a geological age ago. They only ache on anniversaries, like Frodo's wound from the Witch-King in Lord of the Rings.<br /> <br /> As for me? I completed my Masters and was pursuing a teaching career until politics called me. I have been an <a href="http://councillorzamprogno.info/" target="_blank">elected city Councillor</a> for three years, and presently sit as the Chair of another County Council -- a civic vocation I find tremendously satisfying. I've directed and acted on the stage. I've travelled internationally. I look back on the imprecations spoken against me with a overwhelming sense of vindication. They said I would founder. Instead, for the last decade, I have prospered: I am involved in my community. I am surrounded by family. I feel like I'm living the advice in Raymond Carver’s poem, Late Fragment:<br /> <br /> <em>“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?</em><br /><em> I did.</em><br /><em> And what did you want?</em><br /><em> To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”</em><br /> <br /> Sometimes, I still wonder if these people ever ask themselves if they were wrong. To use the way they would frame it: Whom has God favoured? They prayed I would die. Instead, it is they who now have ruined reputations and shrunken lives, with their children and siblings rejecting them, and caught in a slow downward spiral of mental illness and co-dependence.<br /> <br /> For several years, I have received reports that Kylie continues to be increasingly unwell. In 2015, bizarrely, I saw a photo of her submitted to a photographic competition at our local fair. She looked sick. Haunted. Utterly joyless.<br /> </span>
<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKNs06sie_78a4qKcxco_KjtHH48GUw2dP5fMmoEWZ2A3VSlFTFetPb1cf_WQm6bTUMXSVTHnTtCovyA42rwQjdqsNW94RCUfDxCHrf61xJNrLydjMWZ7vBxDsLs-QUhv3Bvt5Q/s1600/Kylie%252C+Hawkesbury+Show+photograph.jpg"><span style="color: #b90000;"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKNs06sie_78a4qKcxco_KjtHH48GUw2dP5fMmoEWZ2A3VSlFTFetPb1cf_WQm6bTUMXSVTHnTtCovyA42rwQjdqsNW94RCUfDxCHrf61xJNrLydjMWZ7vBxDsLs-QUhv3Bvt5Q/s400/Kylie%252C+Hawkesbury+Show+photograph.jpg" width="400" height="300" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" /></span></a></div>
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<div><span style="color: #b90000;"> Although it made me sad, it didn't have the kick it might have had in earlier years, when I still had a heart to fight for her. Now I realise, in a sense, Kylie died when the cult captured her and hollowed her out. I'm reconciled to that now. She no longer even sends cards or gifts to our son on birthdays or Christmases.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #b90000;"> The cult group, I hear, has splintered, as I knew it would. Some have abandoned Virginnia/Gina Donges/Doran (or whatever alias she's using these days to cover up her past). Some people close to what happened have sought contact with me to say they now see things differently. I still get unsolicited emails from people who knew the Darnells, usually along the lines of "I was damaged by them too", or "we always knew they were crazy!" I take comfort from that. <br /> <br /> Virginnia's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gina.donges" target="_blank">online presence</a> these days is full of anti-vaccination BS, or other tinfoil-hat conspiracy-theory woo, such as advocating that the Port Arthur massacre was a false-flag operation -- confirming my long-held theory that the constellation of credulity, stupidity and a lack of critical thinking faculties are the things that all pseudoscience and cultery have in common. If you believe Satanic covens have infiltrated mainstream churches and fly around in UFO's, then of course you're also going to believe every other quack theory that lands in your inbox. Our friends <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740" target="_blank">Dunning and Kruger</a> are at work here.<br /> <br /> What has not changed is my conviction that someone will die some day as a result of these practices or these beliefs. I gave a warning, many years ago, to that group. Kylie was their burden now, and she is a ticking bomb. One that will inevitably go off. And I'll be waiting.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span></span>I'll include here the videos of the two TV pieces and my Parliament House speech that went to air in early November 2011 where I begin to tell my story.</div>
<br /> Video of second "A Current Affair" piece:<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br /> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span> <br /> </span></span>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span> </span></span>Video of Parliament House speech:</div>
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<div>Video of first "A Current Affair" piece:</div>
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</div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com4391 Macquarie Rd, Springwood NSW 2777, Australia-33.698065241405004 150.55217742919922-33.724488241405005 150.51269542919923 -33.671642241405 150.59165942919921tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-68201461059084418932011-12-19T05:00:00.000+11:002020-08-18T15:47:27.155+10:00Who are the Shepherd's Heart and what do they believe?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #cc0000;">Newcomers to this piece may wish to note my December 2019 update on this story, <a href="https://baliset.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-which-nathans-wife-is-stolen-away-by.html" target="_blank">appearing at the bottom of part 2 of the story here</a>.</span></div>
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<i>If you have had a harmful encounter with this group or another like it, please contact the author, the Australian False Memory Association (<a href="http://www.afma.asn.au/" target="_blank">AFMA</a>), or the Cult Information and Family Support network (<a href="http://www.cifs.org.au/" target="_blank">CIFS</a>).</i><br />
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<i>When reading, please keep in mind that these are the words and beliefs of John Darnell and the Shepherd's Heart Church. The sources quoted are the Darnell's own writings, videos and radio interviews.</i><br />
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<i>Those who are here to find the video of the TV exposés of the Shepherd's Heart and of the Blue Mountains cult who took my wife should scroll to the bottom of this piece.</i></div>
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Today, I'm putting on my hat of citizen-journalist.</div>
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John Darnell and his wife Glenys run a church in Canberra called the <a href="http://shepherdsheart.com.au/" target="_blank"><i>Shepherd's Heart</i></a>. Formerly it was called <i>The Fold Christian Fellowship</i>. Because I have no aversion to calling things by their right name, I say they are dangerous lunatics. I know this because they provided a treatment program to my beloved wife which contributed to the ruination of her life.<br />
I am writing, obviously, to warn others.</div>
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The Darnells believe they have a special calling. For years, they have received people (disproportionately, women) whose initial presentation may only be of emotional distress. Some may have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illnesses. They believe that their calling is to assist their subjects recall, acknowledge and then heal from trauma, even abuse, experienced earlier in life. Critically, the subject may be <u>entirely unaware</u> they had endured this abuse and trauma until the Darnell's techniques produce distressing recollections that then have to be interpreted and processed.<br />
The problem is that these recollections are false.<br />
The implications are devastating, both for the subjects of such counselling and for their families.</div>
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This is a well known phenomenon called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Memory_Syndrome" target="_blank">False Memory Syndrome</a>. </i>It is otherwise known as <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory_therapy" target="_blank">Repressed Memory Therapy</a> (RMT)</i>. It has been widely <a href="http://sherrydubois.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/recovered-memory-therapy-dangerous-medicine-from-the-world/" target="_blank">reported</a>, even in the Australian <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1314431.htm" target="_blank">media</a>, and the archetype case, that of a woman named "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(book)" target="_blank">Sybil</a>", has been comprehensively <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576609350972680560.html" target="_blank">discredited</a> and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/12/05/sybil-exposed-the-extraordinary-story-behind-the-famous-multiple-personality-case/" target="_blank">debunked</a>.</div>
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In the more bizarre and extreme cases of RMT are interwoven fantastic claims that the abuse that subjects have endured (and note, never remembered, and had <i>no prior awareness</i> of) was of a sinister occult character, involving Satanic rituals, sacrifice, cannibalism and quite spectacular end-time conspiracies. This related phenomenon claims there is an concealed epidemic of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_satanic_abuse" target="_blank">Ritual Satanic Abuse</a> (RSA)</i> in the world.</div>
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Enter John Darnell, and his tinfoil hat-wearing ilk.</div>
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<img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Lrs81lP_kze23v2EjCUyMNZXAQt2E4BCVnvOblN2msOg_lXhdlf-dvIKF8bU-J9EukqB-q30T5NcLsGNLUQmj-rPauR3TZLx-iIfHpJ5y67ysFm3fJImlev2QOPUfNgsFJZSzg/s320/Royal+family+are+reptiles.gif" width="320" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"> John Darnell, radio interview, 18th August 2011.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Belief in Ritual Satanic Abuse has been </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/bogus-satanic-ritual-abuse-accusation-resulted-in-another-tragedy/" target="_blank">around</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> for years, confined to the most disreputable and wild-eyed fringe of the Christian church. Despite this dubious benchmark, John and Glenys Darnell have brought fear-mongering about RSA to a histrionic and dangerous pitch never seen before in Australia.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">There is, according to Darnell, a Satanic conspiracy that has pervaded our mainstream churches and civil governments alike, to the highest levels, to cover up the wholesale kidnapping, sacrifice and cannibalism of thousands of people.</span><br />
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There are, apparently, spiritual beings named <a href="http://shepherdsheart.com.au/Articles/Is%20It%20True%20That%20Nephilim%20Cannot%20Be%20On%20Earth%20Today.pdf" target="_blank">Nephilim</a>, who are demons, walking the earth in human guise and mating with women in unwilling trysts. There is a secret breeding program, aimed at producing half-demon "super soldiers" implanted with some kind of ingrained subconscious programming, ready to be activated at the advent of the apocalypse. They look human. <u><i>Y</i></u><em><u>ou</u></em> might be one of them, without knowing. Some women are kidnapped by demonically piloted UFOs, taken to a secret underground base near <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hermon" target="_blank">Mt Hermon</a> in Israel, and have their half-demon foetuses removed. Some people with a strong demonic bloodline occupy the highest stations of power in the world (for example, the Royal family). Lastly, to cap it all off, the post WW2 Satanic strategy springs, in large part, to the work of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Mengele" target="_blank">Dr Mengele</a> and other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_occultism" target="_blank">occult</a>-crazed Nazi scientists imported to the West in Operation <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip" target="_blank">Paperclip</a> at the close of the war.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">John and Glenys Darnell believe all this, and they preach it with a straight face. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Darnell has written a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.satanicstrategies.com/" target="_blank">book</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> on the subject</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">, and uses it as an underpinning of his counselling, therapy, treatment; call it what you will, inflicting it upon people who are in reality, desperately in need of <i>proper</i> psychiatric care. The Darnells have been the subject of Government investigation, yet insufficient censure by the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.hrc.act.gov.au/health/" target="_blank">Health Services Commissioner</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> in the Australian Capital Territory</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">. They have been forced to modify the presentation of their material, but their core beliefs remain unfettered. As Darnell explained to host Richard Grund in an extended radio </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/firefall-talk-radio/2010/10/17/reflections-in-the-dark--deep-into-the-darkness-1" target="_blank">interview on 17-10-10</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><i>"So what? I'm prepared to go to gaol. I'm prepared to die, to help these people... They may sue me. I don't care!"</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Well they may, John. And well they ought to.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">This is why I call Darnell dangerous. He has a holy calling. Mere government censure is irrelevant, and probably demonic as well. Where there is no accountability, save to God, evil is always sure to flourish.</span></div>
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And what impact is Darnell having? In August 2011, Darnell was asked how many people are <i>presently</i> under his "ministry". His cagey answer was "a couple of dozen", adding he "doesn't keep notes". The ministry, however, has run for over a decade, and "hundreds" have been "touched". Keep that in mind.<br />
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However, let's back up a little and unpack some terms first. What are the Darnells purporting to treat? <i>Dissociation</i> is a medical word, a psychiatric concept, to describe a certain lack of integration in an individual's conscious experience. The popular conception is the person with Multiple Personality Syndrome (MPS), who has allegedly internally partitioned their mind to wall off an unpleasant experience, and who has created "alters" who present by turns. These personalities may possess separate, even contradictory and mutually exclusive, memories, intentions and traits. Think <i><a href="http://www.isst-d.org/education/united_states_of_tara-commentaries.htm" target="_blank">United States of Tara</a></i> for a glib and pablum rendition.<br />
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The mental-health profession now deprecates the term "multiple personalities" in favour of a new term, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_Identity_Disorder" target="_blank">Dissociative Identity Disorder</a> (D.I.D). It is a controversial and hugely disputed diagnosis, attracting advocates and detractors of uncommon passion. The Darnells possess no qualification to make or treat such a diagnosis. But for over a decade, the Darnells were happy to promote via manuals, workbooks, seminars and videos, and in their one-on-one counselling, a program which explicitly used medical and psychological terminology to describe the "formation of memory", and which, superficially at least, sounded more <i>clinical</i> than <i>pastoral</i>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Glenys Darnell uses pseudo-medical and pseudo-psychological terminology (here, talking about role of the pre-frontal cortex in the formation of memory) in a video now withdrawn from use after an official complaint was upheld.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 30px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">John and Glenys Darnell only recently placed a mild caveat about their lack of qualification to treat a condition whose name only appears in the medical literature, <i>after</i> they became the subject of official complaint. Their website has only recently acquired this rider:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><i><b>Disclaimer.</b></i></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><i>Where medical or psychological issues are discussed they are from a layman's understanding and not intended to be a </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><i>substitute for qualified professional opinion. If such opinion is required please consult with suitably qualified personnel.</i></span></b><br />
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...and they have now substituted the term "Dissociation" with "<i>Spiritual</i> Dissociation", which is as weaselly as it's possible to be when you know you're being subjected to uncomfortable scrutiny. <i>"No!"</i>, they say, and probably with some panic; "This isn't... <i>medical</i>, this is a <i>ministry to the body of Christ</i>."<br />
St Paul's conversion could not have been more convenient.</div>
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Because the proof that this has been portrayed by the Darnells as more than a "ministry" comes from a letter from a Sydney-based psychologist, <a href="http://suebartho.com.au/Background.htm" target="_blank">Sue Bartho</a>, who wrote that my wife <i>"is undertaking a <b>D.I.D treatment program from the Shepherd’s Heart centre in Canberra</b>, which is being administered by a team of women. My role has been to monitor this treatment during the integration phase."</i><br />
So, a Psychologist was prepared to endorse the Shepherd's Heart program (some materials from which are available at <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100214003800/http://www.shepherdsheart.com.au/index.php?p=1_18_Manuals-and-Workbooks" target="_blank">this archived site</a>, predating the incriminating material being removed from their current website) as being fitting, perhaps even <i>clinically endorsed</i> in some way. I have a letter from a general practitioner who has fallen for the same ruse and uses similar terms.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Was Sue Bartho duped by the <i>Shepherd's Heart</i> into thinking that this therapy was clinically endorsed, or was she an enthusiastic advocate for a therapy which included a belief in Nazi-demon-UFO-impregnation and exorcism? Criminy, the preceding sentence sounds like a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://images.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1385&bih=768&q=weekly+world+news&gbv=2&oq=weekly+world+news&aq=f&aqi=g9g-S1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=277l2816l0l2992l17l10l0l1l1l0l332l1080l2-2.2l4l0" target="_blank"><i>Weekly World News</i></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> headline. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">At the least, did she give enough scrutiny to the "treatment" she was "monitoring"? All the warning signs were present, and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Sue Bartho was warned repeatedly of the misdirection of my wife's psychological care and chose to do nothing. Thus, sadly, I must provisionally conclude the latter. Bartho was invited to repudiate the beliefs and therapy practices she has confirmed she was "monitoring", and she declined to do so. This puts her self professed claim to being </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><i>"a spiritually sensitive therapist, who believes that we benefit from being connected, not only with ourselves and our loved ones, but also with God"</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> on doubtful footing, considering this very therapy has robbed at least one women of her family. (This blog, as always, stands ready to publish a corrective, should it arrive.)</span></div>
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The "team of women" mentioned as providing this treatment are Virginnia Donges, Jenny Buckingham-Jones and Annette Wotherspoon, who travelled from a cult group in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to confer with John Darnell and attend a seminar intended to teach the treatment program. They are, in many respects, fellow travellers with John Darnell, and share a great deal of common belief, especially in the area of "spiritual warfare". <i>Their</i> role has been the subject of two television exposés, and a speech at Parliament House in Canberra. <i>They</i> will be the subject of a separate article, in time, but for now the videos of the TV exposés and speeches are placed at the end of this article.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRA49algpqaWAt8CI_oI-5LyTwkPtJFFOpH49R7mAN6xc8ooMBhJoAzgubXhJiryM9LGu6AaAhlz7C4Vb02LayUKM1AmilAqhIySP_scPsaQGZ_DYpNrqVwS5Q6SYrFKHcnTBMg/s1600/Re-enacting+dissociation2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRA49algpqaWAt8CI_oI-5LyTwkPtJFFOpH49R7mAN6xc8ooMBhJoAzgubXhJiryM9LGu6AaAhlz7C4Vb02LayUKM1AmilAqhIySP_scPsaQGZ_DYpNrqVwS5Q6SYrFKHcnTBMg/s320/Re-enacting+dissociation2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">John and Glenys Darnell demonstrate a feature of their "repressed memory therapy", the regression to infantile states where "trauma" can be relived. In this role-play, Glenys pretends to be a toddler, while John Darnell elicits the bad memories, without skepticism. (The Latin word "elicit" means "drawn out by trickery or magic", which seems apposite). The source video (since removed from the S.H site) is disturbing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Imagine how the life of a mentally vulnerable person would be devastated if their therapy was perverted by unqualified people causing them to believe in abuse that never happened? Which causes a person to make false accusations against family members? Which separates them from the very family who should be there to support them through their illness?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;">Imagine therapy predicated on a belief that a sufferer has been kidnapped by demonically piloted UFOs, or has been impregnated by demons, or which suggests the victim may possibly be less than human because they have a "demonic bloodline"?</span></div>
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Darnell reported once that a subject he was counselling said <i>"if you can't help me, I'll kill myself"</i>. I'm hardly surprised. My wife was assessed by Darnell, then treated extensively from his workbooks by others. She subsequently wrote a suicide note.<br />
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Will someone come to catastrophic harm as a result of these beliefs?<br />
Yes. I believe it is only a matter of time.</div>
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I end this piece with a selection of quotes from John Darnell's own mouth, largely given from an August 2011 radio interview. Consider the impact of the following beliefs on people who need professional psychiatric care and who instead receive... <i>this,</i> as any kind of substitute.</div>
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<b>About the nature of Dissociation:</b></div>
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"The main person doesn't know about the abuse. And the Satanic groups know this and use it to split off hundreds or thousands of parts, who they train to do cult work. You can meet them, and they will not have a clue of what's going on in their life... These people are planted in churches, they're planted in society, in government. The Lord told me last year, 'John, start speaking out'."<br />
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Q: How many alters do you see in victims? 4? 5? 10? 20?</div>
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Darnell: "You can go from the dozens, where there's sexual abuse; not a lot of occult. If it's a highly sophisticated [cult], and most of the ones we deal with are, it can go to the tens of thousands... It's highly technological. They have <i>machinery</i> and <i>equipment</i> to cause these people to split over and over. What my book talks about is, there's thousands of personalities, but they're in the <i>second heaven</i>. All those who have recovered from this will have some recollection of <i>system, </i>which is a construction in the second heaven. You can best think of the system as a small, city-sized prison [for split off personalities]"</div>
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<b>About Nazis, the Fourth Reich, and the New World Order:</b><br />
Darnell is asked "Is it true that this D.I.D and S.R.A really started at the end of World War II, and that this is based on the work of Dr Mengele?",<br />
Darnell: "Absolutely, that's a common thread. But we can't call it 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' because we got in trouble from the Health Services Commissioner, so we don't. <b>I don't treat Dissociation. I don't treat Dissociative Identity Disorder. I minister to a spiritual phenomenon."</b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #990000; font-size: x-small;">Right: Cover of John Darnell's workbook,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #990000; font-size: x-small;">"Ministering to Dissociation: Course Manual"</span></div>
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<td><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><b>John Darnell:<i> "...I minister to a spiritual phenomenon." </i></b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;">Right: Part of the table of contents of John Darnell's purely "spiritual" course manual on Dissociation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">Above: The warning Darnell placed on his therapy manual.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">This material has now been banned from use by the</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-size: x-small;">Health Services Commissioner of the ACT after an investigation.</span></div>
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John Darnell: "Go onto the Internet, look up <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip" target="_blank">Operation Paperclip</a></i>; it's well documented. Nazi scientists were taken into the west, but those scientists were heavily involved in the occult; they were involved in the research to re-create the 'sons of God', which were the Nephilim. American governments, Australian governments. I believe they are in high positions in every western government. There are people in government departments, who do not know that they have 'multiples'. There are Nephilim planted in governments. Everyone wants to see people with horns.. but these people are in suits. They are in government departments. The vast majority don't even know what's going on in their lives... These people will be switched to their New World Order personalities when it happens. The personalities who know nothing about this will be pushed out of the way, and the ones who do know will come foreword, and you'll have an already functioning government. I believe it is already in place... It's the <i>Fourth Reich</i>. Based on the evidence I have, the people I've ministered to... Every single person I minister to, sooner or later, you come across the<i> Fourth Reich. </i>They're trained, they have the ideology."<br />
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"(The Demonic Super Soldiers) that I have seen all have personalities, dissociated parts, who are trained to execute; to go on the rampage... They are what we see in ministry over and over again." (the implication here is all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killer#List_of_spree_killings" target="_blank">spree killings</a> we see, such as those of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik" target="_blank">Anders Breivik</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Lee_Loughner" target="_blank">Jared Loughner</a>, are test runs performed by satanic operatives, and which will be repeated "x1000" at the appointed time).<br />
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<b>About UFOs</b><br />
"Fallen Sons of God have been materialising in physical form, doing things, usually sexual, with victims of Ritual Satanic Abuse. You discover there have been pregnancies... I did not want to believe it! But we discovered there are births that have happened, and that they weren't human... We've chosen to go with what God has shown us; the jigsaw pieces start to fit together. We became aware of a breeding program. A UFO. In the Second Heaven. A living creature... I can promise you that this stuff has been confirmed again and again and again. Oh, I believe there is hardware, there's all <i>sorts</i> of stuff that's under wraps, but I'm dealing with <i>spiritual</i> stuff... People are being abducted, people are being taken. There is a breeding program going on... In working with Satanic Ritual Abuse survivors, and what is happening out there with UFOs, and UFO abductions, they are one and the same thing!"<br />
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<b>About the Demonic Breeding Program:</b><br />
"What I have discovered is that every high ranking, international satanic group, they are all involved in the breeding program. All the women get used. If you're really working in the Holy Spirit, if you're really being guided by the Lord, sooner or later you'll encounter the hybrid breeding program. The eggs get harvested; their womb's get used."<br />
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"All the girls get used for breeding. I hear story after story about rapes by fallen angels, or by Nephilim hybrids. I hear of abductions. I understand that a lot of this happens underground, in huge places, under the earth... They are here. They look human. They are positioned."<br />
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"[Victims] have Dissociated parts, that don't know they are Nephilim. They don't know! They haven't got a clue as to what they are!" <i>(consider the injury to a mentally ill person when they are counselled that they might be a fragment of a demon!)</i><br />
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"Until the last couple of years we were as much uninformed about the UFO phenomena and abductions as the average citizen. We had encountered the reality of horrific creatures materializing in satanic rituals, and, raping girls who we were later helping. It just never occurred to us that a conception may have taken place as a result of the rape. We certainly did not make any connection with the UFO phenomena. We had our first experience with a girl as she relived the birth of what seemed to be a non-human baby, but even then we did not make any connection. Sometimes the Lord has to keep our noses pressed against the window until we see what it is He is trying to show us. Then, in ministry, the Lord led us to renounce involvement with the US military, and her being twisted with "sons of God‟. We saw deliverance and freedom as we did so, but had no understanding of what was beginning to be revealed."<br />
<i>(This extract from John Darnell's latest book "<a href="http://www.satanicstrategies.com/" target="_blank">Satanic Strategies</a>")</i><br />
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<b>...And generally:</b></div>
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"I can't prove any of this, but I believe there is cannibalism, there is eating of flesh, drinking of blood... You tell me there are one hundred thousand people who go missing every year in the United States? Let's think about that. That's 2000 a week. Why aren't bodies found?<br />
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Listener Question: "My question for John is: I heard an interview stating that the British Royal Family turn into reptiles. There are deep occultic ties in the Royal bloodline. What is your stance? Do people actually turn into reptiles?"<br />
John Darnell: "The Lord has had my nose against this particular glass for three months now (laughs). All the evidence that I have. All the stories, all the tales are that <i>this is real</i>. The things I've been learning about is that they probably have a high concentration of Nephilim blood, or fallen angel blood. Sometimes, with the genetic stuff that they do in the world today, there may be other species spliced in, which facilitates what goes on. But do I believe it happens? Yes! Can I say it happens to the Royal family? No, but I believe so... There is an International, world-level conspiracy where families, politicians, bankers, the entertainment industry are in collusion with fallen angels in exchange for power and money, and it's gone on for a long time, but it's exploded since World War 2. But do I believe that people shape-shift into other creatures? Unfortunately, I do. I've been dealing with people who have actually done it. We've seen it happen. It is very, very deep level, occult power."<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Postscript:</span></b><br />
In a pluralist, democratic society, we fiercely defend the rights of individuals to believe whatever they wish, and to follow their lights. To the frustration of some, this includes the right to believe things that are absurd, embarrassing, palpably wrong, incompatible with any society founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, and yes, even beliefs that are personally harmful.<br />
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However, society also draws lines. We properly say that a minor cannot give informed consent to a sexual relationship with an adult. We say that a mentally ill person should be protected from the aberrations of their own mind that might bring them to self-harm. We award the custody of children, even occasionally going against the grain of parentage, on the basis that some choices place children at risk.<br />
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We hope that these lines society draws, are reflected in our laws. If you inflict a sexual abuse, or commit a financial fraud, or attack a person in an act of battery, there are laws standing by to bring you to book. If, however, a person is subjected to a gross act of <i>psychological abuse</i>; an abuse that takes a vulnerable person and weans them off the attachments of their family by convincing them that their family are Satanists, or misdirects the course of their medical care, or causes a person to adopt beliefs that rob them of their dignity, their career, even their <i>name... </i>well, I'm sorry to tell you that in Australia there is no law against such a crime (and make no mistake, it <i>is</i> a crime).<br />
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My quest over the last three years has been to meticulously collate evidence that demonstrates that this deficiency in the law is overdue for amendment, and to prosecute that argument to a conclusion that makes society safer from such quacks, prophets and deluded fools. So profound and distressing are the changes in my wife that many of us despair of regaining the smiling and vivacious woman she once was, although we always pray for just such an event.<br />
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But if writing, and warning others prevents a single family from having to fall prey to evil such as this (and I use that word entirely deliberately), then my time, and any risk entailed in the exercise, will be well spent.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">VIDEOS:</span></b><br />
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The Shepherd's Heart, and the Blue Mountains cult that took my wife have been the subject of two television exposés in late 2011 (with many thanks to "A Current Affair" journalist Nick Coe for his interest and professionalism). I also spoke at the <a href="http://www.cifs.org.au/conference2011.php" target="_blank">CIFS international conference on cults</a> at Australia's Parliament House in November 2011, a conference I am pleased to report was co-sponsored and hosted by Liberal Senator Sue Boyce, and which was attended by a number of Federal MPs, foreign dignitaries, and Australian of the Year (and leading advocate for mental health issues), Professor Patrick McGorry.<br />
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My suggestion is you watch these videos in the order they are presented here.<br />
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Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com11Dunlop ACT 2615, Australia-35.199612 149.0194813-35.212587500000005 148.99974029999998 -35.1866365 149.0392223tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-16743210735828035152011-09-04T11:38:00.000+10:002012-01-07T23:44:54.876+11:00Abandoning the Cubby<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Where we love is home;</span></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">home that our feet may leave,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">but not our hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">- Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr., <i>Homesick in Heaven</i></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I took a forlorn, last look around me
from the throne of my childhood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">The huge old tree under which I sat was
leaning against the </span><span style="color: #262626;">neighbour’s</span><span style="color: #262626;"> <span lang="EN-US">brush fence, as it always had. Suddenly, I had the sense that it was
from exhaustion. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We won’t play like this
again, but it was grand, wasn’t it?</i> It had grown in a curious arch from the
ground and curved overhead, the pendulous branches creating a cave-like space
larger than a truck, enclosed on three sides, once you included the fence. I
had crafted the opening into a door with bales of straw and woven branches. It
was a dappled, cosy space, but the day was cold and wet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I sat on one of the branches inside that
formed a natural seat. I had to hunch forward a little more than I used to. It
used to be a more comfortable fit. I wondered if it was as much the tree
growing, as I.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I smiled as I ran my hand over the
marks, in liquid paper, painted on the adjacent branches; crude icons and
buttons. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Power</i>, I mouthed silently. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shields. Lasers. Scanners. </i> I surveyed, for the last time, the bridge of
my ship; the console of my time machine; the keep of my fort… the last line of
my defence against growing up, fallen silent now in valediction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And there, over in the corner, was the
depression where, years before, I had commenced digging a hole which I had
announced would be the entrance to a series of underground tunnels, lit and
paved, like in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hogan’s Heroes</i>. My
grandfather, impressed and indulgent, gave me a shovel and a knowing wink. The
hole never got more than 3 feet deep.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How many hours, I wondered, were lost in
this space? No, not lost; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">found</i>. My
sister said once that she had spied on me, and wondered why I wasn’t doing
anything. “You were just staring into space, for like, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hours.</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Of course,” I replied “but you didn’t see what was
going on up <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">here</i>” as I tapped my forehead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Well I should know,” my sister, four years younger
than I, argued. “We never played <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my </i>games
there.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“My prerogative. My cubby, my rules.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“What? Like that time you insisted we had landed on a,
a…” she searched for a word<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> “a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mystery
planet</i> that looked just like ours, and we had to go into the house and
pretend everyone were aliens?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I smiled at the recollection. I warmed to the topic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I remember that!. And the time after we had just come
back from Jenolan caves, and we were in the house and I said we would pretend
the cubby was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skeleton</i> cave and
we had to sneak up to it to see the real skeleton, and you were so frightened
you wouldn’t go in.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">My sister affected mock bluster. “I was, like, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">six.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">My reverie was broken by the whine of
the removalist van laboring up the driveway. I hated it, with all the lack of
ambiguity only a 15 year old can project onto the world. Because it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wasn’t fair.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I looked toward the house to see if
anyone was emerging to direct the van, past the huge, imperial <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2005/11/bouquet-for-jacarandas.html">Jacaranda</a> that
dominated the centre of the property. The Jacaranda was losing the last of its
autumn leaves, and dripped with the drizzle that had set in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It matched my mood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">That</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"> tree was planted by my great
grandfather, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>one by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his </i>father, my heart cried. Well,
probably. But our property had been in my family since the 1850s and at that
moment, every blade of grass was sacred, and its abandonment, an outrage. My world was upended and ending.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mum, haggard, had indeed emerged from
the house and was futilely gesturing for the driver to drive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">beside</i> the driveway at the top because
the unparalleled comings and leavings had turned the top yard into a sea of
mud. Yesterday’s truck had become bogged. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes,
</i>I thought. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our place… she doesn’t
want us to leave. She’s hanging on. </i>I felt the weight of history like a
physical force. I felt it radiating out of the ground. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not fair.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mum sighed in frustration.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re not making this any easier,” she
had said, months before. We were sitting at our kitchen table. She took my hand
in both her own; her sure sign that what she was saying needed to be absorbed.
By osmosis, if necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Your grandparents aren’t well enough to keep up the
place any more. Won’t you look forward to them coming and living with us at our
place? There’ll be all the building, while we build the granny flat. And then,
well, you won’t have to wait to visit; they’ll be right here with us.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">My mouth made shapes while I considered the
proposition, like I was turning over a sourgum I couldn’t decide if I liked or
hated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As if. I would be irrational; “No. It’s the family
property. No one will care like we do, who grafted which tree, and which
gardens the pets are buried in. It’s everything that’s constant in my life, and
I don’t want it taken away.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mum’s look of sadness was almost enough to tip me over
the edge, because she knew I was right. Nevertheless, the pitiless Universe
said she was right, too, and I knew it. And the knowing made me just that bit
less a child.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">I hope</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">, I thought, as I left my cubby behind
for the last time, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I hope someone finds
you. </i>I brightened. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maybe this will
will become a special place for someone else. Maybe they will find it and
marvel, like ‘The Secret Garden’.</i> I was told that the buyer had a family,
but the details were sketchy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I left behind a part of myself on that day, but I also
took the seed of what that space meant. In time, it took root.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I glance out my window. My eight year old son is
shouting at the world from the cubby I have built him, defending it against invisible
foes. Our property is salted with good climbing trees, many of them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scions</i> of the trees of the old place,
gifted by my grandparents when the family moved. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Continuity is preserved. The force of history still
radiates from my ground, and it is <i>warm</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I smile.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-size: x-small;"><i>This piece was written for a <a href="http://handbook.uws.edu.au/hbook/unit.aspx?unit=100856.3">creative writing unit</a></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-size: x-small;"><i>I am doing at University. The brief was to write 1000</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-size: x-small;"><i>words about a vivid childhood memory.</i></span></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com144 Glenhaven Rd, Glenhaven NSW 2156, Australia-33.703525609793367 151.0063236951828-33.703732109793364 151.00601519518281 -33.70331910979337 151.00663219518279tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-65540767672559870172011-05-29T02:06:00.001+10:002011-05-29T02:08:51.617+10:00In which I muse upon the present felicity of my life<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I should like to dilate, for a moment, upon the awesomeness of my life.</span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Take one day: Today started early, with my son's Soccer game. Man of the match.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Then I gave two well-received performances of a play I'm in with my local dramatic society, <a href="http://www.richmondplayers.com.au/">The Richmond Players</a>, 'Dial M for Murder'.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Then I retired to the Local for a well earned drink with my friends, some of whom I've known for decades, and some of whom were not my friends until this year.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Then, on the way home, close to midnight, I happened to pass the '<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hawkesbury-Relay-For-Life-2010-2011/102923243080069">Hawkesbury Relay for Life</a>', happening at the local showground, being a 24-hour walk-a-thon for Cancer research and support. So, on a whim, I did a spontaneous lap, remembering those (too many) in my life who have been <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2009/11/henry-george-holland.html">taken</a> by Cancer, and made a donation. I arrived home to a warm hearth and my sleeping bairn.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">My Son adores me, and I him. I'm half way through my <a href="http://handbook.uws.edu.au/hbook/course.aspx?course=1652.2">Masters</a> at Uni and I'm loving every minute of it. I own a house. I'm civically engaged. I walk the corridors of power. I work for a parliamentarian. I organise and I influence, in my own modest way. I am heard. Someday, perhaps, I will do more, if I'm good enough.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I have my health, I'm comfortable in my own skin, and I pay my bills well enough to ease small burdens elsewhere. Throwing a ball with our two dogs at the end of a day, or observing the turn of the seasons, or hearing my boy say "I love you, Dad" carry more moment than the pronouncements of the great, and that is precisely the perspective I ought to have. Those whom I care for are prospering, and so, I prosper too.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I cannot say I have no enemies, but I can say that they fear me. I am wrestling with the Great Questions, and those I am on the journey with share the same curiosity.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I have, in short, an awesome life, and I love it.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That is all.</span></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-16846712915495358732011-03-19T16:35:00.000+11:002011-03-19T16:35:17.886+11:00Revenge is a dish best served cold.There I was, stuffing envelopes for a worthy cause.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, my blood ran cold, and the crisp inflections of my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh">old nemesis</a> rang in my ears...<br />
<br />
<i>"He tasks me.</i><br />
<i>He tasks me and I shall have him!</i><br />
<i>I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up!" </i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zamprogno/5539261590/"><img border="0" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO2NCr-pwRo4kP77Cd1_y5HtAdUkbaC-gLS-ocXCXUzbDfW0VE-2yT6yw4Gc2sdC6xcUJR1DTDehXDxOKrwzQ0oqp_HBAKgub8B9C8uVTpAJnJNgR2d0JIJsLssJ9CluhsakXAhQ/s640/Khaaaan+letter.jpg" width="640" /> </a></div><br />
Occasionally, <i>very</i> occasionally, I wonder if I watch too much Star Trek.<br />
<br />
...NahNathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-25471035711441459802011-01-22T01:53:00.002+11:002012-01-07T23:41:05.457+11:00Megan Stack on AdrenalineI've tried to hone some small skill as a writer through my blog. Sometimes I read back over my turns of phrase and wince. Sometimes, I grant myself some small satisfaction. Sometimes.<br />
<br />
Rarely, however, have I been completely arrested, I mean stopped <i>dead</i> in my tracks, by a passage in someone's writing. I was listening to an ABC Radio <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3082670.htm">podcast</a> from the Byron Bay writer's festival yesterday (god I sound like a snob) and something really, really grabbed me.<br />
To appreciate it, you only need this context; Megan Stack is a journalist who has covered conflict zones (22 countries) for nine years. In this interview she relates the emotional ups and downs of facing intense war zones and real dangers, and then trying to acclimatise to the pedestrian life back home on furlough. She's written a book, and this passage is about being addicted to adrenaline. The interviewer reads this passage:<br />
<blockquote>
"Adrenaline is the strongest drug when it floods your veins, the world smears around you in a carousel spin. Except that each detail is crisp and hard, the colours are not negotiable, the hardness of shadow and sunlight cuts you, but they feel good and real and you keep on standing. Words drift for hours and days on the surface of your thoughts, gathering like algae. Ever since the mass funeral I've had these words in my head. Killing the dead, killing the dead. People look like ancient animals, lurching over some primordial land. A single bird's cry is clean and hard enough to carve your skin. This is why people get addicted. When adrenaline really gets going, you can't get sick, you don't need sleep and you feel you can do anything. I know when this is over it'll be like dying."</blockquote>
The audience then breaks into sustained applause.<br />
Wow... Just, wow. <br />
I'm decidedly not an adrenaline junkie; this passage doesn't describe me. But isn't that powerful writing? I know nothing of this journalist, or her book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Man-This-Village-Liar/dp/0385527160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295621387&sr=1-1">Every Man in this Village is a Liar</a>.</i> I'm pretty sure I would disagree with Megan's politics, but I'm in awe of her prose.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1Kandahar, Afghanistan31.6169444 65.716944431.562857400000002 65.6379804 31.6710314 65.7959084tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-82427575114413630912011-01-12T00:19:00.004+11:002022-06-27T23:00:59.148+10:00On the Inevitability of a Serious Flood in the Hawkesbury<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>June 2022 Update</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>Regular readers of my blog may know I was elected to Hawkesbury City Council in 2016, and was re-elected to a second term in December 2021.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>I served on the Board of the Hawkesbury River County Council from 2016-2021 and also as its deputy Chair and Chairman between 2018 and 2021.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>I have used my position as an elected representative to continue to advocate for my community – who endure the greatest unmitigated flood risk in Australia – and to ask the State and Federal governments to urgently commit to capital works for flood mitigation including raising Warragamba Dam.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>My main writings on flooding <a href="https://councillorzamprogno.info/?s=warragamba" target="_blank">are at my Councillor Website</a>. You'll find much more current content there. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>Also, please follow me on <a href="http://facebook.com/councillorzamprogno" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyJUxDPKPrCdaJ_U1Arucyw/videos" target="_blank">Youtube</a> and <a href="http://instagram.com/councillorzamprogno/">Instagram</a>. You'll get more there.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>-Nathan. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b>--------------------------------</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>2nd March 2012 update:</b> It's funny; I use a hit counter service to track who arrives at my blog and what they've typed into Google to get here. Every time it pours rain, I get a "flood" (pun intended) of traffic of people Googling "<i>flooding</i>", "<i>Hawkesbury</i>", "<i>Nepean</i>", and, amusingly <i>"will my house flood in (insert almost every locality in the Hawkesbury Nepean basin)"</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;">Nothing like a bit of rain to get people worried, is there? And it looks like the spillway will be opened at Warragamba for something like 14 years tonight. Everyone's going to wake up in the morning to the threat of bridges closed and all the inconvenience and danger that entails.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;">In addition to the below remarks I made a year ago, I feel more strongly than ever that people who live in on a flood plain need to better educate themselves about what has happened before. Certainly, the deluge (there I go again) of traffic shows people are interested.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;">Permit me to endorse the work of the Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Mitigation Action Committee, a group who have agitated for better long term planning, action and education in this area for many years. Harangue your state members. Speak to your local Councillors. Go to your Council and work out what level your house sits at, and acquaint yourselves with how frequently your area, or areas near you have gone under in the last 220 years.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;">Also, as a Hawkesbury/Nepean local, you might want to subscribe or favourite the <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">other writings</a> of my blog, as I range over subjects diverse and fascinating. Love to hear your feedback!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2b00fe;">-Nathan</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MbSlKzhvUGR6k6ngheMJwHOTXTi3uiHgXE-C5_HpDFTcF6gtVjEvEJGy7UcWtpIh0wDjWlXlYPEtnUuMpE4y1SSKLg2GkQnkj1kQ4uTyYe6URBcmPBkIRla8feqtlSKChx1a0Q/s1600/flood-extent-map-south-websm.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MbSlKzhvUGR6k6ngheMJwHOTXTi3uiHgXE-C5_HpDFTcF6gtVjEvEJGy7UcWtpIh0wDjWlXlYPEtnUuMpE4y1SSKLg2GkQnkj1kQ4uTyYe6URBcmPBkIRla8feqtlSKChx1a0Q/s640/flood-extent-map-south-websm.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extent of the 1867 flood in the Hawkesbury (from <a href="http://www.hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0018/31815/flood-extent-map-south-websm.jpg">Hawkesbury Council</a>)</td></tr>
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I hate to say it, but it is inevitable that one day we will have a flood in the Hawkesbury-Nepean as least as serious as the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/11/3110839.htm">historic one</a> we are currently seeing Queensland, and it won't be until then that we'll get real action on flood mitigation in this area.</div>
<br />
Then all the pollies will wail about the loss of property and life, all the residents who've moved into the area and have no idea what it's like to live on a floodplain will ask why they were allowed to build or buy in flood-prone areas, and all the Cassandras will say "we <a href="http://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/floods-a-real-threat/259879.aspx">warned</a> you for years, and you ignored us."<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.floodsafe.nsw.gov.au/H-N_maps_hawkesbury.htm">map</a> above shows the extent of the largest historical flood experienced in the Hawkesbury, in 1867. If you live around the Hawkesbury, there are two markers you need to visit. One is a nail in the outside wall of the Macquarie Arms pub at Windsor. A second is in the grounds of Windsor Public School. If you cast your eyes across from either of those points and use your imagination, you may get a sense of the scale of a major flood. The water reached that level in 1867. Now look at that map again. If you live in the Hawkesbury, there's a better than even chance that your home lays in that blue area, since our population is densest around Windsor, South Windsor, Bligh Park, Richmond and so on. And any flood will not have to be of the scale of the 1867 event to be catastrophic. This year marks <a href="http://www.hawkesburyhistory.org.au/articles/floods.html">50 years</a> since the last big flood in living memory, in 1961. It's a common misconception of statistics to think that a statistically overdue event becomes more likely as time passes, but it underlines that a generation of Hawkesbury and Penrith area residents have little personal experience of a big flood. The terrible things we are seeing on TV today will one day play out in our own back yards. Why should we believe that something that has happened many times before will not happen again?<br />
<br />
Warragamba dam is not a flood mitigation dam. It has a capacity of 4 sydney harbours. It will only reduce flooding by the amount of storage it has available when it starts raining, which at the moment is 1 sydharb (It is 73% full) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">(2nd March 2012 note: It is now over 98% full and has increased by 0.5% in less than a day)</span>.<br />
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Warragamba's catchment extends from Lithgow to Lake George near Canberra. It could easily fill in 1-2 days. Wivenhoe dam (Brisbane) is a flood mitigation dam, holding 5 Sydharbs, 3 for drinking and 2 for flood mitigation. As you just witnessed this is to reduce frequent little floods. It does little to reduce a major flood event.<br />
<br />
The rivers flowing through Rockhampton recently received something like 300+ sydharbs in a month. Talk of flood mitigation in that catchment is just that, talk.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, if the catchment above warragamba received anything like the rainfall recently seen in Qld, or Vic for that matter, the free capacity in warragamba would be of little significance.<br />
<br />
<br />
So what will we do? What should be being done now?</div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com8Thompson Square, Windsor NSW 2756, Australia-33.6039746 150.8224659-33.6056276 150.8199984 -33.6023216 150.8249334tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-63258556430226440702010-06-18T14:46:00.001+10:002010-06-18T14:52:51.273+10:00Why has intelligent life only arisen on the Earth in the last two hundred thousand years?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjbarGts8lhEmh_rkHOHBwxClgct5WPBgjdw6l2CPGdoe2lKnA-6x3tmvfdxE4tpIVVYnvZ5eQfvY23cUgfgfiqUjp8Jn02GX66ujROYJl411uK19QC1K8ebzgzQkz2fgkq692A/s1600/silurian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjbarGts8lhEmh_rkHOHBwxClgct5WPBgjdw6l2CPGdoe2lKnA-6x3tmvfdxE4tpIVVYnvZ5eQfvY23cUgfgfiqUjp8Jn02GX66ujROYJl411uK19QC1K8ebzgzQkz2fgkq692A/s320/silurian.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><br />
There are certain readily-filled niches in ecosystems. Even when the slate is wiped clean by some mass-extinction event, the evolutionary process means that animals from wholly different orders are plastic enough to re-fill those niches quickly.<br />
<br />
Thus, if terrestrial ecosystems have generally had room enough to tolerate thriving populations of arboreal animals, flying animals, burrowing animals, fast moving carnivores who prey on large lumbering herbivores, carrion eaters in their wake, semi-aquatic animals, and so on, then we have found that such niches are invariably filled. <br />
<br />
Velociraptors, Moas, Tigers and Marsupial Lions have occupied one such niche (predatory carnivores) by turns. Apatosaurs, Elephants, Diprotodons another (large herbivores). Pterodactyla, Archaeopteryx, Modern birds, and bats still another, and so on.<br />
<br />
When a living can be had as an occupant in one of those niches, it seems applicants have always queued up, regardless of whether they have cold blood, feathers or pouches. These niches must represent enduring evolutionary "sweet spots", since they are filled over and over.<br />
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Obviously, intelligence confers a huge survival advantage. It enhances the ability for creatures to plan, and to act in concert through the use of language. Although many other animals are social species, an intelligent individual's ability to survive and reproduce is <i>further</i> multiplied through greater co-operation with the whole. The aggregation of learned survival strategies suddenly can be passed down the generations via a means better than mimicry or instinct. An animal can only mimic what it has seen, but language means the memes for, for example, an improved hunting method, or of rendering a food otherwise poisonous fit for consumption, can be passed across continents and down the centuries by stories, and eventually, writing. Intelligence means an unprecedented ability for a creature change its environment to suit itself, rather than need to continually adapt to suit the environment.<br />
<br />
So if nature has continually repeated herself through the repetition of forms and characteristics advantageous to exploit a niche, and intelligence is manifestly such a characteristic, why is there no indication that intelligent life or civilisation has ever appeared before in the half-billion years that have elapsed since complex life arose?<br />
<br />
I just through I'd throw that out there. It's a question I've turned over periodically. If anyone knows if any of the major writers like Dawkins have addressed this question, please point us in the right direction in the comments.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(The picture: Doctor Who's answer to this question. Intelligent life did arise before; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_%28Doctor_Who%29">Silurians</a>!</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm not sure <i>I </i>subscribe to this theory, but my 7YO son may well).</span></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-34416937228185197722010-05-01T15:37:00.002+10:002010-05-05T09:42:52.701+10:00Only the good die young<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicxBUJVbKYg1clBfK5WU6wGGicO3gH0xxL1ofAN9JTIT5veoh0mdJ1nDM9QnhhyhAZCFT2zM5XHnY3bvC_ZhQYESlYW8wTAvEiCcz-Pkkof-y-B276WzkcROZSEBcUUdMKZSNJSQ/s1600/Nathan+with+Rex+Stubbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicxBUJVbKYg1clBfK5WU6wGGicO3gH0xxL1ofAN9JTIT5veoh0mdJ1nDM9QnhhyhAZCFT2zM5XHnY3bvC_ZhQYESlYW8wTAvEiCcz-Pkkof-y-B276WzkcROZSEBcUUdMKZSNJSQ/s400/Nathan+with+Rex+Stubbs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rex and I, midnight screening of Star Wars. I was no match for his skill with The Force</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sadness is compounded when you have to bury people before their time. Dr Rex Stubbs OAM was a friend and a mentor to me. He <a href="http://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/former-hawkesbury-mayor-rex-stubbs-dies/1812212.aspx">died</a> last weekend and the funeral was Thursday. He was 60. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Rex typified for me the model of a community minded man, a lot like my <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2009/11/henry-george-holland.html">grandfather</a> did in my earlier life. Rex just seemed to be everywhere. He served on Hawkesbury Council for 26 years, and spent ten of those as Mayor. He was my GP, he was a local historian, and he was a patron of the arts. He was, in a cynical and thankless age, a Good Man. I shall miss him so.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But he was also a friend. I remember on many occasions where he saw my interests in history or local politics overlapping with his, he always offered his quiet and deliberative encouragement. That encouragement will stay with me all my life. Those who knew him well said at the funeral that they never once heard him raise his voice, and I believe it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But there was a vein of humour as well. Rex was a proud sci-fi buff and I always thought it was a hoot when I was organising midnight screenings of Star Wars premieres for my youth group and there he was, turning up with a bunch of young people (some in dressing gowns), fighting with plastic light sabres, his wry smile winking over the top of his glasses.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It was often like that. Usually when someone was being too pompous, Rex would glance at us, over his glasses, and the wordless look he gave let us in on the joke, and you felt you were with him, and there was... an <i>understanding</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Too much of what passes for politics these days is bled dry of any humanity. It’s all calculation and ambition. Rex genuinely looked down from the mayor’s chair through the lens of history, rather than merely an eye to the next intrigue, with a genuine appreciation for the heritage and history of the shire he served. He was a man of soul in an increasingly soulless avocation. If there's anything I choose to take away from Rex's influence in my life, it's that. People <i>matter</i>. History <i>matters</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I read somewhere recently that all people die three times. We die once when we draw our last breath. We die again when our earthly remains return to the earth and lose their form, and we die a third time when our name is spoken aloud for the last time. This idea affects me very much. When will <i>we</i> all die that last time? When will we be invoked in conversation or recollection a last time, or the cadence of our voice, or the values we transmit to others, be lost to living memory? After how many years? In that sense, many die quickly, and some are still with us centuries on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have a hunch Rex will be with us for a <i>very</i> long time.</span></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-23694999807527149382010-03-29T02:33:00.000+11:002012-02-05T01:09:04.754+11:00In which Nathan considers his good fortuneRecently, I was sitting with nine good friends and I was trying to articulate a principle of life.<br />
"I am beset by trials," I began, "but I seek to keep life in proportion by kindling gratitude in my heart for the simplest things."<br />
"Such as?" my friends inquired. <br />
"The smile of my sleeping child; the accident of birth that makes me Australian; the laws of physics and mathematics."<br />
I encountered consternation. "Physics? Maths?"<br />
I explained, "Did you know that you can <a href="http://vimeo.com/1908224?hd=1">zoom into a Mandelbrot set</a> so deeply that if the original was as big as the entire universe and you zoomed in so that what you were looking at was smaller than a quark, you would see a tiny little simulacrum of the original shape, repeated anew? There it is, woven into the fabric of reality. Like a signature."<br />
The purpose of our gathering was philosophical, and just as well. Such observations rarely travel well at the pub.<br />
<br />
And why not choose to feel some sense of wonder and gratitude at both sunsets, <i>and</i> the laws of physics that make sunsets possible? A few nights ago, I told my son to regard his upraised hand.<br />
"Many of the atoms in your hand, your body and everything you see around you were made in a Supernova, before the Solar system was even formed. What planets did <i>that</i> star keep warm, I wonder?" I explained.<br />
His eyes widened. I love doing that, and we enjoy many such moments as I deliberately inculcate a love of science in my son.<br />
Carl Sagan's observation that "We are made of star-stuff" stands to me as one of the most wonder-inducing and humbling statements we can reflect on. To think that the glint of gold on my wedding band came from the core of an exploding star 5 or more billion years ago is a fine reminder of both our transience, and equally our participation in the Universe. I give thanks for that. That the Universe is interrogable by Human intellect <i>at all</i> (a situation in which the Universe could equally have felt no obligation)... <i>that</i> is grounds for wonder and thanks.<br />
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Strangely, these are among the thoughts that sustain me in my earthly trials. Family, yes. Friends, of course, but some sense also that the world is full of hidden joys and marvels that we miss through harried inattention. When my 7YO son has built a Lego model of the <i>Yamato</i> because we're watching <a href="http://starblazers.com/">Star Blazers</a> on my laptop together at bedtimes (one episode a night. "Hurry, Star Force! There are only 315 more days to save the Earth!"), and he wants to explain how the guns work at <i>exhaustive</i> length; that moment has as much significance as any could in history. Making my son feel <i>listened to</i> is as profound a purpose I have as I can conceive.<br />
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How easily I could have missed that. Or to let my other trials wear at my soul until the bone shows. The best philosophy is to <i>expect</i> a better day and to not be idle in the meantime. <br />
To get to that gathering of my friends I recounted, my brother in law had dared me to ride from Oakville to Wilberforce, some 28km round trip, and I had acquitted myself. It was further than I had ridden since High School. <br />
Yesterday, I sang at a good old fashioned Australian bush dance (My big number was <a href="http://wapedia.mobi/en/The_Wild_Colonial_Boy"><i>The Wild Colonial Boy</i></a>. Did you know that song was considered seditious in the 1890s and banned?) We wheeled and cavorted, my son partnered by grandmas and aunties alike through the <i>heel-toe polka</i> or the <i>Drongo</i>, now inducted like his immemorial ancestors into the courtesy of bowing and asking girls sweetly if they will dance. I beamed.<br />
Today, I constructed the frame of a grand new cubby house for my boy while the family gathered in the back yard. Sprinklers were jumped through. Balls were chased by the dippy Spaniel. The BBQ setting was repainted, largely to cover the sins of a previous artistic painting afternoon 7YO son and I had in which the garden furniture came off second best.<br />
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Tonight, I cleaned the study. As Satie's <i>Gymnopédies</i> shuffled through iTunes, my hand chanced to rest on the volume of Marcus Aurelius' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations"><i>Meditations</i></a> I borrowed from my friend Grant years ago and haven't <i>quite</i> managed to return yet. As it fell open, there it was. What I'd been trying to say to my friends that night:<br />
<blockquote>
"Be like the headland against which the waves break and break: it stands firm, until presently the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest. How unlucky I am, that this should have happened to me!' By no means; say rather, 'How lucky I am, that it has left me with no bitterness; unshaken by the present, and undismayed by the future'. The thing could have happened to anyone, but not everyone would have emerged unembittered. So why put the one down to misfortune, rather than the other to good fortune? Can a man call anything at all a misfortune, if it is not a contravention of his nature; and can it be a contravention of his nature if it is not against that nature's will? Well, then: you have learnt to know that will. Does this thing which has happened hinder you from being just, magnanimous, temperate, judicious, discreet, truthful, self-respecting, independent, and all else by which a man's nature comes to its fulfillment? So here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune,' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'"</blockquote>
This neatly encapsulates the view I want to have about life. This is what I would like others to say <i>of me</i>. Stoicism has always had a strong appeal, but this passage is beautiful in its truth. To be sure, recent loss gives my son and I, (and others in the family) a sadness that sometimes verges on the inconsolable, and an anger as well, and a railing at injustice and helplessness. But equally, I carry a sense that if I keep my nerve... if I focus on my family, my community and my study, then our satisfaction and happiness will be inevitable.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-69066017764520355612009-11-13T02:00:00.001+11:002009-11-13T02:01:07.791+11:00Ruminations - The Podcast of Nathan Zamprogo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0IHphSNkF76E3jIlQqDh8ZWZNeecHba2-BiAyu7fqdRyvT88SEPnEJXPSLWmM586fl_HT3J5cLQl7WC5Hj4TYaiRV0dgjfTWx8rLz7K552-mMZ5J3cI9wz_Zmx6G27Yn5DrlP7g/s1600-h/Nathan+Podcasting+Banner_med.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0IHphSNkF76E3jIlQqDh8ZWZNeecHba2-BiAyu7fqdRyvT88SEPnEJXPSLWmM586fl_HT3J5cLQl7WC5Hj4TYaiRV0dgjfTWx8rLz7K552-mMZ5J3cI9wz_Zmx6G27Yn5DrlP7g/s640/Nathan+Podcasting+Banner_med.png" width="582" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Hey there. I've been doing this blog thing for five years now. I've covered a lot of territory, and it's been fun. In the meantime, I've been fortunate to have heard some wonderful podcasters out there. I'd like to single out Patrick McLean's <a href="http://www.theseanachai.com/">The Seanachai</a>, <a href="http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/podcast/">Wil Wheaton's</a> various offerings , and even anything by our venerable <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/">Aunty</a>. This is the future.<br />
</div><br />
<i>Self, </i>I said to myself, <i>you could do that too</i>. Hmmm. Maybe. This may not work. No one may be interested. I may have a rotten feel for the spoken word. Fine. This is an experiment, and, as Henry Ford said, failure merely presents us an opportunity to start over more intelligently.<br />
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So let's dabble. Any of my posts that carry the banner you see above are also available as a podcast. Sometimes I'll do a written piece and an audio version, sometimes only one. Hey, it's my sandpit.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno.html">Here's</a> the separate website where you can see the list of episodes.<br />
<br />
<a href="itpc://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/rss.xml">Here's</a> the iTunes URL to subscribe it to your podcast lists, and<br />
<br />
<a href="http://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/rss.xml">Here's</a> the more generic RSS feed URL if you use a feed manager other than iTunes.<br />
<br />
Thanks. I'm excited! Don't forget to leave some feedback. Poor Nathan thrives on the occasional kind word.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-60365953188055058282009-11-13T00:42:00.005+11:002009-11-13T02:24:43.458+11:00Henry George Holland<a href="http://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno.html"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXTx5R1ArTH2kLhd58rRvDENJxdY9sw5GAegu5z_VAzOdgeL8DatqVJMYujjTxqmPOpOpRZQS6nH7hIEvtmAVuDHnszmyhIiHr1tcSPGQU2FOVn_khSajXVav7JPD7z4vVqmzvA/s320/Nathan+Podcasting+Banner_sm.png" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNH6pRaFLDa8HQuCfCUyOd3lEn1EU-7usEsw7t2Wz1krYrZh-s_HfMpgRg-L_-lkmULXm8ntdjr3ETgO3-xgnMukPwG4dhpOSlKO0Z3IL1N7GFqgLecT4U_qsBw71JU4x1P6xjg/s1600-h/Nathan+and+Harry+on+Tractor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNH6pRaFLDa8HQuCfCUyOd3lEn1EU-7usEsw7t2Wz1krYrZh-s_HfMpgRg-L_-lkmULXm8ntdjr3ETgO3-xgnMukPwG4dhpOSlKO0Z3IL1N7GFqgLecT4U_qsBw71JU4x1P6xjg/s400/Nathan+and+Harry+on+Tractor.jpg" /></a></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p>“No more stories.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">We’re still using your imagination,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">it was stronger than ours.”</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Les Murray,</i></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=219"><i>The Last Hellos</i></a></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Twenty years ago, exactly to the day, I sat next to a man on his bed. If my arm hadn’t been around his bony shoulders, he couldn’t have sat up. His frame barely filled the pyjamas which spoke of a time when he weighed more. Much more. His wispy hair, white now, stood up at a crazy angle. </span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>A flash of childhood memory</i>: I used to think his morning hair was comical, like a cockatoo’s, before he’d put himself through his morning ritual of Brilliantine to become more senatorial in his presentation. He’d stand in the bathroom and look down at me in my dressing gown, smiling. Was I five? Six? He’d lean down to put shaving cream on my face and then shave it with the back of a comb. I’d get a fingertip’s worth of Old Spice dabbed on my cheeks and have my hair tousled before I would run out, beaming, to be told how grown-up I was.</span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">No more. The lung cancer had won. One eye was a ruin of inflammation, and the other barely held a spark of the old man. Just sunken cheeks and a gaze of unspoken sadness and disgust at a life of self-reliance brought down to this degraded state. He was sobbing, but was almost too weak to do so.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I was sixteen. And I had <i>no words</i>. Just an inchoate sense of dread. This trip to hospital would be the last. My grandfather died later that day, 13th November 1989.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you’ve lost someone like that, what do you think is worse? The death, or having the majesty of who they used to be taken away first? It’s such an affront, isn’t it?</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">How my grandfather died says absolutely nothing about who he really was. No, there was one thing: At his funeral they were bunched up the back and pouring out the door.</span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">So let me tell you about Henry George Holland.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He was born in 1923. Only my gran ever called him <i>Henry</i>. Usually as a one-word exclamation of reproof after he’d told a risque joke and she felt the need to fake being scandalised, while he’d roar laughing for whole minutes with his brother, Uncle Claude. Laughter always surrounded my grandfather. And to every other soul, he was Harry Holland from Glenhaven.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">More than any other person in my life, Harry defined the kind of person I wanted to be. He was involved in <i>everything.</i> Even from the earliest age I remember him disappearing out the door, meticulously turned out in one of his dapper brown suits (<i>always</i> brown) to preside at this or that. President of Glenhaven <a href="http://glenhaven.rfsa.org.au/index.htm">Bushfire Brigade</a>. President of the Glenhaven Progress Association. President of the Hills Shire <a href="http://www.hillschamber.com.au/about_us/history.asp">Chamber of Commerce</a>. President of the local branch of the Liberal Party. People were always calling at the house; city Councilmen, State and Federal MPs. They came to take tea with Harry, shake his huge, rough hands, and chew the fat. Because if you had Harry on-side, you had a lot of others as well. There was no bluster to Harry; just a chestful of the good sense he had inherited from a long line of ancestors. That sense was up on the wall of the local Church, where <i>his</i> grandfather’s name plaque (James Holland) was there as a founder, and around the corner, in Holland <a href="http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Holland+Road,+Glenhaven&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Holland+Rd,+Glenhaven+NSW+2156&ll=-33.694477,150.992661&spn=0.010373,0.018883&t=h&z=16">Road</a>, named after the family; and in the local park, Holland Park, named because, by my grandfather’s generation, we weren’t just from the area, we <i>were</i> the area.<o:p> </o:p>He was <a href="http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=923892&search_type=simple&showInd=true">awarded</a> the <a href="http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/awards/medals/national_medal.cfm">National Medal</a> with <i>two</i> bars, which was almost unheard of.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/awards/medals/national_medal.cfm"><br />
</a></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh_f2LiMqBb5wheV0WF8ZNGGkMZZDubF1FEfiRUL50UeFammACtYx9jzp3op1i99bN9xdlS6-SGJ_-7Q9_7HJnrJKAVMG6CDk-BoEyAQNH78sBAtrcGYGleFlAtdrO4TNo4MUlKQ/s1600/Glenhaven_Post_Office_sm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh_f2LiMqBb5wheV0WF8ZNGGkMZZDubF1FEfiRUL50UeFammACtYx9jzp3op1i99bN9xdlS6-SGJ_-7Q9_7HJnrJKAVMG6CDk-BoEyAQNH78sBAtrcGYGleFlAtdrO4TNo4MUlKQ/s320/Glenhaven_Post_Office_sm.JPG" /></a>Our family used to run Glenhaven Post Office (see painting to the left), which was a hub for local gossip. But Harry was also the manager of the original Castle Hill Cinema (knocked down in the 70’s to make way for where <a href="http://www.castlemall.com.au/">Castle Mall</a> is now. See below B/W photo)</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p>What I learned at my grandfather’s feet was that civic engagement, especially as voluntary service in one form or another, should be as compulsorily a part of life as breathing. You got involved in things. You invested in something that was larger than you were, and you did it cheerfully, recognising that civic virtue should be an end in itself. That had a powerful effect on me.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/external/hillsvoices/images/specific_images/CastleHillTheatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/external/hillsvoices/images/specific_images/CastleHillTheatre.jpg" width="320" /></a>Almost everything I’ve applied myself to as an adult has that thought lurking at the back of my head. <i>I hope he’d be proud of me. </i>People massively over-analyse nowadays whether it’s healthy to have ghosts like that at our elbows, but let me tell you, I’d rather be haunted by the expectations of someone like my grandfather to goad me on to better things than not to have had such a role model in my life. </span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p>Another flash of memory: Some circumstance caused a need to put all the Fire Brigade’s trucks on our lawn, since we were over the road from the station. Was I seven? Eight? Imagine the look on my face when I came out of the house. My grandfather gave me <i>real</i> fire trucks, be it only for a morning. I still remember his words: “You can push <i>that</i> button,” (the lights), “but NOT <i>that</i> button” (the siren). I think I short circuited from excitement. It was magic. I've written <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2005/11/bouquet-for-jacarandas.html">elsewhere</a> about that yard.</span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9C7M9gZUkLjQLOVDhx3QWAujH2B65ofGTcCnmuKmbhipFLKtGzMSkx-RUxPc8bGSDOuL3ImamUaaNW4iUovGixZkHggpmNR7aKbQhvlFdLAR78s82Pwp1-fIc4pkGDmMrZD4KA/s1600-h/Christmas+lights+at+Glenhaven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9C7M9gZUkLjQLOVDhx3QWAujH2B65ofGTcCnmuKmbhipFLKtGzMSkx-RUxPc8bGSDOuL3ImamUaaNW4iUovGixZkHggpmNR7aKbQhvlFdLAR78s82Pwp1-fIc4pkGDmMrZD4KA/s320/Christmas+lights+at+Glenhaven.jpg" /></a><o:p></o:p>There were a few things I shared with my grandfather that were definitely his and mine alone. One of our solemn rituals was to put up the chain of coloured party lights a few weeks before Christmas on the front verandah. I had a dog-eared sheet of paper where I had worked out the perfect sequence of colours that was aesthetically pleasing. He used to indulge me as I consulted the sheet and passed the bulbs up the ladder. He got why it was important. The sense of continuity from year to year might have seemed trivial, but it was significant to us. I still do it, working from the same Arnott’s tin of bulbs and the same dog-eared piece of paper.</span><br />
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</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">When the Bathurst 1000 touring car race was on (the <i>James Hardie</i> 1000 back then. Oh my, how times have changed), we used to get out a big toy racing car set and take over the lounge room on the race weekend to play while we barracked for Peter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brock">Brock</a> or Dick <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Johnson_%28racing_driver%29">Johnson</a> (Brock would normally lead until his engine invariably blew up half an hour from the finish). Grandma would keep us plied with scones and milkshakes, stoic about the chaos in her lounge room.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">My grandfather was a wizard with all things mechanical. He was fascinated with engines and gadgets and he bought me my first computer, a Commodore 64. This love of technology meant that, long before consumer video cameras existed, there’s a rich history recorded of my first years on 8mm film. I’m <i>so</i> grateful for that, as I am for the precious library of reel-to-reel audio tapes of him in correspondence with his brother in Lismore. When I evoke his ghost from the machine, I travel back in time. His voice is at the end of the <a href="http://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno.html">podcast</a> version of this essay.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He was bawdy, yet gentle. He was casually racist about Japan, like so many in his generation, yet expansive towards anyone who took on Australian values. He did not suffer fools gladly, yet the twinkle in his eye showed that any censure was temporary.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">My regret of course, was that he died when I was only 16. I remember starting to go to a few meetings with him (“Sit quietly”, I was told), but I think he was delighted I was inheriting the same values. He’d have been 86 if he’d been alive today. I think of all that life and advice he could have imparted to me if he’d still been here. His absence is still an ache in my heart. I miss him <i>so</i>.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">His example gave me my enduring fascination in how the web of community we create around us, through service organisations, churches, sporting clubs, veterans groups, dramatic and creative societies, political parties and so on collectively defines the kind of civilisation we can be proud of. It doesn’t come from our governments or corporate goliaths. It comes from people like Harry. I’m a member of a few community organisations myself, and sometimes I’m among the youngest in attendance, at <i>36!</i> I wonder how we can ensure community spirit does not pass from our society, and how we can foster it in a selfish and introverted generation. </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p>When my son was born in 2002, it seemed fitting that I would somehow name him after my grandfather. So, my son’s middle name is “Henry”, and sometimes I call him Harry because it pleases me (and because it makes <i>him</i> think he’s Harry Potter!)</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p>My mind is flooded with stories, and I wonder what to else share. There’s a lot of memories my mother, Helen has been fortunate enough to recount for a local oral history project and the text and audio are available at the Baulkham Hills Council historical website (<a href="http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/external/hillsvoices/glenhaven01.htm">here</a> and <a href="http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/external/hillsvoices/glenhaven02.htm%20">here</a>).</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p>I’d like to think I carry the better part of who my grandfather was with me. If I'm lucky, I might even manage to pass it on to my son as well.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">And in case you’re curious, yes; I do wear <a href="http://www.oldspice.com/products/by_type/fragrance/after_shave/">Old Spice</a> after shave, and I’m proud of it.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I opened with Les Murray’s poem “The Last Hellos”, which he wrote about the death of his own father. He said,</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>“People can’t say goodbye any more. <br />
They say last hellos.”</i></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">That’s true, but<o:p> </o:p>I like the last lines of that poem still better:</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Snobs mind us off religion</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">nowadays, if they can.</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fuck them. <i>I wish you God</i>"</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-57093267989337917792009-10-16T01:55:00.009+11:002010-05-15T22:57:44.908+10:00In Which Nathan Becomes Subversive<span style="color: red;"></span>When I was at Sydney University as a callow teen, ooh, 18 years ago, I wasn't really the seditious type. Membership of <a href="http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/suss/">S.U.S.S</a> (the caving society) was my only indulgence, and well I was rewarded with the fondest memories of that season of my life. I recall I could have joined S.P.A.M (Sydney (Monty) Python Appreciation Movement), S.U.C.R.O.S.E (Sydney Uni Chocolate Revellers Opposed to Sensible Eating), even S.U.C.C.A.S (Sydney Uni Cuban Cigar Appreciation Society), but I seem to have passed on those. Ah, salad days.<br />
<br />
Politics though, seemed the province of those with more ego, or bile, and certainly more time, than I. I was a member of the <a href="http://www.liberals-usyd.org/">Sydney University Liberal Club</a>, yes, but really I only watched with bemusement at the internecine factionalism that wracked the movement in the 90's. Let's see; There was a Group, I think. And a Team. The Group didn't like the Team and the feeling was mutual. And... Sorry. The memory's gone. It was all rather petty. There were banners and fliers and a ticket for the Student Council election named "I hate Justin Owen" (don't know why the name sticks in my mind; I have no idea if he deserved that kind of disapprobation). This was served with the explanation that Universities are traditionally the place where you can cut your teeth being unpleasant before you become professionally unpleasant in the corporate world or grown-up politics. Sometimes it was clever, but mostly it was blunt. Holding a megaphone or a banner wasn't my shtick. My flaw was wanting to discuss ideas rather than playing the man. Silly me.<br />
<br />
When I decided to go back to Uni, I formed a notion I'd perhaps been too pliant before, and maybe should use my life-experience and this second chance to kick up a little more dust this time. Besides, University life nowadays seems so... <span style="font-style: italic;">banal</span>. I don't know if it's the passage of the years or going from a Uni like <a href="http://www.usyd.edu.au/">Sydney</a> to the decentralised and brutalist <a href="http://www.uws.edu.au/">UWS</a> that marks the difference. There's so little dissent, or intelligent questioning going on that I can see. There's no sign of a Conservative political presence on campus. A smattering of your typical ratbag Greens, of course (which the Trotskyists at Syd.U would have eviscerated and eaten for breakfast as "right wing running dog lackeys").<br />
<br />
So when our English Literature lecturer referred cryptically to a "celebrity guest lecturer" coming up, curiosity was piqued. "Who?", we queried our tutor. "<a href="http://premier.nsw.gov.au/The_Premier/Nathan_Rees.html">Nathan Rees</a>, Premier of NSW." came the answer, "He's got an honours <a href="http://premier.nsw.gov.au/The_Premier/Biography_-_Nathan_Rees.html">degree</a> in English Lit., you know".<br />
Oh, great. So we lose a week to hear the Premier tell us what's on his bedside table.<br />
<br />
We've been studying some impenetrable texts this semester; Shelley's <span style="font-style: italic;">Frankenstein</span>, T.S Eliot's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land#Critical_reception"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Waste Land</span></a>, and Beckett's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_%28play%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Endgame</span></a> among them. Oh, and those last two are utter meaningless rubbish, thank you. Bleak, dystopian tosh. But we have to understand them, not like them, and now we lose a week.<br />
<br />
So, I thought I'd make amends for my milquetoast former career as a student and, like I said, kick up a little dust. For those who might not know, Nathan Rees is our State Premier and leads the most tainted, tired, ramshackle, incompetent, faction-ridden, overdrawn government our fair state has ever had the misfortune to fall under.<br />
<br />
So I made some banners and put them up just before the Premier came in to speak. I wanted to stay with the theme of our course, but still be a little pointed.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDZot9wr-slVOZ7TNF8D9WXHDglxgDc-HWELu-MkVIuvOC6QIuZ_BGCOf_GEMfXm39-wEE7iD2MbQRrS__EDsWIvlpVqIB8aCs-sVoGagR7Is1SxMmJsepSF0s4TevTOfncp7_A/s1600-h/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392851378802064210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDZot9wr-slVOZ7TNF8D9WXHDglxgDc-HWELu-MkVIuvOC6QIuZ_BGCOf_GEMfXm39-wEE7iD2MbQRrS__EDsWIvlpVqIB8aCs-sVoGagR7Is1SxMmJsepSF0s4TevTOfncp7_A/s400/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVs3jIrxlyWnH3d51webh50rWP0R-F1hkUTmWWzLOUzYrRelij6zdLEckNm2taMwuW1k_L8NQsyQska5jHA6SvAUHaswrLnV1w0RCa2d1n0cDwvgPeOAMA1eQ647JEXAtdpE6j0w/s1600-h/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392851233132050818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVs3jIrxlyWnH3d51webh50rWP0R-F1hkUTmWWzLOUzYrRelij6zdLEckNm2taMwuW1k_L8NQsyQska5jHA6SvAUHaswrLnV1w0RCa2d1n0cDwvgPeOAMA1eQ647JEXAtdpE6j0w/s400/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Yes, a little dense, but those in our course would have understood immediately what I was driving at. Better than "F*** off, Nathan", at any rate.<br />
<br />
To my utter surprise, no one immediately took them down and frog marched me out. A few students took photos with their iPhones, and one said "Wow, I really admire your balls", which I haven't heard said to me outside the confines of a bucks night for many a year. I'd like to think the Premier had to look at those two banners the whole time he was speaking.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI4bS_Spp9KWWclacX3CQ-vQn8DT__XR1BATkHqVDFQ0zVh1I4qlV2c_bh0vALAQwtcXjW-I8DZvl2-iNaGNt9_hBs_kisu7I2YbOyoP6BDuMmMTBEtS-AddxWYR3vHgYzqBCyEQ/s1600-h/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392851542361901346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI4bS_Spp9KWWclacX3CQ-vQn8DT__XR1BATkHqVDFQ0zVh1I4qlV2c_bh0vALAQwtcXjW-I8DZvl2-iNaGNt9_hBs_kisu7I2YbOyoP6BDuMmMTBEtS-AddxWYR3vHgYzqBCyEQ/s400/Nathan+Rees+UWS+English+Lecture+3.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
The Premier came in, gave a rambling speech which a friend afterwards described as "not <span style="font-style: italic;">entirely</span> unconvincing <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the time" (I think that's called damning with faint praise), took only two questions and answered neither of them. I however, felt a certain sense of triumph. I had done something... well, <span style="font-style: italic;">naughty</span>. I was subversive! Where would this end? Visions of wearing odd socks or parting my hair on the other side swam giddily in my head.<br />
<br />
My sense of triumph lasted precisely until I shouted myself an extravagant lunch of fish and chips and put two sachets of sugar over them instead of salt. But beware, the beast is now unleashed.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-16107625921137545842009-10-06T23:56:00.006+11:002013-09-23T22:37:53.636+10:00The Cetaceous and the Celestial<a href="http://web.me.com/nathanzamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno/Ruminations_-_The_Podcast_of_Nathan_Zamprogno.html"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXTx5R1ArTH2kLhd58rRvDENJxdY9sw5GAegu5z_VAzOdgeL8DatqVJMYujjTxqmPOpOpRZQS6nH7hIEvtmAVuDHnszmyhIiHr1tcSPGQU2FOVn_khSajXVav7JPD7z4vVqmzvA/s320/Nathan+Podcasting+Banner_sm.png" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Hate to do a "best of" to you today, but I thought I'd</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">bring you a post I made on my <a href="http://christianseti.blogspot.com/">other</a> blog (sadly neglected of late)<br />
a while ago, because it says a number of things that<br />
are important to me, and I liked my turn of phrase in it.<br />
<br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirGUZq6Wb2tQS4R0_jtXqvfG8fsSTF_XoS-R8hHX11Gthw2ZhjG51cZF8oi53VpJMsReBkMrTGefFdwSw0ZHmCmVlKGZwRZnhk_WOOAlCSfKiR_hmRS6PYNRJeWajwQvd0VbbOMw/s1600-h/leonid_meteor_shower_2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389472786901592610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirGUZq6Wb2tQS4R0_jtXqvfG8fsSTF_XoS-R8hHX11Gthw2ZhjG51cZF8oi53VpJMsReBkMrTGefFdwSw0ZHmCmVlKGZwRZnhk_WOOAlCSfKiR_hmRS6PYNRJeWajwQvd0VbbOMw/s320/leonid_meteor_shower_2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 302px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a></div>
<br />
I once holidayed on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Island">Moreton Island</a>, off the Queensland coast. One of a tiny handful of places on Earth where wild dolphins nightly congregate to be near, and <a href="http://www.tangaloomaresort.net.au/content/view/23/4/">fed by</a>, humans. There we were, I and my wife and young son, standing on a long wharf under the brilliant splendour of a starry southern-hemisphere sky. Below us, in the shallow water, sentient beings were bringing their young to the sandy shore to be fed fish and, I am sure, to gaze curiously up at their distant, landbound cousins. If you’ve ever been regarded by a dolphin, you'll know what I mean.<br />
<br />
Occasionally, the dolphins would break their formation along the line of handlers moderating the queue of people who wished to feed them, wheeling away to chase off an interloping (but entirely harmless) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobbegong">Wobbegong</a> shark in silent but flawless concert, or reprove an errant calf back to within its mother’s watchful gaze. I looked upward to see the warm breeze stirring the palm trees along the beach, and the dunes of the island rising to black silhouette against the velvet sky.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, half the sky was incandescent- immediately where I had rested my gaze. A massive fireball, green and white, was streaking across the sky, comet-tailed, writhing. For perhaps four long seconds, a hundred people froze with upturned faces; gasping. The Meteor was significant enough that it featured on the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1640158.htm">TV news</a> the following night, and there was speculation it had landed, somewhere inland.<br />
<br />
Afterwards, on a long walk along the beach alone, I was struck with a powerful sense of… planethood. Of being a citizen of the Cosmos, given a sliver of the grandeur that the Universe is full of, but hidden from sight by the tyranny of distance and human mortality. Friends who know me well will recognise my disorder, which I refer to as a propensity to “come over all Carl Sagan” at such moments.<br />
<br />
I held a sense that such wonder as I felt is more than atoms just bumping together. That dolphins, palm trees and meteors, along with the delight of my Son’s efforts at sand castle building, were emergent properties arising from the same physical laws that were equally valid near each of the 200 to 400 billion stars I saw above me in the edge-on view of our galaxy, one hundred thousand light years across.<br />
<br />
This <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urania">Uranian</a> muse led me further: I became aware of how my love of Science was contributing to my sense of wonder. I was turning over in my head many things- the scale and age of the Universe wheeling above me; the philosophical debate about animal sentience and the nature of consciousness; the Deep Time that freed the sands upon which I trod from their parent rocks; the probability that the colour of the meteor’s ionisation trail was indicative of its metallic composition, the notion that this breadloaf sized piece of rock had probably silently orbited the Sun since my ancestors were lobe-finned fish, before choosing the very instant I was looking up to meet its end. I imagined that the rock’s entire history- every microscopic perturbation of its orbit, its lonely solitude in the outer solar system, and its precise moment of death, were in some sense <span style="font-style: italic;">purposed</span>. Meant for observation. So I would be inspired to write this. So that you would read it, and so that you could share in the singular sensation it evinced.<br />
<br />
At that moment, my heart was full. I gave thanks that I lived in an age where, even though we are only one rung above the ignorance that has characterised most of human history, what we have learned as a species through the application of Science had brought me, for a numinous instant, closer to God.<br />
<br />
Later, I wondered at how others might interpret the same things as I had observed, believing themselves to be both sane and wise. Without the benefit of the insights Science have afforded, I might have regarded Dolphins as little more than food, never inquiring concerning their ability to love or suffer. I might have regarded the meteor as an ill-omen, perhaps requiring some kind of sacrifice to propitiate an angry deity. The galactic vista spread above my head would be seen as little more than window dressing- the irrelevant backdrop to an entire Universe which was not merely Geocentric, but Homocentric.<br />
<br />
Lastly, I realised that there were those- many, in point of fact, who would regard all the Science that was brought to bear to enable my sense of wonderment, as... suspect. Certainly presumptious. Possibly even evil. The Geology accurately explaining the sandy strata in the cliffs above me would be seen as a deliberately deceit, pushed by those seeking to “do away with God”. The Astronomy purporting to describe a Cosmos of many billions of light-years and many trillions of stars would be seen as, quite literally, diabolically inspired, and eroding of faith. The Biology which shows the evolutionary vestiges of the Dolphin’s Artiodactylic, terrestrial ancestors would be dismissed out of hand as “foolishly based on the wrong worldview”.<br />
<br />
Experiences like these have shown me that <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> Universe is immeasurably grander and honouring to the extravagant creativity of God than the tiny, middle-eastern, pre-Scientific, vengeful god that many people incorrectly presume to extract from the pages of the Bible. The views of such people are as outdated as witch burning and will be looked upon as such by future generations.<br />
<br />
And if this annoys you, good.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-36864209403547643532009-09-02T10:57:00.005+10:002010-05-15T23:03:00.033+10:00A personal interludeI worked for a long time at a private School. I was always flattered when colleagues said <span style="font-style: italic;">“You ought to teach”</span>, but I was happily in a groove where the technology I managed dominated my sense of identity. I was happy to pour myself into work where the satisfaction I gained was from enabling <span style="font-style: italic;">others</span> to teach well. I got a real thrill when I saw people using technology to educate better, but there was always something else lurking at the back of my mind.<br />
<br />
You see, I was always something of a "Philosopher-IT Manager", and friends became used to a lecture in politics as I fixed their email, or a spirited debate on the interface between Science and Religion while I fixed a printer (especially when I was cruising the Science faculty), or perhaps a <i>bon-mot</i> from my slightly warped sense of humour. If you passed my cramped but familiar office you may have heard me quoting Carl Sagan as likely as Augustine, while my walls were a shrine to photos of my beloved wife and son, salted with dog-eared sheets with <a href="http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/famous/theodore_roosevelt/it_is_not_the_critic_who_1476">quotes</a> by Teddy Roosevelt, <a href="http://xkcd.com/">XKCD</a> cartoons and a huge, byzantine map I had made of our burgeoning network. For those who looked closely, the map included several easter eggs, like a Where's Wally figure, or the USS Enterprise tucked into a corner. Yes, I was chronically overworked and under-resourced, but for the most part, I felt <a href="http://baliset.blogspot.com/2005/04/its-nice-to-be-affirmed.html">appreciated</a> and the time, ten years, just kind of blissfully slipped by. It was the ideal life. I was blessed beyond measure. I was paid what my skills deserved. Until nearly the end, I loved what I did. I was among friends, and I had any number of outside interests, like my local dramatic society The <a href="http://richmondplayers.com.au/Richmond_Players.html">Richmond Players</a>, a place of respect in local <a href="http://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/">politics</a>, welded-on friends, and material and spiritual richness in my life.<br />
<br />
I could have joyfully seen my days out doing that, regarding my service as worthy. But I had a growing conviction, starting a few years ago, when I realised that my real passions lay with <span style="font-style: italic;">ideas</span>. The prospect of a life where debating bigger questions was not just an amusing adjunct to work or evening avocation seemed like an impossible dream. Imagine being paid to think and argue! Or <span style="font-style: italic;">teach</span>! Colleagues, mistaking my intentions said, <span style="font-style: italic;">"Oh, you'd make a great computing teacher."</span> Frankly, the idea of teaching computing now makes my skin crawl. I'm still a tech-fanboy (or it's sub-specie, the <a href="http://www.uberreview.com/2008/01/25-signs-that-you-might-be-an-apple-fanboy.htm">Apple fanboy</a>), but I'm <i>done</i> with that. Something else has taken a hold of me. Exactly what direction I'm being led in isn't clear yet, but I am now enjoying the journey again. I'm back at University, and my recurring thought is <span style="font-style: italic;">“I should have done this years ago”</span>.<br />
<br />
I won't pretend that the decision came easily. This year has been the most challenging of my life, but I'm amazed at the serendipity of life. That security of circumstance which I feared most to lose was precisely what held me back. Anyway, I can’t abide self-pity. You get back up, shake the dust off, and you get on with things. The best is yet to come!<br />
<br />
I've been into my new degree for a couple of months now, long enough for some distinct impressions to crystallise. Studying History, Politics and Philosophy has plunged me right into the debates that interest me most. Despite initially chafing at the absence of choice in the first year, doing subjects regarded as "foundational" like Media and Visual culture, or Australian History, I’m hugely enjoying having my beliefs subjected to the need for analysis, emendation and proof. When I get time, I’ll share some vignettes with you.<br />
<br />
Welcome to the University of Nathan.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-56910087074040897242009-07-27T23:59:00.004+10:002009-07-28T00:19:44.461+10:00Ai! Ai! Cthulhu F'taghn!!“It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers...”<span style="font-size:78%;">*</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyeGUgI9caScn7S0-QwFWR3XS4HRMrOaYIqlGW0BNDGQePCi3JLvPRWmLoZyYfwjfiB8yX9JOgHLktAyPZmC88x4e0GJxuc2h-IqRkKrqL5KsXQ_qRww7LTwlkJJqwnj7W44cJNQ/s1600-h/Liam+is+Cthulu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyeGUgI9caScn7S0-QwFWR3XS4HRMrOaYIqlGW0BNDGQePCi3JLvPRWmLoZyYfwjfiB8yX9JOgHLktAyPZmC88x4e0GJxuc2h-IqRkKrqL5KsXQ_qRww7LTwlkJJqwnj7W44cJNQ/s400/Liam+is+Cthulu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363141272768508658" border="0" /></a>This explains a lot. 6YO son is back at School tomorrow. Not a moment too soon.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:78%;">* With thanks to H.P <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos">Lovecraft</a> and <a href="http://defectiveyeti.com/?p=3104">Defective Yeti</a>.<br />It's not plagiarism, it's a meme.<br /></span></div>Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-44210668422498120972009-06-25T23:55:00.009+10:002010-05-15T23:04:46.159+10:00Normal Transmission Will Resume Shortly<a href="http://www.oodletuz.fsnet.co.uk/tcd/tn_pm5544abc70s.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.oodletuz.fsnet.co.uk/tcd/tn_pm5544abc70s.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 144px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 192px;" /></a><br />
I always loved the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936461-2,00.html">story</a> of the British journalist William Connor, who enlisted during World War II. As a consequence of that catastrophic tumult which killed millions, wracked the world and changed its shape, his regular column in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Mirror</span> was absent for some years. In 1946, resuming his column under his byline of <span style="font-style: italic;">Cassandra</span>, he dryly began <span style="font-style: italic;">"As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted"</span>.<br />
<br />
Indeed. I'm sorry I've been away.<br />
<br />
The anecdote is ironic and tragic, too, since I am presently fated to have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra">Cassan</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra">dra</a> in my life as well. But that is a story for another time.<br />
<br />
In the last six months I've quit my job of ten years, changed houses (and as a corollary, acquired a new station in life as a Landlord), changed my son's school, endured personal tragedy, and confronted malevolent forces at play contending for the happiness of my family. On the upside, I have decided to return to study (after an absence of 16 years) and that's an exciting opportunity I'm lucky to be able to take.<br />
<br />
I've decided to take a degree in History, Philosophy and Politics, with the option of a Masters in Teaching in the last year, should I choose it. Needless to say, gentle reader, I insist you come along for the ride.<br />
<br />
Life throws us googlies occasionally (I almost said "curveball" but find the Anglo <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bowl_a_googly">term</a> more satisfying), and the rational man looks for answers. If answers are not readily at hand, a quest is in order. Several friends have pointed out that not all men choose to take a degree in Philosophy in order to answer a personal question, but that's just me.<br />
<br />
Although we're diametrically opposed on matters of faith, I'm reminded of Betrand Russell's view:<br />
<blockquote>"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason...while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, [philosophy] greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar light."</blockquote>Lastly, I've been noting things that strike a chord with my current state of mind. I thought this was a gem (having studied and worked in a technical discipline for 15 years, I was starting to feel like this):<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5Ha-CorMPtA1Mj2m6HQ3p3pYsUumclO6QJNeAa9IQQCavh5XWCbtAbF-k1k_15O2D58kaqlcz23pq-hRPqRKODYgqXFDQ24J2O9dig-irgj_xn6gKkj744WhEGnjwxF-vOzkww/s1600-h/PartiallyClips_dream.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351290326398282578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5Ha-CorMPtA1Mj2m6HQ3p3pYsUumclO6QJNeAa9IQQCavh5XWCbtAbF-k1k_15O2D58kaqlcz23pq-hRPqRKODYgqXFDQ24J2O9dig-irgj_xn6gKkj744WhEGnjwxF-vOzkww/s400/PartiallyClips_dream.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 230px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 475px;" /></a><a href="http://www.partiallyclips.com/"><span style="font-size: 78%;">Attribution (highly recommended webcomic)</span></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<br />
</div></div>Hang on, folks. We're in this together.Nathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7776184.post-30677834399634562422009-01-26T00:14:00.003+11:002009-01-26T00:26:43.945+11:00Time to Think<div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/363956720_f499a528fd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 354px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/363956720_f499a528fd.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/big-e-mr-g/">Image credit</a><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I've neglected my writing, sad to say. Personal issues, yada yada.<br />But look! A friend writes with a question and my muse grew to such a length I thought I'd share it with you.<br /><br />My friend <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=560194220">Emma</a> writes:<br /><blockquote>"hi guys, this is an odd query but I am writing a children's story in which time will stand still for a number of minutes/hours. I have tried looking up stuff relating to the physics of timelessness/time stopping/the illusion of time and am not ashamed to admit I was completely confused! I thought you might have some ideas...if time was to stand still, what would the effect of that be on the world?<br /><br />any ideas would be much appreciated!<br />em"</blockquote><br /><br />Ah, Time. As The Doctor once said "I do wish I had the time to explain dimensional transcendentalism to you". Then again, he also said "Don't move! Or I'll kill this man with this deadly jelly baby", so maybe he was just balmy.<br /><br />The notion of "stopping" time makes certain assumptions which may have a dramatic consequence for your story. First, stopping time relative to what? If you say "Lucy froze. Time ceased to flow for five minutes; her dropped porcelain cup suspended in the air, surrounded by a nimbus of oblately spherical droplets of tea, except for one somewhat larger blob which, at the point of motionless, had assumed a shape not unlike a cow's amygdala as it attempted to leave the cup, the metaphysical significance of which would never be detected, let alone debated by philosophers.", then her timeless state enduring for "five minutes" can only have any sense if there existed an "outside reference point" by which to have measured the interval. We commonly ascribe God as inhabiting this realm "outside time", also accounting for his ability to "see all of time at once" and unerringly picking next week's Powerball numbers.<br /><br />As for poor Lucy, if time stopped for her for any stretch of (outside reckoned) time, by rights she should be entirely unaware of the phenomenon. For all you know, God popped the Universe on pause half way through you reading that last sentence to go to the loo, paused it for a million years in fact, and only just came back then and pressed play again. Did you notice? How could you? It's like another gedankensexperiment: "Imagine you wake up tomorrow and every atom in the universe is twice the size". How do you tell without a reference point?<br /><br />Descending from the heavenly sphere for a moment, there is a scientific analogue: Relativity. Einstein's theory suggests that time does not flow equally fast for all observers in the universe. The flow of time for an observer can differ from his observing twin if he is subjected to an intense gravitational field, or subjected to acceleration at close to the speed of light. Doubtlessly this conjecture will be tested by the Mythbusters team in due course, but the physics are reasonably well established. Read this synopsis for Heinlein's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_for_the_Stars">"Time for the Stars"</a> for a typical fictional treatment of this phenomenon. At the extreme end (for instance, close to the event horizon of a black hole) a clock dropped towards a black hole will appear to an outside observer to tick ever more slowly, and even freeze. However, it must be stated that to the other participant, time seems to flow normally, and will even observe the reverse effect (the other twin's clock ticking more and more quickly). Einstein, despite never wearing socks, seems to have had the physics down-pat.<br /><br />One favourite plot device used by "time freezing" stories involves only a "partial freeze". Our protagonist freezes time and yet retains the ability to move about - rearranging people or objects for comedic effect, for example. A classic example of this scenario is from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Peace_and_Quiet_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29">an episode of the Twilight Zone</a> I vividly remember from when I was 13.<br /><br /><br />Dramatically, this is entertaining. From the standpoint of physics, it's a muddle. What atoms are "frozen" in such a partial freeze and which aren't? In theory, our non-time-frozen subject could not move or breath, as the atoms of air through which she moves would be fixed and immobile. I recall a CS Lewis story where a character could not walk across a lawn of time-frozen grass because each tender blade, being locked in place, was now like a knife.<br /><br />Lastly, there's the sneaky-cheat way of stopping time. If you want a character or scene frozen for a "span" that has some meaning to some outside observer, maybe stopping time isn't what you need. All you need to do is render motionless each atom in your tableau, preventing chemical or physical interactions from occurring; effectively stopping entropy (the tendency for things to fall into disorder) in a localised space, for a time, even though time itself is still flowing. If such a situation could be engineered, I would imagine the people therein would say time froze for them, although the persistence of conscious thought during such an interruption would make a fascinating debate between those who place the conscious essence in the metaphysical realm and those who tie it to the atoms bumping about in your head.<br /><br />I hope this meandering muse helps you formulate your story. I wonder what others will have to say?<br /><br />Regards,<br />NathanNathan Zamprognohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18292757767183001630noreply@blogger.com1