Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
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While it perhaps may (to some) sound harsh to say, the truth nevertheless is that high power and professional criminal spirit people are quite literally a disease: in fact, the worst of all diseases. For who does more ongoing harm and lasting injury than they? Yes, humanity of course and at large can be characterized as sinful and destructive. Yet have we ever had the chance to do or get by without their pernicious, corrupting and poisonous intrusion and influence? How then bad would things be for us without THAT? Meanwhile, a virus, after all, does what? Pretends and fools so that it can get in when and where it is not supposed to; a method and practice inherent high power criminal spirit people, and their operatives, utilize for purpose of infiltrating and embedding themselves into our individual and or collective lives.
True, such other-worldly malefactors are, to many, just TOO intimidating and frightening to refuse. And yet for a rational and courageous persons, on the other hand (though relatively few there are or may be) it IS fully possible to say no to criminal spirit people gangsters, including those posing as deity, and reject their imperious requests or demands. For one thing, a sufficiently rational and courageous individual has the ability to size up a given spirit person or persons for their weaknesses as well as their strengths; and this goes a long way to taking the wind out of the sails of hoodlums, con-artists and bullies generally. They CAN ask questions like what are this spirit person's motives? What is it that prompts him to act as he does? What is it exactly he is believing? Is this belief of his justified; does it really make any sense to think like him?
The world has no end of joys and beauties, both that which occur naturally, and also in those things that learning, labor and invention produce or make possible. Yet the seeming "gods," who by what amounts to adulterated and manipulated democratic choice or vote, and who end up and to a large degree ruling the place, won't let you have or experience these God-given blessings for very long without their approbation or say-so. They resent felicity unfettered by them; they having become in effect and in this wise the middle-man to almost all happiness in this life we might know; again this thanks in no small part to people making deals with them for false security and or selfish worldly gain. As a result, and depending on how wicked the age, we are alienated from life and nature because of such artificially imposed and unnatural ties and restraints. On the surface, it is not unusual in our time to see their de facto, behind-the-scenes regime espousing social equality and political, but with virtually all reduced to the lowest, third world common denominator; that is with respect to level of culture, intellect, education and social status; except that is for a tiny minority of the most rich and affluent, and or their henchmen, and who hold sway far high above all the rest, and with, needless to add, all manner of carnage and suffering in pursuit of some imagined utopia.
While the good, or those who would be allied to the good, do have right reason, the moral law, religious faith, and with to some extent science and technology to aid them, truly effective leaders can be scarce, all the more so when targeted by their criminal opponents; as history so amply demonstrates. After all, it is the prophets, saints, and honest and rational philosophers and activists who tend to be the most important targets that need to be eliminated or neutralized. In this struggle, most necessary and not of least importance is awareness and education, especially when it comes to being more rational and more moral. It is such leaders who can best provide these; hence the need to routinely oust, displaced or as need be assassinate them.
One cannot live one's life expecting to necessarily change and save the world. But we can try, and may to some extent even succeed. We can, in a manner of speaking protect and preserve some of what life here holds dear; while separating and distancing ourselves from those who, whether purposely or no, make it their business to taint, contaminate, demolish and or ruin everything. In speaking of combating criminal spirit people tyranny, I am not somehow or in any wise proposing a substitute for religion; in which latter only is true and enduring hope to be found. But inasmuch as criminal spirit people have a material presence and are able to bully and insinuate themselves into our lives, there are practical measures that can and should be adopted to counteract their criminal efforts; not dissimilar to how it is possible for us to have medicines to thwart disease, or weapons to suppress lawless violence. But just as medicine and weapons cannot solve all problems for which they are designed or intended, we can talk about how in using them we can mitigate some of all that ails, plagues, enslaves or otherwise hinders us from living creatively, productively, and peaceably.
In the grand scheme of things, we have the (relatively) good and honestly rational versus the corrupt and the intractably dishonest and irrational; the latter, as often as not, are, knowingly or unknowingly, led, armed and assisted with a virtual army of spirit people, as need be parceled out in crime bands or terrorist cells; to be used or drawn upon as need be; with no end of technology (both in the way of regular and spirit person technology and general craftiness) and financial resources to empower them. Their regular people allies, and who would not dream of questioning criminal spirit people authority are typically cowardly and or mind controlled persons; including some who are very powerful and wealthy who make deals with them for purposes of pursuing personal advancement in this world.
The battle of good versus evil is ultimately one of honest, rational truth versus falsehood, lying and deception; (what is essentially or at heart) selfless and thankful love versus (what is essentially or at heart) envy and self-pity. But evil (or the "morally bad" if you prefer) is clever, and as we earlier stated as a general rule encourages the manicheanism-like belief that good and evil are both necessary and to that extent evil is a kind of "good;" and depending on their shrewdness or lack of shrewdness, many people are easily fooled into going along with this idea. The right and moral view, by contrast, is to say that while someone might not be able to help their morally bad behavior, they recognize that for a given individual it something regrettable; only they can't help doing it. Some will seek to outgrow and overcome the bad behavior; while others give up trying; but both know that the behavior is bad. The more manichean view, on the other hand, says that bad behavior, or at least SOME bad behavior is actually a positive good. It is on this difference that professional criminal spirit people try to trip people up, and not infrequently with resounding success. Part of what is intended by them is to create and have people believe the illusion that it is NECESSARY to accommodate or make deals with them; that the protection racket and or "road to riches and success" program they offer is necessary to both life safety and fulfillment. And when their way of thinking is not knowingly and willingly adopted, it is stealthily inculcated or slipped into a person's thinking; often and for many, without their even being conscious of what is taking place.
To compound or make the problem more difficult, it is more than common for people to believe that the ultimate standard of truth is what other people or what "everyone" thinks. For some it is so bad, and they are so lacking in the capacity to reason, that they have no idea, beyond immediate sensation and perception, of what is real, or beyond what others tell them is real.
For us who know better, what we want and what we are about is truth beyond merely what others or everyone thinks. It is the honest, rational truth to us that is and has the higher standing over the mere opinion of others; least of all the opinions of those who are not disposed to be honest and rational; regardless of how numerous or materially powerful they are. If a given group of people rejects honest, rational truth, what or how much does it really matter what they think?
Nothing is or is determined to be true or real, or to have value or not have value, but that SOMEONE decides it is or not so. Ever the question then must be asked WHO, in the given circumstance, is this someone making the call? How credible or reliable are they?
Professional criminal spirit people have, practically speaking, no end of means of getting you to believe THEY are the ones to decide what is real; what is true, what is false. And unless a person knows better, is honest, is duly rational, there is more than likely chance of their being fooled and taken in by the former. They have magic, and other amazing displays of power; they have means of frightening you; can employ clever arguments and which are sometimes not without their truth; indeed and as bad as they are, they can disguise themselves; speak into your head, as or as if God to some. "Do not judge according to appearance," as is said, "but judge with righteous judgment." For true God speaks through truth, and truth comes to us by honest rationality, a clean conscience, and a sincere and charitable heart. The more we are given to see truth this way, the harder it is for the enemy to get in and take over.
"...If Wieland had framed juster notions of moral duty, and of the divine attributes; or if I had been gifted with ordinary equanimity or foresight, the double-tongued deceiver would have been baffled and repelled."
[This concludes the weekly installments of the ROUGH DRAFT of "On Reason, Morality and the would-be gods." As time gets on, I hope and plan to work and develop the whole into a more formal composition. Quite when, or if, that will happen, I don't at present know. But before the end of this year, seems (at the moment at any rate) a feasible guesstimate. Finally, for a .pdf copy of my "New Treatise on Hell" from 2003, see: http://www.gunjones.com/newtreatiseonhell4.pdf ]
O.K....?
[I saw Ann watching a 1970 episode of "Name of the Game" and first thought it was her sister. Then said, no, that's not who it is. I then proceeded to look on the internet to find out more. Her two last listed imdb performances were in 1984 and 1988; in the last of which she is the voice of "a Bag" in "My Stepmother is a Space Alien." Then there is this concluding the Wikipedia article on her. After that, and aside from pictures or video clips from her career days, absolutely nothing of substance to fill in any details. Given the sensational nature of the case, one thinks a book would have been written. But absolutely nothing.]
"Prentiss was convicted in a California court of a 1996 assault against her father, and a subsequent threat against members of her family. The district attorney claimed that Prentiss, while incarcerated on the assault charge, had attempted to hire another inmate to kill three people, including her father and actor-director Richard Benjamin, the husband of her sister. On July 23, 1997, the court sentenced her to 19 years in prison.
"Prentiss died in prison on January 12, 2010."
[Hymn 42 continued.]
5. It is evident that Elisha was a fountain in a thirsting people: and because they that thirsted sought him not out, his outflow was not great. But when Naaman sought him out, he abounded and poured forth healing. The fountain into the midst of a fountain, he took him and plunged him; for in the river he cleansed the leper. Jesus the Sea of benefits, into Siloam sent the blind man whose eyes were opened.
6. Gehazi, with the staff that brought to life the dead, was unable to raise the child. And how could the famous prophet have been brought up by the sorceress? We were they that mocked Saul, for instead of one demon whom he questioned, two demons came up and mocked him. From the bones of Elisha learn also of the bones of Samuel; for though Elisha's bones brought to life the dead, the sorcerers could not bring up the dead, the living and sacred bones.
7. And though I asked this petition, He who gives all gave it not to me. For though the demons were troubled, by the bones of some priest, or magician or wizard, of Chaldean or soothsayer, yet I was aware that this was but mockery. In two ways I cause men to err: either I make the Apostles to lie, or I make my Apostles like the Apostles.
8. The party of the demons lo! It is spoiled; the party of the devils endures stripes: though there be none that lifts the rod openly, the demons cry out with pain; though there be none that fetters and binds, the spirits hang bound. This silent judgment, which is calm and still, and works not even by questioning, the one power that is all sufficing, lo! It dwells in the bones of this second Elisha.
9. He gave judgment unto His Twelve, that they might judge the twelve Tribes. And if so be that they are to judge the sons of the great Abraham, this is then no great matter, that they shall judge demons now. And unless they make the crucifiers fulfil the judgment that is to be, by our judgment shall they be proved. For worse than we did they cry out, in presence of the Apostles the judges of the tribes.
10. For a wolf was Saul the Apostle, and on the blood of the sheep I reared him; and he waxed strong and became a singular wolf. But near to Damascus suddenly, the wolf was changed into a sheep. He said that the Apostles, are to judge Angels; for by the Angels he signified the priest as it is written. If so be then they are thus powerful, woe to the demons from the strokes of their bones!
~Ephraim the Syrian (c.306–373), The Nisibene Hymns
"On Reason, Morality and the would-be gods" (rough draft) continued from earlier.
Whether as a result of short-sightedness, being fooled, or both, most people tend to see great worldly power as a sign of ultimate good, and in a manner that replaces (true) God the creator. As could be expected, criminal spirit people, and their hench-persons, as a matter of course will encourage this view. Yet to the degree that great worldly power is based on or in lying, cruelty, blatant unfairness and injustice, the cost or penalty of these offenses is passed on and borne by those who are the willing servants or accessories to such power. While we are all sinners, and any one of us falls far short of perfect, yet there are others who are way and beyond ridiculousness when it comes to be being blind, callous, and in a daze when it comes to gross immorality and unapologetic criminality.
In what has gone before in this writing there has been an effort on my part to be as comprehensive as present circumstances allow, and yet we have only, if that, touched on the myriad surface aspects and complexities of the subject: historical, psychological, sociological, medical, legal, religious, etc.; bearing in mind also that the problems arising from criminal spirit people, and their followers, occur at radically divergent levels of intensity and areas of experience, and which in turn may or may not be made apparent to us subtly or overtly depending our level of knowledge, alertness, and perspicuity. To that extent, such problems can be likened to a sickness that in one situation may be no harmful than a common cold, and yet in other cases might be as bad as a vicious cancer; with varying degrees of risk and danger lying in between. And yet when it comes to the problem criminal spirit people organized crime, whether it manifests itself as benign, malignant, or something in between these, all are incarnations, outgrowths of, or in some way more than likely tied into the main disease.
But whatever the degree of intensity, and allowing for human sin, error and mistakes otherwise, certainly as the core of the most virulent of these problems arises from and will be found to lie with high power criminal spirit people. These, and with a reach, whether real or merely apparent, that is almost universal, seek to infest and hold ultimate power over life in this world in as many of its variety of aspects as is possible. While it is ordinary and proper to hold people accountable for their own mistakes and errors, it is completely blind, irresponsible and flagrantly unjust to ignore the role high power criminal spirit people play in planting, inciting and stirring up trouble. And yet in practice, they are never even mentioned or considered as acting a role in the reported crime. Yes, we can and should blame Othello. But how sane and or honest are we with respect to what happened if we entirely ignore Iago's role in what took place? That high power criminal spirit people and their followers do and would insist that they and the behind the scenes role they play be disregarded and overlooked goes without saying.
It is my contention here then that what lies at the heart of indeed the far worst challenges and difficulties which confront humanity faces are people, whether criminal spirit people or regular person followers, who bully, deceive, cheat, and wage incessant and violent war for purposes of conquest, and a second group that, either out of stupidity, pusillanimity, or indifference permits the first to do so. Such conquest is in no small part sought by means of by forming or framing our characters, judgments, morals, and morals to be in accordance with theirs; that is, in getting us to be more like them. The more selfish, irrational, and depraved we are made or become, the easier it is separate, divide, and thus enslave us. In practice, they operate as a clandestine government, the very deepest of all so-called "deep states;" using what amounts to a kind of secret police and military, armed with both worldly and other-worldly advanced technology, not to mention huge financial resources to enforce their rule. At the same time, they recognize as well that a society's culture is its soul (as I heard geo-political and literary specialist and lecturer Cynthia Chung well express it; my thanks to her for that); so that to control the culture is to control the soul of that society. "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." ~ Matthew 10:28.
Acting as a kind of self-appointed secret police, and amoral and hypocritical Censors (in the Roman sense of that title), they restrict or preventing the happiness and success of such who don't make a deal with them or who don't, in some manner, subscribe to their protection racket. Theirs is a carrot and stick approach. Make a deal and enmesh yourself in some sort of deal with us, or else risk incurring their wrath. They act as if they are above right reason, and who treat and view the Word and discussion as being of small importance. And given what has proven to be their long term staying power, that is well over and beyond such as our own regular life spans, in having sway in or over a government, family, or business, they can phase out the more moral and rational, and empower their opposite, unless recognized for what they are, contested, and duly combated.
But one can't just or always just simply do surgery and cut out and remove a cancer; the problem is often or at last far more complex and difficult than that. This why, at least from a Christian point of view, nothing substantial can be done till Judgment Day, when only then can the wheat and tares can be justly identified and separated.
While they presumably have always been very powerful since time immemorial, it needs be noted that the sway and say of professional criminal spirit people has increased dramatically in the last three or so decades; so that, for example, there are things they can do easily now that at an earlier time would have been prohibitive or much more expensive to do. We saw or see this in things like serial killer phenomena, Jonestown, Waco, Heaven's Gate cult, 9/11, school and other public shootings, and the wholesale celebration of realistic brutal violence by moviedom, and the rampant breakdown of family and basic morals generally, the proliferation of homeless camps, vandalism and lavishly subsidized campaigns of street graffiti; epidemics gone "viral," etc, etc.-- in other words, sheer and utter insanity. Which obviously begs the question: Did these bizarre problems, in their primal source, spring from Nature? But if not Nature, from whom or whence did they come?
The widespread demise of culture and the arts, communities, institutions, business is a direct result of the increased influx and accompanying deployment of criminal spirit people governance and power in our midst. Even those who protest that decadence that others celebrate, while quick to attack secondary and third rate culprits, are often themselves still vassals and zombies of criminal spirit people. Often times, to cite one familiar example of such, Jews are blamed for what has gone wrong, but if there is any truth to this charge it could only be a segment or certain Jews and such who are hench-people and dupes of criminal spirit people. And the real truth is that our greatest adversary is not a country, race, or nationality, but a person and persons who, and perhaps despite surface appearances or formal affiliations, have no country, race, or nationality. Moreover, the conflict between us and them is not a left and right, or would-be progressive versus would-be conservative, white versus non-white, female versus male, Christian versus Jew, etc. -- whatever. Rather it is THEM and their other-worldly hegemony against us all. They have people working and installed on both and all sides of any quarrel or controversy; especially where immense material wealth and worldly power and interests are at stake or up for grabs, playing off one side against the other that both in the end will be done in and winner takes all.
In short, what you have then are certain regular persons making deals with these high power criminal spirit people, the former acting as crucial conduits for the latter, and together they are attempting to force their "religion" on us, and which views humans as sort of inferior sub-species (i.e., read "niggers") to the seemingly all knowing, almighty "gods." True, the powers and capabilities they possess are in many respects genuinely "awesome" and intimidating; the threat they pose is more than formidable and in some ways seemingly impossible to contend with, for professional criminal spirit people are long inured and trained at what they do and can be uncannily shrewd in what they are about. Yet it is also true, as we said earlier, that no less many other respects they are weak or even impotent compared to us. Moreover, it is all important to keep in mind that at last they possess much, if not all, of these phenomenal powers they have, only because they traded away all that was and is truly good, right, such as honest love, peace worth the name and unfeigned happiness.
Though they will understandably make an effort to disguise it, they are dictatorial in character, and any form of governmental or societal totalitarianism that lasts or endures necessarily involves criminal spirit people because; since, at minimum, no one could posses the power and wherewithal to effect and make such possible without their permission, partnership and cooperation. And where a system of governance is less rather than more dictatorial and authoritarian, it can only be because the high power criminal spirit people and their followers find themselves up against opponents who do or will not brook and suffer their supreme arrogance and would-be over-lordship.
[To be resumed next week.]