socks

The simple truth.

oaks, that reminds me of a story I heard when I was young, from a Nun, at school. (a "Sister of the Holy Cross" as their order was known). It was about how fortunate we were in the U.S. to have so much, and she told the story of how her ancestors in Ireland had survived in the Great Famine of the 1800's. She said that the story went, their family had a single piece of meat, beef, and they would stew that piece of meat over and over with vegetables and then remove the meat and store it and re-stew it over and over. In that way their vegetable soup would pick up the flavor and some of the nutrition from the beef over time. Basically they just dipped it iinto the stew, removed it and made their beef last that way. So they had "beef stew" every night. Martindale's"WOW was much the same. Sounds like if someone flew over a city, that city had a chance to "hear the Word". Drive through and stop for gas, they had their chance. Couple of service men or women stationed for a few months - it's over. Clearly, by that time he'd given up any real hope of ever seeing the Way cohere in the way it had been. After that, maintenance. Try to keep what you've got, clean it up and move on. He had a way of "logicing" out things in his thinking, connecting odd bits and pieces he'd pick up, grasping at "inspiration" and coming to outlandish conclusions. Not a pretty picture.

Interesting thought, there. Couple thoughts - when Martindale declared "mission accomplished!" I wasn't there so I never really learned the details. Were there any more? Way back when, VPW defined WOW in basic terms - a "twig" fellowship in every community. I believe that's the correct term, "community". He spoke about that on a few occasions where it was explained this way - a large city like say, Cinncinati, might have several twigs because there were many groupings of people, homes, large neighborhoods and a lot of people spread out over a large area. A relatively small city like Manhattan would also have several twigs because of the concentration of numbers of people there. And a large city with low population might have less, etc. This was, at one point, actually one of the jobs of the Corps, to establish some sense of how many/and where in their state. I don't think it was ever really acted on in a practical way and the whole effort became more of a quota basis for running PFAL classes in the Corps. So, there was some level setting to be done, although it wasn't called that at the time. I was also ingest into this the term "available" - that is, a twig in every community meant that "The Word" was "Available" in that city, town, etc. Everyone may not have "heard the Word" yet, but it was available in an ongoing effort and presence by those twigs. And all of that meant of course, PFAL - registering and completion of PFAL. So Craig would have had to redefine "WOW" to declare it accomplished. It clearly wasn't and wasn't anywhere even near close, by the earlier version. I felt on hearing about this that he was anxious to "get it over with" and move on. In fact, when I heard later that he'd really moved ahead with this whole idea I realized - this guy's in trouble, he needed prayer from anyone and everyone, regardless of what I thought of him at that time, as he had to be nuts, literally. Plus, where was the quality control? Who checked!? Did Manhattan have 15 established Twigs? Dayton? How about Las Vegas? 10? 15?

Speaking of snowstorms - you chill. I won't be running into juedes. And get enough for everyone while you're at it.

It has nothing to do with it. If it's bugging you, I'll stop. I have no idea whether he saw a snowstorm. He said he did. I wasn't there. If I gave a ratz asz I'd say more about it.

"In fact, this was the one last point I was going to make. It looks to me that God had it all injected into the public domain in a sense. TWI technically owns the copyright, but they can't quite enforce it now that the cat is out of the bag. I think God had Dr assemble previous texts just for this reason, to force TWI to back off when it comes to getting in anyone's face over fair use and/or more than fair use of the PFAL writings. I've heard not one word of them going after the grads who digitized the books onto a CD and mass distributed them years ago. I know they know about it because I talked to a high ranking staff member about it some 5 years ago. God in His foreknowledge got those books mass printed, distributed around the world, and then He freed them from the monsters He knew TWI would become." Actually, there's a cleaner reason, more grounded in the truth. Most if not all of the early copies of the PFAL class materials came out of the Way of Europe "post POP". Geer had gotten full rights to republish and print Way materials prior to his POP release- he refers to this in "POP" and gives his reasons. The W of E supplied many people with materials in the latter 80's, I know of some myself. People were able to buy books and other stuff from the bookstore in Europe. There were some large inventories in the U.S. as a result. Those materials were completely legal to own in the U.S. and use or resell. It has nothing to do with the Way having any fear over the content of PFAL being exposed to some latter day copyright examination of the content (in fact I doubt that any true blue Wayfer could even see the possibility that there might be a problem like that - why would the if God authored it, inspired it to be written, etc).... they simply don't have control over any of the stuff that was bought or given out that way, at that time. Reproduction on a macro level, local and unadvertised, would be inevitable and untrackable, particularly by those who aspire to some "higher level" of spiritual honesty and purity than a simple "if it ain't yours don't take it" view. Religious fanaticism will develop all manner of excuses for behavior that would, under any other circumstance, be consdered wrong if not outright illegal. And if it's for your own personal use and constitutes a single copy, that's going to be hard to track and stop legally and in fact it might be done from a purely honest reasoning at that level. That's not to say that they didn't sell them outright either - they have continued to sell the books to various people around the country who are no longer active particpants in the Way. Business is business, as the saying goes. Plus, others scarfed up copies and originals of all sorts of things upon leaving the Way Nash headquarters, and squirreled them away for their own use and the use of others. The Way hasn't always shut those instances down. It would be beyond their means to sort through all of the possibilites, but only a hen in a hornet's nest would be so distracted to think that if they knew and were able to easily prevent unauthorized use of their materials, they wouldn't do so.

Well, the topic of "ownership" applies to everything. Mike. On that we agree. As with a person who writes a book about the stars, he doesn't own the constellations, nor the information, he's simply learning and reporting. We've already gone through all this before, and it's all easy for the interested reader to draw their own conclusions. A person doesn't need to fall on either side or inbetween on this topic to enjoy the blessings of the Word of God, be it in PFAL, directly at the source, the Bible or any work based on it and from it. Recognizing these issues for what they are doesn't change the information, that should be given an honest look by anyone who wants to.

It's no secret we disagree, Mike. :) To me it's simply a matter of principle but nothing's lost or gained by what i see as this past disruption of principle relating to honesty and quality in work. Your point of an "academic" perspective on this is facetious and misleading, IMO. Your placing that context around the issue doesn't relate to the issue. Copyright law doesn't exist in an artificial vacuum, created for circumstance, court cases or licensing. It reflects a reality, recognition of ownership. (hold that thought for a sec, more scintillating blather to follow on it....) It can only be said a 1,000 times before it starts to sound stale - if none of this copyright stuff was relevant to the books, than it was unnecessary to inscribe the "©" to any of the books. Giving that status to the work sets it into a context that copyright laws govern. Period. In fact though (scintillating comments to follow!!!) the principles that copyright law attempt to address are in affect with or without the laws. A child may need a rule to not take another child's toy without asking them first, so that he can learn to respect other children, but the child must learn in their own heart the truth of that so that when there's no one watching to enforce the rule, they will act respectfully. Inserting authorship and God's permission into this doesn't align with how VPW conducted business in this arena. "God's Word" doesn't benefit from being copyrighted. On that topic, it's been written that "Jesus never wrote a book"...now I see why. But if He had I doubt He would have avoided giving credit to His Father, whose Words He was given. In fact, He did do that when He spoke, didn't He? So even Jesus verbally cited His sources. The context for appropriate action in this topic isn't academic requirements, or meal service. VPW made that clear when he copyrighted his books and sold them. He chose the context, not you or I. He owed it to everyone involved to progress with an honesty that would be above reproach and not subject to the meandering musings of his audience, years later. As they say, you dance with the one you brung. Or something like that. Or was it Rocky: "You wanna dance, you gotta pay the band, you understand? If you wanna borrow, you gotta pay the man. Hey, I ain't emotionally involved..." And I'm not. He was wrong and I can sleep with that understanding, quite soundly as with the fact we disagree.

My pleasure, waysider. And mchud! :) Bullinger was a product of his times and influences, as everyone is. The issue being discussed isn't what they said or did, and where they got it. The topic at hand is where VPW got it and his actions and product are singular events. He didn't control where or how any of these other people got their material, he controlled his own actions. Never once in my entire life around him did I ever once hear him even infer that Bullinger, B. G. Leonard or others of his primary source material had taken parts and pieces of others work and placed them in their own, directly and purposefully, with the intention of not crediting them. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but he never to my knowledge recited that reasoning in reference to his own actions. Publicly he referenced these other people and their work as instrumental to his own. We're looking at the writings, the books, in this immediate context. The real issue again - with copyright law - is not that the material was or wasn't his original material - it's that the use of the material wasn't appropriately credited to the known original and used with permission. That's key - known original. As noted elsewhere, VPW wrote the early books with little or no footnotes or credits in the text itself. This has been noted elsewhere for the reason he stated - it made for a cleaner, easier to digest read. That's fine. In addition to that reason is a result, a by product of using that style - in using it, it appears as if all of the text is original and written by the author. Getting a clean, easy to read text is fine - adding appropriate credits and footnotes for portions that were used from others writiings elsewhere in the work, like the end or beginning as an appendix, or preface would the the correct way to handle it. VPW used these in many books, notably the RTHST book, to accomodate lists and verse references. Whatever the reasons all of this is easy to understand because the books themselves exist - VPW's and the others. Whittling away at a lot of what-ifs and did-you-knows and coulda-beens is. It's a simple matter to conclude on. In a way it doesn't really matter as none of this and none of it is from any of those whose work is involved. We're after the fact and unattached from any of the parties or their estates. If anyone wants to read the books, use them, value them, that's up to them, they exist as entities in and of themselves and can be evaluated for their own worth. But again, on the copyright issue, there's no argument, it's a done deal and anyone looking at the facts could and would see that. They might place different levels of value to the infringement that occured and what it's impact on the whole work was but not on this issue.

Well, this topic makin' the rounds. dmiller notes it. For the record, again - the copyright laws of the U.S. are one of the foundations for the topic of pay-jerism. Again, a restatement of how the laws work- -------------------------------------------- How long does a copyright last? For works published after 1977, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, if the work is a work for hire (that is, the work is done in the course of employment or has been specifically commissioned) or is published anonymously or under a pseudonym, the copyright lasts between 95 and 120 years, depending on the date the work is published. All works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. Works published after 1922, but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. If the work was created, but not published, before 1978, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, even if the author died over 70 years ago, the copyright in an unpublished work lasts until December 31, 2002. And if such a work is published before December 31, 2002, the copyright will last until December 31, 2047. -------------------------------------------- Everything you want to know, already know and might want to check, from copyright.gov, the site. Including a history of the Copyright Office, established in 1790 -------------------------------------------- And even yet another well written brief on the basic answer to the question "what does a copyright do" - here. A bundle of intangible rights granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege is given to that person (or to any party to whom he or she transfers ownership) to make copies of the same for publication and sale. A copyright is a legal device that gives the creator of a literary, artistic, musical, or other creative work the sole right to publish and sell that work. Copyright owners have the right to control the reproduction of their work, including the right to receive payment for that reproduction. An author may grant or sell those rights to others, including publishers or recording companies. Violation of a copyright is called infringement. --------------------------------------------- My bold, above. The topic goes 'round and 'round but it's long lost it's merry. The issue IMO, simply stated is reflected in the known fact that VPW added copyright status to the books. The benefit of doing so is clear. There are only certain reasons to do so, and if you do claim ownership by using the Big C then you claim to own the book as an original work. The contents can contain the work of others- the copyright laws would apply to those works and their use. The same as the copyright laws would be invoked for the work that uses them. -------------------------------------------- To borrow from Tolkein - "one law for all". Or the bible - For The Word of God is...sharper than any two-edged sword... -------------------------------------------- When asked about paying taxes, Jesus said give to Caesar the things that are his, and to God the things that are His. I would apply that generally to the laws of our society - if we live in and benefit from our society's laws and participate in the arenas they govern and in fact invoke their use for our own uses - we are obliged to honor them. We aren't morally or ethically sound if we don't. God may "author". Nothing states we are required to invoke the laws of the land to support the Words of God. They stand alone, on their own and of their own merit. The things of God are God's - give to God, His. If we do function by and within the laws of the land, we are bound to deal with such honestly and with truthfulness. It's not that hard to understand. Stating that VPW rewrote the bible according to a new revelation given by God, and thus was correct in copyrighting them for the purpose of protecting them doesn't stand up to scrutiny when we know that many of the portions of those writings were taken from the copyright protected work of others. Knowing another had written them first, it would be reasonable to assume that their work was the correct "original" and to be used appropriately - again, all of the copyright law applies once those copyright laws are invoked and used. Mistakes were made and I doubt blindly or innocently. It's not any more difficult to state than that IMO. Why is really more interesting question, but of this topic - there's no question.

mchud11 - you reminded me of why some people stay(ed) - if a person held to the basic beliefs of the Way's teaching it could make complete sense to remain and continue to work towards improving it. As many know that became extremely difficult at times, because of how the Way is set up. It would be impossible for a non-member of the Board of Trustees to force change on the organization without their approval. So during times when the acting Prez lays down the law and makes changes those who work for the Way must follow or they can be terminated for just cause. During better times there's collaboration amongst the Trustees and others and change can be initiated as deemed appropriate. Some org's are conservative and cautious, some more liberal and fluid. The culture of the organization has a lot to do with it. Saying the Way is a "religious' organization based on biblical foundations still doesn't really direct how they do business - the bible doesn't teach people what building to build and when, land to buy or things like that. People still make those decisions. Now - there's an odd mix here, in my mind, as to that fact and exactly what the Way "is". As a fellowship ministry they say they have no membership - yet, they have throughout their history thrown people out and not allowed them to participate in cases where they differed on how the ministry conducted business, made decisions, etc. So the same person who agrees with the ministry's teachings but disagrees with a decision can be deemed unacceptable and shunted off and out of active participation. The fact that they disagree is used to indicate that they person is somehow not safe to even be around. That's an interesting dynamic - if the Way had churches, public buildings, they'd have to remain fairly open to those who would attend, as a non-proft tax exempt entity. A person who disagreed soundly with their practices but continues to believe the doctrine would be, I believe, legally allowed to attend their public meetings and ceremonies since technically they state to have "no members" - so how could a person be a non-member and excluded? Some restrictions would apply - like the Ohio headquarters and how they would establish reasonable controls of use - but based on how they describe themselves it could be a sticky wicket. Home fellowships are another matter - one's home is one's property. Opening your own doors to those you invite is your perogative. You have no obligation to allow anyone and everyone through the door, while holding a personally hosted bible fellowship. So a person can, of their own decision, refuse access to anyone, legally. I that model, The Way can say "so and so is screwed up, don't have anything to do with them" when that person simply disagrees with something and has made it known. They tend to soft soap that, and supposedly they're a kinder gentler group today. That would be nice. It would also makes sense. For better or worse, sooner or later people are going to move up the ladder that have nothing invested in past acrimony and issues and if they're basically good reasonable people, will try to make their "Christian" ministry reflect Christian biblical values of leadership and lifestyle. Family or not though - control of the land and everything on it and everything the Way's produced is in the hands of "The Way" and it's legal trustees. That's how VPW wanted it.

"so unless there's a gift ministry of Big Mean DumbA$$, something was wrong somewhere." How'd I miss dat?

"Or some one in the family is a shareholder who recives benefits, money for the trademark and all the incomes?" The answer's no, to all your questions TMex, pretty much as Jim and everyone else stated. You're referring to some of the things that were said over the years by VPW and others, about "the Corps" and whomever "running" the Way or whatever but that's worth the air it took to say it or the paper it's written on - legally, the Way - the property, buildings, books, stuff - isn't "owned" by anyone person or group of people. The Weirwille family had members as Trustees at one time, but there's none on the Board at this time, and if there were they wouldn't "own" the Way. As long as the Way doesn't violate any laws or have conflicts of interest in it's Board members, it is what it is. If you gave money to the Way and ever claimed tax deductions for it in the U.S., don't try to get it back. You already got what's coming to you. If you gave money to the Way and feel it was misused, you'd have to prove it. The Way would actually have lots of precedent amongst it's publications where they've stated that they use the money to "further God's Word" moving around the world, etc. etc. and that can be very loosely defined and applied. Proving misuse based on disagreement in how they used it won't wash. Likewise "members" of the Way, past and present choosing to force change in the Way's practices and operations, or beliefs. In the U.S. as long as you don't violate the laws, you're free to believe as you choose. Social pressure can change those kinds of things, but only when it's accepted. This is one of the reasons, a major one, as to why so many people "walked" away from the Way ministry rather than put up a big fight against the Trustees over issues. There's nothing to fight against, other than specific violations of the law in the Trustees, if they occurred. People can argue all they want but at the end of the day, processes, procedures, beliefs, all those things that make the Way what it is, don't change unless the Trustees change it. It's impossible to take control of the organization unless mismanagement, conflict of interest, violation of the law, incompetence, etc. can be proven. Looking at the expanse of religious organizations in the world today and what they all do - it's easy to see why that can be difficult to wrap around.

To be fair, Mike, this board posting environment doesn't do much towards being forthright and straightup, when the volume of words has to be measured in tons. There's too much going on at the same time. That's my opinion of course and may not be how others take it. A topic is like a nail, it has to be hit straight and repeatedly to get into the wood. I myself don't always contribute to that, so I shouldn't complain. I add to the dust ups as much as anyone. When you say "Then I mentioned that it was a tad out of the mainstream: it is for people steeped in traditional Church of England theology" it sounds deceptive. It sounds like you're saying, it's not for us, it's out of style, no wonder people didn't read it. But people did read it and gained a great deal from it. Really, your insistence on knowing the minds and activities of the "old grads" and forcing their activities into your box of conclusions is silly. Wouldn't it be better to pose the question straightforward, without the "ever try reading it - the whole book", which sounds like the assumption is, well, of course no one did. It's too hard to read, and if you did, what a pain! I'm offline for a few days, so stay well all.

Hmmm...tell that to all the people that are buying the book, Mike. I know of quite a few people, non-Wayfers who don't have any problem adjusting to that style. Point being though, it's been put up on the board before - Bullinger didn't spring out of the ground from nothing. His product grew from others. So, anyone who's interested in adding to their knowledge of the bible is going to deal with reading some things that aren't written in breezey language and one-night reads. That's the nature of the beast - if anyone's going to truly check VPW's work, "research" the bible and "make it their own", they're going to need to go to where the knowledge is - not choose the knowledge they like to read - and do the work. Prayerfully, slowly, with time and reflection allowed for growth to occur in the ways that the spirit of God opens it to each of us, as we're able and ready to learn. Christ made salvation available, but he didn't make Christianity easy. Effort is required if we're going to make our lives we've been given a product of what God has provided us with, there's work to be done. We can't change what's been done in the past but we can prayerfully and faithfully do our best, as was once said, for "his highest". I accept that not everyone will be able to or even need to do everything the same way. In the end, all the knowledge accumulated means little without the glue that puts it together. Nothing can replace the opening of our minds and hearts as God can and will do. So you can read anything you want. But I reject the idea that anyone avoid anything because it's hard, arcane, written or old english or isn't stylish enough for them. That's b-s--t. I'd be a liar to say anything different or less. Which goes to duplicitous - yes, my perception of your posting history is that you haven't been straightforward, straight up, and forthright. That may be your own ability to say what you mean, clearly. On the other hand, you keep at it. One way to get better is to keep trying. No one should prevent another from trying to improve themselves, so don't think I'm knocking you. I don't agree with you, on quite a few things but that's par for the course. I don't agree with a lot of people, still like them. Like I said, big whoopdee doo.

Your criticisms of Bullinger's written work perfectly frames your discussion here and all of your subsequent points - they're your preferences, choices and opinions. As you've already stated you've come up with this and as we already know, for years you've stumbled through (and I'm being kind here) trying to get a head of steam going to coherently put forth just a foundational statement of what your point is. That took months and months of some of the weirdest and blatantly duplicitous posting I've ever seen or read to get to. I actually took breaks from your threads for months, checked in briefly, and checked out because the same discusson was going on, usually punctuated by your 1. being away sick, 2. being away working 3. it raining 4. it being sunny...and you're trying to get caught up. That's my opinion though - so don't chalenge me as I'm not here to offer a logical argument on this, I'm just presenting my opinion. Please feel free to read this though, no problem. So fine. So what's the big whoopdee doo then? Well, there isn't any really. When you describe Bullinger though it clearly shows the choices you've made and why. You want to do "the work" now, but you weren't willing to do it then and apparently your choices are the same - E-Z Read, E-Z Road. Many of the "old grads" you talk about did just the opposite - studied Bullinger, read Bullinger and enjoyed Bullinger. How to enjoy the Bible was an easy read. Not for you though. You wanted, needed and kept to the E-Z read versions. That's fine. It was your choice. It is your choice. But all of this sarcasm about "pointy heads" is ridiculous. Revealing, but silly.

They're not the prettiest things, that's for sure. Might define a new level of "geek". :) From what I've read he's looking at grants and support to pay for them in underdeveloped countries and then it will move in with whatever mechanisms or organizations to support delivery. Cost related to production goes down as the whole deal gets set up and production increases I guess. It's a user adjustable deal, so while some assistance would be required the user is able to determine the "is it better like this - or like this?" part. Super simple, for what it is. Yep, for basic improving of sight, it's a cheap, doable solution.

I read in the Sunday paper about this. Josh Silver is a guy who's got the vision thing going. Check out THIS LINK to a slide show and slide that describes his invention. It's truly amazing. Here's another story on it. You can browse the slide show in the first link using the buttons. The whole idea is incredibly cool. What it boils down to is a cheap, user adjustable method of providing corrective lenses in a pair of eyeglasses. They're geared to developing nations where eyecare is scarce. Anyone could benefit, I would think. And I read in the article the current cost for a pair is about 19 bucks and he thinks it could be cut to half that in time. I imagine the technology could serve millions, everywhere. A quote from the second link: The implications of bringing glasses within the reach of poor communities are enormous, says the scientist. Literacy rates improve hugely, fishermen are able to mend their nets, women to weave clothing. During an early field trial, funded by the British government, in Ghana, Silver met a man called Henry Adjei-Mensah, whose sight had deteriorated with age, as all human sight does, and who had been forced to retire as a tailor because he could no longer see to thread the needle of his sewing machine. "So he retires. He was about 35. He could have worked for at least another 20 years. We put these specs on him, and he smiled, and threaded his needle, and sped up with this sewing machine. He can work now. He can see." I've worn glasses since I was 6. I cried when I read this. Such a simple but briliant idea could, will, change the basic quality of life for people all over the world who otherwise have no choice, in the most basic way. This guy should get a People's Pulitzer Prize, if there ever is such a thing.

That term is a fuzzy one, waysider, agreed and I'd have to know the context of the statement to see any "truth" to it. They clearly aren't "counterfeit", they're the actual scrolls. The fact you find anything that old and of that field is significant though, regardless. There was the big stink about them back in the early 70's and a lot of writers jumped on the bandwagon that they reframed "Jesus" as an Essene and early Christianity as an out growth of the sect. But as someone already noted access to them has been a long convoluted process. That's an assumption that sold books but even today isn't a gimme by any stretch, and like a lot of this stuff requires filling in some blanks and dots to get anything close to a straight line. Which (as the non-expert me be) is what a lot of this stuff requires anyway. VPW says "it's a counterfeit". He thought everything was a counterfeit. A new kind of dog food - counterfeit. I'm kidding but he probably took the same position as 1,000's of other religious figures of that era and may have just seen it as another diversion of unknown worth - at the time - since so much work had to be done on them and with them still. To add - I would have been more inspired I'll admit - if the Way and the VPster had gotten a little more consistent involvement in the ongoing discoveries, work, research, etc. That isn't meant to sound massively naive - but the ongoing background and historical information, the kind of academic inquiry of a research "institute" and ministry - that would have had legs I think. For some people, no. Overall, yes.

I should check that out Whitedove, thanks. I've read excerpts here and there but the book would be a good one to get. Golb's work makes a very clear case for the Qumran site not being "the" long lost city of the Essenes. The more I've read on it I could see the possiblity that they came and went through that location but it's conjecture at best, based on other's work and conclusions which all make clear that the Essenes were a very nebulous group. But that location doesn't seem to be "the" spot. Who knows? Once I read up on the pre-gospel history and the Maccabean war, I could place the Essenes, Sadduccees and the Phariseeic gang ("sect") correctly in the history and how they got to where they were in the gospels. And it's interesting that the Pharisees are so prominent because it kind of places a unique context around the life of Jesus due to the fact that He encountered them so directly. From what I understand they were such a powerful presence because of the way they came out of these wars - they're strong desire to establish their history and faith by being "separate" and distinct in their beliefs is more understandable. They were protecting their heritage fiercely in the face of opposition. That'll do things to you, clearly. Look at the Middle East today. I'm probably about to put my hoof in my mouth but the collection of stuff from the Dead Sea Scrolls didn't contain any of what we'd call "new testament" writings, they were all scrolls of Old Testament books and were written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. So any dating of the content would relate to the Old Testament, and that dating is older in some cases than what we already had. Buuuut don't quote me, I don't have all the facts on which books were in which languages, and the respective dating committed to memory. There were scrolls from the Essenes and they contained writings about a "Teacher of Righteousness" who's been compared to Jesus, but the dating is too early, or so the debate goes. Anyhoo...

" The Dead Sea Scrolls provide a wealth of background material for first-century Palestine. If as is quite possible, these documents are not merely the product of an obscure desert sect, but of first century Jerusalem, they should be certainly be considered as prime sources for textual and background material in Biblical studies." This was an interesting observation. I have Dr. Norman Golb's book "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?—The Search for the Secret of Qumran" and really enjoyed it, found it to be a detailed sorting out of the "Dead Sea Scrolls" and the Qumran "Essene" site. He wrote it in 1995, but his work on the topic dates much earlier. At the expense of over simplifying his book, he felt that there was a rush to assign the location of the Qumran excavation as "the" long lost Essene community of biblical times and that the actual evidence didn't match a city where a community would have lived and functioned. He thought it was a closer match to a military outpost. His evidence and arguments are compelling. Although it's old now, it's a great piece of work on the topic IMO if anyone's interested.

So after looking through the website link Steveo, I'm kind of in a state of denial on what he's proposing. I looked for studies that would examine the process using a double blind testing environment and validation of the results post-testing, where the reversed message could be produced and it determined if they're actually valid representations of something. The music examples are ludicrous - Hendrix's quote from the song "Red House" comes out "Night before, think I'll go to Santa Rosa" - He interprets that to mean his mind was "somewhere else". While that might go without saying in Hendrix's case, it's obviously not based on anything other than this guy's interpretation. (and Hendrix is known to not have been the total junkie when working and definitely had his mind on what he was doing in recording environments) Plus, the meaning or usefulness is zippidy doo until his pitch to sell this "service" to business - this quote is something else: An inexpensive speech analysis session can provide the most relevant information from the ultimate source, your own unconscious mind. Why not go to the source and uncover hidden information to help you make the right decisions in planning, investing, resource allocation, hiring, partnerships and joint ventures? As a certified RS Investigator I will elicit enough subconscious information from your own words during our session to give you the edge in any business environment. I'd like to know how he got certified and what that really means. I see his credentials are respectable but I have to wonder where he got this idea. My own feeling is that randomly reversed speech doesn't tell you much by trying to assign words to the sounds. Anyone can tell by listening that the words he assigns are stretches in nearly every case, and rely on the tones and inflections used. If I took several samples of the same speech information, I doubt they'd line up the same way every time, in fact I'm sure they won't. Record a conversation over the phone, in the morning, using a set of predetermined questions. Repeat in person, seated at a table late in the day. Repeat again standing up, in a hallway. Do a few repeats of that so there's two samples for each environment. Then reverse the answers, and compare the sounds of the results. His ability to influence what a listener thinks they hear in the reversals effects the outcome more than anything else. I don't hear half of what he says he does. Plus, the recordings stink. All of that ambient noise, artifacts from the recording process and compression into the Flash files he's using - it ain't woikin' for me. Too squishy.

Yah Mo to that, Sir. I had done some experimenting with translating words to movement, and the musicality of a sentence into movement (Shaz) That would be a very fruitful endeavor methinks, definitely to think through what and how to interpret it as a musical statement into movement. Developing the words, the language. And stuff like sarcasm. What does it look like without the words? Sarcasm is a perfect example of something that would be interesting to reverse and compare. The sound isn't unique - "Oh yeah, I REALly like that...a LOT". That can mean more than one thing. With a roll of the eyes, the same reaction (in our culture today anyway) can be communicated without any words at all. Or even with just the words some people won't "get" the sarcasm and take it at face value. Cuz if I really liked that, a LOT, that's exactly the way I'd say it. Or would I? Would there be minute changes in tone, differentiators? One thing for sure, reversed the sound and rhythm of something said will sound very different and THEREFORE communicate a different meaning - but is that the correct or "true" meaning and what does it mean if it is? I'm of the mind that the sound of what we say defines it as much and possibly more than what we actually say. That because we are more capable to quickly craft our words (okay, some of us sometimes) to say something other than what we really mean, whereas the sounds of it are more difficult to shape in real time. I think... Thus, someone can listen to you and by the "sound" of your voice detect ... something ... and ask "is everything alright?" or ... need to clarify what you mean because to them, the sound is out of character with the words. ? Context, environment, common ground would seem to play into this, although there must be certain sounds that are inherently common to all humans. Happy, calm, fear, etc. ?

I gotta ponder that, shaz. I may offline ya a message, to avoid meandering too much here. That's fascinating though, as "hearing loss" is so varied. For years I played LOUD, near an amp or speaker and back in the day those had to be as big as possible. :) By the time I went back to smaller amps my ears had started that ringing stuff. It went away over time for the most part and for years now I take small ear plugs wherever I think the volume might be too loud and may pop 'em in if I feel I need to. Buuuut - I do occasionally get that high ring going for a sec, usually if I'm tired seems. I do find that tones, certain keys, have a visual "home" for me. It's hard to describe and Sacks helps to understand it a little better although I just take it for granted. Things sound different colors (not everything though), in kind of off-tint shades. I like G and A, which range loosely from a "green" to a "blue". Dill tastes "blue" to me and feels like something between an A and D. Not sure what any of that means, either. But the reversal of language, if it has any meaning, would rely to an extent on the sound quality of the words spoken. The words themselves are only collected sounds anyway. It's really clear when you break them out into individual tones. Like the word - "malarkey"...... ma-LAR-key.....eekRAHLum....if I change the inflection to emphasize the MA and stetch it out - MA-lar-key .... reversed will sound like....eekral-UUUUM....and sound more frantic, almost scared. Or what I might associate with that. I think that will have a huge effect on interpretation of reversed speech, my layman's guess. Something completely benign can sound quite weird and wicked if spoken differently and that change in emphasis might not be weird or wicked at all, in the orignal. The overall "envelop" of a sound, and how it starts, enters, continues, fluctuates, and degrades out - all would establish the sound of a word. The rhythmic aspect is huge - a single "beat", can be subdivided - you can be on the beat, ahead of it, behind it and still be what would be considered "on beat", although in a large enough sampling like a "song" or sentence that would determine how it sounds - easy going, "lazy", snappy, "tight", etc. Again - not sure what any of this means, but it uh, sounds like fun!

WOW! How cool. I'm glad to find another fan! That's a very interesting hearing phenomena you're experiencing. Very interesting. Not to rail this track sideways too much, but what kind of effect does it have on normal hearing of room noise, and "ambient" sound, stuff just going on? (I had a doctor help me years ago in a general exam, where I asked about what I experience in hearing and the relationship to color. A wide range of mid-level and high range tones have a color tone for me and I never found it unnatural until I started performing in clubs, stages, etc. where light was so contrasted. Some tones have a color theme that I "see" in my brain's eyes. He tested my hearing, which turned out to be very sensitive in those ranges. I can hear whispering clearly, 30-40 feet away but other sounds I can't. He suggested at the time I have "synesthesia". He covers that in the book too.) I've done informal study myself on reverse audio, when software started to make it so easy to do I started experimenting with reversing small portions of audio, tiny bits and fiddling with them. I started with a small program that played an audio file, of clearly spoken words, and assigned a note value to each. That score can then be played, note for note. One of his points made in the book is that while speech isn't truly "music" it has the basic components of volume variances, tone (in inflection of words and phrases) and rhythm so in a way you can have a musical sense of speech, more noticeable in some people than others. So it is possible to "play" speech, without the words and just get the musical representation of it. (although it's difficult and time consuming to get it exact, least for me). In that way our understanding of speech - words strung together - is expanded by how they sound to us, and different people hear them differently. It seemed to me that changes in those three elements - tone, volume and rhythm - would drastically change the result I "heard" and in fact, when broken down to those components without the words, were very different when played. Reversed - totally different. VERY different. Not sure what that means. Sumpin'. :)