Dear John,
Thank you for this email. I would like to somehow meet with you when time will allow. I have spent time in so many places around the world, and also have been in the lions’ den many times.
Once you are familiar with the inside and have acquired the knowledge and wisdom which, of course comes by accumulating enough experience in your journey of life, nothing truly puzzles you anymore.
Spirits and ghosts have been a part of my life since childhood, not to mention the ones who always have their way of finding me. There are places I have avoided because so many of them are stuck and have not been able to move on [after death] to their frequencies or home. Amerindians, masters of the East, mediums, psychics, and gypsies always enjoyed spending time with me and share our mutual gift.
My journey of life continues always being at the right place when needed. My grandmother was right when she said I had an important mission to accomplish on this planet.
Blessed Advent, Pax,
Christa
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I replied:
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I thoroughly enjoyed your email! There are oblivious and, I hate to say it, run-of-the-mill comrades, fearful of anything new or revealing, who always warn me: 1) never talk about being molested as a kid, and 2) never talk about the supernatural.
Yet when I do, new friends and supporters emerge every single time, people who through me see someone finally speaking out about what is also in their own heart and in their life experience.
=========poverty, crime, psychopaths
One Dutch-American comrade wrote this valuable email:
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http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/ovrelracetab.htm
This is a good general view of who is killing who in the US.
Ever since desegregation, busing and civil rights laws came into force, the murder rate has quadrupled for black-on-white murders. My friend W. will probably tell us that these figures are weak and that the rate of black on white crime is much higher, but even if that is true, the figures on the Department of Justice census report are appalling. Don’t try to tell me it is because of poverty. I grew up on welfare with my family and none of my sisters ever went out and robbed or killed anyone. I never conspired to attack people in my neighborhood, even though I grew up in an area that was much wealthier than I and it would have been easy to get away with.
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Her friend, a fine comrade whom I know, Ralph Iver, wrote back a very grounded, keeping-it-real story from his own youth growing up in the very white and very poor state of West Virginia, which evinces both the best and worst features of virtually all-white Appalachia:
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Poverty is no excuse for crime.
I grew up in Appalachia. My father died before I turned two. There were a couple years that went by when I didn’t get any new clothes as a kid, and way back in those days, I was such a big kid there were no ‘kid clothes’ in my size. Mom learned how to sew to make my clothes, and we gardened for half of our food. I knew only poverty until I was way into my adulthood.
People in those places still go hunting and fishing not just for fun, but for survival as well. Instead of computer games families will go out at in different seasons “ramping” — collecting wild onions and cooking them. And they go hunting for wild mushrooms, berries, etc. Local people with gardens still drop fresh veggies off at each other’s houses.
Crime in the Appalachian mountains is low. In the area where I grew up, there were about a dozen factories years ago; now only one still exists. For improved business, the state put in two large prisons, and many locals now work there. But something interesting is happening. Because most of the prisoners are from cities a few hours away, some of their families have moved into the area. Most of them are black. The crime rate has raised significantly since the prisons–and the related families–have moved into town. The locals don’t appreciate it.
Race really does affect crime rates. The people of Appalachia, as well as others of European descent, plan ahead. They plan ahead for their gardening, their hunting. They plan ahead for the canning. It takes some intelligence to think into the future what you’re going to need and imagine the consequences of your current actions upon the future. But the people that are sitting in the prisons don’t plan ahead. They are often called “opportunists”–meaning they don’t plan ahead to commit their crimes, but the moment arises and they take what they want right then. They act without thinking–without thinking what their actions will do to their future, what their actions will do to the future of another human being; and without thinking of the rights of the other human being. I think this kind of criminal is even worse than a pre-meditated criminal, for it means those people are always like this–unpredictable.
A conscience requires some imagination–one that imagines what another might experience should you do something to harm them. A conscience requires restraint–the ability to plan ahead in this case by not doing something to cause harm to self or others. A conscience also requires heart–caring about what happens to other people.
Many of the thugs that sit in prison for violent crimes have no conscience and are in fact psychopaths–a few steps worse than antisocial personality disorder. This is the true nature of what people think of as “evil”. Evil is not a religious issue, but a real and physical event in the minds of some people. Evil is often biologically-based.
Many of the thugs that sit in prison for violent crimes do not plan ahead their crimes. It already lives within them day to day–they are born with this sense of opportunity. This is why so many of their victims will say– “well we knew him and he came over often–I can’t understand why all of a sudden he raped my daughter or burglarized my house.” White people don’t understand because they don’t grasp the nature of opportunism–most of us plan ahead and think about others. The thugs who commit these crimes just don’t give a damn and the reason they are in poverty is mostly by their own hand–and usually because of their lack of intelligence and their expectations of governmental and charity handouts.
When you live in the city there are all kinds of opportunities to pull your backside out of a ditch. In the mountains of Appalachia, there are far fewer opportunities, but many of us pull it off–we not only survive without committing violent crimes, but even thrive.
The parents of 8 gold-medalist, Michael Phelps, grew up on the same mountain where I was raised. If they can deal with their kid’s ADHD without putting him on medications, but by putting him into a swimming class as an ingenious “rednecky” way to have him burn off that energy–and keep him out of jail–then why can’t more people of other races do the same for their kids, and keep them out of jail.
I’ll tell you why–and it has nothing to do with money. It has to do with a conscience and a brain. You have to be born with both.
And when people lack either, the only thing that can solve that issue is structure. When we change old social structures built on what people were allowed to expect from each other in terms of behaviors, the newly occurring crimes end up requiring a new kind of structure–iron bars.
I’d much prefer that the world existed in a different way than this, but that’s not the case. We are left with the work and required courage of coming to terms with the way things really are–and then dealing with that. As long as we don’t deal with it, the world will simply get bloodier.
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