"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."

Herodotus [484 BC–ca. 425 BC]

• "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

After this man the priests enumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who reigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris. Histories II, 99f Project Gutenberg

• "The destiny of man is in his own soul.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

• "Force has no place where there is need of skill.

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

• "Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

"Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty. "

The remainder of Plutarch's surviving work is collected under the title of the Moralia (loosely translated as Customs and Mores). It is an eclectic collection of seventy-eight essays and transcribed speeches, which includes On Fraternal Affection - a discourse on honour and affection of siblings toward each other, On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great - an important adjunct to his Life of the great king, On the Worship of Isis and Osiris (a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites)^[9], along with more philosophical treatises, such as On the Decline of the Oracles, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance, On Peace of Mind and lighter fare, such as Odysseus and Gryllus, a humorous dialogue between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs. The Moralia was composed first, while writing the Lives occupied much of the last two decades of Plutarch's own life.

On the Malice of Herodotus

In On the Malice of Herodotus Plutarch criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manners of prejudice and misrepresentation. It has been called the “first instance in literature of the slashing review.”^[10] The 19th century English historian George Grote considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity."^[11] Plutarch makes some palpable hits, catching Herodotus out in various errors, but it is also probable that it was merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch plays devil's advocate to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer.^[3] According to Plutarch scholar R. H. Barrow, Herodotus’ real failing in Plutarch’s eyes was to advance any criticism at all of those states that saved Greece from Persia. “Plutarch,” he concluded, “is fanatically biased in favor of the Greek cities; they can do no wrong.”^[12]

The founder of Epicureanism was Epicurus. For him, the supreme goal in life was `pleasure' by which he meant `the absence of pain'. Epicurus advocated the virtue of ataraxia, i.e. impassiveness. He advocated the quiet life, withdrawal from the public, the cultivation of serenity. The community, he asserted, had no rights or claims over the individual, nor had the gods (who were to be treated with indifference rather than fear). Each person had to preserve his or her own peace of mind if fulfilment was to be achieved. Epicureanism was governed by Democritus' philosophy of `atomism', i.e. the theory that everything is a `fortuitous concourse of atoms'. The soul dissolves at death, and hence there is no afterlife for a man or woman to dread. What mattered in the end was this life.

If the `pleasure' principle motivated the Epicureans, then the same cannot be said for the Cynics. Cynics stressed the worthlessness of all conventional standards. Virtue, they maintained, consisted in one's capacity to reduce one's needs to a minimum. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes who is said to have lived in a barrel! Like the Stoics, Cynics were itinerant `street' preachers. They issued moralistic attacks on society which had a set form, the `diatribe'. This form is reflected in the New Testament writings (e.g. in the Pauline Epistles or the Letter of James). Links between early Christians and Cynics have recently been maintained, some scholars arguing that first-century marketplace audiences would have found little to distinguish between the message brought by Cynic preachers and that proclaimed by Christian missionaries. Some (e.g. F. G. Downing) have even claimed that Jesus was a Jewish Cynic, the often acerbic social teaching found in the Gospels bearing striking similarities to that promulgated by this philosophical school.

Milder in this respect were the Stoics, a movement founded by Zeno of Citium (c.336--263 bce). Other famous Stoics were Cleanthes, Chrysippus and Posidonius. Stoicism underwent many transformations and had a capacity to mix its philosophy with much mythology or superstition, a fact that accounted, some say, for its popularity. Stoicism saw the world as a unity or as a body whose soul, spirit, ordering principle, creative mind, intelligence -- call it what you like -- was God, the Logos (a supreme being also identified with Zeus). The divine Logos had many manifestations and could split into many creative spiritual forces. Man (the ancient world was not as gender-sensitive as we are today!), by virtue of his reason, participated in the divine Logos. Man can rise above his circumstances, the Stoics maintained, and be fulfilled, if he lives his life according to `reason'/logos, and this was interpreted as living according to nature, which reflected the divine Logos. All human life, especially as organized into society, should be governed by these laws of nature that reflect in turn the divine Intelligence. By virtue of logos, or indwelling `reason', all men were equal, an emphasis which proved attractive to the citizens of the Hellenistic world, given their predilection for cosmopolitanism. A high moral tone (if somewhat austere) was also adopted by the Stoics, and correspondences between their teaching and that of the New Testament writers have been detected in a number of passages (cf. e.g. Acts 17:28; Rom. 1:19--23, 11:36, 13:1-- 7; 1 Cor. 7:17--24, 8:6; Col. 3:18--4:1; Eph. 4:6; Jas 3:1--5).

If philosophy was the refuge of the upper and middle classes, then religion dominated the lower classes. Greek religion, the official religion of ancient Greece, was civil and corporate, communal not personal. Worship was demanded of the old gods (the gods of Homer and the Greek tragedians), the gods of Olympus, at stated times and on formal occasions at which set rites or ceremonies were performed. The purpose of these rites was to secure the favour of the gods on the community and the Empire. Not to participate was seen as an anti-social, even anti-patriotic act. Worship of these old gods declined, however, in the Hellenistic period, and for three main reasons: first, many were purely local deities associated with a particular locale (e.g. Artemis or Diana at Ephesus; Athena at Athens); second, attacks on their morals had been launched by Greek writers (e.g. Plato, Euripides, Xenophanes, Euhemerus) and, third, the mythology surrounding them was no longer meaningful and was often found unadaptable to new circumstances, especially by the middle classes.

 Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair and author of the book, "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everythin

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

I leave it to the faithful to burn each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can always be relied upon to do. When I go to the mosque, I take off my shoes. When I go to the synagogue, I cover my head.

Jesus Without The Miracles

Thomas Jefferson's Bible and the Gospel of Thomas 

ERIK REECE / Harper's Magazine v.311, n.1867 1dec2005

The of Gospel of Thomas presents a portrait of Jesus so at odds with the canonical Gospels, if one wants to argue, as I do, for the primacy of this version of Christianity, then one must date Thomas closer to its source—the talking Jesus—than any of the other four Gospels.

it is time we inverted Pascal's famous wager to say not that we should believe in heaven because we have nothing to lose but rather that we should believe first in this world, because in losing it we may lose everything. And if we can somehow live justly, modestly, with generosity and compassion, we have everything to gain. Perhaps we do not have to wait for the kingdom of God.
 source

Zeno of Citium born about 336 B.C., at Citium on the island of Cyprus; Zeno dies about 254. He seems to have followed his father in commercial activity. Coming to Athens, he learned philosophy and became a disciple of Crates the Cynic.

 Hellenistic period around 301 BC and was introduced by Zeno of Citium. He taught in the famous Stoa Poikile (the painted porch)  in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held.  Central to his teachings was the law of morality being the same as nature. During its initial phase, Stoicism was generally seen as a back-to-nature movement critical of superstitions and taboos. The philosophical detachment also encompassed pain and misfortune, good or bad experiences, as well as life or death. Zeno often challenged prohibitions, traditions and customs. Another tenet was the emphasis placed on love for all other beings.

Zeno's ideas developed from those of the Cynics, whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates. Zeno's most influential follower was Chrysippus, who was responsible for the molding of what we now call Stoicism. Borrowing from the Cynics, the foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. Stoic ethics stressed the rule: "Follow where reason leads." One must therefore strive to be free of the passions, bearing in mind that the ancient meaning of passion was "anguish" or "suffering", that is, "passively" reacting to external events — somewhat different to the modern use of the word.

God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. The wicked, though perforce they obey God’s law, do so involuntarily; in the simile of Cleanthes, they are like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes. In the life of an individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may be poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Other men have power only over externals; virtue, which alone is truly good, rests entirely with the individual. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires.
 

a metaphysical statement usually implies an idea about the world or about the universe, which may seem reasonable but is ultimately not empirically verifiable.

Every activity is reduced to movement and finds its root in mechanical necessity. What happens must happen and it is not possible for it to happen otherwise (Democritean fatalism).

The human soul is a spark of the original Fire, God; but as it is of a material nature it is submitted to the universal laws of fatal necessity. The soul alone enjoys a temporary afterlife until such time as the great palingenesis (rebirth) of the world, which will resolve everything into the primitive Fire. Then will begin another cycle in the form of the descending and ascending stairway of Heraclitus (the law of eternal return).

In such a concept there is no place for liberty -- either for God or for man. Everything happens according to the inexorable laws of movement, whether in God or in man. This physics, departing from the visible world, and speaking of itself as the root of all things, is at bottom a metaphysics.

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius Book II, part 1:

Professor Angelo S. Rappaport

Paul was fluent in Koine Greek, a Greek tongue commonly spoken in his native city of Tarsus, as well as being fluent in Classical Greek, which indicated that he had been exposed to Greek learning at the university level.

Paul's reasoning sometimes resembles the Stoics' arguments. Both use rhetorical questions, short disconnected statements, an imaginary opponent to raise questions, and frequent illustrations drawn from athletics, building, and life in general. It is even possible to find phrases in Paul's teaching which could be taken to support Stoic doctrine; for example the statement that "all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together " (Colossians 1:16-17)....Paul's letters also often reflect Stoic terminology - as when he describes morality in terms of what is "fitting" or "not fitting" (Colossians 3:18; Ephesians 5:3-4). No doubt Paul would know and sympathize with many Stoic ideals."¹³

Claudius, as the author of a treatise on Augustus' religious reforms, felt himself in a good position to institute some of his own. He had strong opinions about the proper form for state religion. He refused the request of Alexandrian Greeks to dedicate a temple to his divinity, saying that only gods may choose new gods. He restored lost days to festivals and got rid of many extraneous celebrations added by Caligula. He reinstituted old observances and archaic language. Claudius was concerned with the spread of eastern mysteries within the city and searched for more Roman replacements. He emphasized the Eleusinian mysteries which had been practiced by so many during the Republic. He expelled foreign astrologers, and at the same time rehabilitated the old Roman soothsayers (known as haruspices) as a replacement. He was especially hard on Druidism, because of its incompatibility with the Roman state religion and its proselytizing activities. It is also reported that at one time he expelled the Jews from Rome, probably because the appearance of Christianity had caused unrest within the Jewish community.^[39] Claudius opposed proselytizing in any religion, even in those regions where he allowed natives to worship freely. The results of all these efforts were recognized even by Seneca, who has an ancient Latin god defend Claudius in his satire.^[40]

Reign	January 24, 41–October 13, 54

Claudius performed the Secular games, marking the 800th anniversary of the founding of Rome. Augustus had performed the same games less than a century prior. Augustus' excuse was that the interval for the games was 110 years, not 100, but his date actually did not qualify under either reasoning. Claudius also presented naval battles to mark the attempted draining of the Fucine lake, as well as many other public games and shows.

Claudius' love life was unusual for an upper-class Roman of his day. As Edward Gibbon mentions, of the first fifteen emperors, "Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct"—the implication being that he was the only one not to take men or boys as lovers. Gibbon based this on Suetonius' factual statement that "He had a great passion for women, but had no interest in men."^[54] Suetonius and the other ancient authors actually used this against Claudius. They accused him of being dominated by these same women and wives, of being uxorious, and of being a womanizer.

Claudius married four times. His first marriage, to Plautia Urgulanilla, occurred after two failed betrothals (The first was to his distant cousin Aemilia Lepida, but was broken for political reasons. The second was to Livia Medullina, which ended with the bride's sudden death on their wedding day). Urgulanilla was a relation of Livia's confidant Urgulania. During their marriage she gave birth to a son, Claudius Drusus. Unfortunately, Drusus died of asphyxiation in his early teens, shortly after becoming engaged to the daughter of Sejanus. Claudius later divorced Urgulanilla for adultery and on suspicion of murdering her sister-in-law Apronia. When Urgulanilla gave birth after the divorce, Claudius repudiated the baby girl, Claudia, as the father was one of his own freedmen. Soon after (possibly in 28), Claudius married Aelia Paetina, a relation of Sejanus. They had a daughter, Claudia Antonia. He later divorced her after the marriage became a political liability (although Leon (1948) suggests it may have been due to emotional and mental abuse by Aelia).

In 38 or early 39, Claudius married Valeria Messalina, who was his first cousin once removed and closely allied with Caligula's circle. Shortly thereafter, she gave birth to a daughter Claudia Octavia. A son, first named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, and later known as

	Messalina holding the infant Britannicus.

 Britannicus, was born just after Claudius' accession. This marriage ended in tragedy. The ancient historians allege that Messalina was a nymphomaniac who was regularly unfaithful to Claudius — Tacitus states she went so far as to compete with a prostitute to see who could have the most sexual partners in a night^[55] — and manipulated his policies in order to amass wealth. In 48, Messalina married her lover Gaius Silius in a public ceremony while Claudius was at Ostia. Sources disagree as to whether or not she divorced the emperor first, and whether the intention was to usurp the throne. Scramuzza, in his biography, suggests that Silius may have convinced Messalina that Claudius was doomed, and the union was her only hope of retaining rank and protecting her children.^[56] The historian Tacitus suggests that Claudius's ongoing term as Censor may have prevented him from noticing the affair before it reached such a critical point.^[57] Whatever the case, the result was the execution of Silius, Messalina, and most of her circle. Claudius made the Praetorians promise to kill him if he ever married again.

Agrippina and Nero.

Despite this declaration, Claudius did marry once more. The ancient sources tell that his freedmen pushed three candidates, Caligula's former wife Lollia Paulina, Claudius's divorced second wife Aelia, and Claudius's niece Agrippina the younger. According to Suetonius, Agrippina won out through her feminine wiles.^[58] The truth is likely more political. The coup attempt by Silius probably made Claudius realize the weakness of his position as a member of the Claudian but not the Julian family. This weakness was compounded by the fact that he did not have an obvious adult heir, Britannicus being just a boy. Agrippina was one of the few remaining descendants of Augustus, and her son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (later known as Nero) was one of the last males of the imperial family. Future coup attempts could rally around the pair, and Agrippina was already showing such ambition. It has been suggested in recent times that the Senate may have pushed for the marriage to end the feud between the Julian and Claudian branches.^[59] This feud dated back to Agrippina's mother's actions against Tiberius after the death of her husband Germanicus, actions which Tiberius had gladly punished. In any case, Claudius accepted Agrippina, and later adopted the newly mature Nero as his son.

Nero was made joint heir with the underage Britannicus, married to Octavia and heavily promoted. This was not as unusual as it seems to people acquainted with modern hereditary monarchies. Barbara Levick notes that Augustus had named his grandson Postumus Agrippa and his stepson Tiberius joint heirs.^[60] Tiberius named his great-nephew Caligula joint heir with his grandson Tiberius Gemellus. Adoption of adults or near adults was an old tradition in Rome when a suitable natural adult heir was unavailable. This was the case during Britannicus' minority. S.V. Oost suggests that Claudius looked to adopt one of his sons-in-law to protect his own reign.^[61] Possible usurpers could note that there was no adult to replace him. Faustus Sulla, married to his daughter Antonia, was only descended from Octavia and Antony on one side — not close enough to the imperial family to prevent doubts (that didn't stop others from making him the object of a coup attempt against Nero a few years later). Besides which, he was the half brother of Messalina, and at this time those wounds were still fresh. Nero was more popular with the general public as the grandson of Germanicus and the direct descendant of Augustus

Despite the general avoidance of the imperatorial era, he penned a defense of Cicero against the charges of Asinius Gallus. Modern historians have used this to determine both the nature of his politics and of the aborted chapters of his civil war history. He proposed a reform of the Latin alphabet by the addition of three new letters, two of which served the function of the modern letters W and Y. He officially instituted the change during his censorship, but they did not survive his reign. Claudius also tried to revive the old custom of putting dots between different words (Classical Latin was written with no spacing). Finally, he wrote an eight-volume autobiography that Suetonius describes as lacking in taste.^[63] Since Claudius (like most of the members of his dynasty) heavily criticized his predecessors and relatives in surviving speeches,^[64] it is not hard to imagine the nature of Suetonius' charge.

the Last Pagan Emperor of Rome

Flavius Claudius Iulianus (born c.331–died June 26, 363), was a Roman Emperor (361–363) of the Constantinian dynasty. He was the last pagan Roman Emperor, and tried to reform traditional Pagan worship by unifying Pagan worship in the Byzantine empire in the form of Neoplatonism developed by Iamblichus. Julian sought to do this after the legalization of Christianity and its widespread success within the Eastern Roman Empire.

He and his half brother Gallus were sent (c.341) to Cappadocia. When Gallus was appointed caesar (351), Julian was brought back to Constantinople. After Gallus had been put to death, Julian was called from the quiet of a scholar's life and made (355) caesar. Sent to Gaul, he was unexpectedly successful in combating the Franks and the Alemanni and was popular with his soldiers. When Constantius, fearing Julian, ordered him (360) to send soldiers to assist in a campaign against the Persians, Julian obeyed, but his soldiers mutinied and proclaimed him augustus. He accepted the title, but Constantius refused to yield the western provinces to him. Before the two could meet in battle to decide the claim, Constantius died, naming Julian as his successor. Sometime in the course of his studies, Julian abandoned Christianity. Although as emperor he issued an edict of religious toleration, he did try unsuccessfully to restore paganism; the result was much confusion since Christianity was rent by the quarrel over Arianism. His short reign was just, and he was responsible for far-reaching legislation. During a campaign against the Persians, he was killed in a skirmish. He was succeeded by Jovian. Julian was a writer of some merit, and his works have been translated into English by W. C. Wright (3 vol., 1913–24).

Juno is the protector and special counselor of the Roman state, and queen of the gods. Juno is a majestic woman, crowned with a diadem and accompanied by peacocks, her sacred animal.

Juno, daughter of Saturn, is both sister and wife of Jupiter. In fact, Juno is a very ancient Italian goddess; however, the only separate tales that remain before assimilation of Hera and Juno was that Juno, impregnated by a flower, gave birth to Mars.
 
Juno is the mother of Juventas and Vulcan, as well as Mars. As the patron goddess of Rome (both the City and the Empire), she was called Regina -- "queen" -- and, together with Jupiter and Minerva, Juno was worshipped as Juno Capitolina in Rome.

Juno also had a very personal aspect to Roman women: a "juno" was considered the protecting and guardian spirit of females, just as the genius served to make Roman men alive and sexually active. Thus Juno ruled over the very essence of femininity, her spirit, marriage, and reproduction.

As Juno Moneta (she who warns or she who advises) she guarded over the finances of the empire and had a temple on the Arx (one of two Capitoline hills), close to the Royal Mint. Not simply confined to the Eternal City, Juno was popular throughout the Empire: temples were built in her honor in many cities.

The primary feast of Juno Mucina, called the Matronalia, was celebrated on the Kalends of March. On this day, lambs and other cattle were sacrificed to her. Another festival took place on July 7, called Nonae Caprotinae -- "The Nones of the Wild Fig".

Source: The Book of Goddesses and Heroines, Patricia Monaghan. Dutton, 1981

Bona Dea or Fauna

The Roman mystery cult for women only

In Roman mythology, Bona Dea was literally "the good goddess," a goddess of fertility, healing, virginity and women. It was forbidden to call her by her name. Bona Dea was the only old Roman deity who admitted freed slaves to the priesthood, as the foreign religions of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras also did. Rome was repressing foreign religions as early as 213 BCE, according to Livy. Her rites were celebrated with wine, music and revelry. Fauna struggles against a male in authority over her, who responds with violence. Plutarch explains that her husband, the seer Faunus, killed her with myrtle rods when he discovered she had been secretly been drinking wine—a pleasure forbidden to women under old Roman law. All sources agree that myrtle twigs were forbidden in the precincts of Bona Dea, and that her rites involved a vessel of wine covered with a cloth, always referred to as the "honey-jar," and its contents as "milk." Wine was a sacrament, as in the Dionysian mysteries. The tabooed mention of wine harks back to the role its prohibition to women played in the primary myth of Fenta Fauna, who was put to death for drinking it, as old Roman law demanded. She is linked with the Earth or Maia, Fauna,  Ops, Caelestis  (heavenly), Augusta, Sancta (holy), Heia, Regina Triumphali, Lucifera (light-bringing), Obsequens (well-disposed), Opifera (aid-bringing), Pagana, Agrestis and Sevina (goddess of the countryside, fields, and seeds). As Domina (lady) she is linked to other goddesses: Fortuna, Ceres, Juno, the Parcae, Hygeia, and Venus Cnidia. Her secret name was Fenta Fauna or Fenta Fatua. Fauna was depicted as an old woman with pointed ears holding a serpent, both associated with oracular cults. Her rites were celebrated with wine, music and revelry.  Over the centuries, her intercession was variously sought for such purposes as healing, fertility, being freed from slavery, fruitfulness in agriculture and for the protection of the entire Roman people. Original May Day Aventine Hill: Birthplace of the Rites of Bacchus The mystery religion that emerged from this cross-cultural fusion came to be called the Bacchanalia, after a Roman name for the rites of Dionysus (Bacchus). Her public festival took place on May 1. with no male participation. There was a temple to Bona Dea on the Aventine Hill. The center of the ecstatic Mysteries was the Aventine hill. This rural part of the city was home to some of Rome's oldest temples, such as those of Carmenta, Mercury, and Diana. The Aventine with its foreign population was a center of multicultural cross-pollination of deities, rites and symbols. Newcomers brought  in Eleusinian, Dionysian and Orphic rituals from their homelands Bona Dea had two festivals, one on May 1st—a date that was never to relinquish its link with the pagan mysteries—and a nocturnal, movable feast around December 3. Here secret rites in honor of her were held in the house of an important Roman magistrate. On certain days the women raised a lamentation at every crossroads, as Ceres had cried out and, as Servius wrote, as women wailed in the rite of Isis. Bona Dea shares many qualities of an active imagination with the maiden goddess Diana and as part of a triple goddess she would act as the crone.  Romans observed the festival of Diana on August 13th, when the Latin league was first founded. Other Roman cults open only to women, included Pudicitia, Juno Caprotina,and Venus Verticordia. Bona Dea's  popularity beyond Rome, unlike Cybele and Isis was small despite endorsement as part of the state religion although she did often appear on Roman coins.

    Cheops Pyramid --- Make a pyramid of 3-4 layers of thick, porous wrapping paper: 20x20 cm square base, ascending edges 19cm each. Glue it only at the edges, the tighter the better but, in a thin line. Cut out Make a 5-6 cm hole in the middle of one of the side faces. Hold a 10 cm long piece of drawing coal or a pencil in your fingers and insert this indicator into the hole, slanting its far end toward the bottom of the pyramid. "Stir" the space inside the pyramid with the indicator, take it out and repeat the procedure about 30 times. You will soon pick up an active zone, a "clot", where the Egyptians had their tombs. Another active zone (a flame) above the top of the pyramid is also well-perceived by the indicator if you drag its end over the top. The "clot" and the "flame" are well-felt by the finger inserted into he pyramid, or your palm moved above it after some practice. The pyramid effect, which generated many scary and mysterious stories over the centuries, is one of the CSE manifestations.

    A Skeleton Pyramid --- Similar interesting qualities are displayed by pyramids of identical dimensions but only skeletal, without faces. Such a skeleton can be glued together from 8 smooth, firm straws. Here we get the effect of the total CSE of the straws with their complex capillary structure and the effect of the entire cavity. Such pyramids can also be made in other sizes with proportional increase in the length of the edges. Hold such a pyramid above your friend's head, first bottom down for about 5 min, then bottom up. Conduct additional experiments with insects (bumblebees, developing caterpillars, etc.), house plants and perishable foods, by placing the latter within the pyramid, above and underneath it (always checking your experiments by identical ones but without the CSE effect). You will see that ancient Egyptians had their reason to build pyramids.

    Telekinesis --- Is the name for a contactless movement of light objects performed by the so-called gifted, i. e. moving a match box on a table without touching it, or holding a tennis ball in the mid air. I submit that everyone has this capability. Suspend the described skeletal straw pyramid by its top from the ceiling by a thin, artificial thread, or even better yet by a long shred of elastic torn from a stocking. Choose a spot with the least convection (air circulation). Allow a few hours for the pyramid to stop rotating. Cup your hands into a tube (see picture) and point your hands from a 2-meter distance at the suspended pyramid (do not lose your "target"). The pyramid will eventually start rotating clockwise in a few minutes under the pressure of this beam of CSE energy. You can then stop its rotation by moving the "tube" of your hands to the right side of the skeleton and it will start rotating counter-clockwise. Conduct these experiments of various duration, after various time intervals and at various distances. You will see that telekinesis is no miracle, but only one of the manifestations of the will of matter, which is not available to only a chosen few but, to everyone. Your palm is also a multi-cavity structure, which clearly repels the pyramid indicator device described in this chapter.

    You can practice using this skeletal pyramid and develop and significantly increase your "telekinetic" abilities with it.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/slavek.krepelka/greb.html