* Nothing is, or is as it is, unless someone says and judges it to be so. Who then is (or who is it we say is) the judge, including the final judge?
* If we ever experienced a problem anywhere, it came about, in some degree, due to certain wrong assumptions, either co-present with, or just prior to the given problem's actually taking place.
* Unless you believe in God, the One, and or the infinite, every assumption is contingent.
* PROCESS (or if you prefer spirit, or activity) PRECEDES IMAGE. Image may, to some extent, (and sometimes almost perfectly) represent process. But process is always superior to and always more real than image. If process precedes image this might suggest also that mind precedes matter and energy.
* Everything we believe, or say we know, is based on a factual or value judgment. Both kinds of judgment always entail the other to some extent, and nothing can be known or exists for us without them.
* No fact or purported fact is true or false without someone to assert and believe it to be such. If an assertion or claim is deemed true or false then, and we are thorough, we should ask who is it that says so (or has said so), and what criteria are (were) they using? There is no such thing as "faceless" truth or reality -- at least none we are capable of knowing.
* You can't escape reason. If you aren't rational yourself, someone else will be rational for you; nor do their intentions toward you need to be friendly or benevolent.
* Every point of view and opinion has its truth to it -- even the most abhorrent and unacceptable to us. This said, we are naturally inclined to assume that some opinions have much greater truth to them than others. Even so, what little truth there is in any point of view must, at least at some juncture, and certainly with respect to issues of heated controversy, be justly and reasonably respected. Why? Because we would not be honest (and therefore not truthful) if we didn't.
*Ultimately, and when all is said and done, thought without heart is nothing.
* Most, if not all, of society's very worst problems arise from (certain) spirit people and those who listen to them -- whether the former comes in the shape of "God," angel, devil or what have you. It is these people who are most the source and cause of real unhappiness. If then you chance to have contact with such, while having (one assumes) overcome their lures, deceptions, and pretenses of benevolence and higher knowledge, I recommend that this (i.e., "unhappiness" or "unhappiness itself") is what you call them. Blame them for (most) everything wrong; for it is it is they who have been and are the ruin of everyone and everything (that is, if anyone is or could be said to be so.)
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Wm. Thos. Sherman - AUTHOR PAGE - at amazon.com, including available book titles
and
THE LIBRARY OF EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE (with me as series editor) or see also List of titles.
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The VICTIM of MAGICAL DELUSION
by Cajetan Tschink
(1795 London edition)
“I...was preparing to rush into eternity, and going to approach the dead with a pistol in my hand, when suddenly the coffin began to shake, the boards to crack, and the cloth to move. I stopped, seized with terror. ‘Ferdinand!’ it resounded from the coffin, and at the same time Amelia arose. Her cheeks were still covered with a livid hue, her eyes shut, her lips blue, and her hands folded. Amazement and horror had fixed me to the floor, my blood curdled in my veins. ‘Ferdinand!’ the corpse addressed me in a hollow accent, ‘Ferdinand, don’t be afraid! My spirit has got leave to return once more to its former abode in order to take leave of thee. Our love was not for this world. Retire to a cloister, and there await the hour which will soon unite us by indissoluble bonds.’ Having pronounced these words, she shut her lips and dropped down again into the coffin...”
Following in the wake of Friedrich Schiller's The Ghost-Seer and enormously popular in its day, Cajetan Tschink's 1790s gothic thriller of trap doors and castles, secret conspiracies, European intrigue, other-worldly magic, heart-tugging romance (joined to some metaphysical speculation of highly questionable value) entertained (if not per se influenced; the point is debatable) Sir Walter Scott, Charles Brockden Brown and the Friendly Club, the Byron/Shelley circle, and others is, by way of its English translation by Peter Will, back in print after over 200 years.
Who, when all is said and done, is the real VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION? In the end, only the reader can say.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B925VG6D
Although you allege that those wars which you speak of were excited through hatred of our religion, it would not be difficult to prove, that after the name of Christ was heard in the world, not only were they not increased, but they were even in great measure diminished by the restraining of furious passions. For since we, a numerous band of men as we are, have learned from His teaching and His laws that evil ought not to be requited with evil, [Matthew 5:39] that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ, inasmuch as by His means the rage of savage ferocity has been softened, and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of a fellow-creature. But if all without exception, who feel that they are men not in form of body but in power of reason, would lend an ear for a little to His salutary and peaceful rules, and would not, in the pride and arrogance of enlightenment, trust to their own senses rather than to His admonitions, the whole world, having turned the use of steel into more peaceful occupations, would now be living in the most placid tranquillity, and would unite in blessed harmony, maintaining inviolate the sanctity of treaties.
~ Arnobius (c.284-c.305), Against the Heathen (Book I)
"Oracles": 2022 -- last updated 5 Aug. 2022 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2021 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2020 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2019 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2018 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2017 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2016 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2015 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2014 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2013 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2012 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2011 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2010 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2009 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2008 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2007 (.pdf)
"Oracles": 2003-2006 (.pdf)
Note. Aside from the poems written by myself (i.e., those formally included in Poems by WTS), or material cited or presumably as being from others, there is no copyright on the contents contained in the "Oracles" and they may otherwise and therefore be freely copied, disseminated, or plagiarized as much as anyone cares to do these things.
To Contact me you can write or call:
William Thomas Sherman
1604 NW 70th St.
Seattle, Washington 98117
206-784-1132
wts@gunjones.com
Secondary email addresses:
williamthomassherman@gmail.com
gunjones1@yahoo.com
My pages on:
* Scribd
* FaceBook
* YouTube * 2nd YouTube channel (mostly for popular music)
"Lee's Legion, 2nd Partizan Corps" on Face Book
ALL SERIOUS INQUIRIES ARE GUARANTEED A REPLY.
Unless you are sending spam, or a general advertisement, or a private subscription I personally signed onto, you are guaranteed an answer from me at any of the above e-mails.
If by chance you encounter any problems accessing a .pdf via a given link below, try: Right click "Save as..." to download the .pdf to your PC instead.
* Christ and Truth, FIFTH edition (.pdf) ~ last updated: 25 Jan. 2019
* Peithology: The Nature and Origin of Belief, SEVENTH edition (.pdf) ~ last updated 16 Nov. 2020
* A New Treatise on Hell, fourth edition (.pdf) ~ last updated 25 May 2019
See also A Spirit People Primer,
and, very importantly, my personal "Narrative" (.rtf zipped) ~ last updated: 1 Jan. 2014 and in .pdf -- and most recently "Appeal of 2008, and Re-Introduction to Sherman 'Narrative'"
* Calendar and Record of the Revolutionary War in the South: 1780-1781, TENTH edition ~ last updated: 11 Dec. 2018
* Poems by WTS (.pdf)~ last updated 4 Nov. 2020
Translation of Silvae by Publius Papinius Statius (45-96 A.D.) (.pdf)
Miscellaneous
"Single-handedly,
Fought both the League of Horror
And the Organization Against Freedom
For over a Decade,
AND beat them -- MANY times!"
This is my recommendation of things and people sundry which others may have missed. For some these will already be well known, but for others less so. It is for these last that the suggestion is proffered.
Since its inception, posting the "recommendation of the week," although much fun along the way, has also become a bit of an inconvenient chore requiring a regular schedule. Meanwhile, but more importantly, since I effectively (aside from the above mentioned exception) receive no feedback on them (or on this website generally), I can't think it warrants the personal investment any longer to keep it going. In addition to lack of feedback, I simply don't have the extra money (I feel) necessary to explore different music, movies, books etc. -- in turn necessary to maintain the span, color, and variety of the selections, taking the list as a whole. Consequently, unless and until I do ever finally get feedback and or "somehow" come
into some funds, the "recommendation of the week" at present (as of August 2009) has been discontinued.
Otherwise and as an expedient, what I intend to do in future in its place is post or mention music, movies, books etc. among my regular "Oracles;" as inspiration moves me or of unusually special interest comes up; something, of course, I already have, to some extent at least, been doing for some time.
Your Choice
* These and more great tunes can be found at
The Contemplator *
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Well, I would be certainly if I wasn't being black-balled, blacklisted, and my communications routinely tampered with. This is pitiful I know, and I have put off doing this literally for years. But now is the time for it to be known that if anyone will send me money I'll take it. And if truth be told, the more money I have the more of a wallop I can put to these Hell people (certainly they don't want me having any, and have and will gyp and short change me just about whenever they can.) So please consider giving to this website if you can at all possibly afford it. Proceeds also go to assist the Institute for Ben Turpin Studies. So far I have sold only one book at my "Bookshop;" so it is not at all impossible that even if you try what you might send won't be allowed to get through to me. If this happens -- oh well, thanks anyway! (Also, by the way, if you try to send money, whether by Pay Pal or otherwise, and for some reason I don't receive it or am prevented from doing so please report this to Social Security; because interference of my receiving such or other funds or donations goes clearly against Social Security's understandable wish that I no longer be a dependent on them if possible.)
Also, my e-mail for sending donations through Pay Pal is: wts@gunjones.com
* Monies received as of the present and latest date for either this website and or the Turpin Institute: $25.00
gunjones.com is an angelfire.com hosted website
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* List of previous Weekly Recommendations *
"Thank yoou, Mr. Feelix!"
IN CASE OF occult or divine EMERGENCIES (and best used in conjunction with the universal li principle):
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THIS GUN FOR HIRE
* E-mails received making comment on this website and or its contents (as of July 2009): 5
of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their
sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in
general and became slaves."
~ John Peter Zenger (1697-1746)