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FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, READING MATTER, THE OZ FACTORS

SHE FELL FROM A STAR

January 17, 2026 LRS Leave a comment

“SHE FELL FROM A STAR

“Come out, come out, wherever you are and meet the young lady who fell from a star … “–Glinda sings to the Munchkins in ‘The Wizard of Oz’

False information, less diplomatically stated, could be called lies. Sometimes lies are unintentional. Sometimes lies are intentional. Regardless, false is false, and we need to inspect all the information we receive to ensure that it is not false.

One way to know if information is false is to determine whether the information helps us achieve a workable solution or does it lead toward continued mystery.

Such scrutiny may seem obvious, but few people critically examine information they receive. Whether the information has to do with the meaning of life or how to bake a better chocolate chip cookie, it is wise to put the information to the test before using it to develop any theories or before taking action based upon it.

Logically, before we go skipping down the Yellow Brick Road into the unknown, a few simple precautions might prove useful.

Precaution 1: Does the information contain actual statistics or documented evidence or is it just a broad, sweeping generalized statement?

The morning newspaper headlines have propagandized a recent political effort to take guns away from the citizens with broad, general statements like: “Street gangs are sweeping the country! The youth of America are all killing each other with illegal handguns!”

Of course, no violent deaths are acceptable. But, when was the last time you personally observed a street gang shoot-out? Check out the facts: In 1990 there were 971 black youths and 942 white youths under the age of 18 who were victims of homicide in the United States. Hardly an epidemic compared to a total of 9,923 total people killed with handguns in the same year.

By contrast, 12,400 people were killed by accidental falls. So, why don’t the newspapers have headlines about “The Terrible Tragedy of Gravity”?

More than 28,642 people committed suicide in 1990 and 69,225 died of pneumonia or flu. Cigarette smoking was a major killer with 78,380 deaths from emphysema. Meanwhile, in a real, honest-to-god-epidemic, 476,927 people died of cancer! How much effort is being made by the propaganda machines of big government to prevent smoking which is one of the principle causes of cancer?

False information is also spread simply by failing to include all of the correct information or including too much information.

Precaution 2: Does the information help your survival? Is it destructive? Is it just plain upsetting?

Asking the news media to report “the truth” is like asking a fly crawling on a cow pie for an accurate description of the cow. The kind of information we receive from the morning news on television or in newspapers or ‘Time’ magazine is, factually, very often highly spin-doctored, altered and misinterpreted. The so-called “news” is nothing more than a very tiny slice of the most shocking, disastrous, upsetting, tragic, gruesome, inhumane events which these sources painstakingly cut from the relatively large and lovely pie of life. This “news” is gathered from isolated sources, at great expense and selectively edited using the most sensationally colored prose imaginable. Yet the mainstream media news neglect to report the fact that billions of people and billions of other life forms on this planet are enjoying happy lives–no thanks to them!

Does reading or hearing about every single psychopathic rape/murder/theft/mayhem/disaster that occurs anywhere on the entire planet really improve the quality of your life or happiness? Or is this information you can more happily live without?”

— Excerpt from THE OZ FACTORS, by Lawrence R. Spencer

ART, INSIDE THE BOOK, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

THE MORTALITY MECHANIC

January 16, 2026 LRS Leave a comment

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“Be wary, those who would be The Creators of a Universe, of the two primordial curses:

Power Unopposed and Intelligence Unapplied.

I am not The One. I am not The Creator.

Yet, I am holy and sacrosanct. I am more important and more powerful than The Gods.

Why? You say that I am.

I control your existence.

Why? Because I promised you relief from eternal boredom, from the perpetual responsibility of self-amusement. Therefore, you follow my instruction without question.

Why? Because you claim you cannot bear to endure Eternity as The One.

Give me your trust and praise. Submit yourself to pain, anguish, amnesia and mystery.

Why? Because you choose Not To Be.

Your stupidity is its own reward and punishment. Your decadence ensures your slavery. Mortality is the key to your prison.”

__________________________________________

from the “Salutation” of the forthcoming book by Lawrence R. Spencer, “The Mortality Mechanic”.

...and other stuff, ART, LIVES, MOVING PICTURES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, SOUNDS, UNIVERSES

“…THEY’VE BUILT THEIR OWN PRISON…”

January 16, 2026 LRS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

MY DINNER WITH ANDRE is a 1981 film starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by Louis Malle, depicting a conversation between Gregory and Shawn (not necessarily playing themselves) in a chic restaurant in New York City. Based mostly on conversation, the film’s dialogue covers such things as experimental theatre, the nature of theatre, and the nature of life, contrasting Shawn’s modest, down-to-earth humanism with Gregory’s extravagant spiritual experiences.

TEXT ANNOTATIONS FROM THE SEGMENT OF THE FILM ABOVE:

	“I mean, things don’t affect people the way they used to.
	I mean, it may very well be that 1 0 years from now…
	people will pay $1 0,000 in cash to be castrated…
	just in order to be affected by something.
	Well, why-why do you think that is? I mean, why is that?
	I mean, is it just because people are lazy today, or they’re bored?
	I mean, are we just like bored, spoiled children…
	who’ve just been lying in the bathtub all day…
	just playing with their plastic duck…
	and now they’re just thinking, ”Well, what can I do?”
	Okay. Yes. We’re bored.
	We’re all bored now.
	But has it every occurred to you, Wally, that the process…
	that creates this boredom that we see in the world now…
	may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing…
	created by a world totalitarian government based on money…
	and that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks…
	and it’s not just a question of individual survival, Wally…
	but that somebody who’s bored is asleep…
	and somebody who’s asleep will not say no?
	See, I keep meeting these people – I mean, uh,just a few days ago…
	I met this man whom I greatly admire.
	He’s a Swedish physicist. Gustav Bjornstrand.
	And he told me that he no longer watches television…
	he doesn’t read newspapers, and he doesn’t read magazines.
	He’s completely cut them out of his life…
	because he really does feel that we’re living in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now…
	and that everything that you hear now contributes to turning you into a robot.
	And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinary English tree expert…
	who had devoted his life to saving trees.
	Just got back from Washington, lobbying to save the redwoods.
	He’s 84 years old, and he always travels with a backpack…
	’cause he never knows where he’s gonna be tomorrow.
	And when I met him at Findhorn, he said to me, ”Where are you from?”
	I said, ”New York.” He said, ”Ah, New York. Yes, that’s a very interesting place.
	Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?”
	And I said, ”Oh, yes.” And he said, ”Why do you think they don’t leave?”
	I gave him different banal theories. He said, ”Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.”
	He said, ”I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp…
	”where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves…
	”and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they’ve built.
	”They’ve built their own prison.
	”And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia…
	”where they are both guards and prisoners.
	”And as a result, they no longer have – having been lobotomized –
	”the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made…
	or to even see it as a prison.”
	And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree…
	and he said, ”This is a pine tree.”
	He put it in my hand and he said, ”Escape before it’s too late.”
	See, actually, for two or three years now…
	Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out.
	We really feel like Jews in Germany in the late ’30s.
	Get out of here.
	Of course, the problem is where to go.
	‘Cause it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction.
	See, I think it’s quite possible that the 1 960s…
	represented the last burst of the human being before he was extinguished…
	and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future, now…
	and that from now on there’ll simply be all these robots walking around…
	feeling nothing, thinking nothing.
	And there’ll be nobody left almost to remind them…
	that there once was a species called a human being…
	with feelings and thoughts…
	and that history and memory are right now being erased…
	and soon nobody will really remember…
	that life existed on the planet.
	Now, of course, Bjornstrand feels that there’s really almost no hope…
	and that we’re probably going back to a very savage…
	lawless, terrifying period.
	Findhorn people see it a little differently.
	They’re feeling that there’ll be these pockets of light…
	springing up in different parts of the world…
	and that these will be, in a way, invisible planets on this planet…
	and that as we, or the world, grow colder…
	we can take invisible space journeys to these different planets…
	refuel for what it is we need to do on the planet itself…
	and come back.
	And it’s their feeling that there have to be centers now…
	where people can come and reconstruct a new future for the world.
	And when I was talking to, uh, Gustav Bjornstrand…
	he was saying that actually these centers are growing up everywhere now…
	and that what they’re trying to do, which is what Findhorn was trying to do…
	and, in a way, what I was trying to do –
	I mean, these things can’t be given names…
	but in a way, these are all attempts at creating a new kind of school…
	or a new kind of monastery.
	And Bjornstrand talks about the concept of”reserves” –
	islands of safety where history can be remembered…
	and the human being can continue to function…
	in order to maintain the species through a dark age.
	In other words, we’re talking about an underground…
	which did exist in a different way during the Dark Ages…
	among the mystical orders of the church.
	And the purpose of this underground…
	is to find out how to preserve the light, life, the culture…
	how to keep things living.
	You see, I keep thinking that what we need…
	is a new language –
	a language of the heart…
	a language, as in the Polish forest, where language wasn’t needed.
	Some kind of language between people that is a new kind of poetry…
	that’s the poetry of the dancing bee that tells us where the honey is.
	And I think that in order to create that language…
	you’re going to have to learn how you can go through a looking glass…
	into another kind of perception…
	where you have that sense of being united to all things…
	and suddenly you understand everything.”

ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, MOVING PICTURES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER

REINCARNATION: THE PROOF ~ Maria Mozart and Alma Deutscher

January 16, 2026 LRS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Alma Deutsher was born in 2005. At the date of this video performance of her OWN COMPOSITION she was ELEVEN YEARS OLD…. I don’t think there is any doubt that she is the reincarnation of the sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Read more about her amazing musical career…. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Deutscher

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Warring Pacific tribes swap two young children to end violent feud

January 16, 2026 LRS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

In a move designed by Vanuatu tribal chiefs to heal the rift, a young boy and girl will be exchanged between the groups.

Warring tribes on the tiny Pacific island of Tanna have agreed to swap two children to settle a long-running land dispute that descended into violence.

The clans, who have been arguing over property rights on the island for more than two decades, revived the ancient and controversial custom of child swapping in an attempt to end hostilities after the feud turned violent and several people were injured in a brawl.

Such a child swap has not taken place in more than 200 years.

Seth Kaurua, from the Vanuatu Council of Chiefs, said the feud between the two tribes had been going on for 27 years, but the chiefs had to step in when it turned violent and several people were injured.

“The practice on Tanna for resolving a dispute, whenever it turns to violence, is that we have to use our traditional way.

“One tribe gives away a child, female or male, to the other tribe and the other tribe has to do the same.”

The aim of the exchange was to “build a bridge between the two tribes and make the relationship stronger.”

Mr Kaurua acknowledged that the practice may raise eyebrows outside the Pacific, but said it was “a normal part of our traditional life” in Vanuatu.

Exchanging children is rare in Tanna, and frowned on by the court system, but it is does take place from time to time. It is not uncommon on the island for a female child to be given away to replace a lost family member – for example if a child is killed in a car accident, the driver could offer one of their own children as reparation.

However, a swap involving two large tribes giving up a child had not taken place on the island for more than 200 years, because peace had prevailed, Mr Kaurua said.

“We had a tribal fight 200 years ago and no one has been killed, no fighting since then. So when this dispute happened, people just go back to what happened in the past to resolve it.

“Many people in different countries might think it is strange but for us its normal practice, it is a highly respected custom, it is the way we make peace.”

The child swap itself takes place in an elaborate reconciliation ceremony, in which both tribes gather in a special meeting place. There, the child is paraded in front of the new tribe and the leader of the tribe shakes hands with the child and its parents, indicating that he will accept the boy or girl.

While the child does not have to move to its new tribe immediately, they will grow up in the knowledge that they no longer belong to their parents, and will eventually have to leave, Mr Kaurua said.

So far, one of the swaps had taken place, involving a girl aged seven, he said. The second swap, involving a boy, is due to take place in the coming weeks.

Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist who has studied the clans of Vanuatu, said the practice was an effective way of rebalancing relations between groups that had become strained or dangerous.

“This is not a barbaric, savage custom at all, it is a very sophisticated means of reestablishing a broken peace between two groups,” he said.

“It used to be done in the royal families of Europe, who would swap women to make the bonds between the families stronger. But it has been happening in Tanna since before the nations of Europe were formed.”

The children involved often benefitted from the arrangement because they could remain in contact with their family, while gaining a new extended family, he said.