Common Mistake

"One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.”

~Idries Shah

“Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.”

~Stephen Jay Gould

Two Great Non-Fiction Books About Autism

Several good fiction books about Autism:

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (Doubleday, 2003)
by Mark Haddon
This award-winning novel's main character is a 15-year-old autistic boy. It's a good mystery as well as a good character description.

ISBN: 1400032717 (paperback, 240 pages, Vintage, 2004); ISBN: 0385512104 (hardcover, 226 pages, Doubleday, 2003); ISBN: 0385509456 (hardcover, 240 pages); ISBN: 0385659792 (hardcover, 240 pages, Doubleday Canada Ltd, 2003); ISBN: 1402555989 (audio cassette, Recorded Books, 2003); ISBN: 1402568851 (audio CD, Recorded Books, 2003). [autism,fiction]

"Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's "
by John Elder Robison

The brother of Augusten Burroughs (author of the bestselling memoir "Running with Scissors") has created an entertaining and often surprising memoir about growing up with Asperger's Syndrome.

I bought these books for my sons' school library and recommended them as part of a reading list for his high school, since they describe life as an Autistic and also are current best-sellers which are a great read.

It helps to understand the inner workings of a mind that is very different from one's own. It helps to "get" someone on the Autism spectrum better than some dry diagnostic description.

Warning about High Fructose Corn Syrup

Warning:

High Fructose Corn Syrup has been found to be contaminated with mercury.

Another reason to avoid this food additive....

"many foods sweetened with HFCS contain mercury, left as a residue in the production of caustic soda, a key ingredient in HFCS. The FDA and the industry have known about this potential toxin and has continued serving it up since at least 2005.

The HFCS industry has been shrouded in mystery since it began in the 1970s, essentially the result of “get big or get out” record corn harvests and subsequent plummeting commodity prices for farmers. What to do with all that excess corn? The answer was not to decrease yields, but to find a way to get that corn into our stomachs. This has led to the proliferation of HFCS in nearly all processed foods you find in the grocery store. The industry has lacked transparency, and our government has refused to mediate our current health crisis — an upswing in diabetes and obesity resulting from cheap calories like HFCS — with regulation. So its not surprising that it took so long for the news to reach the public eye.

The initial study led by Renee Dufault, a now-retired Environmental Health Officer-cum-whistleblower, was published yesterday in Environmental Health, and found that nearly half the samples of HFCS tested contained mercury residue. The impetus for the study was to find approximately 58 tons of mercury that was reported missing in 2000 (and it is assumed yearly) from the chlor-alkali plants (makers of chlorine and caustic soda) in operation in the U.S.

Where has it gone? apparently some of it has gone into our veins and tissues.

Before now, our greatest threat for mercury exposure was through fish, followed by mercury amalgam in dentistry and through vaccines, as it is sometimes used as a preservative. But Dufault’s study estimates that exposure via HFCS could be up to 50 times that of mercury amalgam exposure in children age 3-19, as this age group is the largest consumers of HFCS.

Of course we know that mercury is a cumulative toxin, especially dangerous to pregnant women and children, and that those with high exposure (Jeremy Piven among them, from eating too much sushi) show signs of sensory impairment, sensation loss and lack of coordination. This disorder was formerly referred to as Mad Hatter’s Syndrome, because haberdashers who produced felt hats in the 18th and 19th centuries used a mercury compound in their process.

We too have had a potential day to day exposure to the heavy metal, just by choosing our food from the boxes and bottles in the center aisles of the grocery store. Aside from the case against us for improper nutrition, we could be slowly poisoning ourselves.

A second study, by David Wallinga, M.D. and his co-authors entitled “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” tested products directly from the supermarket. One in three tested positive for mercury residue. These included products like Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly, Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Nutra Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry and Coca-Cola Classic.

The reason Wallinga cited for his extension of the original study was that:Many of these products are specifically marketed to groups vulnerable to mercury. Soft drinks, fruit juices, and other junk food are successfully marketed to children not only through Internet and television advertising, but also in school vending machine and cafeteria options. People who rely on food stamps or who live in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods are also a special target for junk food manufacturers, because they offer the most accessible and often least expensive calories in the grocery store.

He went on to criticize the FDA for not doing its job, and urged for mercury, which is not required to produce HFCS, to be taken out of the process. I agree, but I would like to see our government push the corn refining industry further: They should be shouldering responsibility for our declining health in this country, and as such, should be more adequately regulated. If it were up to food justice advocates, the substance would be banned outright. But corn refiners should at least be held accountable for misleading advertising, and consumers should be aware of what they are buying, through better transparency on labels.

So the question is, what will the FDA do with this new found information? Dufault urges the creation of a mercury surveillance program, that monitors foods besides fish, along with additional public health evaluation of the exposure to mercury through HFCS. But can we really keep avoiding the deeper problem, that HFCS, as a product of the human imagination, could possibly be a failed experiment? For the sake of our health, it might be time for the government to finally intervene."

~Paula Crossfield is the managing editor of Civil Eats.

Original source:

http://civileats.com/2009/01/27/is-high-fructose-corn-syrup-turning-us-into-mad-hatters/

There is no safe level of mercury in our bodies.

Mercury poisoning has been implicated in the high incidence of cases of Autism.

Resolutions

Seth's suggested new year resolutions



One:


I will approve of myself, my characteristics, my abilities, my likes and my dislikes, my inclinations and disinclinations, realizing that these form my unique individuality. They are given me for a reason.



Two:


I will approve of and rejoice in my accomplishments, and I will be as vigorous in listing these as RIGOROUS in remembering them as I have ever been in remembering and enumerating my failures or lacks of accomplishment.



Three:


I will remember the creative framework of existence, in which I have my being. Therefore the possibilities, potentials, seeming miracles, and joyful spontaneity of Framework 2 will be in my mind, so that the doors to creative living are open.



Four:


I will realize that the future is a probability. In terms of ordinary experience, nothing exists there yet. It is virgin territory, planted by my feelings and thoughts in the present...





Therefore, I will plant accomplishments and successes, and I will do this by remembering that nothing can exist in the future THAT I DO NOT WANT TO BE THERE.



~ Seth/Jane Roberts


--"Dreams, Evolution & Value Fulfillment",Vol. 1, Session 891, Notes.2005 Copyright Robert F. Butts.

The Universe As Idea Construction

Excerpts from Physical Universe as Idea Construction

~ by Jane Roberts in an altered state of consciousness ultimately leading to the Seth material.




Energy is the basis of the universe.

Ideas are mental transformations of energy by an entity into physical reality.

Idea constructions are transformations of ideas into physicalreality.

Space is where our own idea constructions do not exist in the physical universe.




The physical body is the material construction of the entity's idea of itself under the properties of matter.

The individual is the part of the entity or whole self of which we are conscious in daily life.

It is that part of the whole self which we are able to express or make "real" through our idea constructions on a physical level.

The subconscious is the threshold of an idea's emergence into the individual conscious mind. It connects the entity and the individual.

Personality is the individual's overall responses to ideas received and constructed.

It represents the emotional coloration of the individual's ideas and constructions at any given "time".




Emotions are the driving force that propel ideas into constructions.

Instinct is the minimum ability for idea constructions necessary for physical survival.

Learning is the potential for constructing new idea complexes from existing ideas.

Idea complexes are groups of ideas formed together like building blocks to form more complicated constructions in physical reality.

Communication is the interchange of ideas by entities on the energy nonphysical level.




Action is idea in motion.

The senses are channels of projection by which ideas are projected outward to create the world of appearances.

Environment is the overall idea constructions with which an individual surrounds himself.

Physical time is the apparent lapse between the emergence of an idea in the physical universe (as a construction) and its replacement by another.

The past is the memory of ideas that were but are no longer physical constructions.

The present is the apparent point of any idea's emergence into physical reality.

The future is the apparent lapse between the disappearance of one idea construction and its replacement by another in physicalreality.

Psychological time is the apparent lapse between the conception of ideas.



Aging is the effect upon an idea construction of the properties of matter of which the construction is composed.

Growth is the formation of an idea construction toward its fullest possible materialization following the properties of matter.

Sleep is the entity's relative rest from idea construction except the minimum necessary for physical survival.




The physical universe is the sum of individual idea constructions.

Memory is the ghost image of "past" idea constructions.

Each evolutionary change is preceded and caused by a new idea.

As the idea is in the process of being constructed onto the physical plane, it prepares the material world for its own actuality and creates the prerequisite conditions.



Evolution is energy's movement toward conscious expression in the physical universe, but it is basically nonphysical.

A species at any given time is the materialization of the inner images or ideas of its individual members, each of whom forms his own idea constructions.

At no point can we actually say that one construction vanishes and another takes its place, but artificially we adopt certain points as past, present and future, for convenience.

At some point, we agree that the physical construction ceases to be elements of the "past" construction and is already becoming the"next" one.

Though the construction of an idea seems to disappear physically, the idea which it represents still exists.

Sleep is the entity's rest from physical idea construction.

Only enough energy is used to keep the personal image construction in existence.

The entity withdraws into basic energy realms and is comparatively free from time since idea construction is at a minimum level.

The entity is in contact with other entities at a subconscious area.

After death, the entity will have its ghost images (memories) at its command, though their apparent sequence will no longer apply.

Memories are properties of the subconscious energy entity and,as such, are indestructible (though they may be unavailable to the individual under various circumstances).

The next plane of existence will involve further training in energy use and manipulation, since the energy of which the entity is composed is self-generating and always seeking more complicated form and awareness.

Each material particle is an idea construction formed by the individualized bits of energy that compose it.

*Each entity perceives only his own construction on a physical level.

* Because all constructions are more or less faithful reproductions in matter of the same basic ideas (since all individuals are, generally speaking, on the same level in this plane), then they agree sufficiently in space, time and degree so that the world of appearances has coherence and relative predictability.

The Fabric of Physical Matter:

All physical matter is idea construction.

We only see our own constructions.

So-called empty space is full of constructions not our own that we cannot perceive.

Our skin connects us to other physical constructions, and through it we are involved in the complicated fabric of continuous matter.

The action of each one of the most minute of these particles affects each other one.



The slight motion of one grain of sand causes a corresponding alteration in the distribution of the stars and in all matter's fabric, from an atom in a man's skull down to the slightest variation in a microbe's action.

All matter is idea construction, woven together; each construction is individual and yet cohesive to the whole.

The smallest particle is necessary to the whole, forming part of matter's design.

The Universe as a Physical Body:

The matter of the universe can be conceived of as a physical body, an organism of individual cells (objects) held together by connective tissue (the chemicals and elements of air).

This connective tissue is also alive and carries electrical impulses.

Within it, as within the connective tissues of the human body, there is a certain elasticity, a certain amount of regeneration and a constant replacement of the atoms and molecules that compose it.

While the whole retains its shape, the material itself is being constantly born and replaced.

This rough diagram (diagram omitted in this text file) "came" with the above material.
It was supposed to represent the energy of the entity as it flowed outward through the subconscious to the conscious, in order to construct the physical image and environment in response to the self's idea of what it was.
I was involved with the "pure" experience behind the diagram and words
with which I was left.
The revelation was that there were no real boundaries to the self; skin did not separate us from others but connected us in a webwork of energy; what we thought
of as Self and Not-Self were interrelated; and that, in this life at least, ideas were constantly being transformed into matter.

The ability of the entity to transform energy into an idea and then to construct it physically determines the entity's place on the physical evolutionary plane.
Simple organisms are capable of "picking up" fewer communications.
Their range is less, but the vitality and validity of their constructions is excellent.
In simple organisms such as the paramecium and amoeba, the few sharp ideas received are constructed almost simultaneously, without reflection.
The organism needs no other mechanism to translate ideas.
What it has is sufficient.
More complicated organisms - mammals, for example - have need of further mechanisms to construct ideas because they are able to perceive more of them.
Here memory is an element.
Now the organism has a built-in ghost image of past constructions by which to perfect and test new ones.
Reflection of some sort enters into the picture, and with it the organism is given more to do.
Slowly, within its range of receptivity, it is given some choice in the actual construction of ideas into physical reality.
The reflection is brief, but for a moment the animal partakes of a new dimension.
The shadow of time glimmers in his eyes as the still imperfected memory of past constructions lingers in his consciousness.
As yet, memory storage is small, but now the instantaneous construction is no longer instantaneous, in our terms.
There is a pause: the organism - dog or tiger - can choose to attack or not to attack.
The amoeba must construct its small world without reflection and without time as we know it.
Entities with still broader range need more complicated structure.
The scope of their receptivity is so large that the simple autonomic nervous system is not enough.
The amoeba constructs each idea it receives, because it is able to receive so few.
All must be constructed to ensure survival.
With man, the opposite becomes true.
He has such a range of receptivity that it is impossible for him to construct all of his ideas physically.
As his scope is widened, a mechanism was necessary that would allow him to choose.
Self-consciousness and reason were the answers.
Suddenly, time blossomed like a strange flower in his skull.
Before this he was transfixed in the present.
But memory produced another dimension in the animal and man carried it
further.
No longer did memory flicker briefly and disappear, enclosing him in darkness again.
Now it stretched brightly behind him and also stretched out ahead - a road on which he always saw his own changing image.
He learned continuity.
And with his focused memory at his command, man's ego was born, which could follow its own identity through the maze of blazing impulses that beset him, could recognize itself through the pattern of continuing constructions and could separate itself from its action in the physical world.
Here you have the birth of subject and object, the I AM who is the doer and constructor, and the construction itself.
This new dimension enabled the species to manipulate and recognize its own constructions and freed it to focus greater energy in projecting some ideas over others.
In other words, conscious purpose became possible, physically.
Somewhere along the line, however, man began to divorce himself almost completely and artificially from his own constructions.
Hence his groping, his sense of alienation from nature, his search for a Cause or Creator of a creation he no longer recognized as his own."

~ Seth/Jane Roberts

--"Dreams, Evolution & Value Fulfillment",Vol. 1, Session 891, Notes.2005 Copyright Robert F. Butts.