Partners-In-Crime

Boobala looked at her calendar. It was only a month until graduation. She circled the date of July 5th in red because it was her 18th birthday. “Finally,” she said to herself, “I’ll be 18 years of age and I’ll be able to make my own decisions about my life. Papa and mama won’t be able to say anything about it.” She was careful not to mark the 27th for fear that her secret marriage to Harry would be exposed.

She and Harry had been seeing each other secretly for a few months from time to time after school. Boobala was glad that mama had finally relaxed her vigil. She had gone back to the store to work with papa, which made it easy for them to meet without getting caught. Boobala was a puppet in Harry’s hands. She was easy to manipulate. They had to be careful lest her parents find out. So far the 19-year-old playboy’s plan was working perfectly. Harry didn’t want to have sex with Boobala. He wasn’t stupid, he knew she was a minor, and if she got knocked up he didn’t want to be accused of rape. Besides, why would he want to have sex with her when he had Stefania the Italian breezy with the voluminous breasts. She was a waitress at Gino’s Pizzeria and was much older than he was. Thinking of Stefania, his cheeks start to flush. He became visibly aroused while savoring the memory of their last desperate sexual encounter. “Ooh-wee, is she a hot one.” Harry said to himself. For some strange reason, he wondered why he seemed to be developing a taste for older women.

It was getting hard for him to keep his mind from wandering back to his sexual fantasy, but he needed to move forward. He needed to focus on the matter at hand, which was his priority for the moment. After careful consideration, he decided that it was now or never. He asked Boobala to marry him. She eagerly accepted, stars in her eyes, as he promised her a bright future. He would attain a college degree and become a trader just like his Uncle Jake. The date was set for the 27th of July, almost three weeks after her 18th birthday. He knew it would take all the courage he could muster to marry her. However, once it was over, she would become his meal ticket.

No: 5 (9-4-2011)

Spider, Spider Spin Your Web

Harry needed to learn about his future in-laws so that he could plan his strategy ahead of time. He needed to ingratiate himself with them. He kept pressuring Boobala to meet them. This was going to be difficult, since Mildred had laid down the law. Boobala was not to date until she finished High School and four years of college. Meanwhile Mildred already had her eye on some of the young men whose families were well off at the synagogue as a possibility. The only way for Boobala to bring Harry to the house was to ask her mom for permission to help a student prepare for his final exams. When she agreed, Boobala begged Harry not to wear his ripped jeans and dirty sneakers, but to dress nice to make a favorable impression on her mom.

Relieved as they finished what Harry perceived as a necessary chore, Harry put his books in his backpack and sped for the exit. Mildred intercepted him, offering him a soda. “So Larry,” she asked.

“My name is Harry, Mrs. Finkenberg.”

“Sorry, so Harry, Boobala tells me that you want to be a trader like your uncle?” She asked, while eying the young man’s muscular built carefully.

He answered her weakly: “Oh yes.”

“You’re not Jewish are you? ” Mildred continued, “I notice that you call your uncle by the name of Jake, is that short for Jacob?”

“Uh, I’m not sure.” He murmured sipping his soda.

“So, what is your uncle’s last name?” Mildred kept on. “Oh, it’s Rubenstein.” he responded, not knowing what else to say.

“Then your uncle is Jewish,” exclaimed Mildred.

“Uh, I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible,” he replied.

Harry’s mind raced. ‘What is she talking about, my uncle Jake is Italian? Why did I have to say Rubenstein when his name is Jake Vitobello. This woman is making me nervous. I don’t even know what to say anymore. I wish she’d shut up.’

“So Harry, what college are you planning to go to?” she continued to ask.

Harry, now pissed, thought, ‘What’s with the third degree? Who does she think she is, the CIA? She’s so freaking annoying.’

Trying to keep his cool he blurted: “Oh, my uncle Jake is sending me to Yale University.”

Mildred kept on with her questioning: “So tell me, why is it that your uncle is the one sending you to college instead of your parents? Don’t they have any money?”

Harry, feeling nervous, answered quickly, “Uh, my parents are both dead. They died in a car accident when I was ten and Uncle Jake raised me.”

Mildred was not satisfied. She looked him straight in the eye. “Young man, to go to that University you need to be very smart and have excellent grades. So how come my daughter is helping you if you are so smart?”

Harry was fuming as he thought to himself, ‘Geez, what a bitch! No wonder Boobala is so intimidated by her, she must get a kick out of making people uncomfortable.” Leaving, he said to Mildred: “Uh, I really have to go; Uncle Jake has supper waiting for me. Thanks for the soda.”

As soon as Harry left, Mildred called to Boobala in a menacing voice, “Are you sure he’s not your boyfriend?”

Boobala, shaking, scared as hell, and turning red echoed: “No mama, he is not my boyfriend. You heard us studying right?”

Mildred pensive, raised her eyebrows, twisting her nose a little. “Well I don’t like him; I smell a skunk. There is something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Look at all those muscles, what time does he have to study and get good grades? I think he is lying and you, young lady, better not be lying to me too. “

No: 6 (9-6-2011)

To be continued: Part 5 of 9 of Boobala Darling Wins A Cruise:

In Andreas Papandreou: The Making of a Greek Democrat and Political Maverick (I.B. Tauris, 256 pages, $49 and £30), Stan Draenos depicts a man torn between national identities, academic or political careers and a complex relationship with his popular politician father. The quandaries of Papandreou (1919-96) are proficiently interwoven into the political context involving the United States and Greece during the Cold War. Draenos, who holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of York (Toronto), tells me Papandreou himself eventually responded in a questionnaire: “My first interest was action, politics.” If he could not do that he would be an academic, and failing that, “he would go sailing.”

Focusing on the early years of Andreas’ life, Andreas Papandreou is a fluidly written tour de force that can be reviewed from various angles. Thanks to the Truman Doctrine, set up in 1947 initially to support Greece and Turkey in containing the Soviet Union, American hardliners had a huge impact on the Greek monarchy, military and on the aging George Papandreou, Andreas’ ideologically centrist father who could keep the communists at bay. In fact, in the 1966 elections, against his son’s wishes George worked with Palatial and American forces and forged links with the dominant-right wing party, which was followed by the U.S.-backed coup d’état.

When analyzing Andreas’ decisions, including his rift with his compromising father in the mid-1960s, one enters the realm of psychobiography. Draenos, who worked as a historian for numerous years at the Andreas Papandreou Foundation and knew the former prime minister personally, obviously knows that in this thorny area of scrutinizing “psyches” the historian must stick to facts and avoid speculation.

His witnessing the impotence of the resistance movement against fascism in Greece as a youth may have been one of the factors that led Andreas to immigrate to the United States. There were also other “painful, unresolved conflicts,” the biographer notes, without going any further. Andreas devoted himself to a successful academic career, applauded by intellectuals such as John Kenneth Galbraith. He became a naturalized American in 1944, and his marriage to the American Margaret Chant cemented his new national identity. Two years prior to the wedding, Andreas told her he felt “nostalgia [for Greece], but no desire to return.”

While chairing a department at the University of California at Berkeley, it would become clear that Andreas was, in fact, the political “man of action” he had at first not wished to become. According to a law passed in 1950, all professors in the State of California had to sign an anti-Communist loyalty document, which included a clause requiring them to inform on their students’ political proclivities. Andreas managed to deal with the reactionary legislators while supporting his colleagues who had been fired and regained their jobs via legal actions. Meanwhile, Andreas himself voted against the law. Like his father, he showed his true colors as a pragmatist; but unlike George Papandreou, the son was no moderate.

Draenos recalls how George clearly stated his support for the Truman Doctrine in an article published by the journal Foreign Affairs. Andreas, for his part, never spoke officially about the matter, but when he first voted in a U.S. presidential election in 1948 his candidate was the left-wing Henry Wallace, who quit the Truman cabinet precisely because he opposed the Truman Doctrine. Nonetheless, while getting U.S. research grants to test the waters, unconsciously or consciously, and possibly enter Greek politics, Andreas chose to follow a more pragmatic moderate stance for at least two apparent reasons.

Firstly, he had to fit the American Government’s perception of him: Andreas was an American who could replace his father’s leadership of the Center Union. Secondly, he was the son of the grandfather of Greek politics, “an object of [Andreas’] devotion,” but also a “mixed blessing,” or, in other words, “a rival to eclipse as well as model to emulate.” As expected, there were jealousies. Konstantinos Mitsotakis, a future premier who expected to be George Papandreou’s successor, described Andreas as an “arriviste” who was “exploiting his father.” Some called him an American, while others suspected he was also a CIA spy.

But in line with Greek’s patriarchal society, George, who had always seen his son as the perfect filial successor as head of the dynasty he had established, tried to lure him back from the United States. We discover an emotional man, prone to psychosomatic symptoms related to a difficult past in his country of birth. In 1953, for instance, Andreas suffered terrible jaw pains following a family reunion in Athens. On other occasions he had intestinal conditions and even a life-threatening disease.

Following his father’s election as premier, in 1964 Andreas was elected to parliament and became assistant prime minister. He returned his American passport and changed his narrative, raising fears he was becoming too distant politically from his father’s centrists politics. One of Andreas’ signature slogans was “Greece for the Greeks,” which seemed to make sense in a country that had been under first British and then American tutelage since World War II.

Andreas’ “social-reform oriented nationalism,” argues Draenos, was also in tune with his times, since hundreds of thousands of Greeks had been leaving the country, where “a sense of alienation” prevailed. Andreas’ new discourse, which helped him return to his Greek roots, included the 1940s’ resistant communist militants who had been excluded from the conservative establishment’s narrative. These days, when the reactionary group Golden Dawn, which has members in the Greek Parliament, uses the same words to incite the beating up of foreigners, Andreas’ slogan sounds inappropriate. Sadly, nationalism has become a force of an extremist organization.

In the end, Andreas was not to be the “American” partner during the Cold War. He opposed the U.S. plan of dividing Cyprus between Greeks and Turks, and, while a nationalist, he sensibly believed that, as Draenos tells me, “the best interest of Hellenism was to keep Cyprus independent and united.” Also, in seeing the intervention of the Greek establishment and the American Government as the real threats – rather than an alliance with the communists -, Andreas revealed himself not to be the son George had expected to replace him.

Andreas was, as Draenos puts it, “a man of destiny.” In Gramscian terms, the former premier was the “charismatic man” who appears when the hegemonic ruling class is no longer trusted by its citizens. In 1974, he founded the first Social Democratic party in Greece, the influential PASOK. He was the first Socialist premier, elected in 1981.

There is a secret to accessing your inherent psychic ability and yes, there is plenty of evidence that psychic abilities do exist and just like any other ability or skill in life, can be developed.

It’s all about brainwave frequency.

The secret passageway, to developing your psychic ability, lies in the alpha brainwave frequency.

This brainwave state is a slow, high amplitude frequency that lies between 14 and 7 hertz or cycles per second, and is believed to be where you need to be to connect with the “otherside, the universe, your source, spirit guide, angels, God…”

Your normal everyday state of mind has to be calmed down enough to access the state of alpha, which is essential to developing your psychic ability.

It has been said that our spirit guides hang out at the alpha wave frequency as an intermediate place where we can communicate with them and them with us.

Why Brainwave Entrainment Can Help Develop Psychic Ability

• Entrainment can slow down the mind quickly, efficiently, and easily putting you in the driver’s seat.
• Brainwave entrainment uses audio pulses, as a repeated rhythmic stimulus, to induce your brain to entrain or follow the frequency of alpha wave.
• When alpha wave is applied, two regions of the brain, conducive to psychic ability, are stimulated. These regions are the amygdhala and the anterior cingulated cortex. Isochronic tones, the strongest form of entrainment, are particularly successful in entraining these areas to rhythms that promote psychic development.
• Brainwave entrainment facilitates a more rapid development of psychic ability than conventional methods like meditation. Specialized sessions will lead your brain to the same brainwave frequencies that you access during meditation, give the same benefits, only faster and deeper. When meditating the conventional way, it is very hard to maintain a constant alpha wave for very long. With a brainwave synchronizing recording, the alpha wave stays consistent, taking you to a deeper state of consciousness, for a longer period of time.
• You’ll be in an altered state of consciousness for a greater period of time, exposing yourself to other dimensions, and communication, for a longer period of time.
• The results of the listening to the recording are lasting, if used regularly over a few months,because new neural pathways are developed in your gray matter, changing what kind of electrochemicals you call on, putting you into a different state.

Psychic ability used to be viewed as something magical, something unattainable by normal humans and a secret held only by mystics and shamans.

The secret to accessing that world, is really just about frequency.

You have to be tuned to the right “station” in order to make contact.

Otherwise, you’re just talking to yourself.

Yes, psychic ability is still mysterious but is now recognized at a phenomena or a sense, that exceeds our usual five senses, and is used by World governments, the FBI and CIA, for espionage and crime investigations, on a regular basis.

It doesn’t have to be unattainable to you anymore.

Use the secret, and open that amazing door.

We live in an age where everything has its place! Science is one thing, quite separate from religion which is another. Dr. J. J. Hurtak, however, has integrated these seemingly disparate fields of study and uncovered the harmony between them.

The best-selling book “The Da Vinci Code” prompted many scholars to look to the similarities between science and religion and how they may complement each other. Dr. Hurtak has been doing this for years.

Prior to Dan Brown’s best-seller, Dr. Carl Sagan discussed the conflicts between scientists and theologians in his book “Contact” and the movie made from it. This discussion has raged for over a century between academics of different disciplines, with no one giving an inch.

For over 35 years, Dr. J.J. Hurtak has been pointing out the commonalities and reinforcing nature between comparative religion and the social sciences. Disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics and the hard sciences of mathematics, physics, biology, neurology, astronomy and cosmology are complementary, Hurtak claims – and he has spent his professional life proving it. Often when experts in different fields are brought together, they feel at odds with one another. Dr. Hurtak, however, through his diverse scholarship and study, has worked to bring divergent disciplines together. He builds consensus in an evolutionary move toward synthesis, hoping that bridging these disciplines will introduce a more harmonious life for all humankind through the synergy and insight of multiple disciplines.

In other words, what Hurtak is asking us to do is to open our hearts and minds to other academic disciplines, other cultural ideas and different religious and political viewpoints for the mutual benefit of creating a better future for all of us. What follows is my interview and interpretation of Dr. Hurtak’s work and why some of it is misunderstood.

One of his positive visions for planet Earth is to see the unity of peoples and a movement to establish peaceful relationships among all of us. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called out this same message in church and from the head of protest lines during the peace movement of the 1960’s, and other progressives did the same. Some people are now carrying that same banner into the new millennia, and Dr. J.J. Hurtak clearly is one of them.

Hurtak is not just a beauty pageant contestant spouting platitudes about unity and world peace. He is a world renowned scholar asking other experts and scientists to see the similarities between religion and science and to consider how they can work together for positive change.

Yes, he’s trying to get science and religion to work together! Historically, anybody who has supported the more speculative sciences or tried to combine multiple disciplines and theories met with considerable resistance and malice from the general academic community.

How hard was it to get doctors to consider the germ theory of disease, after hundreds of years of agreement that disease arose spontaneously from the ether. Although the germ theory was resisted at first, it is now a cornerstone of modern science.

Dr. J.J. Hurtak, Ph.D., Ph.D. (University of California and University of Minnesota) is opening minds to new ways of looking at the world, and this includes religion, science, history and the human condition.

Hurtak is a scholar and academic with no particular axe to grind, but if you were to try to distill his work into a short phrase, it would be that he is a futurist working to bring people together and raise consciousness. And he is meeting with considerable success with this all over the world.

In his desire to bring people together Dr. Hurtak taught courses on African studies at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and was privileged to be a participant at the historical reception of the Chinese Ping-Pong team at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1972 with Governor Edmund Brown. This was the start of open door relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

In a side chapter on American-Far Eastern relations, Dr. Hurtak worked to bring Chinese acupuncture texts to America. He helped to advance Chinese acupuncture medicine, which is now a serious and acceptable discipline, acknowledged by the American medical profession and a legitimate practice recognized by legal and medical experts throughout the world.

Also in the 1970’s, Hurtak was able to work with scholars behind the scenes in helping to microfilm sacred Tibetan texts, an important historical move in preserving some of the world’s most ancient texts of astronomy and medicine. This has helped to further the understanding of an important early chapter in global history.

For 30 years, Hurtak has visited South Africa and worked with the Zulu Shaman, Credo Mutwa, to promote and preserve African culture and music, long before the end of apartheid.

Hurtak’s work has continued to span many disciplines in seeking ways to create a positive dialogue for our future. In the 1980’s he was a director of Technology Marketing Analysis Corporation (TMAC) and helped to establish a strong dialogue between engineers, scientists and government leaders looking for answers to the oil embargo and the need for real energy alternatives. With Hurtak’s encouragement, TMAC became well-known through its creation of the annual Renewable Energy Technology Symposium and International Exposition (RETSIE) Conference at Anaheim, California, where thousands of leading engineers and businessmen were brought together to look ahead and to honor Nobel Prize winners like Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg who changed the meaning of the energy equation. Hurtak took action to meet the energy challenge and to help young and old to see the importance of sustainability.

More recently, Dr. Hurtak along with his organization The Academy for Future Science (AFFS) has been helping the Xavante people of Brazil with ways of improving agriculture and educational futures, working to provide for genuine sustainability with new agricultural centers and opportunities for preparing their young people to go on to higher education.

Working with many musicians around the world, Hurtak has introduced humanistic and spiritual musical themes. Some of these musicians have included Gilberto Gil from Brazil and Alice Coltrane, wife of famous jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Hurtak’s work with Alice at the New Jersey Center of the Performing Arts was written up in The New York Times (2006) in an article regarding the introduction of “supersoul” music, but Hurtak prefers to see it as a spiritual renewal of unity through song and the celebration of “mantric” language.

In the field of literature, Hurtak consulted with the internationally known writer, Sidney Sheldon, on changes within the human psyche for the novel “The Doomsday Conspiracy”. Sidney Sheldon’s books have sold millions of copies throughout the world.

Sheldon came to Hurtak because Hurtak was the first to confirm extraterrestrial experiments with the human race. In 1979, in an El Universal news conference (Mexico City), he pointed out the need to talk openly about these and other important issues facing humanity. In 1995, he was a speaker at the historic first disclosure conference in Washington D.C. “When Cosmic Cultures Meet” sponsored by the Human Potential Foundation. This special gathering discussed the reality of cosmic visitations. Hurtak continues to encourage scholars, governments and scientists to talk openly about these controversial subjects.

As a well-known lecturer and author, Hurtak is respected for his knowledge of anthropology, future science and social science. Hurtak is working hard all over the world in an effort to unite rather than divide. As with all who preceded him in this endeavor, he has found many detractors. Some people misstate Hurtak’s words to forward their own position. Others have misunderstood Hurtak’s meaning because they do not have the background to be able to understand his writings.

Hurtak has always respected and found points of mutual agreement in his comparative religious studies and other studies. It is the misinterpretations of his religious scholarship that detractors have criticized him for the most.

For example, while teaching classes on the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the 1960’s, Hurtak pointed out that it was the Muslim world’s academics and scientists who helped to pass on the heritage of the Classical and Hellenic world to Europe.

Hurtak has unceasingly worked to build bridges between peoples. This task is no small undertaking. He travels the world as a lecturer, speaking publicly together with his wife who shares his philosophy and environmental concerns.

Inclusion not Exclusion

He is the author of over fourteen books. His latest book is “The End of Suffering” with co-author Russell Targ.

His books are sociological and rarely political. In fact he tries to steer clear of politics to avoid the divisiveness and polarity that is attached to politics.

Hurtak’s most recent travels show what he has accomplished lately. Much of his fame stems from work he did years ago in comparative religion, and while he still works in this arena, he is now very involved in more comprehensive things. He just returned to the United States from the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia, where he was an honorary ambassador, as well as a speaker.

Hurtak has achieved recognition through this worldwide organization as well as through his ongoing scholarly contributions in comparative religion with an emphasis on commonalities between different religions. Yet his detractors attack his reputation regardless of his good works.

Much of Hurtak’s work is of a metaphysical nature. He uses concepts involving ancient history and languages. Part of the problem with his critics is that they often misinterpret Hurtak’s work by trying to simplify concepts that are not simple.

His extensive work in comparative religion cannot be reduced to simplistic phrases and cliches. Hurtak speaks, for example, of the black stone in Mecca as representing the energies of our changing life and changing three-dimensional universe, an assessment that is in accord with Muslim legends that the black cube contains something sacred that fell to earth at the time of Adam and that has absorbed the sins of humanity. Misrepresenting Hurtak’s words out of context, detractors have tried to use this statement from his book as a charge against him: Rather than relating his statement to the world’s traditional mythologies and religions and to modern science, with its ongoing investigation of the nature of dark energy and dark matter of which more than 95% of our universe is composed, they label Hurtak as critical of the Moslem faith.

His position, stated in the voice of a metaphysicist, is not a political opinion. Hurtak’s statements, taken in context, point out similarities in the major religions of the world: European Christians make pilgrimages to one of the Black Madonnas, to be cleansed of sins and to make a new start on their spiritual paths, while Moslems make the rigorous pilgrimage to Mecca to the presence of the black stone, housed in the Kaaba, for purposes of worship and purification.

Visions and Revelations

The misstatements of Dr. Hurtak’s critics create the divisions he is trying to heal. When challenged as to specifics, these critics become evasive. Some critics and detractors have tried to characterize the source of Hurtak’s mystical writings as “channeling”. For the student of comparative religions there are many synonyms for wireless communication with something God like. “Channeling” can be used as a catch-all term for any and all revealed extrasensory messages coming from some unexplainable source. Yet, in reality, channeling is only one method of receiving information; a vision is another. And there is another way of gaining higher knowledge, called by the ancients a “Revelation”.

A vision may be anything from a physical and mental experience induced by drugs – i.e., Carlos Castaneda and the Piute nation (as well as other Native peoples who use drug assisted experiences) – to that of a greater understanding given as a Divine Gift. Visions may be induced by physical stress, fasting, physical exhaustion or fevers, but they can also be induced by religious disciplines: yoga, meditation, etc.

A “vision” is clearly a more general term than a Revelation. Revelation, be it by the presence of an angel or higher entity, such as a religious epiphany, is an inspirational awakening that imparts an understanding or knowledge. A vision can be a revelation. Channeling, in contrast, is the receiving of information given to a person by means of a controlling entity spoken through the party that is channeling.

Regardless of whether it was a vision, an epiphany or a revelation, Hurtak had such a wakeup call and tried to explain it in a book, over three decades ago, called “The Keys of Enoch “. His book is a scholarly work that does not lend itself to easy, glib explanations.

It has been suggested that Dr. Hurtak would be well served if he wrote up something along the lines of Dr. J.J. Hurtak Explained so it would be clearer what he is getting at.

When I interviewed Dr. Hurtak in California he had just returned from lecturing in Australia and was heading out to speak at universities around South Africa to try to bring a positive future. My goal was to get a clearer handle on this guy and then try to put in plain language what causes the confusion about him, his writings and his positions in the public consciousness.

People with doctorates, from my experience, sometimes isolate themselves by using a specialized language that attends their field. Dr. J.J. Hurtak has two doctorates and is an expert in several disciplines and has even muddied the waters further by mastering many languages both modern and ancient.

Unfortunately, complicated language or the technical use of terminology may be used against any author to further an agenda or to discredit the scholar.

As stated above, the terms vision and channeling have often been misapplied with regard to Hurtak who has openly and publicly stated that he does not support channeling.

Therefore, it is very easy, when dealing with the work of scholars such as Hurtak, Carl Gustav Jung, Carl Sagan and others, for conmen, charlatans, pundits and academic spin doctors to take catchphrases out of the context of a scholarly work and misunderstand the meaning of the author.

More often than not, disinformation is not necessarily used for disinformation purposes alone, but for slandering a topic and those who support that field who are trying to make a positive move forward in society. In reality, disinformation is false information or damaging information, generally untrue, used to discredit enemies.

In analyzing Hurtak’s work it is important to understand that as a lawyer may use a specialized vocabulary, the anthropologist, archaeologist, or comparative religion specialist (Dr J.J. Hurtak) will likewise use terminology with a more precise meaning than that meaning generally understood by the public.

Dr. Hurtak wrote his book “The Book of Knowledge: The Keys of Enoch” based upon a revelation he had regarding: mathematics, history, comparative religion, archaeology, anthropology and linguistics for the future of humankind.

Revelation

Specifically, in 1973 Dr. Hurtak had what I would define as a “revelation” which means that a supernatural or rather, an infinite source “reveals” some information to the natural man who may then try to explain that information to others. This notion of getting insight from the supernatural, or God, if you will, was accepted during earlier eras as a given by many people that God or the gods revealed His (or their) will to humankind in some form or another. Since the dawn of classical modern philosophy, philosophers such as Kant and Plato have had discussions on the Noumena world (meta-physical real world beyond the five senses) vs. the phenomenal world (known by the five senses”). Nonetheless, especially since the Age of Enlightenment, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this belief in metaphysics has become less well-accepted among a growing segment of the population.

Hurtak had a personal revelation or epiphany and wrote a book to explain it. The subtle difference between channeling and revelation is important.

Neither Hurtak nor his organization, the Academy for Future Science have ever endorsed channeling. Though Dr. J.J. Hurtak is familiar with several famous channelers and may even respect their work, he does not endorse the process of channeling. Not surprisingly, there are just as many individuals who use Hurtak for their own credibility by tying their views, writings and opinions to Hurtak’s work or to Hurtak himself, oftentimes without any real association with Dr. J.J. Hurtak or the Academy for Future Science.

Although Dr. Hurtak explained his experience in The Book of Knowledge: Keys of Enoch, this revelation and experience have been loosely described in various books by Hurtak’s detractors in pursuit of their own interpretation and agendas. But these same people fail to point out the amazing facts he had in this book that were unknown at the time of writing.

For one, he calls our sun a ‘variable star’ in his book over thirty-six years ago. This important data was just recognized by NASA this past year (2010).

Second, he points out that there will be an unusual recognition of a change in the rotation of Saturn. This was noted by NASA with its comparison of the Voyager and Cassini probes, conducted in 2004. He also was the first to point out that star shafts of the Great Pyramid point to specific stars, “Mintaka, Aniltak, Anilam” in Orion, a point that Robert Bauval’s co-author Adrian Gilbert from the book The Orion Mystery takes note of in his subsequent books. These are just a few of the myriad details that were written by Dr. Hurtak in the early 1970’s that are now accepted and understood.

Consequently, Hurtak can be seen as a type of scientific prophet who is finally being understood by a humanity no longer dissuaded by scientific thinking having to be at odds with religion. In fact, he points out that the Name of God as the Tetragrammaton (Hebrew name of God) has a corresponding relation to the codons of the human DNA.

Certainly, there are those who completely do not understand what Dr. Hurtak is trying to say especially in the re-evaluation of important symbols. And The Keys use myriad symbols and pictures to illustrate consciousness development.

I like to think that is where the conflict and confusion comes in. For example, The Keys of Enoch speak of such terms as “Christ race” which is describing a people who have compassion and demonstrate a culture of peace just as Christ attempted to show. This represents an avant-garde people who use the Light of Christ consciousness as a spiritualized people of Light. Those who don’t understand this have said Hurtak is speaking of a “Master race.” The term “Race” has such a loaded meaning today that had Hurtak written the book today he may have used “Christ consciousness” since he was talking about the outlook or mindset of a group of people, not their genetic, religious, or national heritage.

Sometimes in discussion of the supernatural very important ideas get blurred. The popular press tries to make the controversy as accessible as possible to the widest audience. Hurtak and other scholars have entirely different audiences and are not necessarily seeking populist acceptance. He is not trying to answer the questions for everyone but is posing the question for everyone. Academics process their experiences through their training and come out the other end with their version of what happened, explained in their own words.

I have concluded that The Keys of Enoch is not a channeled work. It is a scholarly reporting of an experience the author had with a higher being wherein he experienced a great deal of information with his conscious mind (higher consciousness), and then reported it as filtered through his scholarly background.

It seems reasonable to any educated person that the reason Dr. Hurtak was chosen for this experience was that he, through hard work, scholarship, and willingness and openness to spiritual development, was qualified to reveal this experience to the world.

Being a somewhat skeptical reporter, I take all of the philosophical and metaphysical schools of thought with a grain of salt. However, I do take exception when journalists use sloppy writing style, poor or no fact checking and broad stroke characterization of other people’s work; especially when they inject colloquialisms and imprecise language to explain spiritual matters.

Stargate Nonsense?

In researching this article I read many articles that had pros and cons about Dr. Hurtak. One of the most “uninformed”, in my opinion, is “The Stargate Conspiracy” (by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince) which lumped together a bunch of people who separately decided to investigate some of the archeology in Egypt as being involved in some ‘secret conspiracy.’ They took out of context fragments of Hurtak’s work along with misstating his views to come to a conclusion that was more in accord with their own agenda as expressed in their multiple writings.

In my view, the irony about discussing “The Stargate Conspiracy,” is that it elevates the authors’ mis-interpretation as if it were a work of fact-checked scholarship. It is not!

Throughout the book, there is a lot of this kind of free associative writing in this genre. And correcting the conclusions is frustrating because they don’t concern themselves with accuracy. The tabloids come to mind.

Why should anyone care? The only reason scholars try to set the record straight is that the record is their reputation.

A scholar and lecturer’s reputation must be kept clean and highly polished to maintain credibility in order to continue working in the field.

Hurtak takes the trouble to guard his reputation regardless of the seemingly futile nature of the battles he has to fight to bring unity between the scientific mind and religious viewpoint.

Most careful readers of Hurtak appreciate his integrity. His detractors seem to disregard integrity in favor of hoped for mass audiences.

The “Nine” Confusion

A perfect example of this is the use of the terms “The Nine”, “Lab Nine”, “Council of Nine”, from which the Stargate authors and others have determined, due to a reference in The Keys of Enoch, that Hurtak is associated with “THE NINE”.

Strangely, Stargate wants you to think that “THE NINE” are some human governmental conspiracy group. Hurtak uses only the term “Council of Nine,” in a very normal religious, scholarly context as relating to a Jungian archetype comparable to the nine Egyptian gods as mythological teaching figures and the nine ancient Greek gods again as Jungian archetypes.

Specifically, it is a metaphor or at least a description of angelic realities that probably would have nothing to do with governments on earth!

Hurtak’s reference must be taken in context of scholarly writing. Hurtak is an academic in comparative religion, mythology, and anthropology, not a conspiracy buff. Hurtak defined the Council of Nine “as a tribunal of teachers governing our immediate super galactic and galactic region subject to change in evolving ‘new programs’ of the father’s kingdom. ” Although I struggle to understand his definition I am clear that he ain’t talking about a quasi-governmental committee of humans.

In simple language, Hurtak is writing about an experience with an angelic or infinite type of being expressing knowledge from a creator source. We are talking about the infinite with our finite mind and limited language.

Further, Hurtak, through hard work earned two Ph.D.s, a fact that any journalist could confirm, if they would bother. Hurtak’s background is not only comparative religion but anthropology and history. He is putting this group of nine teachers in the context that we have historically put messengers of the gods, or archetypes in.

Dr. Hurtak’s metaphor is not “the Nine.” Dr. Hurtak does not use that term in his book. He uses the term “Council of Nine.” It makes no sense to conclude that he is talking about nine extraterrestrials or corporeal beings pulling the strings on humankind or that he, Dr. J.J. Hurtak, would qualify or choose to be one of this council since he considers himself a man, not an incorporeal being.

If one goes on the internet and types in “The Nine” or “Lab Nine” they would get many hits for a video game. They also might get a reference to the nine original gods of Greek Mythology or a whole set of conspiracy sites that confuse Dr. J.J. Hurtak’s work with science fiction writers such as Gene Rodenberry and popular psychics such as Uri Geller and other writers such as Phyllis V. Schlemmer, who did write about “The Nine “.

Since Phyllis V. Schlemmer, Uri Geller, and a man named Puharich did work in parapsychology in the 1960’s and 1970’s, some authors jump to the conclusion that because Hurtak associated with and ran in the same circles of academics studying parapsychology; that they all had the same agenda, same beliefs, and are working with words of art in the same manner. This is obviously not true. He is trying to educate and inspire our world to think in terms of not only global ethics and human understanding, but an outlook that can embrace other galaxies and universes in their consciousness. Toward this end, he is concerned and active with both earth science and space law. He has published papers on a new set of space laws for peace on the “high frontier” and discussions about the multinational colonization of space.

Optimistically, I believe Hurtak is part of a new movement toward environmentally and socially active public consciousness.

If one reads the news, they could infer that over the past thirty years the Western world has lost its bearings and has begun to wager its future and lost its moral values. Ethics have given way to cynical opportunism in business, in finance, in politics and in life in general.

Guilt by Association

Finally, I cannot close this article without also laughing at the assertion that Hurtak worked for the C.I.A. based upon his association with Puharich.

It is alleged that Puharich worked for the C.I.A. I cannot say as he has been dead for over 15 years. In a recent interview and in discussion with people who have known Hurtak for several decades; it becomes clear that Hurtak was unaware of any association that Puharich may have had with the C.I.A. when they worked together.

Further, Hurtak’s work in parapsychology included reviewing work by scholars all over the world, not just the U.S. He reviewed the works by other scholars in Russia, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, Britain and all available information in the U.S.

If we were to believe modern movies, or just general common sense, we might conclude that our government and every other modern government in the world monitor the work of research scientists in various fields without ever directly contacting those scientists. Particularly if they knew that a scientist wouldn’t feel comfortable working for a government intelligence agency.

Fact Checking

That is why good journalists try to talk with their subjects, check facts, and attempt to derive reasonable conclusions based upon facts.

Readers need to do the same and not believe everything written on the internet because it might be disinformation to keep them from delving deeper into the ideas of those who herald positive steps for making the world a better place.

Society prefers to keep the status quo, which means keeping you blocked from moving forward in your thinking. If we are blocked by not discerning “disinformation” when we see it, you remain locked in the old box of perpetual negativity. That is something I learned from Dr. Hurtak, who prefers to move people out of the old box into an informed and creative understanding.

In conclusion, Dr. J.J. Hurtak is a free-thinker, not anti- any religious group! He never worked for the intelligence community. And, he is working in a capacity to unite divergent philosophies not dominate them or lead them.

Hurtak is a scholar, a teacher, a lecturer and a man who should be honored for his contributions throughout the world. Although he challenges the normal paradigms, he goes to pains to offer explanation of his writings or ideas when asked.

He’s a visionary and a good guy working for unity from east to west, north to south and should be given the respect he has earned. Pieces like this one, I hope, merely attempt to clarify any unintentional misunderstandings and direct the reader to make up their own mind after going to the source.

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By Andrew Morgan Copyright 2010 Andrew Morgan

Movies, like books, sometimes have humble beginnings.

Remember the movie The Elephant Man? It was a true story about a nineteenth century sideshow freak who was saved by a doctor portrayed in the movie by Anthony Hopkins.

THE ELEPHANT MAN, portrayed by the late John Hurt, continues to be a gold standard for artful cinematic creativity today. The movie is from Academy Award winning film producer Jonathan Sanger.

How did this movie come about? Was it an agent’s pitch? No.

Was it an award winning script? No.

Did experienced screenwriters create this masterpiece? No.

Was it adopted from a book? No.

Recently my firm Westwind Book Marketing arranged a book signing and special big screen showing of The Elephant Man at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Jonathan Sanger introduced the movie to several hundred people where he retold the incredible story of how this movie came about based on his new book: MAKING THE ELEPHANT MAN – A PRODUCER’S MEMOIR.

Where did the script come from?

His babysitter handed it to him to read! That’s right, his babysitter. Sanger took the script and said he’d read it and promptly set it aside… for about a year. Then one day he came back from a trip opened his desk drawer and there it was… staring at him like an obligation.

What did he do? He read it – and he loved it!

His book “Making the Elephant Man: A Producer’s Memoir” gives us an insider’s look at the creation of one of the first ever indie films and a box-office smash, as well as a peek into the early careers of movie greats David Lynch, Mel Brooks and Anthony Hopkins.

If you want to make your book into a movie then this book will help you understand the intricacies of the myriad aspects of making a film. Sanger takes his experience as the producer of THE ELEPHANT MAN and opens a powerful discussion on the evolution of cinema, from how he ‘discovered’ the script written by ‘unknowns’ Christopher DeVore and Eric Bergren finding “it was exactly the kind of story I would want to make, a historical biography about a wretched soul who had nonetheless lived an extraordinary life” – the true story of 19th century grossly deformed John Merrick, known as the Elephant Man working in a sideshow in London who was treated by a kind Dr. Treves.

“When I wrote this, I was teaching a course in independent film and using my experience with this film to teach,” says Sanger. “I realized that it would be great to get these stories down and put them in a book.” For every movie he makes, Sanger keeps a notebook about the crew, the schedules, what they ordered for lunch, and other details. He was able to tap into notes from 30 years ago that brought the whole process up fresh in his mind, including the strong emotions that gripped him upon first reading the script..

Brooklyn born Jonathan Sanger is a highly respected producer and director of major films, television series, and theatrical productions, having earned twenty Academy Award nominations, and winning three.

In 1976, Sanger moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for Lorimar Television on network television series The Blue Knight and Eight Is Enough. In 1978 he was Mel Brooks’ Assistant Director on High Anxiety, which led to a long professional association. For Brooks’ wife, Anne Bancroft’s feature directorial debut film Fatso, Sanger served as Associate Producer. During this period Sanger had acquired the rights to the script of The Elephant Man – his first production which led to a successful career in both producing and directing films – films such as Frances, Without Limits, Vanilla Sky, Flight of the Navigator, The Producers, and Code Name: Emerald.

The Bottom Line: Tap into your friends, family, extended network and don’t be bashful about getting your written work delivered to the right person. Make a list of ‘who you know’ and get to it!

MAKING THE ELEPHANT MAN – A PRODUCER’S MEMOIR, in Paperback and Kindle is available on Amazon or on the author’s website www.JonathanSangerProductions.com

Introduction

In the History of the education in the Third World, no one has been so successful like Mohammad Bahmanbeigi. In 1921, Mohammad Bahmanbeigi was born in a nomadic but noble family into the Iranian Qashqai tribe in the southern region of Fars, namely, Chah-Kazem. As a result of continuous struggle between central governments and nomadic landlords, his father was arrested and exiled to Tehran when Mohammad was a small child. Some days later, the small Mohammad and his mother were exiled to Tehran as well. There he had chance to study. His genuine talent helped him to become a top student. He had many opportunities to become a rich, famous and successful man. But he chose to go back to his tribe and help his fellow tribespeople to read and write. This was the way his sacred campaign started. He established Talimat e Ahayer (Education of Nomads) in the late fifties to give a systematic shape to his campaign. He expanded his activities and after decades of endeavor, he educated hundreds of thousands of children of nomads in all the country and particularly among the south-western nomads. After the 1979 revolution, he was accused of collaborating to SAVAK (the Iranian Intelligence Agency of the previous regime) but later was exculpated, though he was deprived of his beloved activity, which was educating nomads. Now, it is three decades that his activities have stopped. After three decades, this study manages to give a big picture of what happened during 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as a result of his efforts.

Background

When Bahmanbeigi started his campaign, the land of Lor and Qashqai nomads in south-western part of Iran was suffering hundreds of years of seclusion. Surrounded by huge mountains, they were forgotten long ago even by ruthless conquers like Arabs and Mongols. Their mountainous region has made farming hard. The lack of agricultural devices, as well as the extremely unsafe sphere has exacerbated the situation. Instead, these very mountains with valuable reservoirs of water had helped them to be good stockbreeders. Each tribe had two territories, one in the heights for summer and the other in the low lands for winter. Therefore, they could enjoy a pleasant weather in all seasons and their herds also were always provided with “grass” which becomes the title of a documentary by Merian C. Cooper in 1925 recording hardships nomads had in going to their winter territory.

This has been the situation for tens of hundreds of years. The introduction of the gun to the region had helped people to defend themselves against beast animals, hunt more easily, and secure their tents. But, this technology took something else away from them: peace. Without having a clear ideological stance like what happened in Kurdistan and Azarbaijan, nomads frequently challenged the central government. They wanted nothing but food, though some of their nobility had very progressive ideas. As a result, several wars happened between tribes in the south western Iran and the central government without a meaningful victory for any of them. This is obvious that in this situation any development would be hard to achieve.

Talimat e Ashayer

Let us come back to Mohammad Bahmanbeigi and put him in this context. The exile of small Mohammad and his family to Tehran had a crucial impact on the lives of millions of people, not least the nomad themselves. Mohammad asked himself why people in the big cities enjoy good life, education and healthcare while my relatives in their territory are grappling with disease, hunger and superstitions. This question shaped Mohammad’s mind -as well as life- and he tried to think of a solution, a solution which he found later in the education and described in this poetic fashion in 1959:

The key to our problems is to be found in the alphabet and now I invite you to a new rising. After years of travelling, studying and compassion and distress, I have come to this conclusion and invite you to a sacred rising: A literacy campaign for nomad people.

In the name of these people, with these shining eyes, furrowed skins, poor cloths, hunger stomachs, with these smile-less lips… I ask you to rise up and teach day and night and every time, teach, learn, and teach, and learn…

In 1951 Bahmanbeigi established his first mobile school for some of his relative’s children in a small tent. Though this was a weak beginning, he was successful in acquiring experiences regarding his idea. He went to get the education authorities financial support but was dismissed. Then he approached the Article IV of Truman bureau. They accepted to provide tents and some other facilities provided that Bahmanbeigi accepts the responsibility of paying the salary of the teachers. Disappointed but determined, he turned to the nobility of the tribes and introduced his plan. Some of them welcomed his idea and he started to employ the few literate people in the tribes in order to teach.

After only one year, the outcome was so brilliant that Bahmanbeigi could ratify the literacy campaign program in the Ministry of Education although the article 4 of this bill had emphasized that the teachers must be paid by the nomads. Unfortunately, this success was eclipsed by the 1953 coup against the democratically elected Mosadegh. The country fell into the chaos and the long forgotten nomads were forgotten again.

Political instability of the country, famine and lack of knowledge made the project hard but Bahmanbeigi continued his campaign. In 1955, after a visit of some education authorities of the Fars province to mobile classes, Bahmanbeigi convinced them to take shoulder of paying the teachers. They gave him a small office in the department of education of Fars province which later became the supreme department of nomad education. In 1957 the first Nomad College of the country was established to provide new teachers for different tribes. After 22 years of activity, more than 9000 teachers graduated and went to teach nomad children. Bahmanbeigi knew well about the hardships of living among nomads. Therefore, only nomad’s children had right to enroll in this college. After all, the teacher would be a nomad himself.

Bahmanbeigi did not neglect women. In 1964, six girls entered the College to become teachers. Bahmanbeigi encouraged her own daughter to enroll in order to give motivation to other girls. It is estimated that between 800-900 girls graduated from this College. Also, Bahmanbeigi personally moved among tribes and encouraged families to enroll their girls in the schools, just like boys. Female teachers were very important in changing paternalistic views towards women in tribes.

In 1967 there were more than 550 nomad schools in different tribes. Tribes children were very good in learning but after graduation they had no option but becoming a shepherd. Only few had chance to attend a high school and make their way to a university program. Previous to 1967, Bahmanbeigi chose few of the best graduates of his school to attend a high school in Shiraz and reside in his personal house beside his family. But at this year, he could establish the first high school especially for nomad children. The entrance exam was so hard because only few of thousands of children could attend. The graduates of this high school were among the most effective people to affect the Iranian history by the coming years. Nine out of ten students of this high school could pass the cross country exam and enter the universities in their first attempt. Overall, about 97 percent of these students could enter the universities by their first or second attempt. This is a record that is hardly imagined to be broken by any high school in the future.

Thanks to Bahmanbeigi’s endeavors, the scope of Talimat e Ashayer extended to other areas of the country. The graduates of Talimat e Ashayer went to Khoozestan, Bakhtiari, Lorestan, Kurdistan, Arasbaran, and Shaahsavan to teach children with different ethnicities.

Education for nomads was now in its heyday. But, it seemed that it was not enough. An obstacle was removed to reveal other obstacles behind it. The maternal death rate was considerably high and the economic structure of the region has made it impossible for those nomads who has been recently graduated from universities to find a job in their region.

In the early 1970s, Bahmanbeigi turned to other priorities, while retaining his interest in education. In 1971 the first center of technical college of carpet twining was established for nomad girls. Two years later the first technical academy started its work with equipped labs and educational facilities. In 1975 the first institute of obstetrics started its work under the surveillance of Ministry of Health to educate midwives to work especially among tribes. Also, he frequently won grants to establish mobile libraries for nomad children. As a result of these developments, in 1974 he won the UNESCO’s Nadezhda K. Krupskaya literacy prize.

After the 1979 revolution, the Bahmanbeigi and his system were removed from the education system of newly established regime. He also was accused of being an agent of previous regime. But, he was not trialed and he lived a relatively peaceful life until his death in May 2010. He left at list half a million literate nomad behind. He also wrote several books regarding living a nomadic life and educational memoirs of more than three decades of his literacy campaign.

Controversies

However, educating nomad children was not the calm of easy security. The most challenging problem on the way of Bahmanbeigi was those who were in power. In fact, the corrupt system of feudalism and disciplinary, had made the ignorance a good way to make money for those who were in power. It is obvious that educated people who are aware of their rights won’t give up against unreasonable demands of landlords and gendarmes. Therefore, these two groups were among the most immediate opponents of Bahmanbeigi, though there were exceptions, like for example in the case of colonel Tazhdeh.

Other critics say that the world in that time was in the path of development and Bahmanbeigi’s successes were only a small stream in a huge stream. Even if there was no Bahmanbeigi, the nomads would try to integrate in the global community anyway. The number of half a million literate nomads after the work of Bahmanbeigi is also contested by these group. Some claim that the number of people educated by Bhamanbeigi’s schools was not more than 200 thousands.

The third group of critics question the intentions of Bahmanbeigi. They claim that Bahmanbeigi was an American agent whose assignment was to educate people and modernize them to become consumers of American products. Education could also calm down people who lived in one of the hardest regions of the world to fight. For sure, educated people will not jeopardize their lives against a central government in which their fellow tribesmen were working as employees and even commanders. Some of members of this group go further and call him a CIA agent in the Middle East.

And, finally, the fourth group of his critics are Islamist people who believe that by enrolling children from traditionalist and religious tribes and subjecting them to Western teachings, Bahmanbeigi was trying to paganize them.

Bahmanbeigi has rarely responded to his critics. But, graduates of his schools and his associates have always tried to acquit him. They say that if Bahmanbeigi had any tie to United States officials and CIA, it would be revealed after the revolution and disclosure of official documents. They also say that process of development in the world was not something exclusive to Bahmanbeigi’s era and started much earlier. How such development, they ask, did not occur before or parallel to his efforts? They also believe that accusation of paganizing student has no ground and no record of such endeavors to attack beliefs of students is available.

Conclusion

What happened? Was it a unidimensional development based on education? I think no, and this was the mystery of the success of Bahmanbeigi and his Talimat e Ashayer. By the time he started his efforts, the dominant paradigm of development was ruling the development literature. It was only in 70s that critics started seriously condemning old development models like trickle down and capital intensive (see for example Melkote and Steeves, 2001). But, instead of compulsory nuance of the existing development programs of that time, he chose a participatory model. He tried to recruit his teachers, educators, midwives, physicians,… among the nomads. He also asked local people to provide initiatives for a better education.

Also, he was aware of cultural problems among nomads and prevented powerful people to examine their influence on teachers and schools. Although Bahmanbeigi was a prudent person, he never accepted any recommendation by any person. Also, he was very sensitive about graduates of his high school and continued financial as well as emotional support of them after entering the universities across the country.

The case of Bahmanbeigi could be known as one of the most -if not the most- successful cases in education in the third world. People who were kept hundreds of years behind their neighbors, only after a decade exported teachers to previously more cultured regions. This is a case in which development happened via education. Perhaps Bahmanbeigi knew that when he said “The key to our problems is to be found in the alphabet.”

References

Melkote, S. R., & Steeves, H. L. (2001). Communication for development in the Third World: Theory and practice for empowerment. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Universal availability of publications

Kemp (1990) lamentably noted that insufficient attention has been given by private organizations, governments or bilateral and international development agencies to the proposal of making document provision a priority in poor countries. Raising the awareness of the importance of reading in particular is very important if they are to assign adequate resources to this vital area of activity.

Line (1990) observed that the battle for availability of publications which has just begun in some countries will hardly be over in this age of information explosion. The concepts of universal availability of publications and universal bibliographic control are attributed to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions which were part of the core programme. By comparison with the less developed parts of the world, the developed countries like Britain have a near perfect situation.

In Sierra Leone, the picture is a gloomy one. This could be attributed to the absence of union catalogues and the lack of enforcement of the legal deposit legislation. In its literal sense, the aim of the universal availability of publications is very difficult to achieve as students and researchers fail to obtain books, journals or research reports within the time necessary.

Read (1990) re-echoed the fact that many developing countries are under-supplied with textbooks and other reading materials. In order to buttress this assertion, he cited the situation in Zaire, Madagascar and China. He believed the advent of aid-funded text book projects has ameliorated the situation in developing countries. He took a very positive stand based on studies which showed significant increase in availability.

Universal bibliographic control

Ochola (1984) noted that universal bibliographic control is an aspect of development. A major problem identified was the mission of bibliographic compilation from the priorities drawn up by the colonial administration in Kenya. The Kenya National Bibliography could therefore be seen as a creation and it is in an embryonic stage.

Kwei (1988) gave a more specific treatment when he cited the situation in a developing country like Ghana where a lot of constraints are encountered in the attempt to provide excellent bibliographic services. Among problems identified are the lack of money, shortage of professional librarians, and union catalogues, government and public apathy to bibliographical work, lack of transportation facilities and the developing stage of publishing, printing and the book trade. All is not lost. In order to improve the situation, the bibliographic agency could form part of the national bibliography. Ghanaians must be current and should not be left behind in the forward march to take information to those who need it.

Otike (1989) clearly supported the value of currency of information if bibliographic data is to be fully effective. Any national bibliography which is in arrears cannot hope to meet this challenge. Among problems identified in Kenya are the current state of publishing, enforcement of the legal deposit legislation and the production of the Kenya National Bibliography. These problems can only be solved by the co-operative efforts of information workers, publishers, printers and above all, decision-makers.

Intner (1990) argued that a sound information environment must be created. It is clear that good bibliographic instruction will be advantageous to library users who will be encouraged to see libraries firstly as related to their needs and secondly turn to librarians for advice which will ultimately enrich the library profession. It is against such a background that the librarian in an academic institution should acquire materials for the ultimate development of his collection.

Mahoney (1990), recognizing the importance of availability of information as an essential basis for development stressed the importance of providing national bibliographies especially in developing countries. She argues that up-to-date issues of a national bibliography provide among other things, model records, a selection tool and cultural state of the nation to the country concerned and the world at large. In reality however, coverage of a nation’s print is an impossibility in almost all developing countries.

Wilson (1993) warned that people need current information. In other words, maintaining currency is an occupational requirement of librarians and, by extension, all other information professionals. The national bibliography of a developing country should therefore be current in order to be an essential bibliographic tool.

The importance of users

Brindley (1988) identified the needs of users as the primary basis on which to provide or acquire documents and render services. The selection of document, she stresses , must be related to the current needs of users. In other words, the libraries need as a starting point to relate acquisition policies to the importance of meeting current user needs.

Cabutey-Adodoadji’s (1988) current perception of collection development is towards user needs. The key environmental factor for collection development is the very high level of the expectation of the public. This reinforces the importance of the needs of potential users. It must be noted that university libraries must make a conscious attempt to meet the research interests of their clientele which include students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and members of the academic staff. Paradoxically, budgets fall, even in some western universities, far short of what would be necessary to cater for the totality of such needs. Research students and their supervisors must be realistic about what they really need to know.

Ifidon (1994), in discussing the role of acquisition in the African University Library, clearly outlined the importance of the different categories of users. Materials must therefore be provided to meet the academic needs of undergraduate and post-graduate students and lecturers if the university library is to fulfill its dynamic mission.

Spiller (1991) observed that the principle of books and, by extension, document provision is invariably concerned with service to a particular set of people or users. The needs of the various users must provide the basis for acquisition. The librarian is thus faced with the daunting task of identifying the needs of the different sets of users.

Debate between librarian and faculty on the selection of library materials

Avafia (1985) noted that in practice responsibility for selection of library materials varies from one university to the other. The librarians at the University of Alexandria have no say in what is acquired for the different faculty libraries and it seems as if the academic staff on the other hand are not very enthusiastic about the selection of books for the central library. Selection of periodicals is done after discussions in faculty meetings. He asserted, after interviewing many university librarians that it is the joint responsibility of librarians and faculty to select materials for the library.

Martula-Millson (1985) commenting on this acrimonious debate studied circulation patterns in the college setting. It is concluded that for history books, faculty and librarians are equally effective as selectors. This conclusion should however not be generalized because it was based on a specific topic.

Sellen (1985) was a bit diplomatic in her presentation of the debate. She clearly examined the works, first of writers who found that librarians selected a greater number of titles that were used and secondly, those who noted that faculty selected more titles that were eventually used. Others noted that there was really no significant difference in the books selected either by faculty or librarians that were eventually used. She ended up not taking sides in the debate.

Schreiner-Robles’ (1988) research on the selection and acquisition of library materials in medium-sized academic libraries in the United States should not be generalized. In her estimation, the academic libraries little more than rely on faculty requests for materials in foreign languages. Faculty members thus play a very important role in recommending titles to be purchased.

Vidor (1988) and Futas (1988) extended the investigation when they based their studies on the effectiveness of circulation of library materials. They ended up taking a neutral stand. In their conclusion, they noted that they could not state with any reasonable degree of precision that librarians are appreciably more effective or efficient than their counterparts in the building of a sound library collection in the university.

Ali (1989) presented the background to the development of science and technology in six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, namely, Buhrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qutar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The problems faced are two-fold, vendors and geographical distance. It is noted that the distance between the vendors and librarians is a major problem and the author suggest that western publishers should publish Middle East editions of their publications as is sometimes done in India, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Haider’s (1989) presentation of the situation of book selection in the university libraries in Pakistan was a radical departure from the view of others who either sat on the fence or presented a double case. The responsibility for selection, he maintained, rested squarely with the chairmen of the teaching departments. They are the final authorities in relation to selection and recommends titles for their respective subjects.

Hannaford (1990) opined that a good deal of research needs to be done on the debate between the librarian and faculty with regards to book selection. It is fashionable, the author maintains, to malign faculty selection of library materials. Even though he initially presented librarians to be better selectors, he ended up being suspicious of his preconceived notion. He argues that to claim that the former are better selectors will be based more on emotion rather than on evidence.

Strauch (1990) argued that only one side is right in the debate as to why librarians or faculty are better selectors. Librarian selection versus faculty selection, the writer believes, is an old debate which must come to an end. Librarians must be responsible for selection simply because it is they who are responsible, or better still, accountable for what is acquired. In her estimation, the right side is that of the librarian.

Library co-operation with vendors

Lee (1991) argued that acquisition and ultimately collection development efforts can be enriched by co-operation with vendors as libraries often lack either the time or automated systems to effectively and efficiently carry out collection development activities. The wide range of selection services can be of tremendous advantage to the academic librarians but they must be informed customers who not only investigate options but actively participate in designing and using the service.

Racz (1991) and Root (1991) studied the trends affecting vendor selection and attacked the traditional practice of academic libraries of putting more emphasis on monograph acquisition than serial purchases. Librarians are now faced with the daunting task of closely examining factors in relation to the acquisition of serials. Consolidation is introduced to save money, receive better management report and also because librarians are not justified to maintain either a separate overseas vendor or two domestic vendors.

Shirk (1991) queried the nature of librarian-vendor relationships although such relationships are beneficial to both sides. An acquisitions librarian turned vendor, the author suggests that the bid system has not achieved any of its primary purposes and advocates as an alternative the development of a strategic alliance in which each side will eventually share responsibility for good communication. The librarian will ultimately have a stable source for books and the vendor a stable albeit customer base.

Cost of library materials

Obiagwu (1990) asserted that West African libraries are facing unending currency problems and the attendant gross inadequacy of learning materials. He noted that the unavailability of foreign exchange for the acquisition of library materials in Nigeria is not a recent phenomenon. The situation is more critical now than ever as a result of the inadequacy of book votes for the purchase of locally available materials.

Ola-Roberts (1989) reviewed the effects of the devaluation of currency in West Africa and noted that the considerable drop in the value of the Sierra Leonean currency (Leone) during the period reviewed. This economic problem which underlies library acquisitions in Sierra Leone prevails in other countries in West Africa though at varying degrees of intensity. Massive depreciation of local currency, coupled with the increasing cost of periodicals and the dwindling revenues in the book fund, leave the university library in a helpless and hopeless state as far as purchases are concerned.

Nwafor (1990) used the Nigerian experience to illustrate the devastating effects of the economies of third world Countries on their educational systems and university libraries. University education is being rendered meaningless as a result of irrelevant text books and the astronomically high cost of the few available ones. Universities still get the same vote they used to get. People rely on books in the library which are not replenished simply because the university has no money. This is unrealistic when one considers the cost of books and the value of the local currency (naira).

Obiagwu (1990) highlighted the repercussions of the structural adjustment programme on library acquisitions in West Africa. Although most of the illustrations were made from the Nigerian experience, it is far from surprising that the pinch is felt all over West Africa. Inflationary pressures, the reduced book vote and the astronomically devalued local currency all conspire to frustrate the aims of the academic library. This is because the parent institution is under-funded by the appropriate authority. Secondly, the stipulated percentage of the recurrent annual budget an academic library is entitled to is not adhered to. In summary, academic libraries have always suffered cut-backs in book votes.

Schrift (1991) discussed the dynamic relations between librarians, publishers and vendors in a hot climate of expanding needs and contracting resources. Eyebrows are raised under the discussion of publishers, whose unique position should be treated cautiously. They should not be regarded as allies of librarians because benefits from increased efficiencies will not be passed on, nor will journal price hikes stimulated by a weak currency be reversed when the currency gains. Cost of information will hardly be reduced by technological innovation since access will be controlled by the same extortive publishing segment.

Summary

It is evident from the review that there is a book and information famine in developing countries and that the battle for better availability of library materials will continue for a considerable period. University libraries do not have sufficient funds to purchase library materials. In theory, a national bibliography provides coverages of a nation’s publications but in practice the bibliography is a poor reflection of its definition.

The role of acquisition and collection development is not only to plan a stock acquisition programme but to make it relevant to immediate and future needs of the users. Born (1993) rightly observed that “a closer co-operation has developed between departments as librarians assess and evaluate library collections to ensure the current and future needs of students and scholars are met” (p.125). The old debate between librarian and faculty on selection of materials must end. The former should be responsible for selection of materials to satisfy the users since s/he will be held accountable for what is required. Devaluation of local currency significantly affects the cost of library materials. Generally, it is taken for granted that University libraries do not have sufficient funds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ali, S.N. (1989). “Acquisition of scientific literature in developing countries: Arab-Gulf countries”. Information Development. 5(2), pp. 108-14.

Avafia, K.E. (1985). “University libraries: the African scene”. In M. Wise (ed). Aspects of librarianship: a collection of writings. London: Mansell Publishing Limited. pp. 1-30.

Born, K. (1993). “The role of the serials vendor in the collection assessment and evaluation process”. Journal of Library Administration. 19(2), pp.125-138.

Brindley, L. (1998). “Summing up”. In S. Corral(ed). Collection development: options for effective management. London: Taylor Graham. pp.141-151.

Haider, S.J.(1989). “Acquisition and scientific literature in developing countries: Pakistan”. Information Development. 5(2), pp.85-98.

Hannaford, E. (1990). “Tilting at windmills: selection in college libraries”. Collection Management. 12(1- 2), pp.31-35.

Ifidon, B.I. (1994). “The book scarcity in Nigeria: causes and solutions”. African Journal of Library, Archive and Information Science. 4(1), pp.55-62.

Intner, S.S. (1990). “The public and bibliographic instruction : missed opportunities in creating a positive information environment”. The Reference Librarian. 3(1),pp. 15-30.

Kemp, I. (1990). “Can document provision be a priority in poor countries”. In D.J. Membrey (ed). Nothing to read: crisis of document provision in the Third World. Birmingham International and Comparative Librarianship of the Library Association. pp. 19-25.

Kwei, C. (1988). “Bibliographic control: the international concept and the national effort”. Ghana Library Journal. 6(1), pp. 31-39.

Lee, L.K. (1991). “Library/vendor co-operation in collection development”. The Acquisitions Librarian. 5(1), pp. 181-190.

Line, M.B. (1990). “Universal availability of publications in less developed countries”. In D.J. Membrey (ed). Nothing to read: crisis of document provision in the Third World. Birmingham International and Comparative Librarianship of the Library Association. pp. 35-43.

Mahoney, M. (1990). “The developing country national bibliography essential: essential bibliographic tool or anachronism?” In D.J. Membrey (ed). Nothing to read: crisis of document provision in the Third World. Birmingham International and Comparative Librarianship of the Library Association. pp. 77-81.

Martula-Millson, C. (1985). “The effectiveness of book selection agents in a small academic library”. College and Research Libraries. 46(1), pp. 294-310.

Nwafor, B. (1990). “Funding third world university libraries”. In D.J. Membrey (ed). Nothing to read: crisis of document provision in the Third World. Birmingham International and Comparative Librarianship of the Library Association. pp. 13-18.

Obiagwu, M.C. (1990). “Foreign exchange and library collection in Nigeria”. Information Development. 3(3). pp. 154-160.

Ochola, F.W. (1984). “The Kenya national bibliography”. International Cataloguing. 13(3), pp.20-35.

Ola-Roberts, N. (1989). User and borrowing patterns at Fourah Bay College: 1970/71-1984/85. Freetown: Fourah Bay College.

Otike, J.N. (1989). “Bibliographic control in Kenya”. Information Development. 5(1). pp. 23-28.

Racz, T.M. & Root, T.A. (1991). “Trends affection vendor selection: one academic library’s experience”. The Acquisition Librarian. 5(1), pp.53-61.

Sellen, M. (1985). “Book selection in the college library: the faculty perspective”. Collection Building. 5 (2), pp.29-36.

Schneider-Robles, R. (1988). “Collection development in foreign literatures at medium-sized academic libraries”. Library Resources and Technical Services. 32(1), pp. 18-33.

Schrift, L. (1991). “The 1990s: Is there any room left”. The Acquisitions Librarian. 5(1), pp.29-36.

Shirk, G.M. (1991). “The wondrous web: reflections on library acquisition and vendor relationships”.

The Acquisitions Librarian. 5(1), pp.1-8.

Spiller, D.(1990). Book selection: principles and practice. London: Library Association Publishing.

Strauch, K. (1990). “Librarian versus faculty selection: the good meets the bad and the ugly”. Collection Management. 12(1-2), pp.37-41.

Vidor, D.L. & Futas, E. (1988). “Effective collection developers: librarians or faculty?” Library Resources and Technical Services. 32(1), pp.127-136.

Wilson, P. (1993). “The value of currency”. Library Trends. 41(4), pp.632-643.

Key components in and organisation’s success will depend on a great degree on how well you;

• can gather and interpret information
• adapt to change
• manage staff and resources
• promote your business
• look after customers and more.

This is where forward planning can help you.

A colleague once told me that ‘even a bad plan is better than no plan at all’. A bad plan at least shows that you have given some thought to the direction you want to go in.

A good plan takes time and effort, especially the first time you do one and many business owners or operators think they don’t have the time, or don’t see the value in it. But believe me… it is worth the time and effort!

It is an opportunity for you to build solid foundations for your business, based on known facts and these allow you to:

• be very accurate in your plans and future projections.
• avoid unforeseen pitfalls and crisis situations
• spend your money and/or other resources in the most effective way
• stay ahead of the market
• make the most of every opportunity
• be pro active and choose your own course rather than be reactive and follow everyone else
• stop wasting time, effort and resources on inefficient processes and more

Good business planning involves:

• looking at what you’ve done in the past few years
• looking at where you are now
• drawing conclusions from the above two points
• based on that information determining your objective for the coming year/s
• setting key strategies to help achieve the objective

Analysis of Past Performance

In this section of a business plan you look at the past year (or two) to take a good look at what worked and what didn’t. Where you came from is every bit as important as where you are going. You need to look at:

• What promotional activities did you run– for example did you have any discount deals, special offers etc?
• What worked? What didn’t?
• Why did the activities work so well, not so well – find the reasons
• Advertising campaigns
• (again) What worked? What didn’t?
• Why did the campaigns work so well, not so well – find the reasons
• What mediums did you use? (ie Newspapers, magazines, radio. List the actual companies you used as you may have used a number of different ones.)
• How much did you spend on them?
• Which ones generated enquiries and which ones didn’t?
• Did you keep track of the enquiries, if so, what were the results?

Keeping statistics on where enquiries come from can help you to use your advertising budget in the most effective way. There’s no point in spending a lot of money on advertising on television, for example, if most of your enquiries come from newspaper ads or word of mouth. Asking customers where they heard about you and keeping a record is the best way of determining advertising effectiveness.

• Were there any noticeable or unusual increases or decreases in your business? If so, why did they happen?
• Were the increases/decreases at any particular time of the year, or did they affect any particular product or service. If so why? Do a detailed analysis of product and service sales. How many of each individual product or service did you sell? Break these figures up by month (as shown in the graph above) as this will, again, show up regular high and low periods which will then allow you to forward plan. For example in high sales periods you know that you will have to order more stock and put on more staff whereas in low demand periods you order less. You can plan for these peaks and troughs in advance… because you have statistically shown that they are coming. An example of a detailed sales analysis is shown on page 15.
• Did your competitors do anything that impacted on your business? If so, what was it?
• How did it affect you?
• Are they likely to do it again?
• What did you (or could you) do about it?
• Budgets – income and expenses. This is extremely important and we will look at this in detail later in the document. Over the years these statistics will build an extremely accurate picture of your expenditure habits and sales that will show trends. With this information you can anticipate what is going to happen and proactively avoid any pitfalls or take advantage of upcoming opportunities. You can forecast – with a fairly high degree of accuracy – how much you will earn and spend in the coming year. While you might have an accountant to look after the “book keeping” for you, it is essential that you know exactly where your money is being spent and what your income is made up of.

The answers to these and any other questions relevant to your particular industry and business will give you a solid base upon which to build your plans for the future. Knowing how you got to where you are now can show you where you went right… and where you went wrong and gives a clear

Conclusions

Looking at the above information – what conclusions can you draw? For example:

• What will you do again next year and why?
• What won’t you do again next year and why?
• What will you do differently and why?
• Were there any lessons to be learned?
• What were they?
• Did you spend money on areas that were unsuccessful / unsuccessful?
• How much?
• Was this money well spent? Why / why not?
• Which products sold well / not well?
• Will you expand your product line?
• Are there any products you should discontinue?

Overview of Current Situation

It is very important to have a firm grasp of your current business environment. This is where you look at what is happening around you right now. Things that are happening that could potentially have an impact on your business. This will:

• give you a clear idea of any issues that might get in the way of your plans in the foreseeable future
• give you the opportunity and the time to take proactive action on any of these issues. This is much better than having to “react” to a change or problem that you didn’t anticipate.

It’s like having a high powered torch in a tunnel as opposed to a match!

A good overview of your current situation will involve looking at:

• the business environment in which you are operating
• your strong and weak points
• what your competitors are doing.

Business Environment Analysis

What exactly does “business environment” mean?

At its widest view point it can mean the sum total of a number of external and internal factors that affect you and the organisation you work for.

External factors could include such things as:

• Political issues. The stability of the Government can have a dramatic affect on the country’s or state’s economy.
• Legislative issues. New legislation can have an impact on your particular industry.
• Economic Trends. Are people spending money? What are they spending it on and so forth.
• Social Trends. What’s in.. what’s not? Safety & security issues as well as environmental protection issues etc are considered here.
• Competitors. What is your competition doing and how does that affect your business?
• Technology. This is an area that is constantly changing and can have quite an impact on the way business is done.

Also known as a PLESCT Analysis this is a thorough look at the world around you and the influences various issues may have upon your customers, suppliers and therefore your business. Doing this type of research means that you should not be caught unawares by new legislation, trends, changes or advancements. PLESCT stands for: Political, Legislative, Economic, Social, Competitor and Technology and looks at each of these sectors and how they may affect you positively – or negatively .

Doing a PLESCT Analysis

Some of the issues to consider when doing this analysis can include such things as:

Political issues. Here you should look at the general political stability of the country or state.

• Is there an election due? People get nervous around election times and are cautious about spending / investing their money
• Has there just been an election? In which case is the new government likely to make changes to the status quo – and if so, how will this affect you?
• International economic and social environment – how stable is the situation?

and so on….

For example changes in government often have an impact on businesses dealing with health, education and employment as existing programs are often changed or discontinued after an election, or new programs are introduced. International economic crises often have a big impact on our own market as does the increasing threat of terrorism or conflict situations.

Legislative issues

• Have any new legislations been passed / or amended that affect your industry?
• If so, what will you have to do to comply with them? How will these changes affect:
• staff?
• resources?
• policies and procedures?
• costs?
• Do you need to obtain any licenses or permits?

For example all staff working in the childcare industry, or dealing with under 18’s, must have a Blue Card, while industries dealing with tobacco or alcohol have very strict licensing laws.

Economic issues and trends

• What is the current economic climate?
• Does the current international climate have an effect on us?
• Are people spending more / less money?
• What are they spending it on?
• Are they likely to spend it on your product or service?

For example, the cost of living is currently rising faster than wages – things such as petrol prices and interest rates are increasing rapidly and people are thinking twice about spending their hard earned money.

Social issues and trends

• People will often be influenced in their purchase decisions by “what’s IN”, or may wish to keep pace with friends
• Environmental issues such as water saving, conserving energy and so on can have an impact on people’s purchasing decisions and so need to be considered
• Cultural issues also need to be considered – people from different countries and backgrounds have views and customs that may dictate how they make their purchasing decisions.

Competitor information – This is a very important part of your business environment analysis – you need to know as much as you can about your competitors. Questions you need to ask are:

• Who are they?
• Where are they located?
• How big are they (compared to you)?
• Do they have any affiliations?
• What are their promotional activities?
• How do they advertise?
• What do they advertise?
• How does their product range compare to yours?
• How do their prices compare to yours?
• How does their service compare to yours?
• What impact do they have on your business?

The answers to these questions will give you an overview of how you compare to them and what you can do to improve, and therefore win extra business.

If practical, a product/price comparison grid is an excellent way of keeping an eye on how you are faring against them.

It’s also a good idea to also do a SWOT Analysis on your main competitors (next section) – you need to be able to:

• counter their strengths
• take advantage of their weaknesses
• take advantage of the same opportunities and
• maximise their threats.

Technology –

• Is there any new technology available that will have an impact on the way you do business?
• Is it viable for you to adopt this new technology from a cost point of view?
• Can you afford not to adopt this new technology from an efficiency point of view?
• What impact does the internet and electronic means of communication have on your business?

Internal influences also need to be taken into considerations and could include:

• The overall economic state of your business. Is it doing well or not?
• Change of ownership or management of the business. This could have a big affect on the internal workings of the company and the company morale.
• Change of direction for the business. Are you offering new services or products?
• Updating or upgrading of the business. New premises, new equipment etc.
• Down or Upsizing. Are you laying off staff or hiring more?

Looking at the PLESCT Analysis and your internal influences in detail will give you a firm understanding of what is going on around you, and will help you:

• avoid unpleasant surprises that could be costly and damaging to your business
• stay a step ahead of your competitors
• help you take advantage of new opportunities quickly
• minimise the impact of negative trends…..

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis allows you to have a deep down, honest look at your organisation in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and to look at ways to make you stronger.

Strengths

What are your organisations strong points? For example:

• Do you have a great location?
• Is it easily accessible?
• Is it a long established company?
• Does it have an excellent reputation?
• Does if offer anything unique?
• Do you have a lot of repeat business?
• Are your prices the best?
• Are you a market leader?

and so on.

Weaknesses

What are your organisations weaknesses? For example:

• Is it a newly established business and not yet well known
• Is the infrastructure in the surrounding area poor making it difficult for customers to get to you?
• Are there any problems with suppliers or staff?

and so on. A point to remember is that not all weaknesses are negative and could be viewed as opportunities for improvement.

Opportunities

What opportunities are there that you could take advantage of? For example:

• New legislation opening new markets to you
• New housing or business developments bringing new customers into your area
• New technology that will make your production or processes more efficient
• Introduction of new product or service lines that will increase revenue

and so on.

Threats

What things could stop you from achieving your goals? For example:

• A new competitor in the marketplace
• A change in legislation that will mean major changes to your business practices.
• Re-zoning of your area or roadways changing and taking customers away from their current routes (where you are located)

and so on.

Conclusion:

When looking at your SWOT Analysis what areas need to be addressed?

• Strengths – what can you do to capitalise or maximise on them?
• Weaknesses – what can you do to minimise or negate their impact. Which of them can be turned around to become a strength?
• Opportunities – what do you need to do to take advantage of these opportunities? How can you ensure you get your slice of this opportunity?
• Threats – what can you do to avoid or minimise the impact of the threat?

The answers to these questions will form part of your business plan.

Objective for Next Year

Having looked at your past analysis and current business situation you should now have a solid grasp of your business and where it needs to go to remain successful. Your endeavours to date will now give you a clear direction – or objectives – to aim for in the next one to three years.

One overall objective will have a number of Key Strategies – each of which will, in turn, have a set of tactics designed to help achieve each strategy and therefore the ultimate goal.

• Your objective is WHERE you want to be in a given period of time (ideally 1 – 3 years0
• Your Key Strategies are WHAT you need to do to achieve the objective and
• Your Tactics are HOW you are going to go about actually making it work

Key Strategies

The objective, as stated, is where you want to be. The key strategies are the issues you need to address in order to achieve the objective; WHAT needs to happen. For example if your objective is to increase your revenue by 10% over the previous year, then typical key strategies could be:

1. Introduce a new product range to fill an identified market need
2. Decrease expenditure by 15%
3. Increase your customer base by 10%

All of which would work towards achieving the overall objective.

Obviously strategies will be determined by your own business and industry needs, so think about the things you need to do to achieve your goal.

Tactics

Each strategy will have a series of tactics (or steps) that need to be taken to make that strategy work. As mentioned, these will outline HOW you will go about each strategy. For example.

Key Stratey 2: Decrease expenditure by 15%

2.1 – Review all current suppliers to ensure we are getting the best product for the best price

• 2.1.1 Offer tender opportunitities to new suppliers
• 2.1.2 Research new suppliers via web, phone calls etc
• 2.1.3 Review all suppliers on an annual basis.

2.2 – Introduce new procedures regarding unnecessary printing of emails and other documents to decrease amount of paper being used

2.3 – Re-use single sided documents as scrap paper / memo pads to save paper

2.4 – All electrical equipment and lights to be turned off when not in use

2.5 – Review discounting policy and determine if this could be replaced in a more cost effective manner

2.6 – Review consumable usages

and so on.

Once again, the tactics will depend entirely on what strategies you need to fulfil and should be as detailed as possible. These tactics will form part of your action plan. If there is a cost involved, or extra resources, then detail them here.

Sales Forecast for Next Year

Forecasting is neither as scary nor as complicated as it sounds – if you keep accurate sales records!

Sales forecasting means making an “educated” guess on how much revenue you will earn in the coming year and for this reason accurate records are essential and indispensable. You need to know where your sales came from – by product or service and even by month or week of sale. This may seem overkill but eventually this data will give you a complete and detailed picture of exactly how your business is performing. For example spikes (up or down) in sales figures don’t happen for no reason – detailed statistics can show up these spikes which might be due to such things as:

• Promotional or advertising campaigns
• New trends
• New products
• Competitor initiatives
• Seasonal fluctuations
• Economic climates and so on….

For example – the Tourism Industry is very much affected by high and low seasons. They usually know well in advance when demand will increase or decrease. Travelling to Europe in their winter is low season and demand is not as high as going in their spring or summer time. Knowing this tourism operators can plan for these periods by developing specific products designed to increase sales and take advantage of increased demand in high season. They can also accurately forecast revenue because they have a solid knowledge of who their customers are and when they travel on a month by month basis.

The same may well apply to your own industry.

A review of past years sales statistics can give you an excellent idea of how your sales happen on a month by month basis. You can read the trends like a story – allowing you to estimate with a large degree of accuracy what sales you can expect to make and know how much you will need to spend in the next year.

But what good does all this do you in forecasting? When you have collected this data for a number of years you can start to build up a picture of:

• peaks and troughs in your sales
• popular and less popular products,
• popular times of the year
• effects of advertising and/or promotional campaigns and so on

Sales figures rarely drop (or increase) for no good reason.. the trick is to be aware of what is going on around you so that you know why increases or decreases happen. This is where your PLESCT and SWOT prove valuable.

Armed with all this accurate and well researched information you should be able to make a reasonably accurate prediction on how many of each product you will sell in the coming year.

Action Plan

Points for your action plan will come from the tactics. By putting them into an actual action plan, detailing what needs to be done, by whom and by when, you can ensure that each task (or tactic) is done on time and will therefore take you that step closer to reaching your objective.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is basically it!

By following these logical steps you can:

• gain a greater awareness of the environment in which you operate
• avoid major pitfalls that may come your way
• realise your strengths
• overcome weak points
• take advantage of opportunities that are presented to you and much more

Templates for building a better business plan can be found on www.lptraining.com.au

The most vehement criticism of Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol concerns the view of many reviewers that while the material about Freemasonry may be based on fact, the science is more akin to science fiction. Katherine Solomon, one of the main characters, is a scientist particularly interested in ‘mind over matter’ – the power of thought.

Brown makes it clear at the outside in a page entitled ‘FACT’, that “All rituals, science, artwork and monuments in this novel are real.” Nevertheless, a few of the more traditional scientists or science writers are already taking a swing at Brown for his impossible inventions and so-called junk science.

Although I cannot speak for many of the other elements in the book – Freemasonry, ancient symbols, alchemy or hidden keys – virtually all of his comments about physics, consciousness research, mind-over-matter experiments and intention are based on fact. Here’s a quick guide.

* Katherine’s lab uses random event generators. These machines, first developed by former Boeing physicist Helmut Schmidt, work like the space-age electronic equivalent of the toss of a coin. Most famously, REGs formed the basis of 25 years of consciousness research by Robert Jahn and psychologist Brenda Dunne at Princeton’s PEAR lab. They developed sophisticated studies examining whether human minds could affect highly sensitive equipment governed by a random process.

*Her lab also uses CCD cameras that have photographed a faith healer’s energy pouring from his hands. Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona has a CCD camera-the kind of sensitive camera equipment that can photograph faint light from outer space. He uses it to photograph biophoton emissions-a tiny current of light that has been discovered to emanate from all living things. He has photographed an increase in this light flowing from the dominant hands of healers while ‘sending’ healing.

* Katherine has a lab called the ‘Cube’, which is electromagnetically sealed so that human thought can’t penetrate it. Within the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California, there is a lab with a one-ton solid steel, double-walled, electromagnetically shielded enclosure, which blocks out all electromagnetic energy. It’s like the warmer equivalent of a meatpacking-plant refrigerator.

Katherine says her work was particularly inspired by:

* REG machines dotted all over the world, which recorded an effect on September 11, 2001, when the twin towers collapsed. Former Princeton PEAR researcher, psychologist Roger Nelson, runs the Global Consciousness Project, which has more than 50 REG machines running continuously all over the world. He compares changes in their random output during times of major catastrophic global events. He and his colleagues have studied hundreds of events and found that when people react with great joy or horror to breaking news, the machines seem to react as well. One of the biggest effects was seen during the events of 9/11.

* prayer groups that have healed people and also have affected REG machines. At least 150 studies of prayer and healing have shown positive results. Dr. Nelson’s Global Consciousness Project has tracked measurable changes in REG machines after many global prayer events.

* the CIA, which ran remote viewing programs that bordered on ancient magic. These programs, run by CIA partnering with Stanford Research Institute’s then directors, physicists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, conclusively demonstrated that even novices could see things beyond the reach of visual sense.

Katherine’s mind-over-matter experiments have affected:

* the growth rate of plants. University of Arizona psychologist Gary Schwartz working with web-based intention experiments, ran six such successful experiments, and presented the results before the Society for Scientific Exploration in June 2008.

* the direction fish swim. Psychologist William Braud, then of the Mind Science Institute in Texas, ran such experiments in the 1970s.

* chemical reactions in one’s own body. Hundreds of studies on biofeedback and the effects of intention on living systems carried out by scientists such as Braud or Marilyn Schlitz, president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, show that intention can affect just about every system of the body, including the autonomic nervous system, biochemistry and even brain waves. The evidence also shows that when people send intention to others, elements of their biological processes, such as heart activity, breathing rate, blood flow and brain waves, begin operating in synch.

* Katherine carries out thought experiments on water, showing that she can change the design of the crystals, depending on whether she uses a positive or negative thought. These refer to the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, author of The Hidden Messages in Water, who proposes that sending thoughts into water changes their crystalline patterns. Dean Radin of IONS successfully replicated Emoto’s work under controlled conditions.

I want to share a discovery that I made. Some new information about the death of Princess Diana.

This is not another wild, conspiracy theory. It is relevant and, I think, important information.

Now, I am just going to present it and let you decide on the answers to these two questions: Is there something substantial in this new information that I am sharing here? And, more importantly, what should be done with this information?

So let’s begin.

In the last eight or so months there was a court case in the United Kingdom involving a former Special Air Service soldier called Danny Nightingale, who was facing charges of illegally possessing a pistol and 338 rounds of ammunition. Police found the weapons in a rented house that Nightingale was sharing with another SAS serviceman known as soldier N. Authorities have never named soldier N for security reasons.

What is very clear about this case is that the Police were acting on a tipoff. It turns out the information they received about the firearms cache came from the estranged wife of soldier N.

But here’s where it gets very interesting. Information about the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition was not the only piece of information that soldier N’s wife told police.

She said her husband had confided in her, ironically after he had taken Princess Diana’s eldest son Prince William on an advanced driver’s course in 2008. This was clearly one of the jobs performed by serving members of the British SAS as protection for the Royal family. The face-to-face encounter that soldier N had with the Prince was enough to prick his conscience to the extent that he felt compelled to tell his wife what he knew about the death of Princess Diana.

During the police interview, the wife of soldier N recounted the information that was relayed to her. In the course of conversation she said she told her husband how wonderful it was that the Princes, William and Harry, were doing so well and it was a shame that their mother wasn’t alive to see it. Her husband, soldier N then told her one of his SAS colleagues had caused the collision in the Alma tunnel. She said he told her it was done in a tunnel to guarantee a fatal outcome, that people had been monitoring Dodi and Diana and that a bright light was shone in Henri Paul’s eyes to cause the collision with the concrete pylon.

Soldier N told his wife the hit had been carried out by SAS soldiers riding motorcycles. What is also interesting is that this conversation occurred two years before the breakdown of their marriage.

Clearly, these claims need to be treated with a deal of caution because they were coming from someone who was an aggrieved party in an acrimonious marriage breakup. People in that situation have been known to say and do anything to get back at a partner.

But what elevates her story beyond what a scorned woman might say, is that her version has been corroborated by a number of independent witnesses. People driving in the tunnel, who saw the collision involving Princess Diana’s Mercedes, also said they saw the bright light before the crash. One of the eye-witnesses was travelling in a taxi behind the Princess’s Mercedes when the crash occurred. He was in the perfect position to see everything. He spoke of the blinding, bright light.

It was also corroborated by one other very important witness, former MI 6 spy Richard Tomlinson. He told British investigators about a conversation he had with an MI 6 colleague who he said showed him a paper that outlined a plan to assassinate Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, that looked very much like what happened in the Alma tunnel. The plan involved making an attempt on Milosevic’s life when he was driving in a tunnel and using a strobe light to blind his driver causing a fatal crash. Tomlinson said he had been told by members of the SAS that the technique was called lamping. High density beams called Dazzler lasers are shone into the eyes of a target causing a road accident.

Again we should treat this information carefully. It should be disclosed that Tomlinson is an unreliable witness. He has changed his version of events in relation to other matters many times. But what makes his evidence compelling in relation to this was the fact that a large part of it was actually corroborated by British Operation Paget investigators and was included in the one thousand page Operation Paget report which investigated the Alma tunnel crash. They found and interviewed the MI 6 operative who gave Tomlinson the information. But they don’t ever name him. As you might expect, what he told British investigators was a mixture of confirmation of some points and denial on others. What is truly remarkable is that he confirmed that he wrote the position paper that talked of a planned assassination. But the MI 6 agent denied that Milosevic was the target. In fact he told British investigators, the paper had referred to another un-named person who would be targeted for assassination. He also denied that the assassination attempt would have involved the use of a strobe light to cause a fatal collision. But clearly what he told British investigators was confirmation that MI 6 was prepared to use assassination as a way of solving a political problem.

But I have now received new information that moves this story on quite a bit. The British Secret Service’s license to kill isn’t just the fertile imagination of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. It is real and it exists. It was confirmed in evidence given by a former head of MI 6 at the Coroner’s inquest in London. It is called a class 7 authorisation and it has to be approved by the British Foreign Secretary. But the circumstances where a Government sanctioned class 7 assassination can be undertaken is less than clear cut. it comes down to discretion and interpretation.

So, if MI 6 had the power to authorise a hit, is that what really happened to the Princess, Dodi Al Fayed and Henri Paul?

It turns out that while former MI 6 agent, Richard Tomlinson, gave information to British Operation Paget investigators, he gave far more detail to the French.

Tomlinson swore an affidavit to French Investigating judge Herve Stephan. Tomlinson says in the affidavit he is certain that Henri Paul was a paid informant for British intelligence. He also talks of a senior MI 6 officer, Richard David Spearman, being posted to Paris in the month before the Alma tunnel crash. But most importantly, Tomlinson gives further and better particulars about the assassination scenario he discussed with his MI 6 colleague. He also names the colleague as Doctor Nicholas Bernard Frank Fishwick,who he describes as an MI 6 officer in charge of planning Balkan operations. Tomlinson again repeats his assertion that the plan related to Slobodan Milosevic and that the plan was fully typed and attached to a yellow minute board. This small detail might appear inconsequential, but Tomlinson says it signified that it was a formal and accountable document.

In the affidavit, Tomlinson also details the names of the MI 6 agents who would receive the document. Tomlinson then goes on to name names to again show the credibility of the document. it was received by the head of MI 6 Balkan Operations Maurice Kendrick-Piercey, the MI 6 security officer for Balkan operations, John Ridde, the SAS liaison officer to MI 6 who Tomlinson doesn’t name, the head of MI 6’s Eastern European Controllerate, Richard Fletcher and the personal secretary to the then Chief of MI 6, Alan Petty.

In his affidavit, Tomlinson says the Fishwick document gives a political justification for assassinating Milosevic and then details three possible scenarios. The third scenario suggested that Milosevic be assassinated by causing his personal limousine to crash. Tomlinson says in his affidavit that Fishwick proposed to arrange the crash in a tunnel because the proximity of concrete close to the road would ensure the crash was violent enough to cause death or serious injury. it would also reduce the possibility of independent, casual witnesses. He said Fishwick suggested one way to cause the crash might be to disorientate the chauffeur using a strobe flash gun which is occasionally deployed by special forces against a helicopter pilot or terrorists. Tomlinson says MI 6 officers are briefed about this during their training. In his affidavit, Tomlinson also discloses that one of the paparazzi photographers who routinely followed the Princess of Wales was a member of what he described as UKN, a small group of part-time MI 6 agents who provide miscellaneous services to British intelligence including surveillance and photography.

In his affidavit Tomlinson also says that after he disclosed this information to the French investigating Judge, MI 6, the CIA and French Intelligence took steps aimed at preventing him from making any further disclosures. He says French intelligence arrested him at gunpoint inside his room at a Paris hotel, cracking one of his ribs in the process. Tomlinson says he was interrogated for 38 hours but was never shown an arrest warrant or given any kind of justification for his arrest. His laptop and his electronic planner were confiscated and given to MI 6 who took them back to the UK. Tomlinson says it took six months for his property to be returned to him. He also says when he travelled to the United States to be interviewed by NBC he was arrested by immigration officials as soon as the plane landed and served with deportation orders. He says immigration officials told him they were acting on the instructions of the CIA.

All of this might go some of the way in explaining why Tomlinson seems to have trouble sticking to a particular story but it is a question only he could answer.

Which brings me back to my original proposition and the two questions I asked. Is there something substantial in these revelations? and, if there is, what should be done with the information?