Spiritual Predictions

~HOPE IS BELIEVING IN SPITE OF THE EVIDENCE...
AND WATCHING THE EVIDENCE CHANGE.~
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OCTOBER 2001:

Calling Houdini's ghost - If there's a way to cheat death, Harry Houdini vowed he'd send a message from the Great Beyond. This Halloween, loyal followers of the famed magician will try once again to summon his spirit.

Good times instead of ghouls: Real horrors replace years of pretend fears, but the Halloween parties go on. Public rituals help guide us through the confusion of unexpected events.

It's time to build bridges - "If the cycle of violence is widened globally, to include 1.2 billion Muslim people against over 2 billion Christian people and 15 million Jewish people, the century is doomed. All achievements of humanity over the millennia of civilization will be erased. It is the time to ask where we go from here to build a better world for our children and their children."

"Winning the military struggle against Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors, if and when we do, will not end the threat of terrorism against the United States. That will require, in the long run, something more difficult than military action: a profound effort by America and the West to ease the poverty and misery of the developing world...no one can doubt that the desperate conditions of life in Afghanistan provided nurturing ground for terrorism....Desperate populations are beating at our doors and are menacing our ease of life. We have to care."

Uncertainties make our lives challenging but worth living - "One of the perplexing aspects of life is its uncertainties. We cannot see over the hills or around the corners. We are not permitted to know what each new day will bring."

Did you become for religious after September 11th? Attendance to religious services has surged, but will it last?

Mormons in Manhattan flocked to their chapel in a high-rise building across from the famed Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts over the weekend to watch LDS General Conference, hoping to hear prophetic words about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Muslims Strive to Do Good Deeds Always.

Will tragedy change us for the better?

SEPTEMBER 2001:

Last week's terrorist attacks began a coast-to-coast wave of soul-searching, and now many Americans are making big changes in their personal lives, prodded by two lessons from the tragedy: Life is precious, and time is short.

We all know where different Christian groups stand on topics like war and the death penalty. But how do Wiccans feel about these issues? Pagan/Wiccan Guide Frances Donovan looks at the "harm none" principal and how it applies to self-defense.

The Mind of a Suicide Terrorist - The men who hijacked four passenger airliners on murderous missions were supremely trained and lived among us. What they were not, experts say, is crazy. Insanity would imply they did not understand the wrongfulness of their acts or the death and destruction that would result. "Most Middle Eastern religious terrorists believe that they are going on to a greater eternal reward through their actions" and that there is some type of "personal gain to be achieved through their homicidal and suicidal behavior."

Osama bin Laden: from U.S. friend to foe - To fully understand how Osama bin Laden became a world-famous suspected terrorism mastermind and an America-hater, it is necessary to see how he became an Islamic "holy warrior."

Islam means peace, not terrorism.

For years Islamic terrorists have justified their actions as being compelled by their faith. Osama bin Laden reportedly thanked Allah when he heard the news of this week's attack. What the Koran Really Says.

Churches With Credit Unions on Rise - there are "a growing number of faith-based credit unions around the country, created to help members and people in need. There are roughly 500 around the nation, set up in church basements and donated office space, and staffed mostly by volunteers. Most, but not all, are affiliated with churches in low-income neighborhoods."

An Indian woman with a stomach tumor miraculously recovered after being touched with a medal that had been in contact with Mother Teresa's body. Nuns from Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity order had prayed over the ill woman, Monika Besra, on Sept. 5, 1998, exactly a year after Mother Teresa died.

A Bible saved the life of a 16-year-old boy whose mother allegedly shot and killed his younger brother before seeking out the teenager at church and shooting him, police in North Fort Myers, Fla., said.


AUGUST 2001:

A chapel for dogs - a place of serenity where people can connect with themselves and their dogs, alive and dead.

It's not surprising events seem to occur out of the blue in 'clumps' and then not at all for a long time. A theory, called a Poisson process, gives amazingly good descriptions of random independent events. It has been used to explain and predict things like customer arrivals to a fast-food store, cosmic rays striking a planet, airplane mishaps and now shark attacks.

Since the beginning of time, human beings have wondered what happens to us when we die. Do we go to heaven or come back to live again? Here are some "eyewitness" accounts from near-death experiencers - and they're not all positive.

Crystals - Some say that stones have a healing power. Read or scroll to the end of the article for the basic crystal layout for a healing procedure.

Older patients wrestling with religious beliefs during an illness may have an increased risk of dying, according to a new study. Several studies have demonstrated a reduced risk of death with more frequent church visits, but this study is a first to examine negative associations with religion as a predictor of mortality. Preliminary analyses suggest that patients who 'stay stuck' in their spiritual struggles over time may be more likely to suffer declines in their physical and mental health than those who are able to resolve their struggles more quickly.

Mainstream religious organizations from the Catholic Bishops Conference to the African Methodist Episcopal Church are taking environmentalism more seriously than ever. The convergence of religion and the environment is summed up in one reverend's provocative question: What would Jesus drive?

. Malaysia will medicate youths it says belong to a Satanic heavy metal music cult. A news conference showed pictures of youths dressed in black leather, heavy-metal garb, some with faces painted black and white, reminiscent of the 1970s rock band Kiss.


JULY 2001:

Missouri Attorney General Charges TV Psychic, Miss Cleo With Consumer Fraud. "Miss Cleo should have seen this coming," Attorney General Jay Nixon said. "It doesn't take a crystal ball to realize that ripping off consumers isn't without consequences." Customers spent three minutes on the phone providing information including a name, address and phone number then were charged for time spent on hold waiting to speak with a psychic. Missouri residents who never requested the service, including deceased people, have received bills for Miss Cleo's services. The company also charged consumers for calls made by minors who did not receive parental consent. Arkansas' attorney general, sued the company last year for alleged fraud, saying the company had "used just about every trick in the book to mislead and overbill consumers."

Where do you draw the line between the marvelous and the lunatic? "Have we entered an era in which mind-sizzling technological leaps -- virtual reality, genetically altered rabbits that glow in the dark, digital actors, laboratory animals bred to grow human organs, stock-trading in your back yard, clones -- are now so common that even respected members of the scientific world are finding it increasingly difficult to separate miracles, magic, myths and madness?"

Hollywood studio Warner Bros. has had a spell cast on it for showing apprentice wizard Harry Potter riding his broomstick with the brush part at the back. A high priest of British White Witches said broomsticks should be ridden the other way around, and has wished for the film to do poorly at the box office until the studio admits it got it wrong.

Psychic medium, John Edward's Sci-Fi Channel cable talk show, "Crossing Over With John Edward" - the one where his guests are spirits - just went prime time. It's slated for national syndication at the end of August, coinciding with the release of his first novel. And he's been busy on the talk show circuit — Larry King, the "Today" show, "Dateline." A whirlwind of debate surrounds Edward: Is he really a spiritual guide? Is he exploitative?

Mother's warning to daughter prophetic - From the time Jennifer Smith announced she was going to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, her mother was worried.


JUNE 2001:

Queen Modjadji V, the "rain queen" of the Bolobedu tribe, believed by her people to have magical control over weather, has died. She was 64. The Bolobedu believe magical powers are passed down from queen to queen allowing her to transform clouds and create rain. The queen's power was so feared that the Bolobedu were left in relative peace for centuries despite the wars raging around the region.

Life after death - the brains of dead heart attack patients still function. A British scientist studying heart attack patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead. The research resurrects the debate over whether there is life after death and whether there is such a thing as the human soul. The possibility is certainly there "to suggest that consciousness, or the soul, keeps thinking and reasoning even if a person's heart has stopped, he is not breathing and his brain activity is nil."

Mystical Art of a Real Apocalypse - African Bushmen Appealed to the Spirits as Their World Crumbled.

Francis Bennett and her team of paranormal investigators say ghosts are real and they can prove it.

"While identifying the precise cause of every event is beyond us, those possessed of the deepest Torah knowledge are often able to discern the general direction of history. One reads today Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman's Ikvesa D'Mashicha, written in the 1930s, with astonishment at his prescience about current events. And in a famous passage written decades before the Holocaust, Rabbi Meir Simha of Dvinsk warned, "If the Jews of Berlin continue to mistake Berlin for Jerusalem, a destructive storm will go forth from there..."

With the assassination of King Birendra, yet another member of the Shah dynasty has fallen victim to what many believe as an astrological prophecy that no Nepal King will live beyond 55.

Nepal started exorcising the ghosts of its royal massacre with the first of two traditional Hindu ceremonies during which holy men will take the palace's woes into exile with them. A Brahmin priest, the holiest figure in the Hindu faith, broke one of the ancient religion's most sacred taboos in order to assume the woes of a troubled palace. The Hindu holy man left Katmandu for a life of exile in a ritual meant to cleanse the royal family. But another strange death marred the proceedings when a woman was trampled by the elephant that was to carry the priest.


MAY 2001:

Special attention for Pope John XXIII is an indication of the Vatican's enthusiasm for the pontiff's eventual sainthood. John Paul beatified John XXIII in September in the last formal step before possible sainthood. Beatification requires one miracle attributed to the deceased's intercession, and Sister Caterina, an Italian nun whose recovery from illness was certified by the Vatican to be that miracle.

Of the 10 most popular boys' names given to babies in 2000, eight are found in the Bible. Four of the top 10 girls' names are there as well. Many parents don't even think about where a name comes from when they give their children names. They just like the sound or have a friend or relative with that name.
What does your name mean?

The number 8 is popular in Asia because the word in Cantonese is a pun for the word "to prosper." Confucianism and Buddhism also have eight emblems, and the emblem of the I-Ching has eight sides. As a result, many businesses in Asian communities include the number 8 in their names, if not their addresses — like "88 Gifts" or "888 Sea Food." In a similar fashion, many Asians are averse to the number 4. It's considered bad luck, because the word in Japanese, Chinese and Korean also sounds like the word for "death."

Hundreds of people in India's southern state of Karnataka have begun worshipping a huge rock that slipped off a truck while being transported to a temple in a neighboring state. The single-piece rock, weighing more than 100 tons, was being taken to Tamil Nadu to be carved into an idol of the monkey-god Hanuman, a prominent Hindu deity.

"Are you tired of people's gods fighting with each other? Do you get fed up with the repetitive sermons at your place of worship? And do you believe - truly believe - you could do a better job of running the universe? If so, you too can join the multitude of online alternative religions, evangelists and self-styled gods and goddesses... some humorous, some "real" and many more that defy explanation - as alternatives to the big three of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. "

According to the beliefs of some Hawaiians, Pele is the volcano goddess who punishes people who dare take something that belongs to her. Each year thousands of visitors pass through Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and each year a little of the park goes home with them. And, after months or years of hard luck, many tourists send back the rocks, sand and shells to park headquarters or the local post office. Thousands of pounds of such mail arive every year.

APRIL 2001:

"Headless drummers, a phantom piper, and a little girl with her dog … These are just some of the ghosts rumored to haunt the dungeons, vaults and underground tunnels around Scotland's Edinburgh Castle and the South Bridge, a nearby 18th-century structure. The popular tourist district used to house prisoners before their executions. A team of scientists has just finished what it calls the largest and most technologically advanced experiment ever conducted in the investigation of paranormal activities. A group of 250 volunteers recruited through newspaper ads endured creepy black dungeons and cold chills for 10 days this month. Among their observations: eerie flashes of light, whispering, apparitions, the sound of deep breathing and rapid temperature changes."

Celebrating the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Pope John Paul II called on the world to "defeat the powers of evil and death," and to "rediscover with joy and wonder" that change can happen and peace can be achieved. He said that humanity can change for the better.

"There are a number of religious thinkers in this world who maintain that That Old Time Religion is seriously showing its age. From the pews to the pulpit, the faith is weakening. There is evidence, in fact, to support the notion that Christianity, as we all know and love-or-hate it, is (to state it in the proper historical parlance) pretty much doomed. Will anyone still be practicing Christianity a thousand years from now, or even a hundred? And if anyone does, will it look anything like the Christianity being practiced today?

Jehovah's Witnesses believe blood transfusions are sinful. Hemophiliacs depend on another person's blood to do the clotting their own can not. A hemophiliac becomes a Jehovah's Witness. Does this act imply a death wish? Not for one man who has been both for 30 years.


MARCH 2001 -

Vatican officials have exhumed the body of Pope John XXIII and made an unusual discovery - Nearly four decades after his death his body looked as if he had "died yesterday."

A new documentary will show Jesus Christ as dark, round-faced, brown-eyed, with a close-shaven beard and cropped hair. By using some of the most advanced technology currently available, the program — to be called Son of God in Britain and Jesus: The Complete Story in the U.S. — supplies a new face for Jesus that is different than what most people have grown up with.

A Ghanaian man was shot dead by a fellow villager while testing a magic spell designed to make him bulletproof. Aleobiga Aberima, 23, and around 15 other men from Lambu village, northeast Ghana, had asked a jujuman, or witchdoctor, to make them invincible to bullets. After smearing his body with a concoction of herbs every day for two weeks, Aberima volunteered to be shot to check the spell had worked.

The 'James Dean Effect' - A Study Finds People Rate Shorter, Happier Lives More Desirable. A new study finds most people believe living more years can make for an inferior life, even if the extra years are mildly pleasant. The report, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, identifies what the authors call the "James Dean Effect" — the belief that a wonderful life that ends abruptly near the moment of peak fulfillment is actually more desirable than an equally wonderful life that has additional mildly pleasant years.


FEBRUARY 2001 -

Can science tell us for certain whether life arose randomly or resulted from a directed design?

Vatican sources have confirmed that St. Isidore of Seville, nominated two years ago, is a leading contender to be the saintly guardian of cyberspace. St. Isidore is attributed with writing the world's first encyclopedia, known as Etymologia. Written more than 1,400 years ago, it was a 20-volume collection of writings on subjects ranging from art, medicine, history and theology to mathematics, literature, agriculture, war and mineralogy. Spanish religious groups, among others, already designated their countryman as a "protector" of the World Wide Web in 1999. Because his life's work ended up in a categorized database, an ancestor of today's Internet, he seems a natural choice for many.

JANUARY 2001:

The year 2001 is here. Time to think about making those changes you have put off for 11 months? Change tends to find us, whether we are ready for it or not. But we tend not to do what works:
ANTICIPATE CHANGE, MASTER THE FEAR IT CREATES, AND MOVE ON.

In India, a Hindu astrologer's prediction of a violent quake over 8.0 on the 3rd of February did not come true, although there were a series of lesser tremors, one measuring up to 5.0 on the Richter scale.

A junior minister in a southern Indian state has resigned after saying the earthquake that devastated the western state of Gujarat was divine retribution for ill-treatment of Christians there.

Superstitious Mexicans fear the current eruptions of Popocatepetl Volcano could be an apocalyptic omen. Generations of families believe that "Don Goyo" or "Goyito," as they call it affectionately, is a part of their lives. This relationship dates back to the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez, who was responsible for several massacres of Indians in the 16th century. According to legend, the volcano erupted as Cortez passed by, scaring away the invaders. The still predominately Indian population that lives around the Popocatepetl — which means "Smoking Mountain" — inherited the legend, and many believed the volcano would not do them any harm. "All of the past years we thought Goyito was playing games with us, we even considered his rumblings and tremors as a way of communication with us," Baltazar Garcia said. "But now, we are a bit scared... we saw a lot of fire last night, as never before. Something must have upset him."

The British woman who used the Internet to adopt American baby twins denied being a witch Sunday, after claims in a tabloid newspaper that she had used black magic.

Ask the Cosmo Kitty - Comospolitan Magazine's kitty predicts the future - if you ask a yes or no question.

Most Americans — a full 70 percent — say they want religion's influence on society to grow, according to the study. But almost 80 percent of those respondents didn't care which religion became more prominent.

DECEMBER 2000:

Before I had a name
I existed in the world
as breath
as the wind
as a star...

Yogasite.com - everything you want to know about yoga - including a directory of yoga teachers, retreats, yoga books and links.

American says prayers of folks back home made him rush to cockpit of nose-diving airliner with 398 passengers and crew aboard. A madman tried to take control of the plane and bring it down to commit a suicide. The pilot said the co-pilot regained control of the plane four or five seconds before it would have flipped over and been doomed.

On Dec. 23, 1900, a prediction of what Christmas would be like in the year 2000 was published in The Chicago Sunday Tribune. Had the prediction come true, celebrants would be bypassing church for the museum, and kids would get no toys and just one day off from school.

Making your own home altar - Revel in your own personal place of sacred tranquility. Visit your own home altar to reflect, renew and rejuvenate your soul. Find out how to make a special place of your own.

This month, almost every major world religion celebrates an important holiday.

NOVEMBER 2000:

Once a largely forgotten factor in social research, dismissed by those who believed that society would inevitably secularize and cast spirituality aside, religion is now a hot field of inquiry.

"Through a growing network of memorial sites dedicated to the deceased, the Internet has become the medium of choice for friends and family to convey their thoughts to loved ones who have departed the physical world. Although it's impossible to say exactly how many people partake in such rituals, experts estimate that hundreds of mourners write personal emails to the dead each month--letters of longing from mothers, boyfriends, teachers, neighbors, sympathetic strangers and others. Many memorials land in public tribute sites on the World Wide Web--a medium that psychotherapists say has become a symbolic connector between the real world and the netherworld. "

OCTOBER 2000:

Company executives in search of wisdom are turning from psychotherapy and religion to the cleverest thinkers of all: ancient philosophers. Tom Morris, author of "If Aristotle Ran General Motors", earns $30,000 an hour - one of the highest fees for a non-celebrity - to teach Socrates and Hegel to the likes of IBM, Campbell Soup, General Electric and Ford. Lou Marinoff, who wrote a book called "Plato, not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems", is spearheading the rise of 'philosophy counseling', which arose in Europe in the early 1980s but is new to America.


SEPTEMBER 2000:

More and more people are seeking spiritual enlightenment in the same manner monks, rabbis and priests have done for centuries: by reading. Last year, religious book sales hit an all-time high of $2.15 billion, making religious books (including religious fiction) the second biggest category after general fiction and accounting for 16 percent of all books sold. According to the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit organization that tracks book publishing trends for the industry, sales are likely to climb to $2.74 billion by 2004. "Popular right now are books by Catholic theologians such as Thomas Merton, Scott Hahn, Ronald Rolheiser, books on the monastic life and on how to live a more spiritual life through traditions of faith such as Christian fixed-hour prayer."

Media mogul Ted Turner addressed the Millennium World Peace Summit at the United Nations. The four-day summit, funded by Turner, drew religious and spiritual leaders from around the world to discuss ways of promoting global peace, eradicating poverty and improving the environment.


AUGUST 2000:
"If one marketing and advertising trend spotter is right, the next top product endorser will not be a world-class athlete or the movie star, but will have celebrity status of the highest order. God will be the way to go..."God and spirituality are definitely going to play a major role in how businesses market their products and how consumers respond to that market in the future."

Poi, an energetic twirling of a pair of long weighted chains that originated among the Maoris of New Zealand, is gaining popularity as the spiritual idealist sport of choice.

"In this year's presidential race, it seems that the candidates have been talking about God almost as much as televangelists on Sunday morning. A look at what's behind it.

Though the Dalai Lama's exclusion from the upcoming Millennium World Peace Summit at the United Nations (beginning August 28) brought unwelcome headlines, organizers hope the 4 day gathering of 1,000 religious leaders will highlight a new global effort for peace. "While skeptics predict four days of self-congratulatory speeches, others believe the urgency of the problem will inspire more substantive responses."

JULY 2000:

"A number of Italian cities have joined the 'Slow Cities' movement in an effort to fight the hectic pace of modern life. The future plan is for towns and cities in other countries to adopt these ideals and join together to make this a world-wide movement... Studies have already shown that the inhabitants in these towns and cities live longer and healthier lives."

Virtual pilgrimage to the Holy Land

A history of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1981 in Medjugorje

Idealistic Farmer Takes from the Past, Looks Toward the Future - "We ask the animals, 'What is it that you want?' and then try to duplicate that or give that to them as close as we possibly can," he says. When you let the animals determine how they live, says Joel Salatin, nature takes over, and begins to take care of itself. It's all about who's growing the food, says Joel: a conglomerate or a real farmer. The difference can be felt all over the country. "Somebody living in New York City can sit down at a meal and say, 'Yes, this was made by someone who cared,'" he says. "That's a sacred trust. That's a life worth living, that's a legacy to leave."

JUNE 2000:
A dream foretold of son's diabetes

FinalThoughts.com enables the dearly departed to send messages from the Great Beyond to anyone with an electronic address. Web site members can write letters to friends, relatives, whomever, that are mailed when they die.

Wisdom really does come with age. Our bodies may deteriorate, but our minds can develop, our consciousness can "deepen", as long as we stimulate the brain enough to keep strengthening the network of connections.

Medical schools are offering courses in spirituality, religion and health after studies saying prayer can help people feel better and live longer. But prescribing prayer is probably premature, researchers say.

For up-to-date information on an obscure religious sect or cult, log on to www.religiousmovements.org . ``It's the best out there in terms of being like an online encyclopedia.''

June 19, 2000 - The Vatican said it will unveil the details of the so-called third secret of Fatima next week. The gist of the secret was revealed last month during Pope John Paul II's pilgrimage to the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. But the Vatican has not yet issued an official document.

Native Hawaiians Say Observatory Is on Sacred Land

APRIL 2000:
"A team at Stanford University has developed a methodology for linking on-chip microelectronics to axons of the brain. After the nerves regenerate, the chips can record neural signals. This and related developments prompted British Telecom's Martlesham Heath Labs to design the "Soul Catcher," a micro-memory chip that will record life in real time. "This is the end of death," claims Dr. Chris Winter. "By combining this information with a record of the person's genes, we could re-create a person physically, emotionally and spiritually."

84% of Americans believe in divine miracles. Better than 8 of 10 Americans believe that God performs miracles and almost half believe they have experienced or witnessed one, a Newsweek magazine poll says. 79% believe in the reality of miracles described in the Bible.

The Secret of Happiness - how happy are we really supposed to be?

MARCH 2000:

"In God we trust, all others are suspects."

Newprayer.com - this web site is linked to a radio transmitter that lets users beam prayers for free to the oldest part of the universe - in effect, God's last known address. The site creaters have been heartened to find that almost nobody prays to win the lottery or get a Mercedes - most people pray for someone else or for the good of mankind.

A millennium of change has transformed the business world and it has rendered charitable organizations almost unrecognizable. "The world of monks and temple priests dispensing aid to the needy has given way to secular specialists working for the Ford Foundation and Greenpeace. Instead of local alms, international groups such as CARE and Save the Children span the globe. Is it progress? In most ways, yes. Far more groups help far more people today than ever before. And yet, the gap between rich and poor yawns as widely as ever. Even the notion of charity - giving with no hope of return - may be evolving toward something new and market driven.

Monks' Mission: Copy the Scrolls of History - The Benedictine monks of St. John's Abbey have set themselves a most audacious goal. They aim to photograph and catalog every page of every text written in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa before the invention of printing. They want, in short, to preserve -- on microfilm - the cultural heritage of Western civilization. In the past 35 years, they have photographed more than 25 million pages. They estimate that there is another 500 years of work ahead to preserve everything.

FEBRUARY 2000:

Does God care who wins the Super Bowl?

The religion of presidential candidates sheds little light on how they would govern. - Newsweek , February 7.

JANUARY 2000:

"When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." - Alexander Graham Bell.

Artist and entrepreneur Steve McIntosh is creating a new form of art on the internet - beautiful, interactive databases providing forms of spiritual practice for site users. McIntosh's latest creation, called Spiritual Springtime, is a "cyber tree" to which visitors add leaves containing their prayers and dreams for the new Millennium. According to McIntosh: "Our progress as a society depends on our dreams and prayers for the future. Our fondest hopes, our highest ideals, and our longed-for dreams actually influence the outcome of future events. Writing your prayer or dream is a form of spiritual practice that everyone can do."

"While the world is eagerly anticipating the Y2K apocalypse, a far more serious "bug," created 300 years ago, gets very little attention—a situation we need to recognize and rectify. I am talking about the Enlightenment, when people decided to split reason from faith and from the literature of the ancients. This dissociation freed science and technology from the shackles of religion and fueled the Industrial Revolution. The success of industrialization confirmed the wisdom of this division and reinforced the three-way separation among "techies" (who put their faith in technology), the "humies" (humanists) and the religious believers. But with success came problems. Techies began questioning their purpose. Humies became disaffected with gadgets and materialism dominating ideas. Youth, sensing something was missing, turned to drugs. And people focused increasingly on themselves, celebrating possessions and lamenting depressions."

DECEMBER 1999:

The future will be grand because our kids will be its keepers. Meet the millennials, and rejoice.

Will the third millennium usher in recognition of spiritual sameness? "Religion is in the air these days, what with the advent of the third millennium and this month's simultaneous commemoration of Ramadan for Muslims, Christmas for Christians, and Hannukah for Jews. Is there something to be done this month beyond the giving of gifts and the pondering of personal spirituality? Can we take advantage of the millennium celebration to achieve more than ceremonial, theatrical, and commercial events, and also build a better society on a foundation of religious and secular values? "

American Indians gather in Parkville to share prophecies. Ancestors spoke of the white buffalo calf that would come, signifying a new beginning for mankind. The calf was born 5 years ago and is now grown, and has changed colors several times, from white at birth to red, dark brown and then yellow. The colors symbolize the races of people on the earth. It is expected to turn white again. Mankind is out of balance with nature, but the future will ultimately bring change for the better if we work at it.

As the new millennium nears, spiritual guidance is in high demand. Some people are turning to the Dalai Lama, who is practically a celebrity in the field of spirituality.

Each year in Seoul, a crowd of people gather to honor all the animals that gave their lives for medical research. Over 100 people attended this year's session. They offered anchovies, peanuts, cabbages, and an arrangement of fruit to honor the 51,051 mice, guinea pigs, rabbits and other animals.

NOVEMBER 1999:

Jerusalem's main psychiatric clinic said Thursday it expected a surge in admissions among millennium pilgrims struck by a syndrome that convinces some people that they are characters from the bible. "There is already an increase of about 50 to 60 percent," Gregory Katz, a doctor at the Givat Shaul Mental Health Center, told Israel Radio.

Is end near? As millennium nears, religions offer views of world's demise

"Predicting the fate of the Earth has long been a gloomy business, a profession where bad things only seem to get worse over time. From book like The Population Bomb to The End of Nature, ecological pundits of the past 40 years have forecast a dark future of pollution, extinction, and growing health problems. But as the 20th century comes to a close, some leading researchers and policymakers see evidence that the world's environmental tide may be about to turn. Already the "population explosion" is slowing down, as is the growth rate of gases that cause global warming and the hole in the ozone layer. In western nations, air, water, and land are getting cleaner, and even China is showing new interest in environmental protection. Though the problems can't be minimized - more than 5,000 plant and animal species worldwide are threatened with extinction - environmental thinkers gathered for a major conference on the planet's future at Columbia University last week said the emerging successes offer hope for nature in the 21st century, like blades of grass growing through cracks in the pavement." ''I believe that there are now some clear signs that the world is in the early stages of a major shift in environmental consciousness,'' wrote Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, in a much-discussed essay earlier this year. The question, said one speaker after another, is whether humanity is ready to do what's necessary to preserve the environment. The issue, they said, is less scientific than it is a question of the human spirit.

OCTOBER 1999:

Business Week, Nov. 1 - The cover story examines the revival of religion in the workplace. There are 10,000 workplace prayer groups, and the Dalai Lama's Ethics for the New Millennium is a business best seller. Marketplace Ministries provides workplace chaplains to firms such as Taco Bell franchises, which welcome religion in the kitchen because studies show that spiritual programs increase productivity and reduce turnover.

October 31, 1999 - After centuries of difference, Catholics and Lutherans agree - The churches have reached a consensus resolving some doctrinal differences on how to attain salvation. The Catholic and Lutheran churches signed a joint declaration marking the resolution of a doctrinal dispute that sparked the Reformation in the 16th century.


A Canadian company is working on an enterprise called 'Confession 2000'. The idea is to launch a rocket on the eve of the millemmium, loaded with digitized confessions sent in by the paying public. At its top height the rocket is supposed to explode, providing a cathartic release to the guilt-plagued customers, who will pay up to $9.95 for the privilege.


A New York travel agency is booking guests for NowAge 2000, a cruise aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line vessel Norwegian Sky to be hosted by Suzane Northrop, author of "The Seance: Healing Messages from Beyond." Northrop will lead cruise guests -- who will pay $1,300 to $1,775 for a weeklong cruise to the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and the Bahamas -- through a seminar in which she will invite dead people to make themselves known.

SEPTEMBER 1999:

Teen-agers and 20-somethings are turning to the study of Kabbalah to find solace from the pangs of puberty and the adversities of adulthood. In its cryptic cosmic codes, they are discovering relief from the stress of dating, exams and career decisions -- and the key to inner peace. The mystic discipline teaches soul-searchers how to tap into their divine connection with God through meditation and prayer. Based on the Five Books of Moses, Kabbalah reveals the hidden meanings in words and letters of Jewish scriptures. It teaches that all things in the universe operate as one.


Toll-free prayer line offers alternative to psychics. 1-888-937-7294 (1-888-WE-PRAY -4) - no long distance charges. The hot line has been offering an evangelical Christian brand of comfort and guidance for about 300 callers a month who typically are worried about money, poor health or ailing relationships. The hot-line volunteers, who are recommended by their pastors, are trained to recognize a crisis and to refer any caller who appears suicidal to another hot line staffed by counselors. What the volunteers do is pray, using language based on Bible passages and selected to fit the caller's problem. "Our whole purpose, if we don't do anything else, is to love our caller."

Forget oxygen treatments, full-body mud wraps and sugar-sand body polishes. These days, relaxation therapists have their hands on a steamy new trend - hot stone massage.Hot stone massage began creeping into spas in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York just over a year ago. It's become so popular that Allure and Glamour magazines recently noted the nationwide trend. The birth of the hot stone craze is generally credited to Mary Nelson-Hannigan, who says the technique came to her through channeling and prayer, an experience she explains in detail on La Stone Therapy's Web site . She states her goal as providing a spiritual, rather than physical, healing. "Body workers, healers, medicine men, shamans -- they've been using stones for healing work on the human body forever," says Hannigan.


The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, urged children to practice compassion and tolerance, and to build a better world..