Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the show and if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. Coming up in this episode... Air Force veteran Charles Moody drove out into the desert to watch a meteor shower. But he found a lot more than he bargained for when he was abducted by extraterrestrials. We'll fire up the flux capacitor and take a look at the past, present and possible future of time machines. Nearly every place has its legends, stories that have passed from person to person, generation to generation, down to the present day. Some are based on facts and are further embroidered in the telling, while others seem to have come from next to nothing at all. Such is the mysterious case of the Witch of Scrap Faggot Green. Some say the story itself is true, others say it is pure science fiction.  But first, just because a guitar is the only thing to survive a building fire doesn't mean that guitar is lucky. In fact, it might be the exact opposite, as Patrick Cross found out when he bought the guitar in 1995. We begin with that story.  In 1995, Patrick Cross, who is also an accomplished musician, bought a white electric guitar in the shape of a V, a copy of the more famous guitar made by Gibson called a Gibson Flying V. The guitar purchased by Cross was made of heavy maple wood and looked like it had been passed down by various musicians. He said it was made in 1989 and it was in very good shape considering it was used. Other than a slight crack on the top of the neck of the guitar as if it had been dropped it played well. The mysterious part is the guitar had survived from a fire in a Michigan bar where a band was playing and all of a sudden a fire broke out. Everything in the bar was burned to a crisp. All except the guitar which survived without any burn marks and fully intact. Apparently someone in the band had died in the fire and the guitar was sold ending up in Oakville, Ontario. Cross recalled that he was strangely drawn to the guitar. It was as if it called him saying, play me.  He didn't even check out the other guitars since he couldn't put this one down. It was an odd feeling but most musicians will understand, he said. The guitar played fine in the store jamming to some bluesy rock riffs and some classic chords but when he got it home it seemed to go out of tune when he picked it up to play it. He thought this was odd since it played fine before and now it started detuning itself. When he started playing something like Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix the guitar played back in tune. It felt like it really liked a dark heavy sound and it played better than ever. After two days Cross began to hear weird sounds in his apartment. The noises seemed to be coming from the closet in the second bedroom where the guitar was stored. He opened the closet door, heard nothing, looked at the guitar, looked around, didn't see anything but he heard what sounded like men's voices arguing with each other. It was as if an argument was going on in the closet between two men. One sounded Spanish, the other Mexican and they were talking about money. He heard this from the front room then went into the bedroom to the closet to look. Again suddenly everything stopped. As the days passed weird things started happening around the inside of Cross's apartment. His car keys would disappear then reappear some time later. He saw shadows move on the wall, heard footsteps and bangs or knocks. Covered doors opened and closed on their own.  The television set was on when he would come home even though he remembered turning it off before he went out. His cat would look in the air as if she saw something move in the air and then look in the other bedroom as if she could see someone walking around. If the guitar was left out he could feel a chill around it like cold air or cold wind. As Cross began to use the guitar in his rock band, sci-fi prodigy, strange things would also happen at music rehearsals and band performances. They experienced power failures on their equipment and heard weird voices coming through the music amplifiers. Lights would go off and on and blow out on several occasions. Actual fires started from the floodlights in the room for no reason. The drummer experienced his cymbals falling off and his drums going out of tune every time he started to play. The band members also heard other people talking in the room around the guitar when they were out of the room. The guitar could not be played and would detune itself when anyone would try to play it except for songs of bad or loud negative music such as heavy metal or aggressive rock songs with death and destruction meanings. The guitar particularly liked one song Dave Roten played entitled Something Is Out There which is about ghosts and evil entities and fear of the unknown with a heavy X-Files type edge. This was one of the very few songs the guitar would stay in tune for. The guitar had a presence of evil, a bad aura around it. It seemed to be three feet of cold presence. Other people including Rob McConnell from the X-Zone radio show and Janet Russell from Beyond the Unexplained also felt this said Cross. Other things of a paranormal nature occurred to Cross as time went on. He said he had a series of bad luck which he believed was related to the guitar being in his apartment. He lost his job. His health started to suffer. Rashes and sores appeared on his legs for no apparent reason. His car would shoot out flames from the top of the engine every time he started it even though there was no mechanical reason to account for this.  Then the terrible odor would go away as quickly as it appeared. Cross began to take pictures of the guitar and investigate why all these bizarre happenings and bad luck occurrences should be taking place. He captured some ghost orbs around the guitar many times and on occasion he could see a misty presence. It always felt cold when he would pick up the guitar and he would get small electrical shocks even when it wasn't plugged in. He said everywhere he went with the guitar it seemed to cause things to happen. On one occasion in Ontario where his band was performing a fire broke out in the bar area. Glasses filled with water would shatter as they passed near the table where the guitar lay. On May 16, 1999 Cross was a guest speaker at a UFO ghost conference, the X Zone Symposium in St. Catherine's, Ontario. He brought his devil guitar, also known as Haunted Guitar along, to see if he could find some individuals who could psychically channel anything that might explain the phenomena surrounding it. Psychics said they felt weird around the guitar and expressed their opinion that it contained an evil presence, Cross recalled. Two people who said they could help were psychic sensitives Janet Russell and Eugenia Macer's story. Eugenia proceeded to channel the guitar and found out it had a living entity attached to it. The entity was inside the wood of the guitar. She found it had a controlling effect on Cross and anyone who touched or felt it. It seemed to have intelligence and was clearly talking to Eugenia, saying it did not wish to be put on display but wanted to cause evil and destruction. It wanted to fly like a condor with large wings and it called itself Eye of the Condor. They later found out this was a popular song in Mexico and South America where condors do live. The guitar wanted to start fires.  Cross felt sickened when he heard these words being channeled by Eugenia for many times he had frightening images and in his mind of wanting to kill when he was around the guitar. He had also experienced very vivid dreams of going out to commit murder using the instrument as if it were an axe. The entity that possessed the guitar went on, saying that it had started many fires and survived while all else burned. It said it had been spawned by the devil and it was here to rise up to do its father's bidding in the world.  Eugenia found the guitar had the most powerful of voodoo hexes, exhu placed on it by previous musicians who had owned it. The hex was supposed to bring wealth to anyone who owned it and did its bidding. The exhu hex backfired on the owners who were involved with drug money and they were killed. The spirit inside the guitar wanted to be released into human form in order to kill and destroy. It liked Cross to play only dark, evil music and said it detuned itself if the music was good, happy or uptempo. The entity said that it never wished to become good, it only wanted to commit evil acts. It used profanity, swearing and vulgar language as it spoke to Eugenia trying to latch onto her. The spirit said that it wanted to come into her body and kick out her soul. Eugenia felt the presence coming into her and she let go and moved away from the guitar as it tried to possess her. After a two hour psychic talk with the spirit, Eugenia suggested the guitar be destroyed or re-blessed to change the evil inside. When she asked the guitar if it wanted to be blessed, the entity responded by saying no and speaking Spanish, it began blaspheming Christ in God. On the advice of Eugenia, Cross did destroy the guitar by taking it to a remote park, putting it in a steel garbage can and dousing it with gasoline and lighter fluid. Before lighting the guitar a flame, Cross put a circle of salt around the container to stop the evil entity from escaping or attaching itself somewhere else. He recited the Lord's prayer three times and told the evil entity to go back to its source. After that, he saw a misty cloud of air rise up inside the garbage can. There was wind all around him. Minutes before, it had been calm. He attempted to light the guitar on fire but the fire kept going out. He poured more gasoline all over it. He also found some wood to put around it. It took a while to light the fire and a while to get the guitar to burn. Obviously, the entity did not want to be destroyed. As the flames went higher, Cross heard a high-pitched shriek coming from the burning guitar.  He was standing there, watching it burn, adding more gasoline to the fire when some of the flames jumped onto his arm. Now, he was on fire. As he tried to put it out, he dropped the full can of gasoline. He was horrified because now the whole can of gas could explode and engulf him in flames. Cross said at that time he was panicked, but somehow he managed to put out the flames that had begun to burn his clothes. He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the guitar burn away into a charred chunk of wood. After an hour, he made sure the flames had burned out. He poured more salt over the burned-up guitar just to make sure it would contain whatever spirit energy was still left. He left the guitar in the garbage can and took the case, closed it up with salt inside it, and wrapped the blue cloth back around the case. He was shaking, but he felt good that he had destroyed the evil entity.  He didn't hear any voices or see or feel any more ghostly activity around him. The next day, Monday, everything immediately changed for the better. He had a phone call for a new job, his health was coming back, his sores and rashes had all disappeared, and his plants came back to life, he said. Also, he won $150 on a bingo scratch ticket. There were no more power failures on his TV and his car started normally. Miraculously, everything that had been going bad changed overnight, since getting rid of the haunted guitar. Since 1999, Cross has investigated all sorts of hauntings and ghost activity, but he has never had anything happen as bad or bizarre as when he owned the haunted guitar. Coming up, Air Force veteran Charles Moody drove out into the desert to watch a meteor shower, but he found a lot more than he bargained for when he was abducted by extraterrestrials. We'll fire up the flux capacitor and take a look at the past, present and possible future of time machines. Plus, despite its very odd and cringe-worthy title, you'll want to hear the story of the witch of scrap-faggot green. Least stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. My doc agrees that I need to lose a few pounds. I knew that going in, but he also told me that the meds I'm taking for my type 2 diabetes aren't going to do me much good if I finish each meal with ice cream or cheesecake. I kind of knew that in advance, too. But cutting back on carbs and sugars is a lot easier said than done. I've tried a lot of protein bars while on the road, but I swear it's like eating non-sweetened chocolate-dusted particle board. But now, I travel with built bars. Built bars taste like candy bars. In fact, I'm now using them for my dessert, and at about 150 calories per bar, less than 3 grams of sugar, up to 19 grams of protein, I can satisfy my sweet cravings guilt-free. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Built in Try a Box. You can go for a variety pack of several flavors to try or pick and choose to build a box of your own.  That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Built. The song White Christmas used to be one of my favorite holiday tunes. Until the year of the ice storm. One December Robin and I heard a loud crash outside, and not only did the ice cause a large tree to fall onto our house, but it ripped out the power lines. We were suddenly in sub-freezing temperatures with Jack Frost nipping at our noses thanks to zero heat or electricity. Talk about baby, it's cold outside. If this happened today, I'd be hooking up my Patriot Power Generator 2000X. This solar-powered monster can power your lights, TV, medical equipment, like my CPAP machine, even keep your refrigerator running, and possibly root all snows, although I can't vouch for that last one. Plus, it's expandable and comes with a free solar panel, so you can begin using it immediately. And because it's solar and portable, you can use it indoors without having to worry about deadly carbon monoxide fumes, and you don't have to spend money on gasoline to power it, because solar power is free. That's something even Ebenezer Scrooge could smile at. 4Patriots.com has a ton of great gift ideas, and they're always offering special deals, and we've set up a special page for weirdos just for that purpose. Visit 4Patriots.com slash weird. That's the number 4, Patriots.com slash weird. Just like the holidays, though, these deals never last long, so you'll want to check this daily to see what the latest special deals are. That's 4Patriots.com slash weird. On the evening of August 13, 1975, approximately at about 1.20 am, a veteran Air Force Sergeant Charles L. Moody drove out into the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico to watch a meteor shower that was due to occur. However, he got much more than he bargained for. As he was watching for shooting stars, a glowing 50-foot-long with 18-20-feet-wide metallic, saucer-shaped craft landed about 70 feet away from him. Moody could hear a high-pitched humming sound. He also noticed a rectangular window in the craft, through which he could see shadows resembling human forms. Frightened, Sergeant Moody jumped into his car and attempted to drive away, but for unknown reasons his car would not start. Then his entire body became numb. Just when his fear increased, the object suddenly took off. Moody raced home to tell his wife. He was shocked to find it was already 3am and that two hours had passed. Had he been taken on board?  Upon the recommendation of a physician, he began to practice self-hypnosis in an effort to recall what had occurred during the lost time period. At first, he didn't remember, but over the next few days and weeks, he eventually recalled everything that had happened. He remembered that he was in fact taken on board. He was sitting in his car when the numbness came over his body. Next, he had observed several beings exit the craft and approach his car. Says Moody, the beings were about 5 feet tall and very much like us, except their heads were larger and hairless. Their ears were very, very small, eyes a little larger than ours. Nose small and the mouth had very thin lips. I would say their weight was maybe between 110 and 130 lbs. They have speech, but their lips did not move. Their type of clothing was skin tight. I could not see any zippers or buttons at all. The color of their clothes was black except for one of them who had a silver-white-looking suit on. The alien leader asked Moody telepathically if he was prepared to behave peacefully. When Moody agreed to do so, the leader applied a rod-like device to his back which relieved the paralysis. Later, Moody was taken into a very clean room with white, rounded walls and indirect lighting.  We are not meant to hurt you. Moody asked if he could see the engine room. They agreed and took him to a lower level. He saw a complex machine involving long, metallic rods and large, crystal-like spheres. The ETs explained that the ship operated using the principle of positive and negative magnetic poles. They told him that they had a much larger mothership and that there were many other races of ETs who were also observing and studying the planet. They warned him against the use of nuclear weapons. He was promised a future meeting with the ETs but warned that closer contact with earthmen would not be attempted for another 20 years.  Finally, he was told that it was time for him to go and that he wouldn't remember what happened until a few days afterwards. Moody was then placed back in his car where he watched the UFO takeoff. After remembering the onboard part of his experience, Moody realized how important his story was and he contacted local UFO investigators. However, a thorough investigation by an investigator named Jim Lorenzen revealed a couple of contradictions in Moody's account about the incident. Today, Moody's case remains undisputed. The dream of time traveling to the past or future is probably as old as the human imagination. When H. G. Wells published the Time Machine in 1895, he called it a scientific romance because no one knew whether time travel was possible. A mere 10 years later, Albert Einstein would put forth his theory of special relativity and part of the question would be answered to the astonishment of many in the affirmative. One of Einstein's predictions, now verified by countless experiments, is best illustrated by the parable of the twins. One twin stays home while the other makes a round-trip voyage into outer space traveling at nearly the speed of light for 10 years as measured by the stay-at-home twin. When the traveled twin returns, she finds her sister has aged 10 years while she has hardly aged at all. The traveled twin has jumped 10 years into the future. This is the time dilation effect of special relativity and although it is most noticeable when extreme velocities are involved, it is happening around us all the time. As we move relative to each other, we are, all of us, traveling into the future at different rates. The differences in these rates are very small, sure, but they are real. Time travel into the future is inescapable, consequence of the structure of the universe. Time traveling to the past or returning back from a trip to the future is a somewhat more challenging proposition. Until a few decades ago, the subject was consigned to science fiction. In fact, a query from a first-time science fiction author provoked the beginnings of the first serious and sustained study. In 1985, astronomer Carl Sagan was working on the manuscript for his novel Contact. The book's heroine required some means of rapid interstellar transit and since Sagan wanted to get the physics right, he solicited advice from his friend Kip Thorne, a Caltech theoretical physicist. Thorne recommended the use of a wormhole, a tunnel-like shortcut through space and time predicted by Einstein and well known among science fiction aficionados. Sagan dutifully incorporated the suggestion. That same year, Thorne realized that if you treated the two mouths of a wormhole as you treat twins, keeping one mouth fixed, moving the other at a velocity near the speed of light and then returning it to the vicinity of the fixed mouth, you could create a time machine. If the traveling mouth had been moving for 10 years as measured by the fixed mouth, then Thorne could jump into the traveling mouth and emerge from the fixed mouth 10 years into the past. Physicists had been skittish on the subject of time travel considering it science fiction, but Thorne's work was licensed to take it seriously and suddenly there appeared a torrent of papers, many of which were published in the most prestigious journals. By the mid-1990s, there were at least half a dozen ideas for other ways to twist and fold space-time like origami. All this thinking was decidedly theoretical, no one was building a time machine in his basement. One reason was that in most cases, the plans required a kind of anti-gravity called negative energy to sustain the warping of space and time. Negative energy is difficult if not impossible to produce in the quantities necessary. Still, the idea of time travel was getting serious attention. Naturally, not all that attention was enthusiastic. Stephen Hawking, for one, suspected that by some as yet undiscovered mechanism, nature prohibited traveling back in time. One sticking point was the grandfather paradox.  The Russian-born physicist Igor Novikov, an enthusiastic investigator into the subject of time travel, has suggested that the paradox doesn't apply because space-time is probably self-consistent. That is, I may be able to travel back in time and somehow become interwoven into a past of which I was already a part, but I will not be able to kill my grandfather quite simply because I have not killed him already. Novikov has also thought a good deal about the other time travel conundrum, the bootstrap paradox. Suppose I travel to 2009, find a design for a zero-emission automobile engine and return with it to 2008 and patent it. Suppose further that the patent is developed into the design that I find in 2009. The obvious question, who would have invented the zero-emission engine? The answer is no one would have invented it. The design would have been generated quite literally from nothing, courtesy of a time machine and perhaps a skirting of some yet-to-be-written intellectual property laws. British physicist David Deutsch, invoking the many universe interpretation of quantum mechanics, believes that past-word time travel would require travel to another parallel universe, one in which I could kill my grandfather and in which I therefore would never be born. Via a time machine, I would have removed myself from this universe to take up residence in that one. The idea has some interesting implications. Deutsch has suggested that one reason we have detected no extraterrestrial civilizations may be that, using time machines, they have left this universe preferring to live in another. Metaphysical and philosophical questions aside, exactly how realistic is the physics of past-word time travel? Each of the several schemes for making a time machine creates a region in which past-word time travel is possible and separates it from a region in which time travel is impossible. The boundary between these regions, the chronology horizon, has remained a mystery, in part because its nature depends upon the characteristics of space-time on the smallest possible scales. We have, at best, a dim understanding of these scales and we will not have a real understanding until we have developed a full theory of quantum gravity. This is the holy grail of theoretical physics, the so-called theory of everything that would eliminate disparities between relativity, which explains nature on very large scales, where gravity becomes important, and quantum mechanics, which explains nature on very small scales, where quantum effects become important. Some physicists think the theory of everything is ten years away, others suspect it is a good deal further off. For the moment then, the question of whether time travel is possible has been put on hold. The recent and no doubt temporary decline of interest in traveling to the past is welcomed by physicists who argue that work in less fanciful areas might yield a greater intellectual profit. New Zealand physicist Matt Visser, himself the architect of a number of theoretical time machines, calls that attitude overtly cautious and boring. More than two decades after Thorne's seminal work, we still don't know whether time travel is possible. But one thing is certain, even as an idea, it is anything but boring. A couple of hundred years ago in the Essex village of Great Lees, a witch named Anne Hughes was burned at the stake for the crime of bewitching her husband to death.  Still greatly feared, Anne's resting place remained undisturbed for the next two or three centuries. During World War II, however, the road that passed by the green needed to be widened in order to accommodate the new Borum airfield. The work was not as careful as it should have been, and bulldozers displaced the stone, something that would have serious repercussions. Strange events began to be reported soon afterwards. The bells of the local church rang at midnight, with no one there to ring them. Sheep were found out in their fields with no sign of how they had got there. Strange noises were heard in the night. Painting supplies were moved from one room to another by unseen hands. Haystacks were blown around without wind. Scaffolding poles were scattered about a yard in an impossible fashion. Reputable folk who were known for their level-headedness and taking no nonsense were reporting these and other fantastical things, and the strangeness at Great Lees showed no sign of abating. In desperation, Harry Price, the distinguished paranormal expert, was called in. The cause of the disturbances was glaringly apparent to this seasoned investigator, and he diagnosed a poltergeist, angered by the moving of the stone. The solution was, thankfully, simple. Following Price's advice, the stone was replaced in its original position, and the remains of the witch buried with due ceremony in the local churchyard. From that point on, the inhabitants of Great Lees and nearby villages were disturbed no more. The witch once again at rest as she remains to this day. Although this is the basic legend of the witch's stone of Great Lees, there are many variations and facts that both help and hinder when trying to unpick the fascinating tale. The most obvious place to start is to attempt to ascertain the identity of the witch in question. There was indeed an Anne Hughes accused of witchcraft on March 12, 1621, Anne was before the plemsford-lent session of the Essex Assizes on the following indictments, Anne Hughes of Great Lees, widow on 24 June 1615 at Great Lees bewitched John Archer, who languished until 24 June following when he died. She was also guilty of bewitching Thomas Mead and Margaret Bright, both of whom were wasted and consumed and who continued in that sorry state at the time Anne came to court. On top of that, Anne had also bewitched to death a cow belonging to Richard Edwards that was valued at three pounds. It would seem a clear-cut case that our witch had been found, apart from two rather important details. Firstly, despite a hugely popular misconception, English witches were very, very seldom burned. In fact, there are only one or two verifiable cases throughout the entire period of the witch trials where a witch went to the flames and then it was for the crime of petty treason, killing her husband rather than for witchcraft itself. And perhaps the most pertinent to this case, Anne Hughes was acquitted. As with the case of Anne Wag of Ilkeston in Darbyshire in 1650, modern sources delight in repeating how Hughes was hanged for her crimes. However, a perusal of the parish registers for Great Lees revealed that in December 1669, Anne Hughes, widow, was buried. Although Anne is therefore ruled out as the witch behind the disturbances, there is however another potential candidate. Elizabeth Brooke of Great Lees was accused of witchcraft several decades previous, brought before the Chelmsford Assizes on the 2nd of March 1584. Her crimes had taken place in 1587 and in that year she was said to have been guilty of murdering Margaret Cleveland, wife of John Cleveland, by witchcraft. Elizabeth was also indicted for bewitching six cows and six horses belonging to James Homestead, a cow, five heifers and four hogs that were worth ten pounds belonging to James Spielman, two cows and two mares worth five pounds of Thomas Quarch, and some sows of George Fyches that were worth 40 shillings. All of the above animals died. Not as fortunate as Anne Hughes, Elizabeth Brooke, who confessed to the 2nd of the charges against her, was found guilty under the 1563 Witchcraft Act, which stated categorically that murder by witchcraft was a capital offense, and she was condemned to die by the noose. It is highly probable that these two witches became conflated over time in local telling and that the ever-popular witch trial tropes of fire and husband murder were added for good measure as the legend developed over the years that followed. Witches were known to be vengeful, spiteful creatures, and that one would return from the grave to wreak havoc on the descendants of her neighbors would have been easily believable, both to their contemporaries and down to the present day. What of the stone itself? Sources, such as they are, are decidedly vague on not only the location of the stone but also what happened to it. Stones have been mentioned in relation to St. Anne's Castle, a local pub that is also said to be haunted by the ghost of Anne Hughes, Borum Airfield itself, and the aforementioned Scrap Faggot Green. Over the years it has become increasingly difficult to determine which stone was the original and where it had originally been located. Intriguingly, and perhaps most pertinent to the known facts, there is mention of a stone marking the place where an unlucky gamekeeper was murdered in Duke's Wood, resting to the south of Great Lees and Borum. The wood was cleared to make way for the building of the airfield in 1943, and it is possible that the airfield, the story of a moved stone and the local witch, were further merged together over time. Although the story has been much repeated, sources from the time these events were supposed to have occurred are scant indeed. None of the local papers seem to have reported the strange events or the re-enterment of the supposed remains, a curious state of affairs for something so newsworthy. The only known contemporary report was an article run by the Sunday Pictorial in October 1944 relating the strange events at Great Lees and attributing the phenomena to the Scrap Faggot Green Witch. There was also potentially a cartoon in an American magazine from around the same time that gave a humorous account of what was said to have taken place. Another source close to the time was Harry Price, the ghost expert who had aided with the diagnosis of the problem and replacement of the stone. Price was in fact the founder of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, the great nemesis of medium Helen Duncan, and most famed for his investigations into the hauntings at Borley Rectory. In his own account of what took place, Price was less forthcoming than he is often attributed to be, and in his 1945 publication, Holtergeist over England, he states that, quote, the villagers declare that their misfortunes dated from the day when American bulldozers widened the road at Scrap Faggot Green, the center of the village thus displacing a two-ton stone that marked the remains of a seventh-century witch who had been buried with a stake through her chest at the crossroads there. They asked me what they had better do about it. I told them that if they believed the witch to be responsible for their troubles, the logical thing to do was to restore her tombstone to its original site. This they did, ceremonially, at midnight on October 11th and 12th, placing the stone east and west in the traditional manner. The phenomena ceased, unquote. That real events were cobbled together in the public imagination, both at the time and in the years that followed, seems the most likely background to this compelling story, with witches and stones woven inextricably into the fabric of the history and folklore of Essex and ripe for the picking. As for the strange events reported in Great Lees themselves, however, things are less clear-cut. Did things really happen as reported, with haystacks demolished and bells ringing unbidden? Or is there a simpler explanation? For along with the believers, there are those who maintain that the strange happenings were nothing more than villagers having a joke at the expense of a two-trusting reporter from the Sunday pictorial. In this telling, the supposedly incredulous locals and the witch of scrap-vegged green have the last laugh after all. Some say it's a true story, others say it is purely science fiction. Either way, the story of the Shaver mystery is incredibly freaky, as you'll find out when Weird Darkness returns. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It's been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, build self-confidence, it boosts your emotional intelligence, helps with achieving goals, inspires creativity and more. In fact, my friend, S. N. Lanisse, has created a Weird Darkness-themed journal just for you. Full of blank pages for you to use as a diary, make notes for class or office meetings, jot down ideas for that novel you want to write. Use it for keeping a mileage long if you travel for business, whatever you want. In fact, she has numerous styles of journals to choose from. Along with the Weird Darkness journal, there's one for dealing with grief or teachers' notes for medical residencies, keeping track of your meds or health routine and several others. Journals make a great gift for others, but it's also a great gift for yourself and your own mental health. No matter what you might want a journal for, my friend Anne has it, and you can see all of her journals, including the one for Weird Darkness, on the sponsors and friends page at WeirdDarkness.com. The Lord of the Elements wants to change reality. He's enlisted the evil Zeltan to help him, and together they'll try to recruit Stanley, a man gifted with incredible imaginative capabilities to help them. Unless Edward and his friends can stop them, that is. A tale of white and black magic, quantum physics and a plot that twists in turns. If you like science fiction, fantasy and horror, you'll love The Last Observer, a magic battle for reality by G. Michael Vasing, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar. Here a free sample of The Last Observer on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Have you ever looked out at the craziness of the masses and wondered, what possesses people? How do wearing a face mask during a contagious pandemic become a political issue? Why are there anti-vaxxers? Why do some people insist on a flat earth? Why do others insist on a hollow earth? Why are these delusions so contagious? Come here, weirdos. You want to hear a real freaky story? Your Uncle Darren has one for you. Some say the story itself is true. That is neither here nor there, but I do know that even the circumstances behind the story are enough to scare the cupcakes out of you. The year is 1932, the peak of the Great Depression. The place? A Ford auto factory somewhere in the Rust Belt region of the United States. A factory worker named Richard Sharpe Shaver has an undefined accident and soon after begins to report strange phenomena. By his account, a welding gun somehow allows him to hear the thoughts of his co-workers. He then claims to have received a telepathic record of a torture session conducted by evil beings who live deep within caverns under the earth. Richard Sharpe Shaver quit his job at that factory not long after this event and became a drifter for a while. His subsequent misadventures are unknown until 1943 in the thick of World War II when he wrote a letter to a then obscure sci-fi pulp magazine called Amazing Stories. Shaver's letter claimed that he had discovered a hidden language called Mantong which was a system of sounds with hidden meanings embedded in them and supposedly the origin of all human language. Shaver claimed that Mantong could be mapped over any other language to reveal hidden meanings. That letter arrived at the desk of Ray Palmer, editor at the magazine, who applied a few examples of Mantong in Shaver's letter and thought the theory sounded pretty airtight. Palmer wrote back to Shaver, asking for more detail about this language and in response, Shaver sent back a longer letter narrating his experience in uncovering the secret underground society of inhuman monsters who lived in caves under the earth's surface. These monsters, called Daros, made periodic treks to the surface to abduct humans and take them back to their lair to conduct torturous experiments. Editor Palmer liked this story enough that he edited it into a fictional account and published it in the magazine. Already, it seems unlikely that a person clearly suffering from some form of mental distress could pawn off this rant to any magazine at the time without being dismissed as a kook, but we're just getting started. What happened next defies all explanation. Thus was launched the Shaver mystery franchise, beginning with the first story, I Remember Lemuria. This story sold out the magazine and became so hugely popular that a series of stories produced by Shaver continued to run in amazing stories until it almost crowded out every kind of other content. Shaver continued building this universe of the Subterranean Daros, a race of proto-humans who had gone underground because they found direct exposure to sunlight to harsh. Later, most of them would build spaceships and flee to other stars, leaving their most derelict members behind. The universe of the Daros grew to include rare noble Taros, good aligned reformed Daros who tried to help humans escape. There were also increasingly fanciful elements of underground hangers, spaceships, robots, bands of human mercenaries leading a resistance and whatnot, all the elements of a good sci-fi adventure series. The series sold the magazine. Amazing stories and subscriptions rose from 135,000 to 185,000 over the course of the series, running from 1945 to 1948. Thanks to Shaver's stories, be they fact or fiction, amazing stories was now outselling every other sci-fi publication. And there could be no doubt that the extra subscribers came from fans of Shaver's stories because they wrote in to say so. First dozens, then hundreds of letters poured in from readers who, one after another, confided that they too had encountered telepathic violence from the underground Daros, a few even claimed to be some of the surviving humans the Daros kidnapped. Several readers in their letters winked slyly at amazing stories for telling the truth and disguising it as fiction, what a clever ruse they would write admiringly to throw the Daros off. Furthermore, Shaver and his fanbase shared enthusiasm over the Montaigne language, extending to Shaver's new discovery of Taros and Daros hieroglyphics, which were written in the very rocks of the earth. Clubs of Shaver fans began to form, dubbed Shaver Mystery Clubs. One woman claimed to have gone down a secret elevator in a subbasement of a building in Paris, France and found a Daros enclave which kidnapped her, raping and torturing her for a month until a heroic Tarot rescued her. The magazine staff, then eventually most of the science fiction community, became first fascinated and then horrified by this phenomenon. As fans became more and more insistent that the Shaver stories were true, the science fiction community around amazing stories began to pressure editor Palmer to discontinue the series and denounce it as a hoax. By 1948, Palmer caved to the outraged masses' demands and stopped publishing the stories. While he also quit working for amazing stories and started his own shoebox publishing title, The Hidden World, where he continued to run Shaver's ramblings. Palmer, the definition of a number one fan, stayed loyal to his muse, Shaver, until the bitter end. The Shaver cult followed them. So what was going on? It's difficult to say. Even today, Shaver Mystery Club chapters continue to thrive as historians re-examine the phenomenon. Shaver had not only started a fiction universe based on funny noises he heard in his head, but had inadvertently founded a cult dubbed Shaverology. Contained within this story is an intangible common hook to a well-documented instance of contagious craziness, politically dubbed the influencing machine. It seems that within the subjective symptoms of those suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a specific kind of hallucination recurs from one individual to another, whereby a machine is used to insert torturous and bizarre thoughts into the victim's mind. The machine is always operated by a gang of unsavory villains who persecute the victims for their own twisted ends. The gang is inevitably an organized party of a group, such as the CIA, the mafia, or the Freemasons. Recall Shaver's version of the machine was a malfunctioning welding gun. This is a very well-documented phenomenon by now. It is included, for example, in the psychological record of James Tilly Matthews, considered to be the first recorded case of paranoid schizophrenia. Matthews' version of the influencing machine was called an heirloom, and it was operated from a distance by a group of spies named the Middleman, the Glove Woman, Sir Archie, and Bill, also known as the King. The machine's torments included reading minds, inserting unwanted thoughts, and doing inconceivable things to the body, such as blocking blood flow with magnetism. Pirinoid schizophrenics report an almost identical pattern of delusions, as if multiple minds had the exact same nightmare. There is always a shadowy group with psychic weapons who are blamed for nearly all of society's ills. Both the tormentors of Mr. Matthews and the deros of Shaver's stories were supposed to be bent on taking over the world and destroying humanity, using their thought-bending powers to cause assassinations, wars, and huge tragic disasters. Yet another version of an influencing machine setup appears in the later works of legendary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick. Starting around the time of the novel Valus, Dick asserted that an alien consciousness was communicating telepathically with him through a vast active living intelligence system, Valus. The fact that P.K. Dick wrote so many revered works of classic sci-fi, including the novels that became the basis for the blockbuster film's Blade Runner and Total Recall, it indicates that maybe he had a tinge of schizophrenia enhancing his imagination the whole time, and certainly that his lucid awareness of sci-fi genre tropes allowed him to recognize the fabric of this delusion, and yet cruelly was not enough to prevent his succumbing to it. If you are beginning to suspect that at least as far as the Hollow Earth conspiracy goes, we finally now know how one popular delusion got started. Ding! You're correct. In fact, we have ready evidence of more collective shared delusions taking form right now. The Internet infamous Mandela Effect, which manifests itself in huge collective false memories of Nelson Mandela dying in jail he didn't, mistitling of the children's book series The Bernstein Bears. It wasn't. And the existence of a 90s comedy movie called Shazam, where the comedian Sinbad played a genie. Nope. The thing is, even when confronted with hard evidence that a memory is false, people will double down and insist, nope, time travelers must have changed it. After Palmer had quit his editor job in Solidarity with Shaver, he went on to take up interest in Dairos encoded hieroglyphs on rocks, which in Shaver terms form a rock book. Collecting these rock books, he formed a lending library for true believers. As for schizophrenics and their influencing machines, well, they're still out there, as are the Shaver true believers. Doubtless we're all familiar with some of the more modern-day interpretations of the same base ideas spread more easily through the Internet now than ever before. Some even go so far as to mobilize together in groups to insist that they're the sane ones and the rest of us live in delusion. The Shaver story and the prevalence of influencing machines suggests only two possibilities. Either the human mind can be affected by a disease whose symptoms are so precise that identical delusions occur in multiple patients, or else there really are lizard people and what's not assaulting us with psychic weapons and we treat our few woke individuals like the crazy people. Both of those possibilities are eerie. By one account, Shaver during his wandering years was arrested for vagrancy, but the hallucination of the beautiful woman that he'd been experiencing also appeared to a jail guard who was persuaded to release Shaver. Are shared delusions that powerful? Somewhere between psychedelic drug effects, hypnosis and very good storytelling could lie a kind of magic power to conjure hallucinations in another person's mind, yet make them so indelible that they stay there. Us creative people worry about this sort of thing. It's a power that's fun to play with for about five minutes until Sorcerer's apprentice gets out of control. Maybe it was never under our control to begin with. It's things like this that can make the rest of us begin to doubt our grip on reality. Shaver wasn't the only one with a cult. Let's not forget two other sci-fi authors who had an unusual effect on their fans in the mid-20th century. One was Robert A. Heinlein who came this close to founding a cult in his book, Stranger in a Strange Land, and the other science fiction author who influenced a wide audience to adopt his unique vision of reality. You might have heard of him. He was L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. Thanks for listening. If you like to show, please share it with somebody you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Do you have a dark tail to tell of your own? Click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Alien Abduction of Sergeant Moody was posted at Animalian. The Shaver Mystery is by Penguin Pete for geekydomain.com. The Witch of Scrap Faggot Green is by Willow Winsham for Folklore Thursday. A Brief History of Time Machines was posted in Forbes and Patrick Cross and his Devil Guitar was posted at Animalian. And now that we are coming out of the dark, I will leave you with a little light. Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? And a final thought. If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. Albert Einstein. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.


Welcome to the Argos assembly guide for adult cycles equipped with disc brakes. This video guides you through the basic steps in assembling your Argos cycle. For this cycle, we recommend allowing 60 minutes for completion. This cycle has been rated a level 3 difficulty. Some help may be required. There may be some slight variations between the cycle assembled here and the cycle you have. This is OK as the procedure is the same. Remember to stay safe and legal with lights, cycle helmet, lock and many more accessories available at Argos now. Unboxing the cycle. Remove the seat and accessories from the box. Take extra care when lifting. When ready, remove the cycle from the box. Help may be required. Start removing the protective packaging. Use scissors to cut the cable ties where necessary. Open the kit box or bag containing the pedals, tools and all the accessories required to assemble the cycle. Attaching the handlebars. When attaching the handlebars, first check the quill nut is loose which is located at the bottom of the handlebar stem. If not, use the allen key provided to loosen the quill bolt by turning it anti-clockwise. Make sure the gear and brake cables are not twisted around the frame. Make sure that the front forks are facing the correct way by ensuring the bridge is facing forwards. Check that the front forks, frame and handlebars are correctly aligned before inserting the handlebars. When the handlebars have been inserted, remember to check that they do not exceed the maximum height mark. Finally, tighten the quill bolt to secure the handlebars in place. Attaching the rear reflector. Some rear reflectors come fitted already. If yours does not, you will have to attach it before fitting the saddle in place. Slide the reflector onto the saddle post and tighten the screw to secure it in place. Inserting the saddle. Align the saddle post with the bike frame. Insert the saddle post to the desired height. Remember to pay close attention to the minimum and maximum height marks. Tighten the seat clamp bolt with the allen key provided to hold the saddle in place. Attaching the wheel. Fitting the front wheel is easier with the cycle upside down. Some assistance may be required. Firstly, remove the axle protector caps by pulling them off, not turning them. This will prevent the wheel nut from getting stuck in the cap. When ready, insert the wheel so the axle is located at the base of the forks. Now that the wheel is in place, move the retention washer to the base of the forks and tighten the outer wheel nut with the spanner provided. Attaching the pedals. Firstly, unwrap the pedals. Note the left and right markings. The right hand pedal always attaches to the side with the chain. Screw the right pedal clockwise and tighten with the spanner. When fitting the left hand pedal, remember to screw anti-clockwise. Attaching the bell and front reflector. The bell and front reflector may also need attaching to the cycle. Starting with the front reflector, loosen the screw and attach to the handlebars. Once attached, tighten the screw to keep the reflector in place. Follow this same procedure for attaching the bell, but place on the left near the hand grip for comfortable operation. Inflating the tyres. Use a pump to inflate the tyres. Check the tyres are inflated to the correct pressure. The recommended pressure will be located on the wall of the tyre. Pre-ride checks. Before riding your new cycle for the first time, let's do some pre-ride checks. Check the saddle is secure by twisting it left and right. Spin the wheel to make sure there's no side-to-side movement. Make sure there's no excess play in the wheel hubs by moving the wheel left to right. Check the pedals are fully secure using the spanner provided. Check the brakes are operating correctly. Make sure the handlebars are tight and are turning with the wheel. Assembly complete. Congratulations, you now know the correct procedure to assemble your new cycle. Remember to take extra care on your first ride.


Meanwhile, education e-cups in Nigeria may be getting more respite with some infrastructure support from the federal government. 100 and 9 centralized base educational centers across the country have been approved by the federal government. Its senatorial district will get one for its primary education. The report. The minister of information and culture, Lai Muhammad, who briefed on behalf of ministers of education and evasion after this week's federal executive council meeting, also hinted that the council has approved the upgrade of 12 airport control tower and communication systems at the contract sum of 9.988 billionaire with a completion period of nine months. And I don't think that because we're having challenges with the university, you know, lecturers, we should stop, you know, primary school students or school students from, you know, continue with their education. And I wish that the ASU issue is as simple as many of us think it is. I don't think it's that simple, but I want to assure you that a lot is going on behind the scenes. And I think probably the minister of education will be in a better position to give details. But like any government, if we're not concerned, we will not set up all the committees we are working on. If we're not concerned, we will not be looking for, you know, means to even, you know, assuage the feelings of the union. Meanwhile, the minister of interior, Raouf Hareg Beshala announced the repeal of the 60 year old fire service act of the Nigerian fire service. The minister of justice has consequently been directed to present a new enactment to the national assembly with a view to upgrading the efficiency and effectiveness in the operations of the men of the Nigerian fire service. The council approved the enactment of the federal fire and rescue service establishment act 2022, which is meant to bring into currency the operations and professionalism of the federal fire service in its delivery of service to Nigerians and establishments in Nigeria as it is expected. And with this act that Nigeria is required to process and present to the national assembly for review and ultimate passage. Meanwhile, the ministry of works also got approval for the rehabilitation of the 91.94 kilometers Kanchebili Takum Shanshagi Road into Rabah State for the contract sum of 68.983 billion dollars. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Well, if I ride past you, I might think about, there's my halt. To rain back or to back up, don't be leaning back, because if you're doing that, you're driving their back down. He needs to lift his back to back up.  Imagine this.  When you slide a chair back, do you do this?  No, you'd flip over backwards. What do you do when you slide your chair back?  He feels that on his back. Now, if I want to go forward, I sit up and I swing my seat forward.


Happy New Year. Welcome back to the Teens Cornerstone lesson of 2024. On our panelist today, we have teacher Jonan, teacher Kevin, Barbara, and Elsie. And in the orchestra we have Ashley and Elsie, and our sign language interpreter is Joyce. My name is Brenda Mywer, and I welcome you to a new year with Teens as we learn more from our lesson and more about our Lord. Before we start, let's bow heads for a word of prayer. Our Father in Heaven, we come before you today and we thank you for this fresh start, this new year that you have given us the grace to be in. As we are about to start this Quarters lesson, may we learn more about you and learn to be able to be influences just like Christ to everyone around the world. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. To the first quarter of 2024 of the Teens Class Cornerstone Connections lesson recording, our theme for the whole of this quarter is Kings and Prophets. And today's lesson title is An Undelivered Gift. But before we begin, I'd like to introduce our panelist for today starting on my immediate right. Happy New Year everyone. My name is Barbara Oduk. I will be leading you through this session. Yes, happy New Year 24 and happy Sabbath and once again, happy first week of the new year. I'm Kevin Mwangi. I'll also be taking you through the lesson. I'm happy New Year. My name is Alsadama. I hope you had a good holiday and so excited to be here. All right. And my name is Jonan Magana. Glad to have you here before we start our last Barbara to pray with us. Let us bow our heads forward of prayer. Kind and ever-living Master, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for allowing us together here to study your lesson, O dear Lord. And dear Father, even as we teach everyone around the world, please give us knowledge and understanding that comes from you. Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you Barbara. So today's lesson, An Undelivered Gift. Very catchy topic. And if you remember from the previous lesson, we're talking about the children of Israel. That is King David's reign all the way through Jesus and the fathers that God chose for his son. But today we're talking about an undelivered gift. Which begs the question before we even start. Is a gift really a gift unless it's received? It's just something to think about. Is it really a gift if someone does not receive it or accept it? Okay, that's just something to think about. But for today our lesson is about Moses and when he was relinquishing his position to Joshua, now the Israelites are about to have a new leader before they cross over into Canaan. So this undelivered gift is actually Moses not stepping foot into Canaan as God had promised him. But we see he delivers another better gift to Moses. But before we now dive into our lesson today, I'd like to ask Kevin to take us through the what do you think section? Yes, once again good morning and once again it's happy to see you and to be with you again after a year that ended just a few days ago and happy to be in a new chapter. So today's question that we get to learn is, or the question is pretty much simple to most of us. What will you wish to be a gift on your 18th birthday? You know, possibly before I go into the options I've given us, maybe I can ask one of my panelists to tell us what she thinks about, what gift will you want for your 18th birthday? Personally, I think for my 18th birthday, I would love to get a novel, a really, really interesting novel. That's interesting.  Okay, maybe I can even skip and say maybe 20 views or something, but what do you think about that? For me, my 18th birthday, I like to be independent and so I'd like it if my parents would give me a financial guide, or like ways to, this economy is hard, so I need ways to survive in this staff economy. So it would be nice if they gave me a talk or gave me a novel or something that's like, I want to be financially independent. So if they'd help me, that would be like the best birthday gift ever. Wow, that's interesting teacher Jonah. You know, they are giving us some options of a computer, a cell phone, you know, something else. I don't know, maybe for Elsie, possibly, maybe for her, she would consider having, you know, like quite on to invest in me, get me a house on my own, give me some hustles to do so that as I go about campus, I remain independent. But what do you think, Jonah, about that, you know, for any birthday present, would an 18th birthday be an ideal for her to get maybe a house, maybe some car to move around and some hustles because she doesn't have to rely on, you know. What do you think? What I think, for 18th birthday, you're still a teenager, you're still looking forward to 18th birthday, it means, not as an adult, right? Yeah, that's true. So what most teenagers would ask for, just something very deep, both of them, most teens in this generation right now, mostly go for like luxury stuff, or just quick fix things, you know, a phone or a new car or something. Yeah. But I like what Barbara said, you know, a novel, that means knowledge. That's the same thing, knowledge, that is something that cannot perish. So I think for birthdays, people, even for a new year like right now, most people tend to look forward to having something that can really help them as they grow into a new stage. Yeah. Yeah, thank you very much. So as we come to this, and as we continue the lesson, then it's very clear that everyone is a turn a year older, maybe 17, 18, 20, or even beyond by far, they usually would want a gift. However, the problem, and back to the lesson today is having a promised gift that was not delivered, like for example, maybe someone told you, someone told you they'll give you this and that, but they never delivered. Possibly, you know, we can talk about a birthday, we can talk about a wedding, where people have a wedding and someone promised they'll give you a five day paid cruise ship to some country, but they never deliver. And so that's why I challenge you as you start up this lesson, as you start up this year to remain focused and get back to get to understand what is it a delivered gift. All right. Yeah, over to you, teacher. Thank you, Kevin. Still on that, probably a barbaric read for us from the punch lines. And for those who have the lesson, all the Bible as well. First Kings chapter eight, verse 53. First Kings chapter eight, verse 53.  Thank you for that. So basically just to touch on the same thing we're talking about, about gifts. The Israelites had been promised a gift by God, which is to become the light to the world, to bring salvation to the earth through them. But they did not seem to understand that gift. They wanted something that they could see, something instantaneous. So they failed to look at the bigger picture, which is God was wanted to bless the world through them. And so they rejected this gift. That is where the gift was undelivered. So that it got lost along the way. It's God had the gift straightforward to them. It's just that these people did not see what gift that is coming to them. All right. Thanks for that. Moving on, we can read that Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 46 and 47. I will read that as I let Barbara this plan to give us a summary of what this story talks about.   Now the whole of Deuteronomy 32, it's known as the song of Moses. All right. So the words Moses was giving to the Israelites before he gives the position over to Joshua. However, Moses placed a lot of emphasis in this verse 46 and 47 to the children of Israel.  So viewer, if someone gave you these same words in Deuteronomy 32 verse 46 and 47, how could you apply them to your life? How would your life be better or different from the other people who do not apply these same words in their lives? So as you think about that, Barbara, can you give us a summary of what our story is from Deuteronomy chapter 32? Thank you so much, Chajonan. So into the story, we have a story about the Israelites. Okay, the Lord who led the Israelites out of Egypt and was leading them to Canaan. So here, Nini, the Lord is really angry at the Israelites for rejecting him, for worshiping other gods. And God is really turning his face away from the Israelites. And he's like, these people, I will let them be taken over by a people that are not really a people. And Moses is telling Joshua, just like you said in the verse that you just read in Deuteronomy chapter 46, I will, these are not just idol words and all that. And so later on, we come to learn that Moses went up a mountain and on that mountain is where he died. Yeah, that is the brief of the story. Thank you for that, Barbara. And what was the name of the mountain? The name of the mountain was Mount Nebo. Mount Nebo, yes. And it is, thank you for that. And the Israelites actually believed that Moses died on the mountain and God buried him. But you know what happened, right? Yeah. Okay, so we can answer a few questions from the punchline question from the Out of the Story section. Barbara, you can take us to the scene. Okay, so for the first question that I prepared for you in the Out of the Story, why was Moses not allowed into the Promised Land? Maybe Kevin, you could. If we get back to the story before this aspect of the Promised Land, you realize that there is a place whereby Moses, their instructions that he had been given when he was delivering the Israelites from Egypt. And some of these instructions you realize he didn't, per se, fulfill them or do as God had it. You know, ask him to do. For example, when he was asked to, you know, when the Israelites demanded for water and he became too angry and, you know, the complaint. So for Moses, he became a bit emotional and angry. And when he was asking God, what do we do with him? He was told, just speak to the rock. But instead for him, he decided to just hit it. And I think that speaks of the anger that he had and as such from the anger and the fact that he did something that was not supposed to be. So in other words, possibly, and the main reason maybe why he never made it to the Promised Land was because he may have done some things that were done in the way that weren't supposed to be done and maybe that could have contributed. That is one of them. And maybe I don't know if you have any other, but I think that is one that stands out. Okay. Before I give my comment, probably Elsie, what do you think? Why wasn't Moses allowed in the Promised Land? I'm going to go with his answer because he struck the rock, yet he was told to speak to it. Then my question is, of all the things he had done, he had done so many wonderful deeds, making the Israelites cross the Red Sea. Like one simple mistake really. Okay. It's actually good if you brought it up. Because what I believe is the Lord did not allow Moses to go into the Promised Land because the same reason, right? He disobeyed God bluntly because Israelites knew that Moses was supposed to speak to the rock, but he struck it. Now the Lord does not show favorism. And when he says that there's a consequence for certain action, he doesn't be like, okay, this is Moses. He's the only person I've spoken to face to face. So I'm going to let him slide. No. The same punishment applies to everyone. So God told Moses the same thing. You disobeyed me. You're not going to go into the Promised Land. Remember the reason why the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years is because a whole disobedience, yes, and a whole generation had to be decimated so that the new generation cannot get into Canaan. That is what God was going to do.  So God wouldn't just let that one person sleep away. Remember Aaron had died. Miriam was dead.  So I think that is why God did not allow Moses into the Promised Land. He had to keep his word. So teacher John, and you think it's fair that God kept Moses out of the Promised Land? Okay. Now in his way, I contradict myself. It's fair in bit unfair as well. Right. Moses was kept out of the Promised Land, the earthly Promised Land. That was Canaan. But the guy got a way better gift than Canaan because he was thick enough to heaven. What better gift could be than that? Right. But yes, God was fair in denying Moses entry into the Promised Land. Yeah. Okay. So for our next question, what reason did God have to be angry with the Israelites? Elsie? The Israelites, yeah. When Moses went up the mountain to... I'm going to go back a few things before this. When Moses had gone up to get the 10 commandments and he had stayed up for long. The Israelites were like, I wait 40 days. This guy is not showing. I got to meet me. So they decided they were going to give out the earrings and the necklaces and all the jewelry to smelt them and prepare a golden cow. And then when Moses came back down, he was like, you guys, after all I've done for you, and then you do this. So I'd say God was mad with the Israelites over and because of their incessant complaining, their lack of trust in him each and every time, despite everything he had done for them, he was like, this guy is bad. I'm not going to continue this guy anymore. Yeah. It's disobedience basically. Yeah. Same thing. All right. Yeah. So just to add on what Elsie said, I think God was angry with the Israelites because of the fact that they chose not to be a blessing to other nations. No, God chose them. God chose them to be people, his people.  So yeah, I think God has every right to be angry with them. True. True. And also just to add on the same, thank you Barbara and Elsie. The Israelites, if you look at it, they broke, I think almost each and every commandment is a specific way they broke it. Right after they were given, you know, you shall have no other God beside me, the calf shall make no golden image. I mean, it's right there. You would not take the name of the Lord in vain. They took God for granted. They did not keep the Sabbath. They were adulterous. The time Balaam came and cast them and all that, right? I mean, even if you were God, just get... Why? Why? Why? Why continue with this guy and can still make others? And it would cost me a single ounce of energy, right? Yeah. So God must have been really angry with them. That is why it's called an undelivered gift for our lesson today. Now moving on, the key text, the last teacher, Kevin, read that for us. Our key text that comes from Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse nine. Yeah. And he says, for the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is a lot of inheritance. And maybe just to add on to that, or the question that is coming out here is what do you think the verse for today and this week's key text means? And maybe could it mean that God blesses the world through his people? Equally, the other one they want to find out is could it mean that the only way that the world will really get to know God is through the inheritance or legacy? God gives to those who choose to follow him and his other case. So possibly, I don't know if I'll start with Elsie by us. Do you think God usually blesses us through the legacy of his people? You know, like so-and-so is Russia's or like, for example, Moses also. What do you think? And then, yeah, do you think you also, what does that actually mean to you? That's the case. I'm going to take two examples to answer this. For example, if you are, I'm going to take that one. God cannot go to someone who's not been saved to shed his light. He will always go to his people, those who know his statutes, his commandments, who will be able to be ambassadors of Christ to the whole world, who will shine brighter than everyone else to the like. He will go to people who know him, who will start with. So this thing for, there is this thing in math, they say, as you start from the known to the unknown. So that people who know you, you will tell them what you need to do, what they need to do so that they can spread the gospel. So I always think God will shed light onto the world through his people. And there's also this video I saw on TikTok where this person was trying to light 50 candles around one huge candle using a lighter. So take the lighter and then with the, it's a big lighter. So it's a very, I've never seen such a light. It's so messy. I can normally see the ones for weddings and candles and it's like so messy. I don't even know where they got it, but it's huge. So it takes the candle, the candle, the big candle, then smaller the candles around it. The difference in height is not a lot. It's just this one is much bigger. So the lighter comes and then once it lights, this candle spreads that flame to the rest. Now you can take one of those small candles, exchange and expect that it will have the same effect. Actually, just to add on that, it's a good thing you brought that up. We can go back to the prophecy in Daniel. It's a bit of a deep thought, but we see that in that prophecy, the Lord gave a certain time period for the gospel to be spread amongst the Jews. Now once the Jews rejected the gospel by killing Christ and then again by stoning Stephen, then the gospel moved out from the Jews to the Gentiles. As the time the apostles now moved on to the Gentiles. So the same thing, the Lord reveals himself to his people first. Now when his people reject them, reject him, then the Lord moves on now to other people. So it really makes sense. Let me progress on by saying, there's a question I came across as I'm trying to look through this lesson and as I recall starting up almost of the year. So if that's the case, Elsie, do you think yourself you are blessing to this world and possibly are you also part of this God's inheritance? Like for example, can people be blessed through my ministry or through my service to humanity? And yeah, what do you think about that? Because as you start the year, you may want to focus on something. So do you think you're part of that inheritance or can people be blessed through us? I believe I am part of the inheritance there. The remnant church that God has revealed to me. I say these things with faith and by God's grace that I may be able to shine His light, that when I walk through whatever I'm doing outside there, people may be able to see Christ's character in me. I don't want to bluntly say that oh, I have been the best example of Christian nudity. I'm Bible hugging, Sabbath keeping SDA, but I say these things with faith and I hope God will continue to hold my hand despite all the many challenges I've gone through or all the things I've done. But with faith, I know I will conquer by God's grace. Amen. Thank you for that. Just before we go to the other part, there's a story that is told of, you know, just based on what she shared, of a very selfish greedy man that once lived and he only cared about his money, how he could earn more and above all where he could cut to save. You know, the same way most of us are doing nowadays. Comfort, family, friends, community didn't matter at all. So what happened is that one night he had several dreams. One was about what his life could have been. He had not become so greedy. And the next was what his greed was costing him in his daily life and the final dream was where he was headed to if he did not change and become a blessing to others. What a dream that was, man. So, and the question from this was, is it indeed this what God was saying to the Israelites? You must become a blessing. This is your purpose to be a blessing to those around you. So imagine that kind of a dream to you teacher Jonah and assuming you had all the wealth and everything and then you dream to those three dreams. I'm sure you just want to change immediately and change. But possibly you can take us through and as you know you, Lucia, is on to the next part. All right. Thank you for that, Sir Kevin. I mean, that part just brings up a couple of questions that you can even just ask you just introspect as we live here. And our viewers will, you know, I was a question again. Yes. Could it mean that the only way the world will get to know God is through the inheritance. That's from the mandate part. What God gives to those who choose to follow Him and are you part of God's inheritance? I think that can be a very good place to start the year from. It's just because they just think, are you part of God's inheritance? Are you sharing the blessings promised to His children? As we move on again, thank you, Kevin. Psalm chapter two verse eight, Barbara read that for us. It's also in the punchlines. That's a good thing. Psalm chapter two verse eight. And it says, ask me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. That's quite the promise. Ask me. Just ask me and I'll give you all this you want. Elsie, can you just tie that to the flashlight? Just give us more insight. Now, maybe if I just do the flashlight. Okay. Through the chosen nation, God has purpose to bring blessing to all mankind. They were hedged about by the precepts of His law, the everlasting principles of truth, justice and purity. Obedience to these principles was to be their protection for it would save them from destroying themselves by sinful practices. Christ was the instructor and in the tabernacle and the temple, His glory dwelt in the holy Shekinah above the mercy seat. In their behalf, He constantly manifested the riches of His love and patience. I'm tying that to what we have just read and the questions in the choose the parts. For example, could you be the face that has to show the world who Jesus Christ is or do you look different or the same as the world around you? I know nowadays you could bear witness. Is there more pressure right now than there was before to be, not to be holy, but to be righteous as a teenager? I feel like nowadays there is so much pressure because of social media. Sin is bombarding you from all corners. You open your phone, your laptop, from everywhere. In the estate, someone is doing something at the corner and it feels like it's hard. It's hard. Yes, Pabras, it's hard. It's really, really hard. I thought I was all on struggling. I know it's hard. I've been struggling for two months and it's pretty easy to lose yourself. But as Psalms 2 verse 8 is saying, ask me, is this other Psalm that says Psalm 34, test the Lord and see if He will not do and what He has said He will do to you? So if you feel overwhelmed over bad end or you feel like you're not keeping what you need to be keeping or you feel like this is not working. Christianity and me, but in your distress and your despair, always seek to ask God to help you and guide you through all that you do. And also speak to a comfortable adult, someone who you trust in the faith, because it's adults that you see in church. They went through rough times. You might not even know. So just talk to them because they might be experiencing much experiencing. And with time, they have. So talk to them. And this journey is for everyone. And we're all at different stages and we need each other. Amen. Maybe teacher John, just to add. I think there is too much energy nowadays to confirm. You realize there's too many parties. Like, you know, there's too much happening over the weekends. You know, possibly just came from school. Maybe you were in a certain year, you know, year nine, year 10, 11, or you just joined campus.  And in the process of doing so, you find yourself in the many events, many programs, international conferences. And when you go to these international conferences, you aren't finding your churchmates there. You just find everyone mixed up, dressed differently, doing so much. And you realize you find ourselves in the aspect of confirmation. But you see in Romans 12 too, you know, a very nice verse that became more of our memory test. And be not conformed to the patterns of this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You know, by the renewing of your mind. That you may know the perfect, true, acceptable will of God. So you find it's a verse that some of us learned, you know, a pathfinder lessons or earlier on, but as you come by, you're like, ah, but man, you know what, let's just do it. It's just 10 minutes, you know, it's just, you know, we should go code everything. So it is this thing of conforming. And I pray that those listening to this lesson, as you start up this new year, that God may guide us so that we don't find ourselves in a trap of conforming to the patterns of this world. But rather our minds may be transformed. But how do you get transformed? By getting to understand or study the word of God and just try to leave what we speak about. True. Amen. Thank you for that. So the biggest challenge to us on that is, does the world around us see our Christianity? Or do we have to literally just tell someone, I am a Christian, I'm Adventist?  Do you do so many other things? All right, let's moving on swiftly. The punchlines, okay? But there's a specific punchline I want us to look at, that second Samuel chapter 22 verse 50. Barbara again, that for us. Second Samuel 22 verse 50. And it says, therefore I will praise you, Lord, among all nations I will sing the praise of your name. And I think for that, if you look at all the punchlines that we have today, all the way from the first one to the last one, the major theme we see is becoming a blessing to other people. So the Lord is calling us as spiritual Israel, to become a blessing and to others. And a question that we can get from this is, how do we evangelize to others? Because by being a blessing to others, we show them what God wants of them, right? Which is an evangelizing. And the good things that God wants for us and from us are found in the Bible. So that means we need to share what we have in the Bible with others that is evangelizing. So this is a question I want to just throw to us, just to think about, how can you see yourself evangelizing? Or even before that, what do you think when you hear the word evangelizing? Just let us know in the comments as well, right?  And then we can read Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 14. I'll ask Elsie to read that for us. It's in the punchlines as well. Yeah, and it says that, and your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the sovereign Lord. Okay, thanks for that. The Lord gives us things that make us famous to the people around us, for lack of a better term. And God gives us these things for His glory, for us to use them to serve Him. And thinking of that, I want us to just list one thing each, just one single thing that you can do to become a blessing to people in your sphere of influence or your circle of influence. What one thing can you do to become a blessing to people who are around you? Elsie? I must say, in school I'm more of a very... This is hard to believe for those who know me well. Serious, in a way? I don't talk to many people. I focus on what I need to do. So I think I need to be more sick to know what your neighbor is thinking about, sick to know what your neighbor is feeling. You might be helping them out with a difficult time. So just to be more kind and involving with people, share with them what you know, that they share what they know. Just to build better connections with people. Alright, so become more social and build better connections with people around you. Alright, thanks for that. Kelvin, what one thing can you do to influence people around you? Serving the community. Serving the community. That can be so many ways. But again, give us just one. God for you about serving the community. I'm doing community service and reaching out to those who need us more. Those who need us more. Alright, the less fortunate. Thanks for that. Barbara, how can you become a blessing to people around you? How can I become a blessing to people around me? That is a very tricky question to John and if you haven't thought about it so deeply, like me, I haven't thought about it so deeply. So being me personally, being a blessing to other people, I think giving gifts to the less fortunate and visiting those in hospital and encouraging them that you know, God is there. You don't have to fight this illness that you're going through alone. God is there for you and he'll always be there. He's not like a man who will see oh my gosh, you're so much in trouble and I don't want to associate with you anymore. God will always be there. Alright, thanks for that. Now as we close up for today, there's a challenge to us, you know. Just go and read again to John with the chapter 32 and it's much of a rebuke, okay? But I want you to read this passage as if it was written directly to you. Just internalize it. Replace every single pronoun directly to the audience, that's the Israelites with your name. How meaningful is this text when you look at it as if it's a note written directly to you? And then I want you to just once you think about this, if you were going to write a response to God based on the chapter 32, what would you say to him? I want to leave that as a parting short to us. Read the chapter 32 and just write down a response to God. Just think that verse is written directly to you, like John and I want you to do this and this and this and now write a response to God. Keep that note on your Bible and just keep reading it time and time again. It's going to help you just learn what God does not like about your life and what he really wants you to do. As we finish up, I'd like to ask to Kevin to read the Father Insight as we close. Father Insight. So the Father Insight speaks like this. How faith in God. He knows your need. He has all the power. His infinite love and compassion never worry. Fear not that he will fail of fulfilling his promise. That's from Prophets and Kings, page 164. Amen. Amen. Thanks for that. Just to finish up, parting short, anything you have to say? From anyway. My dad normally says, okay, be foolish. Be foolish in terms of when the world looks at you, they're like, hey, why is this chick doing what she's doing? But in the end, you end up giving them what you have and it changes their life.   So try as much as you can to be foolish, knowing that God will always bless you in return because you need to be His beacon of light. He has given you this light and you can't just sit down and stay with your light. You have to stand up and shine it wherever you are. Amen. Amen. Just to close up, I want us to just remember that God wants us to become a blessing to the people around us. Family, friends, classmates, your neighbors. So just think about it. What are the blessings that God is providing in your life and how are you sharing them with the people around you? That will be the closing remark for today. So thank you for being with us. Finalists, thank you so much for your input and thank you for joining us for the very first lesson of this quarter. We look forward to having a very fruitful next 51 lessons for the whole of this year. So as we close, I'd like to ask Kevin to pray with us. Yeah, let's pray to end up. Our Father what in heaven, you come with us this morning and we want to give you all the glory and all the honor. We want to thank you for you have led us and guided us all the way. We want to thank you because you've given us a new year. And as we start up this year and push on through God with our goals, targets, and so many things we have set in our minds, all you are asking that is that as we do that God, let us not like this man whom we read about who was just selfish and just wanting more and more and we've been a blessing to anyone. Help us that as you start up this year we may be a blessing to the community. We may partner with you and not forget you like the Israelites had done so and that we may continue on into a good and a blessed year. And we pray that God, you see us through for the rest of the days and the weeks that are ahead of us. Help us focus more not only on ourselves and our goals but also on what we can do to enrich your ministry and to reach out to your people. We pray this trust and believing and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.


everyone and welcome. This is Melissa with the Stock Swish Review in NVIDIA. Huge, huge move today in the stock and a great option trade that I called last week. And actually it was a day trade on Friday which stopped that you could have retaken and today called it as a day trade and it just slipped down so fast didn't, didn't get it. But I called it in the room and some people did actually get this trade. This was an awesome call today. It just dropped so quick I didn't get it but some people did. And everybody should have gotten the option trade because I called it on Friday and I knew this would work. I knew this would work a hundred percent conviction. And then at one point when it started falling I said 155 and then I said 150 and this could even go past 150 today. But at this point now at 1030 if you did the option trade from Friday I think everyone should be out here into 10 o'clock, 10.07, 150 was a dream target on this and definitely for the day trade. So as far as an afternoon move could this set up in the afternoon? Yes it could. I'm watching this here now. It could set up in the afternoon. I don't know if it will. I honestly don't know if it will now because it's dropped so far so big. Let's quickly here look at the market. Well there's a chance. I guess there is a possible date that this could have a secondary move down. So I'll call the trade for the room if it does. But in the meantime I'm watching it. Everyone should be out of the option though. It was a huge trade. It was a huge move and it just goes to show you I'm so good at predicting what these stocks will do. I mean I know people were frustrated. If you did the option on Friday you were down in this. If you did the day trade you got stopped. You would have had to retake it. But you never lose the conviction. When you rate the gap and the gap rates well for the 26 point system I'm telling you that tells you everything you need to know. It tells me everything I need to know. And this was a huge call. Huge trade. Great job everyone that did it and stuck on to it but I definitely get out of this today for not already out of it. Have a great week everybody. Congratulations to everyone that did the putt and everyone that did the day trade today. Unbelievable read on this and I'm giving myself a round of applause. Huge move for NVIDIA and have a great week everyone. Email me at maliceofastoxwush.com if you'd like more information on the gap class.