Oregon Gunman: I serve Darkness

[Book of Jeremiah]

Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Interesting glimpse at the written correspondence between Carl Sagan and a then-incarcerated Timothy Leary. Seeing what scientist Sagan made of Leary’s distinctlyun-scientific book Terra II—the occult side of Leary’s ideas coming out to be sure—is an unexpected treat.

Terra II is probably one of the least known of any of Leary’s books. However, when Leary wrote to Sagan, and included a copy, he wrote back, enthusiastically, about an in-person visit. People with Sagan’s reputation and level of success generally avoided Tim like the plague, but Sagan took him seriously enough to come to one of the worst prisons in the country to talk to “the most dangerous man in America” (as described by President Richard Nixon in 1970).

Terra II is a super rare book, it’s true. It was published by Leary’s common-law wife, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, while Leary was in Folsom State Prison and never properly distributed. According to the authoritative Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary by Michael Horowitz, Karen Walls and Billy Smith, only between 800 and 900 copies were printed. Most copies were probably sold to directly to supporters to raise money for Leary’s legal fees.

It took me years to get my hands on Terra II. It’s super far-out stuff and something I’ve found to be an object of intense fascination for years. I actually asked Tim Leary about it myself at his house in 1995 and I could tell immediately from his reaction that it was not something he really wanted to discuss (Robert Anton Wilson, who devoted quite a bit of space to the ideas presented in Terra II and Leary’s “Starseed Transmissions” pamphlet in his book Cosmic Trigger gave the topic a cold shoulder as well, as I wrote about here). I just love the idea of Carl Sagan reacting to the ideas in Terra II. Remarkable!

February 19, 1974

Dear Tim:

Thanks for your last note and the book TERRA II. I have no problems on chance mutations and natural selection as the working material for the evolutionary process. In fact, with what we now know about molecular biology, I see no way to avoid it. But I loved your remark about the “transgalactic gardening club.” Of course, if extraterrestrials are powerful enough, they can do anything, but I don’t think we can yet count on it. I’m enclosing an article on “Life” that I did for the Encyclopaedia Britannica which you might like.

On the basic requirements for interstellar exploration, I doubt if a manned expedition to Mars could be done within the next 25 years for less than $300 billion. Try really costing your spacecraft and see what it would cost. In fact, maybe the reason we haven’t been visited is that interstellar spaceflight, while technically possible, would beggar any planet which attempted it.

If we can do it, how would you like a visit from us in the last week in February? I have no idea what the visiting privileges are, but if your and my schedules permit, Linda and I would love to visit you in Vacaville on the morning of Thursday, February 28. Frank Drake has also expressed an interest in such a visit, as has our mutual acquaintance, Norman Zinberg of Harvard Medical School. What’s your feeling about it? Write to me at the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, where I’ll be staying beginning Sunday, February 24, and I’ll try to firm up the visit, if it seems possible, shortly thereafter.

With best wishes,

Cordially,

Carl Sagan

P.S. The enclosed poem, “The Other Night” by Dianne Ackermann of Cornell, is something I think we both resonate to. It’s unfinished so it shouldn’t yet be quoted publically.

The short film “Timothy Leary in Folsom Prison” was made in 1973 to raise money for Leary’s legal defense and keep his name out there. Leary discusses his jailbreak (intimating that the daughter of a United States senator he refuses to name helped him), the revolution in consciousness and drugs, Eldridge Cleaver and what it feels like to be an imprisoned philosopher. Leary was released from prison in 1976 by then—and current—California Governor Jerry Brown.
Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

You're almost as crazy as the shooter. LOL. By the way, the lord told Scott Walker to run for president and the lord told him to drop out. LOL.

Are you the only one the lord told this to back in 1999? I don't think it was the lord honey. Oh, and your prediction on who won was AMAZING! Only a 50-50 chance of being right. Even the lord gets lucky sometimes babe. OR was it a miracle? You are really nuts you know that?

Why don't you get the lord to give you tomorrow's lotto numbers? Give them to me and then I'll believe you. Hell, tell him to just give me 3 numbers. That's only $100/

I never asked the Lord to tell me anything concerning the election, Sealy. He shared that information with me because I'm his servant. As for your view of me? Did you ever stop to consider that perhaps it is your own world view which is distorted? You see you're living in sin and blinded by the god of this world. You cannot see clearly what is going on. If you did, you'd wake up immediately and run to the foot of the cross pleading for mercy rather to find yourself in hell when you die. Satan does not want you to know that you are headed for hell - he would prefer you didn't even believe he existed - or hell. Because if you knew the truth? You'd forget about winning the lottery and seek the salvation of your own soul and the Lord's will for your life. You do not need to win the lottery. You need to be saved.

About your perspective? Here is a story that illustrates the point I am trying to get across to you, Sealy:
On a sightseeing trip a traveler climbed the steps to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy, and like millions of others marveled at its architectural mystery. How does it stand? ..... is a question asked again and again. One man next to the traveler said to him, "Maybe it's straight and the rest of the world is cockeyed."

His comment caused the traveler to think. The traveler said the man's comment reminded him of the attitude some people have about Christianity. Though their lives have been bent and twisted by the ravages of loose and undisciplined living, they look upon the Christians as the ones who are warped and out of step. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, they say.

The Christian answer is, Because He lives, I live.

While the world lists like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, bent by the weights of life's burdens, Christians are able to stand straight, and true, sustained by a powerful faith. They can echo the Psalmist in Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1

When you are sustained by the God of Abraham, Moses and David, you are lacking nothing.

And when your trust is not in God? You are like a house built on sinking sand. The storm comes and great is the destruction of that house.

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.” – Carl Sagan

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” – Mark Twain

Do you know much about the written correspondence between Leary and Sagan and the visits Sagan paid to Leary while he was in prison? Leary was a Satanist. Why do you believe Sagan wanted to meet with him privately in person rather than to say too much through correspondence?

I have no idea.

Well, considering that Sagan claimed to be an agnostic aren't you the least bit curious? An agnostic that was eager to meet privately with Leary on more than one occasion and expressed interest in more than a book - think about the title of the poem that Sagan sent Leary. There is more than meets the eye with Sagan.

Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

About Dianne Ackerman - the author of the poem Sagan sent to Leary - he asks him to not release anything about the poem because her poem isn't published yet. Now who is Dianne Ackerman, the poetess whose poem has so enthralled Carl Sagan?

here she is:
School Prayer by Diane Ackerman | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

by Diane Ackerman

Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: "School Prayer" by Diane Ackerman from I Praise My Destroyer. © Vintage Books. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

The poem is satanic.
_____________
She was a Satanist. Like Leary. Like Sagan. People keep company with those who are like them, Sealybobo. You need to realize who Sagan was. He was a servant of Satan. He's in hell now. Don't buy into his lies.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Now in order to hear the other side of the story for what these kind of men pretend to be - I want to ask you to please listen to this testimony by John Bunyan and hear what he has to say. Listen to the full story and then tell me what you think. I'd like to hear your thoughts after you listen to this video, Sealy - artwork depicts what Bunyan saw - please watch the entire video.
Thank you.

 

[sealybobo]

Interesting glimpse at the written correspondence between Carl Sagan and a then-incarcerated Timothy Leary. Seeing what scientist Sagan made of Leary’s distinctlyun-scientific book Terra II—the occult side of Leary’s ideas coming out to be sure—is an unexpected treat.

Terra II is probably one of the least known of any of Leary’s books. However, when Leary wrote to Sagan, and included a copy, he wrote back, enthusiastically, about an in-person visit. People with Sagan’s reputation and level of success generally avoided Tim like the plague, but Sagan took him seriously enough to come to one of the worst prisons in the country to talk to “the most dangerous man in America” (as described by President Richard Nixon in 1970).

Terra II is a super rare book, it’s true. It was published by Leary’s common-law wife, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, while Leary was in Folsom State Prison and never properly distributed. According to the authoritative Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary by Michael Horowitz, Karen Walls and Billy Smith, only between 800 and 900 copies were printed. Most copies were probably sold to directly to supporters to raise money for Leary’s legal fees.

It took me years to get my hands on Terra II. It’s super far-out stuff and something I’ve found to be an object of intense fascination for years. I actually asked Tim Leary about it myself at his house in 1995 and I could tell immediately from his reaction that it was not something he really wanted to discuss (Robert Anton Wilson, who devoted quite a bit of space to the ideas presented in Terra II and Leary’s “Starseed Transmissions” pamphlet in his book Cosmic Trigger gave the topic a cold shoulder as well, as I wrote about here). I just love the idea of Carl Sagan reacting to the ideas in Terra II. Remarkable!

February 19, 1974

Dear Tim:

Thanks for your last note and the book TERRA II. I have no problems on chance mutations and natural selection as the working material for the evolutionary process. In fact, with what we now know about molecular biology, I see no way to avoid it. But I loved your remark about the “transgalactic gardening club.” Of course, if extraterrestrials are powerful enough, they can do anything, but I don’t think we can yet count on it. I’m enclosing an article on “Life” that I did for the Encyclopaedia Britannica which you might like.

On the basic requirements for interstellar exploration, I doubt if a manned expedition to Mars could be done within the next 25 years for less than $300 billion. Try really costing your spacecraft and see what it would cost. In fact, maybe the reason we haven’t been visited is that interstellar spaceflight, while technically possible, would beggar any planet which attempted it.

If we can do it, how would you like a visit from us in the last week in February? I have no idea what the visiting privileges are, but if your and my schedules permit, Linda and I would love to visit you in Vacaville on the morning of Thursday, February 28. Frank Drake has also expressed an interest in such a visit, as has our mutual acquaintance, Norman Zinberg of Harvard Medical School. What’s your feeling about it? Write to me at the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, where I’ll be staying beginning Sunday, February 24, and I’ll try to firm up the visit, if it seems possible, shortly thereafter.

With best wishes,

Cordially,

Carl Sagan

P.S. The enclosed poem, “The Other Night” by Dianne Ackermann of Cornell, is something I think we both resonate to. It’s unfinished so it shouldn’t yet be quoted publically.

The short film “Timothy Leary in Folsom Prison” was made in 1973 to raise money for Leary’s legal defense and keep his name out there. Leary discusses his jailbreak (intimating that the daughter of a United States senator he refuses to name helped him), the revolution in consciousness and drugs, Eldridge Cleaver and what it feels like to be an imprisoned philosopher. Leary was released from prison in 1976 by then—and current—California Governor Jerry Brown.
Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

What does this prove? I'm missing your point and you said an awful lot of just that Carl Sagan was fascinated by some criminal. Sagan and Dawkins are very peculiar men. Im not going to argue what they did or didn't say.

What they do say is no organized religion is real. Moses story, Mary, Jesus, Abraham, Noah, Mohammad, Joseph Smith. No one, including you, talks to God. Or it doesn't talk to you.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Interesting glimpse at the written correspondence between Carl Sagan and a then-incarcerated Timothy Leary. Seeing what scientist Sagan made of Leary’s distinctlyun-scientific book Terra II—the occult side of Leary’s ideas coming out to be sure—is an unexpected treat.

Terra II is probably one of the least known of any of Leary’s books. However, when Leary wrote to Sagan, and included a copy, he wrote back, enthusiastically, about an in-person visit. People with Sagan’s reputation and level of success generally avoided Tim like the plague, but Sagan took him seriously enough to come to one of the worst prisons in the country to talk to “the most dangerous man in America” (as described by President Richard Nixon in 1970).

Terra II is a super rare book, it’s true. It was published by Leary’s common-law wife, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, while Leary was in Folsom State Prison and never properly distributed. According to the authoritative Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary by Michael Horowitz, Karen Walls and Billy Smith, only between 800 and 900 copies were printed. Most copies were probably sold to directly to supporters to raise money for Leary’s legal fees.

It took me years to get my hands on Terra II. It’s super far-out stuff and something I’ve found to be an object of intense fascination for years. I actually asked Tim Leary about it myself at his house in 1995 and I could tell immediately from his reaction that it was not something he really wanted to discuss (Robert Anton Wilson, who devoted quite a bit of space to the ideas presented in Terra II and Leary’s “Starseed Transmissions” pamphlet in his book Cosmic Trigger gave the topic a cold shoulder as well, as I wrote about here). I just love the idea of Carl Sagan reacting to the ideas in Terra II. Remarkable!

February 19, 1974

Dear Tim:

Thanks for your last note and the book TERRA II. I have no problems on chance mutations and natural selection as the working material for the evolutionary process. In fact, with what we now know about molecular biology, I see no way to avoid it. But I loved your remark about the “transgalactic gardening club.” Of course, if extraterrestrials are powerful enough, they can do anything, but I don’t think we can yet count on it. I’m enclosing an article on “Life” that I did for the Encyclopaedia Britannica which you might like.

On the basic requirements for interstellar exploration, I doubt if a manned expedition to Mars could be done within the next 25 years for less than $300 billion. Try really costing your spacecraft and see what it would cost. In fact, maybe the reason we haven’t been visited is that interstellar spaceflight, while technically possible, would beggar any planet which attempted it.

If we can do it, how would you like a visit from us in the last week in February? I have no idea what the visiting privileges are, but if your and my schedules permit, Linda and I would love to visit you in Vacaville on the morning of Thursday, February 28. Frank Drake has also expressed an interest in such a visit, as has our mutual acquaintance, Norman Zinberg of Harvard Medical School. What’s your feeling about it? Write to me at the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, where I’ll be staying beginning Sunday, February 24, and I’ll try to firm up the visit, if it seems possible, shortly thereafter.

With best wishes,

Cordially,

Carl Sagan

P.S. The enclosed poem, “The Other Night” by Dianne Ackermann of Cornell, is something I think we both resonate to. It’s unfinished so it shouldn’t yet be quoted publically.

The short film “Timothy Leary in Folsom Prison” was made in 1973 to raise money for Leary’s legal defense and keep his name out there. Leary discusses his jailbreak (intimating that the daughter of a United States senator he refuses to name helped him), the revolution in consciousness and drugs, Eldridge Cleaver and what it feels like to be an imprisoned philosopher. Leary was released from prison in 1976 by then—and current—California Governor Jerry Brown.
Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

What does this prove? I'm missing your point and you said an awful lot of just that Carl Sagan was fascinated by some criminal. Sagan and Dawkins are very peculiar men. Im not going to argue what they did or didn't say.

What they do say is no organized religion is real. Moses story, Mary, Jesus, Abraham, Noah, Mohammad, Joseph Smith. No one, including you, talks to God. Or it doesn't talk to you.

Once again you are basing your reality on your own experience and on what you can see with your own eyes. Faith does not work that way and Jesus Christ is real and offers a real relationship - one where you will have a clear understanding of His will for your life and won't be guessing your way through it. As for my point? Sagan was a satanist just as Leary was. Dawkins is a fool. So did you watch the video and listen to the entire message? What did you think?

 

[sealybobo]

Interesting glimpse at the written correspondence between Carl Sagan and a then-incarcerated Timothy Leary. Seeing what scientist Sagan made of Leary’s distinctlyun-scientific book Terra II—the occult side of Leary’s ideas coming out to be sure—is an unexpected treat.

Terra II is probably one of the least known of any of Leary’s books. However, when Leary wrote to Sagan, and included a copy, he wrote back, enthusiastically, about an in-person visit. People with Sagan’s reputation and level of success generally avoided Tim like the plague, but Sagan took him seriously enough to come to one of the worst prisons in the country to talk to “the most dangerous man in America” (as described by President Richard Nixon in 1970).

Terra II is a super rare book, it’s true. It was published by Leary’s common-law wife, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, while Leary was in Folsom State Prison and never properly distributed. According to the authoritative Annotated Bibliography of Timothy Leary by Michael Horowitz, Karen Walls and Billy Smith, only between 800 and 900 copies were printed. Most copies were probably sold to directly to supporters to raise money for Leary’s legal fees.

It took me years to get my hands on Terra II. It’s super far-out stuff and something I’ve found to be an object of intense fascination for years. I actually asked Tim Leary about it myself at his house in 1995 and I could tell immediately from his reaction that it was not something he really wanted to discuss (Robert Anton Wilson, who devoted quite a bit of space to the ideas presented in Terra II and Leary’s “Starseed Transmissions” pamphlet in his book Cosmic Trigger gave the topic a cold shoulder as well, as I wrote about here). I just love the idea of Carl Sagan reacting to the ideas in Terra II. Remarkable!

February 19, 1974

Dear Tim:

Thanks for your last note and the book TERRA II. I have no problems on chance mutations and natural selection as the working material for the evolutionary process. In fact, with what we now know about molecular biology, I see no way to avoid it. But I loved your remark about the “transgalactic gardening club.” Of course, if extraterrestrials are powerful enough, they can do anything, but I don’t think we can yet count on it. I’m enclosing an article on “Life” that I did for the Encyclopaedia Britannica which you might like.

On the basic requirements for interstellar exploration, I doubt if a manned expedition to Mars could be done within the next 25 years for less than $300 billion. Try really costing your spacecraft and see what it would cost. In fact, maybe the reason we haven’t been visited is that interstellar spaceflight, while technically possible, would beggar any planet which attempted it.

If we can do it, how would you like a visit from us in the last week in February? I have no idea what the visiting privileges are, but if your and my schedules permit, Linda and I would love to visit you in Vacaville on the morning of Thursday, February 28. Frank Drake has also expressed an interest in such a visit, as has our mutual acquaintance, Norman Zinberg of Harvard Medical School. What’s your feeling about it? Write to me at the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, where I’ll be staying beginning Sunday, February 24, and I’ll try to firm up the visit, if it seems possible, shortly thereafter.

With best wishes,

Cordially,

Carl Sagan

P.S. The enclosed poem, “The Other Night” by Dianne Ackermann of Cornell, is something I think we both resonate to. It’s unfinished so it shouldn’t yet be quoted publically.

The short film “Timothy Leary in Folsom Prison” was made in 1973 to raise money for Leary’s legal defense and keep his name out there. Leary discusses his jailbreak (intimating that the daughter of a United States senator he refuses to name helped him), the revolution in consciousness and drugs, Eldridge Cleaver and what it feels like to be an imprisoned philosopher. Leary was released from prison in 1976 by then—and current—California Governor Jerry Brown.
Carl Sagan writes to Timothy Leary in prison, 1974

What does this prove? I'm missing your point and you said an awful lot of just that Carl Sagan was fascinated by some criminal. Sagan and Dawkins are very peculiar men. Im not going to argue what they did or didn't say.

What they do say is no organized religion is real. Moses story, Mary, Jesus, Abraham, Noah, Mohammad, Joseph Smith. No one, including you, talks to God. Or it doesn't talk to you.

Once again you are basing your reality on your own experience and on what you can see with your own eyes. Faith does not work that way and Jesus Christ is real and offers a real relationship - one where you will have a clear understanding of His will for your life and won't be guessing your way through it. As for my point? Sagan was a satanist just as Leary was. Dawkins is a fool. So did you watch the video and listen to the entire message? What did you think?

Sagan was an atheist or satanist? No I didn't watch it.
I don't believe he was a satanist.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

I do. Watch the video - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Surely you can set aside some time to watch it - either tonight, in the morning, tomorrow afternoon..........? Right?