Authors From The United States

"West points out that early in the nineteenth century, the British government was quite upset about the number of working-class people who were reading political literature. The government, writes West, took ‘fiscal and legal action against the spread of newspapers, especially those critical of government.’"

"The history of economic growth is the history of people making more with less and shifting into new jobs that were unheard of in the previous generation."

"Milton Friedman and I had our differences about foreign policy. I tried, in vain, to persuade him to be against the first Gulf war. Even there, though, he publicly supported, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, my economic argument against the war. He stated, ‘Henderson’s analysis is correct. There is no justification for intervention on grounds of oil.’"

"Our oil supply is secure, not because our government threatens to use force against those who would make it insecure, but because the world’s oil suppliers want to make money."

"Many people at various points on the political spectrum have claimed that the U.S. thirst for oil is so great that, unless we change our habits (the left emphasizes conservation, and the right emphasizes drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge and elsewhere), the U.S. government will find itself drawn into wars to maintain access. This thinking shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how energy markets work. There is no good case for going to war over oil."

"Barbara Walters asked Ronald Reagan, what do you think about the Soviet Union and how much of a threat they are to us and to our freedom. And he said, ‘They’re a threat, but the biggest threat to our freedom is our own governments.’ And I agree with him. It’s governments at every level in the United States right now and in most of the world that are assaulting freedom daily."

"One thing we know from centuries of history is that if the government has revenue to spend, it will spend it."

"There are two main differences between Ponzi’s original scam and the Social Security system. The first difference is that Social Security is run by the government and, whatever its constitutionality and its questionable ethics, is legal. The second difference follows from the first: Whereas Ponzi had to rely on suckers, the government can and does use force."

"British author Thomas Carlyle called economics ‘the dismal science’ because the free-market economists around him were strongly opposed to slavery."

"Why did all these people—Lady Godiva, the barons of England, William Tell, the Founding Fathers of the United States, and Henry David Thoreau—oppose taxes? Because they understood that taxation is, in essence, legalized theft. When a government taxes you, it takes something you own without your consent. That’s exactly what a thief does. The main difference is that the thief is breaking the law, whereas the government is (usually) taking your money legally."

"Health care costs so darn much because we pay so darn little for it… So we have almost no incentive to care about how much it cost… Most of what we spend on health care is other people’s money. We never spend other people’s money as carefully as we spend our own."

"Early in the twentieth century, the railroad business was highly unionized. Just as in South Africa, employers often wanted to hire black people. But unions run by white people excluded blacks from membership and often committed acts of violence against black workers who tried to get such jobs."

"Throughout history, governments have generally been much less tolerant of racial difference than private employers have been. This is because the government officials who discriminate incur no cost for doing so, as long as discrimination is politically acceptable…"

"The bottom line is that in a free market, any employer who discriminates on grounds that have nothing to do with productivity will pay a cost for doing so. The economic system that removes the props from racism is free markets."

"I noted that one reason we buy so much health care is that the price to us is artificially low; if we paid the full price for health care, we would make better life-style decisions on exercise, smoking, and foods and would need less health care."

"The efficacy regulations on drugs, economists have found in countless studies, have delayed the introduction of new drugs by years and added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of developing a typical new drug."

"People often criticize government schools in the United States for teaching little and doing it in boring ways, yet many advocate increasing the amount of time that children are in school. This reminds me of the old joke about two people complaining about the food at a restaurant. ‘The food tastes awful,’ says one. The other replies, ‘And the portions are so small.’ Given the amount of oppression and simple boredom that goes on in government schools today, thank goodness the portions are so small."

"Unfortunately, not content to enforce its monopoly power over what new drugs get produced, the FDA also seeks to limit doctor’s uses of legal drugs for uses not specified on the label."

"The government’s monopoly is what has allowed it to produce so bad a product for so long."

"Hasan Piker I'm coming to kill you, ... no in real life"

"I think as my career has gone on, my friends and I have been generating more and more beautiful or poignant moments. That’s not to say that everything we do is genius. But along the way there’s a lot of broken eggshells. There’s a lot of things we’ve said that’s retarded or not funny or goes over the line. That’s what happens when you’re trying to do what we do. And we tend to slant more out of bounds than other people do. So if people get pissed off in the process, that sucks. That’s not a good thing."

"Don't worry so much about money. Worry about if people start deciding to kill reporters. That's a quote. For the reason why, you can say I want reporters to know I make more money than them, especially Matt Pearce."

"When we win, do not forget that these people want you broke, dead, your kids raped and brainwashed, and they think it's funny"

"If I have one thing over other people in this industry, it's this: I've made more mistakes than anyone else. You're seeing people repeat the same mistakes we'd already made years ago."

"Showing characters is where 3-D animation comes up short. It's hard to create lifelike figures that move in a realistic, believable manner-unless you're going to go into "dummy dolls." But when you take 3-D animation and put it into a first-person perspective and create a fly-through environment-well, that is where it shines. So what we're doing is using both mediums for their respective strengths."

"If there's such a thing as an evergreen video game, I would say Dragon's Lair comes close to that."

"I was about to lift out when two hands held a book in front of my closed eyes. The book was riffled, turned around on all sides so that I could see that it was a book. The book was then opened, and I started to read. The gist of what I read was that in order willfully to bring back a condition, it was necessary to recreate the feeling of a similar experience that had occurred in the past (i.e., was a part of your memory). I took this to mean that one should think of the "feeling," rather than the details of the incident. Several illustrations were given, then gradually the book went out of focus as the vibrations faded, and try as I might, I could not continue reading. Finally, I sat up physically and made notes."

"Throughout man's history, the reports have been consistent. There are demons, spirits, goblins, gremlins, and assorted subhuman entities always hanging around humanity to make life miserable. Are these myths? Hallucinations?"

"To me, it was a place or condition of pure peace, yet exquisite emotion. It was as if you were floating in warm soft clouds where there is no up or down, where nothing exists as a separate piece of matter. The warmth is not merely around you, it is of you and through you. Your perception is dazzled and overwhelmed by the Perfect Environment. The cloud in which you float is swept by rays of light in shapes and hues that are constantly changing, and each is good as you bathe in them as they pass over you. Ruby-red rays of light, or something beyond what we know as light, because no light ever felt this meaningful. All the colors of the spectrum come and go constantly, never harshly, and each brings a different soothing or restful happiness... You respond and drink into you the eternity of the blues, yellows, greens, and reds, and the complexities of the intermediates. All are familiar to you. This is where you belong. This is Home... The mundane is missing. Choirs of human-sounding voices echo in wordless song. Infinite patterns of strings in all shades of subtle harmony interweave in cyclical yet developing themes, and you resonate with them. There is no source from which the Music comes. It is there, all around you, in you, you are a part of it, and it is you."

"In 1958, Robert Monroe floated out of his body for the first time. It began “without any apparent cause,” he wrote. His doctor, finding no physical ailment, prescribed tranquilizers. A psychologist friend, meanwhile, told me him to try leaving his body again. After all, the friend said, “some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to.” Monroe did try it again—and again and again. He recalls these experiences in his classic 1971 book Journeys out of the Body, which launched the phrase “out-of-body experiences” into the public conversation. Monroe died in 1995, but the fascination with out-of-body experiences endures."

"At the Signal, each living thing lies down—my impression is on their backs... with head turned to one side so that one does not see Him as He passes by. The purpose seems to be to form a living road over which He can travel...The purpose of the abdominal exposure is an expression of faith and complete submissiveness...There is no movement, not even thought, as He passes by. Everything has come to a momentary standstill, full and complete, while He passes. In the several times that I have experienced this, I lay down with the others. At the time, the thought of doing otherwise was inconceivable. As He passes, there is a roaring musical sound and a feeling of radiant, irresistible living force of ultimate power that peaks overhead and fades in the distance... After His passing, everyone gets up again and resumes their activities. There is no comment or mention of the incident, no further thought of it There is complete acceptance of the event as an ordinary part of their lives, and this is the great yet subtle difference. It is an action as casual as halting for a traffic light at a busy intersection, or waiting at the railroad crossing when the signal indicates that a train is coming; you are unconcerned and yet feel unspoken respect for the power represented in the passing train. The event is also impersonal."

"After some twenty minutes of calming myself down, I returned to bed. I was naturally reluctant immediately to try to sleep again. I did not want a recurrence of the fight. I knew of no way to prevent it. I tried what seemed to be the only answer. (The alternative was to stay awake all night, and I was much too tired.) I lay there and repeated, "My mind and body are open only to constructive forces; in the name of God and good, I am going into normal restful sleep." I did, and awoke at my usual time in the morning. Before sleep came I had repeated the phrase at least twenty times."

"In retrospect, I still cannot find an alternative, nor do I know of any method, place, person, religious practice (that I would be sure of), drug, or anything else in my fund of knowledge, experience, and information that would absolutely guarantee protection against whatever attacked me. However, there must be something other than the pure "fighting back" in self-defense, even if you don't know what you are fighting. It was the same defense mechanism you would use if you were attacked by an animal at night in the jungle. You don't stop to find a way to fight in the middle of the fight. You don't stop to find out what attacked you. You fight to save yourself, with what you have now, the moment the animal attacks. You fight desperately, not thinking at the time how to fight, why you fight, whom you fight. You have been attacked; the unprovoked attack in itself seems to indicate to you that whatever is attacking you is not good, or else it would not attack you in this manner."

"Early in the experimentation, a side effect began to manifest itself. It was not an out-of-body activity as such, but took place in states of deep relaxation prior to any separation. It is evidently called in the trade "precognition." As I was lying down, my mind stilled and body relaxed, without my volition, the "vision" would occur."

"Three times I have "gone" to a place that I cannot find words to describe accurately. Again, it is this vision, this interpretation, the temporary visitation to this "place" or state of being that brings the message we have heard so often throughout the history of man. I am sure that this may be part of the ultimate heaven as our religions conceive it It must also be the nirvana, the Samadhi, the supreme experience related to us by the mystics of the ages."

"It will be very tempting to dismiss Robert Monroe as a madman. I would suggest that you not do that. Neither would I suggest that you take everything he says as absolute truth. He is a good reporter, a man I have immense respect for, but he is one man, brought up in a particular culture at a particular time, and therefore his powers of observation are limited. If you bear this in mind, but pay serious attention to the experiences he describes, you may be disturbed, but you may learn some very important things."

"Just as various wave frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum can simultaneously occupy space, with a minimum of interaction, so might the world or worlds of Locale II be interspersed in our physical-matter world. Except for rare or unusual conditions, our "natural" senses and our instruments which are extensions thereof are completely unable to perceive and report this potential. If we consider this premise, the "where" is answered neatly. "Where" is "here." The history of man's sciences supports this premise."

"11/27/62...Went into relaxation countdown... Used peel-off to get out of body, just as if outer layer of physical were being removed, then free and floating in room...Went slowly through west wall, feeling texture of each layer of material... Stiff concentrating on Mr. Bahnson, finally stopped. Was in normal-sized room, bedroom, with three people in it. There was a large bed to the right, and two adults lay on it. A little girl, about five or six, was sitting on the floor beside the bed, to the left of it. The little girl looked directly at me and said excitedly, "1 know what you are!' I turned to her, as gently and warmly as I could so as not to frighten her, and said, "You do? Good! What am I?" She was not at all afraid when she said, "You're an astral projection!" (She may have used another term such as "ghost," but it was definite understanding on her part, one way or another.)...I sensed a need to return to the physical, and turned back to the three people. I asked if they would like to see me "take off" and the little girl was eager, and the two adults appeared relieved. I used stretch technique, shot up through the ceiling, and returned to the physical without problems."

"On a sunny afternoon, you start off. Naturally, you rise high in the air so as to avoid obstacles of trees, buildings, etc. Uncertain, you don't go too high. You want to be able to recognize landmarks which might be difficult to see from five thousand feet. Therefore, you stay low, about a hundred feet off the ground. Now, which way to go. You look for points of familiarity. It is at that moment you realize you have a problem. You don't have a compass course to George's house, and it wouldn't do you any good if you did. You don't have a compass. Undaunted, you decide to cut across the city, using the familiar buildings and streets as guideposts. You have driven the route many times, so you should find your way easily."

"The best introduction to Locale II is to suggest a room with a sign over the door saying, "Please Check All Physical Concepts Here." If getting accustomed to the idea of a Second Body was an uneasy experience, Locale II may be hard to take."

"We had no idea that sounds existed beyond the range of human hearing until we developed instruments to detect, measure, and create them. Until comparatively recently, those who claimed they could hear what others could not were considered insane or persecuted as witches and sorcerers. We were able to perceive the electromagnetic spectrum only in terms of heat and light until the last century. We are still unaware of the capacity of the human brain, an electrochemical organism, in terms of transmission and reception of electromagnetic radiation. With this gap unbridged, it is easy to understand why modern science has not begun to consider the ability of the human mind to penetrate an area where no serious theory has been promulgated."

"Some of the key reports from the notes, which aroused their interest. 9/10/58 Afternoon. Again, I floated upward, with the intent of visiting Dr. Bradshaw... ill in bed with a cold... I would visit him in the bedroom, which was a room I had not seen in his house and if I could describe it later, could thus document my visit../Momentarily, I saw (in the sky?) a figure of a rounded human form, seemingly dressed in robes and a headpiece on his head (an oriental concept remains), sitting, arms in lap, perhaps cross-legged a la Buddha; then it faded... I had the feeling that the energy was leaving, and I felt I wouldn't make it. With this thought, an amazing thing happened. It felt precisely as if someone had placed a hand under each arm and lifted me... I came upon Dr. and Mrs. Brad-show. They were outside the house... I floated around in front of them, waving, trying to get their attention without result..."

"Here, the pattern changed somewhat. About half stated their willingness to participate. Oddly, in this group were some of those who were most skeptical of the reality of such experiences. Of course, this gave me the opportunity to nudge gently those who were in favor of continued experiments."

"Important aftermath: We phoned Dr. and Mrs, Bradshaw that evening...With Mrs. Bradshaw on the phone, I asked the simple question. She stated that roughly at four twenty-five they were walking out of the house toward the garage... The coincidences involved were too much. It was not important to prove this to anyone else... It proves to me—truly for the first time—that there might well be more to this than normal science and psychology and psychiatry allow—more than an aberration, trauma, or hallucination— and I needed some form of proof more than anyone else... It is a simple incident, but unforgettable."

"It is an immensity whose bounds are unknown (to this experimenter), and has depth and dimension incomprehensible to the finite, conscious mind. In this vastness lie all of the aspects we attribute to heaven and hell (See Chapter VIII), which are but part of Locale II, It is inhabited, if that is the word, by entities with various degrees of intelligence with whom communication is possible."

"As you think, so you are. In this environment, no mechanical supplements are found. No cars, boats, airplanes, or rockets are needed for transportation. You think movement, and it is fact. No telephones, radio, television, and other communication aids have value. Communication is instantaneous. No farms, gardens, cattle ranches, processing plants, or retail outlets are in evidence. In all experimental visits, no food energy needs were indicated. How energy is replaced—if it is truly spent—is not known. "Mere" thought is the force that supplies any need or desire, and what you think is the matrix of your action, situation, and position in this greater reality. This is essentially the message that religion and philosophy have been attempting to convey throughout the ages, although perhaps less bluntly and often distorted."

"According to the literature of the psychic underground, the religious-mystical history of man constantly makes reference to this Second Body. Long before Christianity and the Bible appeared, cultures in Egypt, India, and China, to name a few, held the Second Body idea as standard operating procedure. Historians have found these references again and again, but evidently consigned them to the mythology of the times. If one reads the Bible from this point of view, the belief is confirmed many times in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Catholic Church are found consistent reports of saints and other religious figures having such experiences, some of them willfully. Even in Protestantism, devout followers have reported the out-of-body experience during some form of religious ecstasy. In the Orient, the concept of a Second Body has long held a natural and accepted position of reality."

"In the fall of 1964 an interesting meeting was held one evening in Los Angeles. It was composed of some twenty assorted psychiatrists, psychologists, scientists, et al—and myself. It was a most rewarding evening. The purpose of the meeting was to examine with sincerity and seriousness the experiences and experiments which have been condensed herein. After several hours of interrogation by the group, it was my turn. I asked two simple questions of each of them: "If you were going through what I have been experiencing, what would you do?"...It was the definite opinion of the majority—more than two thirds—that every effort should be made to continue, such experimentation in the hope of enlightening and expanding man's knowledge of himself. Several half seriously stated that I should run, not walk, to the nearest psychiatrist. (None present offered his services.) The second question: "Would you, personally, take part in experiments that would lead to the creation of such unusual activity in yourself?""

"One of the most common questions that arises during any discussion of the Second Body and the Second State is: Where do you go? In evaluation of all experiments, there evolved what seemed to be three Second State environments. The first of these was identified as Locale I, for lack of a better nomenclature. More appropriately, it could be called the "Here-Now.""

"My first visits to Locale II brought out all the repressed emotional patterns I even remotely considered I had—plus many I didn't know existed. They so dominated my actions that I returned completely abashed and embarrassed at their enormity and my inability to control them. Fear was the dominant theme—fear of the unknown, of strange beings (non-physical), of "death," of God, of rule-breaking, of discovery, and of pain, to name only a few. Such fears were stronger than the sexual drive for union, which, as noted which, as noted elsewhere, was in itself a tremendous obstacle."