Have you seen the new M&M’s commercial, where they imitate the Adams Family? The Adams Family was a B grade sitcom, from the early seventies, competing with a similar venture called The Munsters. There are only three characters that stand out, from the Adams Family. One was Gomez, the family head, who had “a lot of money.” The other was Lurch, whom I dubbed “Mr. Personality.” Then there was a hand, emerging from a box. The poor creature in question was just called “Thing.” For all practical purposes, the family members looked normal, unlike the family head of The Munsters. But Thing would be a bit “hard to explain.” Which starts the theme of this Halloween discussion, as we traverse into the land of philosophy.

Philosophy in Literature

Most folks don’t read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to learn about philosophy, or James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, to learn about literature. Many folks learn philosophy from literature. I learned much about existentialism from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche (yes, Nietzsche is considered literature also), Albert Camus, and Franz Kafka. I learned about objectivism from reading Ayn Rand novels (I.E. – The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged). I learn much about the East from The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Even something like The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant, can be considered literature, explaining philosophy. What is your perspective on the role of literature, in bringing philosophy to the masses? And what is your philosophy regarding the unexplainable?

Philosophy of the Unexplained

I always think of the quote from Shakespeare, who says,” there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, then are dreamed of in your philosophy.” You see, I wrestled with this for many years, as I hung around folks from the East, and the Native American world. Even in the Christian world are many unexplained events, with Pentecostal groups, Christian Science practitioners, and Eastern Orthodox saints. It’s like taking a trip through Ripley’s Believe It or Not, where I’m stuck in a perpetual motion machine, where the unexplained button is stuck. I have seen and experienced things that I can’t explain – but have happened – that would blow philosophy and Descartes away. So I don’t know what is affecting what I have witnessed – any more then an author like Carlos Castaneda, PhD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda), can explain away his observations in his books (assuming the accounts are true). It us very reminiscent of a Walt Whitman poem:

When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman.

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

An Islamic Sufi Case

I just quoted a famous poem of Walt Whitman. Let me share an anecdotal Sufi tale here, from some material I have, where I call the main character Shaykh (an elder or a revered old man) ABC:

“For a case in point, many years ago I was asked to drive Shaykh ABC from the town where he was staying to a lecture he had to give at a university about a hundred miles away. As we hit the freeway we ran right into the mother of all traffic jams. A diesel semi had jack knifed, closing all lanes. By the time the road was open again we had an hour to travel the hundred miles rather than two and a half hours.”

“I told Shaykh ABC that we were going to be late and he said ‘Allah knows best. Just put your heart in the place we are going, do the speed limit (which was 55 mph at the time) and ignore the clock’.”

“So I did just that, and for some odd reason, even though I never went over 55 mph we arrived at our destination with ten minutes to spare.”

“Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. But it did happen, and it was a very nice lecture.”

So if this actually occurred, Shaykh ABC didn’t study the laws of logic, of the famous philosophers. And if it did occur, what does this story tell us about time and eternity, if anything?

Here is an objection an acquaintance of mine, shared about that story: “So you covered the distance of over 100 miles, at a speed of never greater than 55 mph, in about 50 minutes. Obviously your clock or your odometer was wrong, unless it was your map.”

Actually, it is a good guess. But even if my clock or speedometer was wrong, I could tell the difference between 55 MPH and 100 MPH, based upon prior experience. My calculations say that go travel 100 miles, with an hour to get there, you have to travel 100 miles an hour. Please tell me you know the difference – from experience – between traveling 100 MPH, and 55 MPH, even if your instruments are broken. As an experiment, drive 100 miles an hour, with broken instruments, and convince a police officer you were only going 55 MPH, by the laws of philosophical logic. And we can also assume the driver was familiar with the territory, having driven it before.

 An Eastern Yogi Case

Let’s make this more interesting. I shared a story on Islamic Sufis. Let’s share a similar story about someone adept in Eastern yoga, which I’ll call XYZ. Let’s assume the person could tell when their car was empty, how far they could travel on a tank of gas, and what distance they actually traveled. For purposes of discussion, let’s assume the folks experiencing this, and the previous story, are “reasonable intelligent” people.

“I took His blessings and left. The capacity of the petrol tank of my Ambassador car was 50 liters, which means that on a full tank, with an average of 10 kilometers to a liter, it should have run for about 500 kilometers.”

“To my utter disbelief, from the day XYZ had put those grains of Pulses in the EMPTY tank of my car, it had run approx. 750 kilometers. In total curiosity, one day, (Forgetting that XYZ had asked me never to open the lid of the petrol tank again), I opened the lid of the petrol tank, to check what was inside. It was totally empty.”

“After that day, (when I opened the lid), my car didn’t even move an inch. I had to get petrol in a can to retrieve it. XYZ had been running my car till that day.”

What Can We Scientifically Conclude?

I know some PhD physicists at Aragon National Laboratories, as well as electrical and mechanical engineering friends, from various engineering companies. The question I posed was this. Assume the folks in the stories are telling the truth, and are “reasonable intelligent” people. Assume they knew the terrain, and the mechanical conditions and requirements of their respected vehicles. Is it scientific possible – given the current knowledge of physics, as well as electrical and mechanical engineering – for these events to have happened? Can you guess what the scientific consensus was? The answer should be obvious! I will “offer no interpretation of these stories.” Let’s conclude with a couple of quotes:

1. Shakespeare – “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…”
2. Arthur Conan Doyle - “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”

Randy Kemp

http://www.randykempcopywriting.com

We traveled to the oceanfront, on our way towards Harper. It was dark, and there were no boats in sight, to take us back to shore. I prayed silently to God, asking for a solution, as I didn’t want to spend the night on this island, with that spooky magic man. We noticed a single boat, with a boatman coming by. We both yelled, and were given a ride, to the other side. The boatman said he was checking on some fish, and we’re  in luck, as he was available, to take us back to Harper. When I offered to pay him his usual fee, he declined, and said it was a gift from Allah. In Africa, besides the African faith, there are also Islamic and Christian faiths. It looked like a coincidence, but I knew it was God, answering my prayer.

Somewhere there are genuine medicine men, which practice herbal medicine. I have met a few, in my friendships with Native Americans, and observing their religious ceremonies.  I know there are genuine medicine men in Africa, from books I have read. But I also know from stories of the local Liberians – and my own personal experience – that there are magic men, who practice evil ways. There are books today, written by authors like Carlos Castaneda, talking about such magic men. But I thank both God and Christ, that I am alive, to share this story.

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

Yesterday, I took advantage of a newscast, a while back, which mentioned that some folks believed Obama was Islamic. Then I posed a hypothetical scenario, where I asked folks to assume Obama was Islamic. I posed the question on www.linkedin.com, on how the Obama PR staff would position the candidate to the American public, in order to get them elected. Even though I had a small number of responses, about 40% mentioned I was trying to get folks to believe he was Islamic, and ruin his campaign. Hogwash! I repeat this statement: Hogwash! Considering the worldwide publicity of Obama and Rev Wright, in addition to the recent criticism by a conservative and popular fundamentalist Christian in the news, nobody would mistake Obama for embracing Islam. Not unless they had no access to CNN, BBC, Internet, radio, TV, and printed media. And people not having this access, wouldn’t be involved in electing a presidential candidate.

Well, since we brought up Islam, let’s talk about it. The problem with most western cultures is that few people are aware of what Islam teaches. Whether you agree with it or not, you should first know what Islam says. A good place to start is the Idiot’s Guides and Dummies series of books, on Islam and the Koran. These books are designed to present complex subjects, in a simple format. I’m not totally ignorant of Islamic theology, having spent time with Islamic merchants during my Peace Corps Liberian tour. It is really a complex subject, for many reasons:

1. There are two branches of Islam, called Sunnis and Shiites. The essential difference is whether religious authority stays in the family of Mohammad or not. And should Christians be critical of this, we need to be reminded that there are three main divisions in Christianity: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant (which contains various branches and creeds).
2. If you ask me what I feel are good sources for Islamic information, I have two. (A) One source would be the academic studies done by secular and Catholic scholars. Granted that Islamic scholars might object or disagree, but such disagreements must be settled in the academic traditions of discussions, journal articles, debates, etc. (B) The other is the mystical dimension of Islam, called Sufism. While many Islamic folks would be skeptical of Sufism, I believe they help put the violent tendencies in check (there are exceptions, of course).
3. There is a vast difference between moderate Muslims, living in western countries, and those advocating an Islamic society, based upon Islamic law.

My homeopath is very familiar with Islam, as his family embraces it. While I would personally classify him as a Deist (similar to Ben Franklin, who says God created the world, and left it to run without intervention), his knowledge of Islam runs very deep. And we have had many deep discussions on Islam, medical homeopathy (classical, historical, and modern), and an array of topics in between.

Statistically, the 40% of observation entries on Linkedin is very small, since I have only 5 respondents to the question. In order to be valid, a good number of observations should at least include 31 entries. Hopefully, the two respondents mentioned in paragraph one, don’t work for the Obama campaign – otherwise, Hillary would now be waiving the victory flag!

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

There are two movie blockbusters this summer, and they both involve billionaire superheroes, which have no powers. One is Tony Stark, alias Iron Man, and the other is Bruce Wayne, alias Batman. To be fair, both these superheroes live in rival comic publishing universes. Batman is the brainchild of DC Comics, while Iron Man is the tech wonder of Marvel comics. Bruce is a brilliant detective, a master of many fighting styles, and has a variety of weapons and gadgets, in his utility belt. Bruce also had his parents killed, as a young child. Tony is a brilliant inventor, the maker of a hi-tech armor suit, and he has a heart injury. So which of these two is richer?

Well, I posed this question recently on Linkedin. One answer pointed me to a fictitious Forbes article, which estimated the worth of Bruce Wayne at 6.8 billion, and that of Tony Stark at 3.0 billion. Now the article really doesn’t go into the criteria Forbes used, to conduct the analysis – which would be interesting, in and of itself. Another answer focused upon the meaning of richer, and mentioned Tony leads a richer (alias more fulfilling) life. This would really be true, based upon the movie worlds. But what about the comic book worlds? If you threw in that element, where Tony had a long battle with alcoholism, it would be a tossup.

In reality, if they both lived in the same universe, they would probably be good friends. Bruce would be highly likely to use his masterful detective skills, and figure out Tony’s identity. Tony would probably agree to build the Bat mobile, and other hi-tech gadgets Bruce uses, to use in Bruce’s crime fighting. Tony would avail himself of Bruce’s highly refined detective skills. Publicly they would be working together on join business ventures. Now I have an idea of mine own, which Bruce and Tony can get launched. Rather then use 100% of taxpayer money to fund NASA flights and research, why not have corporate sponsors, like McDonald’s, Coke, Microsoft, etc.? What would need to be done, on the corporate and government sides, for this to be implemented?

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

                        Would you attend a church whose motto is: “where dreams come true?”  Would you attend a church whose name is “World Overcomers Church”?  Well, I had a chance to visit such a church, a couple days ago.  I was taking my mom over to Elgin, Illinois, to take a driving test.  The Elgin facility has some pleasant people, as they know how to work with older people.  While I am on that subject, if you are traveling in Illinois, make sure to visit some of the various state and federal recreational facilities.  These are better known as state and federal parks.  Rumor has it that Illinois hires cooks from the various gourmet-cooking schools, and brings them into their facilities.  I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I can attest to the good food.

            Where was I?  In Bartlett, Illinois, there’s a church called World Overcomers Church, and it’s on the same route as the Elgin driving facility.  Curiosity may kill the cat, or it may invoke the motto, “fools walk in where angels fear to tread”.  I pull up to this church to visit, and I notice all the doors are locked.  Am I entering a “cult” facility?  Will some guards with machine guns start coming my way?  I notice an intercom, and I have a dialogue, that goes like this:

            “Can I help you?” inquires the female intercom.

            “Can I have a brochure? “ I retorted.

            “Someone will be there shortly,” responds the female intercom.

Maybe I entered a time portal, and I’m secretly visiting the church, from the Jetson’s cartoon show. A male figure comes to the door, opens it, and hands me a brochure.  The man says, “All I need to know is in that brochure.”  He then shuts the door, and locks it behind him. 

            So “what is wrong with this picture”?  Well, for one thing, the brochure describes this as a Christian Pentecostal Church.  Forgive me for being a bit offended, but I live near Wheaton, Illinois, which has more per capital churches then any other US city.  And I have visited tons of churches, including Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, and various denominational/non-denominational varieties.  And I have also – out of curiosity – attended ones that are considered “new thought”, like Christian Science, Unity, and Religious Science.  None of the mainstream or non-mainstream churches usually have the doors locked during the day, and there usually is a person present, to greet visitors.  And it’s not that I am ignorant of theology, having gone to a Lutheran grade school, Advent Christian College, and was a Peace Corps volunteer at a Roman Catholic mission school.  Oh, yes – I almost forgot.  The gentleman that handed me the brochure was the minister, whom I later recognized from the church brochure.  To be fair here, maybe this minister had “a bad hair day.”  And maybe this is a great church.  And there is a church by the same name, with an .ORG and .NET web extension, instead of a .COM extension.  But my dreams didn’t come true that day!

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

We were all sitting under this palm tree, as he displayed the amulets. I’m not sure why, but a voice inside me whispered, to move. It must have been my imagination, and even if it were a voice, where was I to move to?

I sat and listened to this man, speaking nonsense on magic amulets, which I didn’t need to hear. All I knew was this fear, reeling up inside me. Now either this medicine man hypnotized Michael, or I was imagining everything. But just as I became complacent, a voice from inside me said, “move”.

Then I intuitively knew what the voice was saying. I moved to another palm tree, and sat down. A few seconds later, a coconut fell real fast, in the place where I was sitting. The medicine man seemed surprised that I moved, and Michael just appeared tired, like he was hypnotized, or something. But I knew the voice was from God. If I didn’t move, then one of two things would have happened. I would have been killed, because the coconut would have fallen on my head, at a considerable velocity. The second possibility was that I would be injured, and there was no way to summons medical help, in this remote village. But what caused the coconut to fall? Was it the laws of science, or was this magic man, influencing these things?

I don’t know where this came from, but it came from deep inside me. The next words from my mouth were “I believe in Christ.”

So was I imagining all this, as Michael didn’t seem to be affected, worried, or bothered? But this magic man starting speaking in a strange tongue, like you might see in a Pentecostal services. I mentioned that we should go, as it was getting dark. The magic man wanted us to stay, but Mike agreed, and we were on our way home.

To be continued…

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

So let’s get back to last night. The Christian motivational speaker Joel Osteen had a TV program, where he talked about going to other Christian programs. So a Protestant might attend a Catholic service, or in his father’s case (a minister by trade), he went to see a barefoot Pentecostal Minister. While the person wasn’t mentioned, I am sure it was Kathryn Kuhlman. Well, I heard about this priest from Chinatown, who is a healer. My Chinese friends, who frequent Chinatown, didn’t know who he was. But a chance Catholic acquaintance got me on the mailing list.

Last night, I attended a Ukrainian Catholic Service in the Chicago western suburbs, which reminded me of a Greek or Russian Orthodox service. For one thing, there were Icons in the sanctuary – not statues. The liturgy was beautiful, and afterwards, the healing priest was speaking. He told simple stories about God speaking to him, calling him “my son.” And my mind kept flashing to two things:

1. A visit to Virginia in 2003, when a Pentecostal lay-minister touched me, and called me “my son.” While this is a story for another time, the words “my son” are the same, in both cases.
2. A vision of God that is all good, and it reminds me of my visits to the Wednesday night testimony meetings at the Christian Science Church, and listening to the people sharing experiences.

When it came time to start the service, people came up for healing, and there were catchers, to keep people from falling. Guess what? When I was touched, I fell down. And it was a powerful experience. Later I told my mom (a devote Protestant), about this experience, and she responded, “I don’t believe in it.” Well, like Jimmy Hendrix and the psychiatrist/professor would agree, “I experienced it.” I’m not sure what the end results will be, but I know one thing: I’m going to visit this person again.

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

Now I don’t know what I expected to find, nor do I recall why Michael agreed to come along. Probably it’s the crazy youth, as some other volunteers were hitchhiking across the Sahara desert, hitching rides from Arab truck drivers. My goal was to reach this herbalist before nightfall, and walking at a fast pace, was the only option.

When we reached the village, we were greeted by this African medicine man. He was waiting, as we were walking along the ocean shoreline, coming into his village. Did he know that we were coming to see him? The thought ran through my mind. Yet there was something dark and menacing about this man! I couldn’t put my finger on it, but fear was reeking up inside me. Michael seemed not to sense anything, and I wonder if I was hearing too many stories from students, of magic men.

To be continued…

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com

First, let’s see how many are going fishing. If I count the total cast, it is seven. For we know that the sons of Zebedee constitute James and John. And they were fishing in the evening. The first question to ask is this. Is it better to fish at night? Well, according to a bit of web poking, it is. But I will defer this, until I can ask some professors, who are experts on fish. I’ll bet their lectures are well attended.

Anyway, Christ comes along, and asks them “friends, haven’t you any fish?” Now when they answer “no”, he tells them to cast the net on the right side. Immediately, they caught 153 large fish. Here here is an observation, only fishermen usually make (by the way, I don’t usually fish). It takes time to clean and prepare a fish for eating, but a surprise is waiting. Christ already has a fire with burning coals, with fish and bread on it. Now here is another observation. If bread is on the fire, then was Christ making toast? If so, our history books are probably wrong, on the origin of toast.

Suppose everyone wanted to eat the fish. If there were 153 fish, and eight people (including Christ), we would have 19.125 fish per person. And if Christ didn’t eat of the 153 fish, we would have approximately 22 fish per person. From a math standpoint, this last number is really 21, with a large number of decimal digits.

If a fisherman were being asked to write John, Chapter 21, for a Redneck bible version, would he produce a commentary similar to mine? Again, I am not being irreligious here, but looking at a biblical story, from a different standpoint.

Randy Kemp

www.randykempcopywriting.com