Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 9, 2013

6

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 9, 2013 

DEATH SEMINARS By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” and other 
books. He leads self-sufficiency classes, and does a weekly podcast at Preparedness Radio 
Network. He can be reached at School of Self-reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041 or 
www.ChristopherNyerges.com]


“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

BACA CHOSEN AS 

SHERIFF OF THE YEAR

 
Very special Congratulations to our Sheriff, 
Lee Baca who was recently chosen as the nation’s 
“Sheriff of the Year”.

 The honor was bestowed on him by the 
National Sheriff’s Association which has about 2700 
members. Sheriff Baca was chosen because he has 
established a great education program for inmates- 
providing opportunities to improve themselves 
while incarcerated. He also was recognized for his 
efforts to reach out to a variety of religious groups in 
the community.

 I met Chief Lee Baca in 1993. At that time he was a speaker at the 
annual Community Advisory Committee conference, and I was impressed 
with his commitment to keep communities safe by implementing a 
community-based policing program. Years passed and then Chief Lee 
Baca was running for Sheriff. I attended rallies and learned more about 
this remarkable man.

 Shortly after Sheriff Baca was elected in 1998, the V.I.D.A. 
program began. It was a proactive sixteen week program for at risk 
youths. I attended eight graduations and marveled how so many lives were changed. Previously, the 
youths were doing poorly in school and getting in trouble. Each graduation was mind-boggling and 
I marveled at such a positive program. I also remember Sheriff Baca establishing a Clergy Advisory 
Council and meeting ministers and lay members of various faiths at an annual Conference. They each 
spoke of their particular work within their communities. It was very enlightening and many ideas, 
experiences and programs were shared.

 Several years ago, my former students received a special award, established by several private 
elementary schools. This achievement award was presented at an award banquet towards the end of 
the year for an eighth grader who had exceled in academics and other areas. I attended, and Sheriff 
Lee Baca was guest speaker. I was so impressed how the Sheriff inspired the students. He spoke of 
his background, that he attended East Los Angeles Community College, but only achieved a “C” 
average. However after a stint in the Marine Reserves, he went on to achieve his Master Degree and 
Doctorate in Public Administration from USC! The Sheriff reiterated that everyone can excel and 
spoke of the benefits of setting goals and working hard. The youths listened intently and I could see 
he had inspired them to work even more diligently and reach for the stars!

 As a strong advocate of education for EVERYONE, Sheriff Baca developed the LASD 
University consortium with over 20 universities where over 1000 members of the Sheriff’s Department 
are enrolled in a Bachelor’s or Master’s Program.

 After Sheriff Baca received this prestigious award, I was so happy to read that Los Angeles 
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich praised the Sheriff, “It’s a great day for a great Sheriff who steps up 
when the going gets tough. This much-deserved honor recognizes Baca’s great service to the county 
of Los Angeles and his national leadership on law enforcement issues.”

 Many don’t realize that Sheriff Baca developed the Office of Independent Review comprised 
of six civil rights attorneys who provide independent oversight on all internal affairs and internal 
criminal investigations.

 Attorney Trutanich is correct in his comments. There has been much criticism regarding 
the County Jail System. But the Sheriff has acknowledged the problems. He listened to the Panel’s 
results, acknowledged the problems, and promised results. He began meetings with inmates to find 
out what their issues were and has established the educational program for them. Congratulations, 
Sheriff Baca!

 
Dolores (my 
wife who died in 
2008) and I were 
active students 
of metaphysics, 
mostly through our 
association with 
WTI’s Spiritual 
Studies classes. We 
spent a lot of time 
studying Harold Percival’s “Thinking and 
Destiny,” and other books such as Fromme’s 
“Art of Loving” and Hayakawa’s “Language in 
Thought and Action.” 

 By the early 1990s, we began to conduct 
weekly study sessions and classes in our home, 
mostly readings from “Thinking and Destiny” 
on Sunday afternoons. 

 One night, we offered a class called “What 
Happens After Death.” About 10 people showed 
up for this one, which was a large gathering for 
our small meeting room. 

 We began by telling everyone that this was not 
some sort of religious exercise, nor was anyone 
required to “agree with” or “believe” anything 
we were telling them. Rather, we simply asked 
that they consider the scenario that we’d be 
sharing as a possibility, and that we would not 
consider “arguments” or “debates” about it. In 
other words, something does “happen” to us 
after our body dies. This “something” can range 
from “nothing” to reincarnation to “going to 
hell” and many other possibilities. 

 Our class was based on Harold Percival’s 
“Thinking and Destiny” book. So a brief 
explanation about Percival was required. He 
claimed in the preface to his monumental 
“Thinking and Destiny” book that he “came to” 
the information that he shares by means of what 
he calls “Real Thinking.” He further defines 
“Real Thinking” as a four-part process. The first 
step is the selection of a topic and turning the 
Conscious Light on it. (The Nature of Conscious 
Light is addressed repeatedly in his book). Next 
comes the fixing and cleansing of the subject, 
which is done by training the Light upon it. 
Then, the third step is to reduce the subject to 
a point, which is done by focusing Light upon 
it. This is what we would call “concentrating.” 
Lastly, by following this procedure, with the 
Light focused on the point, the result of this 
Thinking is a “Knowing” about the subject.

 He provides no bibliography, no references, 
no “proofs” for anything he proffers except that 
the reader can do his or her own Real Thinking 
for verification. 

 Upon body death, according to Percival, we 
“automatically” go through a series of steps, 
which he initially describes as a brief overview 
on pages 240 to 253. He describes a specific 
order of 12 events, which includes a life-review, 
a judgment, a heaven-state, etc. 

 So, the purpose of our “What Happens After 
Death” class was to emphasize that all of us WILL 
die, and that “something” WILL then occur or 
begin, even if that something is “nothingness.”

 After our brief explanation, we asked each 
participant to lie on our floor. 

 “Now you have just died,” we announced, 
and we covered each person with a sheet to 
further simulate the death experience. We 
then read through the after-death stages, one 
by one, slowly, in the darkened room, asked 
each participant to work hard to fully feel the 
experience.

 Talking through this process took about 45 
minutes.

 Then, after we got through the entire cycle, 
it was explained that these steps could actually 
take several hundred years of earth time. Then 
it would be time for being reborn into a suitable 
and appropriate family, in the place on earth 
that we’ve earned for ourselves.

 We turned on the lights, and removed the 
sheets, and let everyone take a few minutes to 
get their eyes adjusted to the light. Slowly, each 
person opened their eyes and slowly got up, and 
sat down in a chair. 

 We began to share significant experiences that 
each person had. A few folks were very quiet 
and would not talk at all, but others were very 
talkative. Some were even in tears.

 We closed the class by telling everyone that 
they had not died tonight, and that everyone 
now has a “new opportunity” to still “do the 
right things” since they were still alive in a body.

 We shared some freshly-made coffee-elixir 
and healthful cookies, and we discussed a few 
of the upcoming classes and poetry readings 
that we’d be having in the coming weeks. But no 
one seemed interested in our announcements. 
Most everyone was strongly affected by the 
experience, and they wanted to ask more 
questions, which we tried to answer. As usual, 
we didn’t feel like the most perfect examples 
in the world, but we knew that “the future” is 
all the result of each and every choice that we 
make, second by second, and the consequences 
of those choices. To make the wisest possible 
choices every second of one’s entire life required 
a unique sort of sobriety and focus which itself 
required a unique lifestyle regimen to maintain 
– and, of course, those details were the subjects 
of our on-going classes.

[based upon a section of Nyerges’ “Til Death Do Us Part?” 
available on Kindle, or from www.ChristopherNyerges.com].


ASTRONOMERS OPEN WINDOW INTO EUROPA’S OCEAN


Caltech astronomer Mike Brown and Kevin Hand from JPL have found the strongest evidence yet that salty water 
from the vast liquid ocean beneath Europa’s frozen exterior actually makes its way to the surface.

The data suggests there is a chemical exchange between the ocean and surface, making the ocean a richer chemical 
environment, and implies that learning more about the ocean could be as simple as analyzing the moon’s surface. 
The work is described in a paper that has been accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.

The findings were derived from spectroscopy delivered from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

“We now have the best spectrum of this thing in the world,” Brown 
says. “Nobody knew there was this little dip in the spectrum because 
no one had the resolution to zoom in on it before.”

The ten-meter Keck II telescope, fitted with Adaptive Optics (AO) to 
adjust for the blurring effect of Earth’s atmosphere as well as its OH-
Suppressing Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (OSIRIS), produced 
details not capable of collection when NASA’s Galileo mission (1989-
2003) was sent to study Jupiter and its moons.

“We now have evidence that Europa’s ocean is not isolated—that the 
ocean and the surface ‘talk’ to each other and exchange chemicals,” 
adds Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor and 
professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech. “That means that energy 
might be going into the ocean, which is important in terms of the 
possibilities for life there. It also means that if you’d like to know 
what’s in the ocean, you can just go to the surface and scrape some 
off.”

“The surface ice is providing us a window into that potentially 
habitable ocean below,” says Hand, deputy chief scientist for solar 
system exploration at JPL.

Since the days of the Galileo mission, when that spacecraft showed 
that Europa was covered with an icy shell, scientists have debated the 
composition of Europa’s surface. The infrared spectrometer aboard Galileo was not capable of providing the detail 
needed to definitively identify some of the materials present on the surface. Now, using current technology on 
ground-based telescopes, Brown and Hand have definitively identified a spectroscopic feature on Europa’s surface 
that indicates the presence of a magnesium sulfate salt, a mineral called epsomite (“Epsom salts”), which could 
only originate from the ocean below.

“Magnesium should not be on the surface of Europa unless it’s coming from the ocean,” Brown says. “So that 
means ocean water gets onto the surface, and stuff on the surface presumably gets into the ocean water.”

Other spectroscopic data suggest that ordinary table salt—sodium chloride—is also present. Brown and Hand 
believe the composition of Europa’s sea is likely to closely resemble the salty ocean of Earth. “If you could go swim 
down in the ocean of Europa and taste it, it would just taste like normal old salt,” Brown says.

Hand emphasizes that, from an astrobiology standpoint, Europa is considered a premier target in the search for 
life beyond Earth; a NASA-funded study team led by JPL and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has been working with the scientific community to identify options to explore 
Europa further. “If we’ve learned anything about life on Earth, it’s that where there’s liquid water, there’s generally life,” Hand says. “And of course our ocean is a nice salty ocean. Perhaps Europa’s salty 
ocean is also a wonderful place for life.”

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.


Courtesy Laura Eklund

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech