January 2, 2012

Man Can Now Talk With God (May, 1938)

I’m pretty sure this was always possible. The hard part is getting God to talk back…

Man Can Now Talk With God

Says Noted Psychologist

“A new and revolutionary religious teaching based entirely on the misunderstood sayings of the Galilean Carpenter, and designed to show how we may find, understand and use the same identical power which Jesus used in performing His so-called Miracles,” is attracting worldwide attention to its founder, Dr. Frank B. Robinson, noted Psychologist, author and lecturer. Read the rest of this entry »

August 15, 2011

Church Goes To Sea (Jul, 1937)

Filed under: Nautical — @ 8:53 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1937
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This kind of reminds me of the Boat Church in Ian McDonald’s excellent book Brasyl.

Church Goes To Sea

WHEN the congregation can’t go to church, the church goes to the congregation, along the Parana River in the Argentine.

This floating church, 108 feet long, has steeple, stained glass windows and altar. Built in the government’s Buenos Aires shipyard, the hull of an old vessel was transformed into a church by the Lincoln arc-weld process.

Before this floating church made its appearance, many of the church-goers of that section were unable to attend formal worship.

August 14, 2008

AN AMERICAN BISHOP’S SEARCH FOR A SPACE-AGE GOD (Feb, 1966)

Filed under: General — @ 12:16 am
Source: Look ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1966
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AN AMERICAN BISHOP’S SEARCH FOR A SPACE-AGE GOD

BY CHRISTOPHER S. WREN

LAST September, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California left on sabbatical for Cambridge University in England “to find . out what I really do believe.” The Rt. Rev. James A. Pike —m had just been cleared by his fellow bishops of heresy—the third such charge against him since 1961.

What he believes is hardly typical of a bishop. “I’ve jettisoned the Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation,” he told Look in his Cambridge flat recently. These were the heresy accusations of last fall. Bishop Pike also rejects the accepted views of God and prayer. “Everything I’m saying has a question mark at the end,” he explains. Even his musings will be controversial when he comes home.
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May 17, 2008

Faith, Hope and Computer (Dec, 1961)

Why does it not surprise me that modern customized direct mail fund raising was invented by the Catholic church?

Faith, Hope and Computer

By Donald Young

Aided by the most sophisticated use of ultramodern electronic data processing equipment, the world’s most efficient, most effective direct mail operation is used to raise funds for the charitable activities sponsored by the Society of the Divine Savior, an order of the Catholic Church dating back to 1881. These charities include the support of seven American seminaries, numerous foreign missions, three Southern Negro missions and five American Indian missions.
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April 15, 2008

Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind (Nov, 1968)

Filed under: Scary — @ 9:40 pm
Source: Life ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1968
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I think that this was one of the first really critical articles about Scientology.

Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind

The lights in the hall go dim, leaving the bronzed bust of the Founder (spotlighted) at center stage. From the loudspeakers comes L. Ron Hubbard’s voice, deep and professorial. It is a tape called “Some Aspects of Help, Part I,” a basic lecture in Scientology that Hubbard recorded nearly 10 years ago.

No one in the intensely respectful Los Angeles audience of 500—some of whom paid as much as $16 to get in—thought it odd to be sitting there listening to the disembodied voice. Among believers, Scientology and its Founder are beyond frivolous question: Scientology is the Truth, it is the path to “a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war . . .” and “for the first time in all ages there is something that . . . delivers the answers to the eternal questions and delivers immortality as well.”
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March 30, 2008

Giant Figure of Christ in Odd Church Design (Nov, 1936)

Giant Figure of Christ in Odd Church Design

Patents have been issued for an odd architectural design for churches. The plan calls for a giant figure of Christ, to be constructed of burnished copper, which would dominate the church building made of cement in natural stone color. The design has Christ seated on a rock at Gethsemane, with the church entrance in the rock, beneath the flowing robes of the figure. A halo for the figure and illumination for the entire structure would be provided by a system of floodlights.

March 28, 2008

BIBLE HIDES DRUGS (Nov, 1928)

BIBLE HIDES DRUGS
Mechanical ingenuity of narcotic smugglers is constantly being tested in devising new methods of bringing their contraband goods safely into the country. The picture shows a Bible which has been hollowed out in the center to provide a hiding place for thousands of dollars worth of morphine and other opiates. The book was confiscated by Internal Revenue inspectors.

March 1, 2008

AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON (Mar, 1924)

AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON

Adapting the airplane, locomotive, and automobile to motifs for religious frescoes, a French artist has achieved unique results in the decorations on the walls of the new church of St. Christopher, the patron saint of those engaged in hazardous occupations, recently completed in Paris. The figure of the saint is seen protecting a falling aviator, an engineer, and a speeding auto-ist. The machines, shown in detail, form the chief note in the designs and the imminence of danger is effectively suggested. The building has become known as the “sportsmen’s church,” and the novel decorations have caused wide comment.

June 5, 2007

Rosicrucians Ad: Will Man Create Life? (Apr, 1950)

I’ve read this ad three times now and I still have no idea what they are saying. Though I must say that the “good” future they present sounds a lot like what post-singularity transhumans are supposed to be like:

Will the future know a superior, Godlike race of humans—each a genius and each the masterful creation of an unerring formula”

If the formula is unerring, wouldn’t everyone be identical? How is this different from the second option? Also, how can everyone be a genius? That’s sort of like saying everyone will be above average.

And why does the creation of life always require giant tesla coils?

Will Man Create Life?

DOES THE SECRET of life belong to Divinity alone?

Will Nature’s last frontier give way to man’s inquiring mind? Can man become a creator, peopling the world with creatures of his own fancy? Was the ancient sage right, who said: “To the Gods the Soul belongs, but to man will belong the power of Life”? Will the future know a superior, Godlike race of humans—each a genius and each the masterful creation of an unerring formula—or will Soulless beings, shorn of the feelings which have bound mortals together in understanding, dominate the earth?
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May 10, 2007

Trailer Chapel Has Speaker System (Jul, 1939)

Trailer Chapel Has Speaker System

Built into a trailer, a chapel on wheels brings church services to isolated mountain sections of Virginia and West Virginia. Its rear wall unfolds to form a platform before the altar, and a canopy containing two loudspeakers for a public-address system, which carries the preacher’s voice to the congregation. A gasoline-driven generator mounted in the back of the sedan that draws the trailer supplies electric power for the public-address system and for cooking and lighting. Supplemented by a storage battery, the generator unit automatically starts when a light or appliance is turned on, and stops when all are switched off.

April 14, 2007

THIS WISDOM MUST DIE! (Jan, 1946)

“THIS WISDOM MUST DIE!”

Truths That Have Been Denied Struggling Humanity

FOR every word that has left the lips of bishops or statesmen to enlighten man, a thousand have been withheld. For every book publicly exposed to the inquiring mind, one hundred more have been suppressed—damned to oblivion. Each year of progress has been wilfully delayed centuries. Wisdom has had to filter through biased, secret sessions or ecclesiastical council meetings, where high dignitaries of state and church alone proclaimed what man should know. Read the rest of this entry »

March 19, 2007

Rosicrucians Ad: Psychic Phenomena and The War (Mar, 1945)

Psychic Phenomena and The War

On the Threshold of Danger — Strange Things Happen!

Have you ever sensed the imminent danger of a loved one-even though he is across sea or continent? Have you been suddenly awakened by the call of your name—then realize that the one who spoke it was thousands of miles distant? If you ever had these experiences — as millions now have — learn the truth about them.
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