TERROR DRILLS IN PORTLAND TURN REAL

TEAR DRILL TURN REAL!!!

TEAR DRILLS TURN REAL!!!

TEAR DRILLS TURN REAL!!!

Tear drills turn real, then not so much.

These were the headlines in today Oregonian.  The next line read…Then Not So Much.  Radio station KEX reported that evening that, “The terror drills turned live briefly yesterday.”

Am I the only one who see’s in this some kind of dark comedy? 

In thus mentioning yesterday’s fake“real”disaster, the Oregonian admits for the first time the existence of war games in Portland.  Topoff 4 has thousands of soldiers, military officials, federal agents (spies, murderers and creeps) crawling around our friendly city this week faking a dirty-bomb going off and the city’s ability to cope with such a disaster.

Members of the Portland 9/11 truth community had sat down with the editors of the Oregonian and warned of just such an eventuality, even presenting them with an editorial, which wasn’t published, explaining the background for war games and the past precedent for them running amok and turning deadly. 

The master of crying wolf himself, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, was seen fleeing from his Portland Hotel with security entourage in tow.  The fiasco that happened at the Loyd Center Mall yesterday had confused shoppers asking if this was for real or part of the war games as security agents brought out hundreds of feet of crime scene tape, evacuated parking lots, and stood around in riot gear. 

This has got to be the apex of caustic humor. 

Apparently the bomb sniffing dogs that were part of the drill had gotten a whiff of bomb residue in one of the officials car.  Yet the image of Chertoff fleeing his hotel with his security entourage, while police dressed in riot gear tell confused shoppers that, “No this is real this time, not part of the drills…a real crime,” while helicopters are flying overhead, is surely the farce to end all farces.  And yet what makes this so funny is the touch of reality that is behind the curtain of madness.  These people could hire a theatrical company from Europe that could do a better job of lying.  It’s like they want to believe their own propoganda and are trying to convince themselves.

It reminds me of similar in your face charades played by the globalist forces of the New World Order. 

On 7/7, if you recall, there was one bus that was bombed, in addition to the tube bombings.  That one bus had been rerouted.  An enterprising reporter found out that the man who had the authority to make these changes—London’s Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley—was a former high level CIA agent (once an agent always an agent). 

In pictures of the partially bombed out bus, one can see the words “Outrights Terror: Bold and Brilliant” writen across the side, advertising a low-budget movie by that name.  One also see’s a white commercial van with writing advertising a company.  The white van ploy is a neccesary element for any paranoid conspiracy theory and UFO buffs, but in this case it turned out there really was a white van.  The agency written across it, Kingstar, is a controlled demolition company. It’s also interesting that the Butcher of 9/11, Rudi Giuliani, was just yards from Liverpool station where the bombs went off and war games were being played which mimicked the real attacks.  Giuliani’s security company is not only hired by governments.  It also performs simulated sabotages for private firms.  This is safer.  If anyone is caught, it is the private sector that has really carried out the atrocities.  But the bad guys usually leak out what happened, as if they are proud of it.  So after 7/7/, you had a former Scotland Yard official, who was then in charge of a private security firm, going on the BBC saying they were running drills in the exact same time and locations as the real attacks.  Same thing on 9/11, they let us know.  The war games that day exactly mimicked the real attacks as the CIA practiced flying planes into buildings.  There have been numourous confirmations of this, from all over the government.

It is clear that the people who do these things (I’m not allowed to say the “I” word, so I usually use a euphemism, but you get my point…a thousand points of light etc), leave a trail, like the magician who does his trick right in front of your face so that you don’t expect it.  An outright lie is hardly ever believed because it is too bold and brilliant.  Say the exact opposite of what is really true and you will be believed.  That’s the lesson Hitler’s propaganda minister Goring told his Nuremberg lawyers.

Let’s hope this isn’t the prelude to a cataclysmic horror show.  Now, more than ever, 9/11 truth matters and spreading the word about the precedent to war games turning deadly is so important.  It really should not surprise us, though, that our leaders guns have turned towards their own population.  These same people who are in power now were waging a brutal war against the people of Latin America during the 1980’s.  Matin Luther King was right when he said that the United States, “was on the wrong side of a world revolution.”  In most cases, the people that were targeted by Reagan’s death squads were only guilty of wanting democracy for their countries.  It’s interesting that our government has been l to kill millions of people in Latin America for the last 5 decades (in the case of Nicaragua, a quarter of the population was exterminated) with virtually no comment by the people of the United States.  Anyone who doubts that Americans are affected with the vice of genocide denying can just do a little experiment by mentioning,  the next time they are at a cocktail party, about the US airforce bombing neighborhoods and dragging students, priest and professors off to their south American gulags and see what kind of reactions they get.  Genocide minimizing is also an American vice.  I say this as the death toll in Iraq is getting close to a million. 

Maintaining this website was more than I could handle because I wind up spending all my time doing homework and study.  And it did not really turn out like I had hoped. It is interesting, though, to find that people link to my website, though, by typing “kombucha debunk” into search engines and other ridiculous things.  And it is also gratifying to know that between 20 and 40 people a day are logging in, even though I have received—as yet—very little feedback from readers.  But I really need to back off and stay away.  The kind of writing that generates results, moreover, is done slowly and carefully—not in haste.   Thankfully, a friend has offered to repair my computer.  I may, therefore, be able to write from home.  So we’ll  see what happens.  I have learned from my father that a good writer has a work ethic and, while talent helps, it’s necessary to sit down in the morning and just write, and then re-write.  WordPress is ideal for that because it allows editing, unlike many websites and blogs.   Apparently my name, however, doesn’t turn up this website because I haven’t written my name anywhere on this website yet.  so: patrick phillips, patrick phillips, patrick phillips, patrick phillips, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.  Take that and stuff it up your algorithm.

I have been trying to memorize the international phonetic alphabet and wondering how it is practical and why I need to know this stuff.  I don’t wonder that anymore.  Yesterday I went to a language tutor for a foreign language course I am taking.  I was having trouble with the pronunciation of a word.  She said, “The consonant influences the vowel.”  Then she whipped out her black marker and wrote the word on the board in the IPA.  “I get it,” I said to myself.  “That’s so awesome.”  Without the IPA, the letters in her native language would have been misleading.   So linguistics really is practical. 

I saw my naturalpathic physician yesterday as well.  There is a link with her contact information to the right.  I started seeing her for the first time a couple years ago.  Back then, she started me on natural thyroid supplements—as well as treating other things.  She announced to me yesterday that my thyroid was now repaired and I did not need to take the bovine thyroid anymore.  That’s wild, I thought.  Then I thought, Praise the Lord.  That’s what I had envisioned when I started seeing her.  But I thought it would take 20 years.  She said that taking thyroid supplements at this point would acutally be countereffective.  Wow!!  I’m still realing over this one. 

What happened yesterday shouldn’t have happened according to the ideology of medical science, which is more concerned with method then outcome and treats everyone on the basis of statistics rather than  everyone differently.  According to medical science, there is no repairing of the thyroid.  She explained it to me, during the first visit a couple years ago, that the cow DNA and the human DNA are so similar that the human thyroid starts grafting on to what the cow DNA, copying it and wa la.  My naturalpathic physician also said that many people do not know that they are switched (have confusion in the autonomic nervous system).  They just feel that something isn’t quite right, or they are tired, or don’t feel quite like they used to.  I feel better now than when I first started seeing her.  It seems that the older I grow, the moreenergy I have.  There is not much that I can do, but I wish everyone could feel such a turn around in their life energy as I have felt over the last few years.  When I think of the people who resign themselves to conditions that they think are congenital, or maybe spend so much time and money looking in the wrong places, I feel saddened.  I wish everyone could know the benefits of nutrition that I have experienced.

 Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners; now and at the hour of our death amen.

Last entry on this website

I am not going to be adding anything more to this website.  It has not turned out quite like I had imagined, mostly because I am too busy with my university studies.  As a forum, though, wordpress seems ideal for writers because of the ability to edit posts once they are published.  But it is has been draining time and energy away from my studies and I have not received enough feedback on it to make it worth my while.  But, the addictive nature of blogging, neccesitates that I make an official and sudden break. 

People, of course, are still free to view it.  I’ve been averaging about 20 hits a day, maybe more,though I really have no idea who these people are.  Already today there have been 27 hits.  509 overall since the websites inception and it seems to be growing.  I suspect it is from people doing searches related to 9/11.  It is certainly not because I have a readership. If you type in “world trade center explosions”, you will receive hundreds of thousands of hits.  So I’m not sure exactly why google turns mine up with such frequency.  It’s hard to know which posts people are looking at most. 

There are pictures of Robin and me taken last summer.  You can view them by clicking on the catigories for ‘Patrick’s Friends’.  Both my brothers have interesting websites, which one can link to from my blog.  In fact, all the links to the right will connect you to very interesting websites which will furnish hours of reading material on a wide variety of subjects.  If anyone is interested more in Orthodoxy, I would suggest the writer Metropolitan Herotheos Napfaktos, who has written a number of books translated into English including The Soul After Death and Orthodox Psychotherapy.  His link is now up.  It is fortunate that most of his writings, in their entirety, are online.

Thank you Mom and Mike Verostick for being the only one’s who have expressed interest and excitement for this website.  To all the rest of you who have viewed it over the last month, thank you too.

To end with one last piece of news.  Starting later this week will be a serries of war games in Portland, OR simulating a “dirty bomb” going off.  This is serious.  It is called Topoff 4, standing for “Top officials”.  It is also dangerous.   For what it’s worth, I hope we are all prepared.  Everyone can do their part by spreading the word about 9/11.  This holds true for even people who have not thought of themselves as activists in the past.  There needs to be a groundswell of truth about this issue.  The future is not determined for us, but it will take concerted effort.  This means speaking out to friends and family and trying generally to make the facts of 9/11 known.  Only that way can we prevent another terrorist attrocity.

HSU and Quito

I am considering finishing up my degree at HSU in Arcata California.  Studying at a school on a semester system would be much easier for me.  It would be easier for me to take more classes and do well.  Not that I am doing badly, but I don’t feel I learn as well on a quarter system.  This would also make it more easy if I do decide to study in South America, for however long, so that I could start at a school as soon as I got back, which would be six months unless I can obtain a student visa.  Since I will be storing my furniture and clothes at my parents’ house, going to school in Arcata upon my return would be much more practical than trying to move back to Portland.  My rent in Portland was near the roof.  Next month it goes through the roof, unless I sign a year lease.  This also is influencing my decision.

linguistics post: brand names

                                      —-Sound Symbolism—-

            I am going to be looking at brand names for fruit juices.  I sampled at random, but certain characteristics seem to be uniform.  

           First of all, fruit itself, and words that remind us of fruit, such as Snapple (rhymes with apple) or Frutaiga (contains the word fruit), seem to be a favorite when selecting a brand name for fruit juice. 

Second: the theme of sun and/or weather crops up, as in Tropicana and Capri-Sun and Sunkist.  Nature is also evoked in the Italian brand Bionaturae.  Third: there is an overwhelming propensity to end the juice with the English letter ‘A’, such as Kombucha, Frutaiga, Odwalla, Tropicana and Bionaturae, although this English letter ‘A’ is pronounced in three different ways among the brand names sampled.  All the brand names except one had the English letter ‘A’ at least once.  My guess is that the English letter ‘A’ appears bright and it is the brightness of the spelling that is being sought here. 

            Two of the brand names were foreign (Kombucha and Bionaturae), Chinese and Italian respectively, and yet they conformed to one of the criteria for juices, namely the third—, ending with the English letter ‘A’. 

Not all the juices followed the same pattern, but all of them shared at least one of these characteristics.  Some, such as Tropicana, Frutaiga and Bionaturae shared two of the criteria, although none all three. 

Based on these few observations (and all these brands sell well), if you or I were to select a brand name for a fruit juice, we would have a pretty good idea where to start.

Quito

I’ve been blogging about the possibility of studying Spanish in abroad and my struggles with trying to learn it here.  I’ve taken down those posts because my plans have now progressed to a point where those earlier posts have become obsolete and some of the information is not factual.  

Hi Patrick:

Sure you can take the Spanish course and then if you decide to stay you can
do it.

If you decide for example to stay 1 month(4 weeks) in classes and 3 months
in the students’ apartment.
The price for a normal course of 4 hours per day, 4 weeks, 3 months (12
weeks) in students’ apartment will be: $1222.
The price of the course just classes is:$532 (4 hours per day, 4 weeks)
The price of the students’ apartment will be $230 each month.

Another advantage if you decide to stay longer than 6 months in the students
apartment is that from we can reduce the price since the 7th the price will
be $200 and also for the 7th month, we will reduce the $30 dollars for the
past 6 months ($180) and you will just pay $20 for the 7th month. And you
will from the 8th month ($200).

If you want to take more classes you can increase them as I told you we try
to be very flexible with our students.

About a Berlitz Center in Ecuador sure, also let me tell you that from the
school and the students’ apartment is really easy and close to get there.

Berlitz Center: www.berlitz.com.ec
Address: Bellavista Av. de diciembre N 33 32 y Bosanno y Bosmediano.
Telephones: 244 96 95 / 225 84 95

About signing up you can do it whenever you want, as the instruction is one
to one we don’t have exactly dates to start classes, usually all the
students whether they have or not previous experience start their classes on
Monday.

Please let me know what do you think.

Please contact me in any question you may have.

Best Regards

Andrea Torres
APF Languages

on internet and study

When I started going to college originally, 10 years ago, the internet had not really taken over.  Although many things about the internet are really great and positive (the truth movement could not have advanced without the internet, for example), it can make in depth study harder.  I am out of habit of the really kind of in depth study that is needed for my classes.  Whereas people used to sit at a desk for a couple hours, now they sit at a computer.  Most of the student teachers for my foreign language classes are really great teachers.  Most of them do not even have a master’s degree, but they have the look of teachers.  Many are native speakers from other countries.  However, because the language department wants everything to be online, all the classes need to be the same and the teachers can’t really design their own courses.  My guess is that none of the teachers from the other countries would choose to teach immersion.  None of them learned English by the conversational style.  For my own part, trying to learn Spanish and German this way is very difficult.

 When I started taking English courses 10 years ago, they told us not to use internet sources except one’s that were scholarly and they gave us a criteria to help us determine which websites were scholarly.  Since then things have changed.  They have not been dumbed down.  The amount of scholarly sites have proliferated.  But it does make learning by serious research harder because one becomes lazy and looses the talent for searching in libraries.  I speak from experience.  With my writing, it is different becasue I inhereted a work ethic from my Dad and I understand that you just sit down in the morning and write.  Unfortunately that is on hold while I get my degree.

 It is often said that there is no authority on the internet and no way to tell fact from fiction.  “Any kid can edit Wikipdea” they say.  Well, that’s true.  But no one edits Wikipedia more than US intellegence agents.  That is known.  It would be more acurate to say that propoganda is less effective on the internet and people are becoming more and more informed as telivision takes a backseat.  Telivision has pretty much destroyed our society in the last 30 years and it would be best if all of them were destroyed.  A good book on this is Niel Postman’s Ammusing Ourselves To Death.  Even people who disdain the role of telivision in society are saddled to the narratives it has produced.

linguistics post #4: propoganda

Although some of linguistics is very old, such as the international phonetic alphabet, and dating back hundreds of years (for a long time it was called philology but it means the same thing), some subfields of linguistics are relatively young.  An example of one of these subfields would be cognative linguistics, also sometimes called neural linguistics.  One of the pioneers of the field is a man from California named George Lekoff.  He has turned his attention to debunking propoganda and understanding how political parties use metaphors to cause people, particularly men, to vote against there better interests.  Republicans have convinced ordinary Americans that if they elect them then these ordinary people will get to keep more of there money and not paying taxes.  Twenty-seven years after Reagon we should look around and see that the middle class is being destroyed for precisely this reason and it was all a lie.  Since Nixon, Republan strategists, who thought in long term’s—30 years ahead, according to some horiffic memo’s that have been leaked; they have been very successful at convincing men that the government is the bad guy.  But to quote Chomsky, another great linguists, ”The government is a buffer between the public and private power (corporations).  But it has one defect: it is potentially democratic and therefore it has to be squashed.”  That’s why we have people in government who don’t believe in government, some, like Grover Norquist, who even say there desire is to “drown government in the bathtup.”  These same elites have also convinced Americans that labor unions are bad, with propoganda films like Marlon Brando On The Water Front and huge anti-union advertizing offennsives.   Lekoff’s work on propoganda, like Chomsky’s on the same subject,  is simply breathtaking.  I have had a chance to hear him speak on the radio as well as perusing his books.  Much of his time is spent debunking the ideology of James Dobson.  He has team of linguists who are committed to this enterprise.  What?  It sounds far fetched, right?  Lekoff could be called Dobson’s nemesis.  It makes sense, though.  In books like Moral Politics, Lekoff is working on the basis of conceptual metaphors.  Political strategists use patriarchal concepts to snare innocent voters who then feel strong psychological pulls to vote against there better interests in favor of these authoritatian paradimes.  It is called Framing The Debate.  This was a title of one of his talks which can be ordered for 15 dollars by going to www.alternativeradio.org  I think it should be said, though, that although I find his research fascinating and compelling and think everyone should be aware of this luminary, I do not agree with all his assesments.  The Cosby family is his ideal family and his views on abortion, I feel, should be changed.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with tradtional gender roles.  A strict father, intrinsically, could also be a nurtuting one, as we see in many Jane Austen novels.  George Lakoff uses “the strict father metaphor” to explain pretty much everything from taxes to invading other countries.  Even he admits that there are many variations and overlaps.  So having a traditional gender mindset is natural.   I might have less of a problem with it than him.  What is wrong,  however, is when these classes are used cunningly to do evil.  And as in the case of the Iraq war, inflation and destroying the middle class by shipping jobs overseas, these are indeed evils and the language that is used to make these evil enterprises successful needs to be unpacked and exposed.  I think his anaylsis is basically correct. 

Because of my busy schedule, I am not able to re-read much of what I post.  I realize that it is haphazard.  These should really be considered just notes.  Someday I hope to write more in depth on these subjects.

linguistics post #4

“Do you have the time,” asked Richard.

“Yes,” answered David Lion.

“Can I have it?”

“Have what?” 

This little exchange, although funny, is an example of what linguists study in a subfield called pragmatics and/or semantics.  We learn that certain phrases carry certain meaning because of shared agreement rather than the words themselves.  What David has done is to ignore this shared agreement and therefore caused relational confusion.  But consider the following exchange.

Ashley, a high school student, calls up and asks to speak to Mr. Paufhausen’s son, also fifteen years old.

“Is Joe there?”

“Yes,” replies Mr. Paufhausen slowly. 

“Can you put him on?” 

“Yes,” again slowly replies Mr. Paufhausen.

“Okay,” replies Ashley.

“Who is this?” asks Joe’s father.

“Oh…this is Ashley.  I’m sorry I didn’t say.”

“Is that so?”

You probably see what’s going on here.  This isn’t the same as the first example.  In this case Mr. Paufhausen understands perfectly.  But to come out straight and say what is on his mind might be rude.  So to be polite he disemmbles.  And it may not be his wish to communicate that Ashley can’t speak with his son, but to convey something else, such as the need for her to have more respect and not think she can go over his head.   We often talk around points in order to convey emotions and keep the other person comfortable, prefering to give clues.  In the linguistics field of pragmatics and semantics, there are words and classes for everything that has gone on here.

linguistics post #3

Why do we say “improbable” instead of “inprobable”? It is because the sounds for the letters m and p are right next to eachother in the mouth and role together. This is an example of how one’s physiology affects the usage and meaning of words because according to the rules of English it should be “inprobable”, right? But it’s not…as in “improbable collapse”.

It is sometimes very frustrating for me because I try to study hard, and do study hard, but tend to have headaches when I spend a lot of time in the books.  This propensity for headaches has actually kept me from taking classes in the past.  I have a good indication that—over time—this problem will become less and less (just as the headaches now are not as severe as two years ago), but right now it is something that is annoying—sometimes very annoying, espeically when you have two weeks to memorize the International Phonetic Alphabet.  People try to give me aspirin.   Actually the one thing that really helps is Billberry and my Mom buys me a lot of this.       

     The people I admire most are those people who remain calm even when difficulties and stresses come there way.  This is my goal.  In yoga we are taught to cultivate both kinds of energy: hot and cold.  Truly in life this is what is needed.

linguistics post #1

So what did I learn in linguistics class today? To spell?  Not exactly.

There are many field of linguists.  One of the things linguists look at his how certain words unconsciously invoke certain meanings.  For example, in advertising: chereos and checks are names of cereals and they are meant to make us think of the word cereal without even realizing it.  Why do new brands of perfumes have certain sounds?  What about tampax?  Why wouldn’t this be a good brand name for a cereal?  It actually was invented as a brand name to invoke a few different words.

In our native languages we don’t think about word order.  We instinctively say, “The three old Spanish guitars,” rather than “the old three Spanish guitars.”  We have unconscious rules about order of adjectives, such as numbers first and nationality last—as in this example.  These unconscious rules are just a much a part of native English speakers weather or not they can explain them or are even aware of them.  It is part of their inherited grammar.  However…as inate as these rules are, these rules still can bump up against reality sometimes.  When we go to order at Starbucks, having these rules of adjective placement unconsciously in mind, we might say to the barista, “I’d like a double late, no cream, grande, iced frapaccino” or whatever.  That’s probably not a very good example, but you get the idea.  A lot of adjectives that we make decisions about where to place based on what sounds right, just like we instinctively say “three old Spanish guitars” rather than “old three guitars Spanish.”  It bumps up against reality, though, because Starbucks has there own order which is Universal, universal to any Starbucks.  And it makes sense for them.  They always put the word “decaf” first because that is the last thing they can afford to forget.  Similar considerations center around weather the drink is hot or cold.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.  This sentence actually is grammatical.  Even though it is nonsense, it could be a sentence just like the word “blick” could be an English word but “blocksp” could not.

miracles in the holy land

This from www.holyfire.org

The ceremony, which awes the souls of Christians, takes place in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. The date for Pascha is determined anew for every year. It must be a first Sunday after the spring equinox and Jewish Passover. Therefore, most of the time it differs from the date of Catholic and Protestant Easter, which is determined using different criteria. The Holy Fire is the most renowned miracle in the world of Eastern Orthodoxy. It has taken place at the same time, in the same manner, in the same place every single year for centuries. No other miracle is known to occur so regularly and so steadily over time. No other miracle is known to occur so regularly and so steadily over time. It happens in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth[2], where Christ was crucified, entombed, and where He finally rose from the dead.

In order to be as close to the Sepulchre as possible, pilgrims camp next to it. The Sepulchre is located in the small chapel called Holy Ciborium, which is inside the Church of the Resurrection. Typically they wait from the afternoon of Holy Friday in anticipation of the miracle on Holy Saturday. Beginning at around 11:00 in the morning the Christian Arabs chant traditional hymns in a loud voice. These chants date back to the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem in the 13th century, a period in which the Christians were not allowed to chant anywhere but in the churches. “We are the Christians, we have been Christians for centuries, and we shall be forever and ever. Amen!” – they chant at the top of their voices accompanied by the sound of drums. The drummers sit on the shoulders of others who dance vigorously around the Holy Ciborium. But at 1:00 pm the chants fade out, and then there is a silence. A tense silence, charged from the anticipation of the great demonstration of God’s power for all to witness.

Shortly thereafter, a delegation from the local authorities elbows its way through the crowd. At the time of the Turkish occupation of Palestine they were Muslim Turks; today they are Israelis. Their function is to represent the Romans at the time of Jesus. The Gospels speak of the Romans that went to seal the tomb of Jesus, so that his disciples would not steal his body and claim he had risen. In the same way the Israeli authorities on this Holy Saturday come and seal the tomb with wax. Before they seal the door, they follow a custom to enter the tomb, and to check for any hidden source of fire, which would make a fraud of the miracle.

“I enter the tomb and kneel in holy fear in front of the place where Christ lay after His death and where He rose again from the dead… (narrates Orthodox Patriarch Diodor – ed.). I find my way through the darkness towards the inner chamber in which I fall on my knees. Here I say certain prayers that have been handed down to us through the centuries and, having said them, I wait. Sometimes I may wait a few minutes, but normally the miracle happens immediately after I have said the prayers. From the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay an indefinable light pours forth. It usually has a blue tint, but the colour may change and take many different hues. It cannot be described in human terms. The light rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake — it almost looks as if the stone is covered by a moist cloud, but it is light. This light each year behaves differently. Sometimes it covers just the stone, while other times it gives light to the whole sepulchre, so that people who stand outside the tomb and look into it will see it filled with light. The light does not burn — I have never had my beard burnt in all the sixteen years I have been Patriarch in Jerusalem and have received the Holy Fire. The light is of a different consistency than normal fire that burns in an oil lamp… At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that I am able to light my candles from it. When I thus have received the flame on my candles, I go out and give the fire first to the Armenian Patriarch and then to the Coptic. Hereafter I give the flame to all people present in the Church.”

While the patriarch is inside the chapel kneeling in front of the stone, there is darkness but far from silence outside. One hears a rather loud mumbling, and the atmosphere is very tense. When the Patriarch comes out with the two candles lit and shining brightly in the darkness, a roar of jubilee resounds in the Church.

The Holy Light is not only distributed by the Archbishop, but operates also by itself. It is emitted from the Holy Sepulchre with a hue completely different from that of natural light. It sparkles, it flashes like lightning, it flies like a dove around the tabernacle of the Holy Sepulchre, and lights up the unlit lamps of olive oil hanging in front of it. It whirls from one side of the church to the other. It enters some of the chapels inside the church, as for instance the chapel of the Calvery (at a higher level than the Holy Sepulchre) and lights up the little lamps. It lights up also the candles of certain pilgrims. In fact there are some very pious pilgrims who, every time they attended this ceremony, noticed that their candles lit up on their own accord!his divine light also presents some peculiarities: As soon as it appears it has a bluish hue and does not burn. At the first moments of its appearance, if it touches the face, or the mouth, or the hands, it does not burn. This is proof of its divine and supernatural origin. We must also take into consideration that the Holy Light appears only by the invocation of an Orthodox Archbishop.

The miracle is not confined to what actually happens inside the little tomb, where the Patriarch prays. What may be even more significant, is that the blue light is reported to appear and be active outside the tomb. Every year many believers claim that this miraculous light ignites candles, which they hold in their hands, of its own initiative. All in the church wait with candles in the hope that they may ignite spontaneously. OOften unlit oil lamps catch light by themselves before the eyes of the pilgrims. The blue flame is seen to move in different places in the Church. A number of signed testimonies by pilgrims, whose candles lit spontaneously, attest to the validity of these ignitions. The person who experiences the miracle from close up by having the fire on the candle or seeing the blue light usually leaves Jerusalem changed, and for everyone having attended the ceremony, there is always a “before and after” the miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem.

The first writtenaccount of the Holy Fire (Holy Light) dates from the fourth century, but authors write about events that occurred in the first century. So Ss. John Damascene and Gregory of Nissa narrate how the Apostle Peter saw the Holy Light in the Holy Sepulchre after Christ’s resurrection. “One can trace the miracle throughout the centuries in the many itineraries of the Holy Land.” The Russian abbot Daniel, in his itinerary written in the years 1106-07, presents the “Miracle of the Holy Light” and the ceremonies that frame it in a very detailed manner. He recalls how the Patriarch goes into the Sepulchre-chapel (the Anastasis) with two candles. The Patriarch kneels in front of the stone on which Christ was laid after his death and says certain prayers, at which point the miracle occurs. Light proceeds from the core of the stone – a blue, indefinable light which after some time kindles unlit oil lamps as well as the Patriarch’s two candles. This light is “The Holy Fire”, and it spreads to all people present in the Church. The ceremony surrounding “The Miracle of the Holy Fire” may be the oldest unbroken Christian ceremony in the world. From the fourth century A.D. all the way up to our own time, sources recall this awe-inspiring event. From these sources it becomes clear that the miracle has been celebrated on the same spot, on the same feast day, and in the same liturgical frame throughout all these centuries.[

One can ask the question of why the miracle of the Holy Fire is almost unknown in Western Europe. In Protestant areas it may, to a certain extent, be explained by the fact that there is no real tradition of miracles; people don’t really know in which box to place the miracles, and they rarely feature in newspapers. But in the Catholic tradition there is vast interest in miracles. Thus, why is it not more well known? For this only one explanation suffices: Church politics. Only the Orthodox Churches attend the ceremony which is centered on the miracle. It only occurs on the Orthodox date of Easter and without the presence of any Catholic authorities.