Cause and Effect! Choose a Path

Three steps to your Personal Transformation:

1. Awareness and Perception
   
   


2. Law of Cause and Effect
   
   


3. Law of Accumulation
   
   

These categories are what you need to understand in order to be in total control of your being!

Most go through life never reaching their potential because they never take control of all their faculties or abilities.

This information is designed to help you gain complete control of your life!

So lets get into it

1) Awareness and perception.

In order to be in complete control of our self, actions, and ultimate success - we must learn to expand our awareness of what is around us.

FACT: there are certain states of mind that enable us to learn more information, retain more information, and be more aware of our environments

This state of mind is open to all of us; however, most people never call it to action.

In other words we just don't look... The problem with that is if we are not using our resources... we are virtually blind! Or at least vary limited.

Most of us look at the world through a tunnel vision... really blinded to what is all around us.

CAMERA

E.g.: Imagine having a really nice camera...problem is that it is always stuck on the highest zoom! You can see a limited amount very detailed. However, you ignore the majority of what is around you...

Here is what I mean

ACTION: Focus on a point... (Pick a point, any point) stare at it intently. Don't move. Stare and Focus all of your energy into that point!

That is a great quality that we can focus so intently on one thing - but...

Keep starting at the point... but while staring... try to notice what is to the sides of the point... sides of the room... keep going. All the way and you will realize that you can even see the people sitting right next to you while still focusing on the point!

That is what is called your peripheral vision...

Every leader that I know has the ability to use both their focused vision, as well as their peripheral.

They can be laser focused on a task at hand while simultaneously keeping an open mind to other situations and opportunities...

This is what I mean by awareness...

The first step to taking charge of our lives is to broaden your vision of what is all around you all of the time...

Once we are more AWARE of what is going on, we can then start making progress on expanding our perception! It's when we do this that our transformation of self begins

Why do we get control of our perception?

We must learn to see all vantage points! All angles, all sides...

You cannot really be in control of your thoughts of you have limited thoughts!

E.g. Lifecycle?

Hit a threshold... what do you do. Some might stay quite... I say find a new lifecycle.... A new challenge and new ideas and compound!

Just a change in perception!

What about your greatest strength!

What is it? It is only strength.

I bet if you thought about it, your greatest strength when taken to an extreme could be your greatest FAULT!

E.g. TITANIC!!!! Unsinkable!!!! Got rid of lifeboats... turned up speed!!! What happened?

Most people are inside the box thinkers... even though it's almost a cliché to say thinking outside the box, most people don't! Why not. Most don't change their perceptions

Control of self comes from learning to shift your perceptions to all vantage points!

E.g.: at one point everything strange that happened on this planet was an act of god!

Then Isaac Newton came around and said no - everything happens because of universal laws!

The problem that people run into when trying to shift their perception is that most people think that their perception is reality!

Is it?

Is what you perceive always what is real! MATRIX!

Perception may be your reality.... But there is a difference between reality and actuality?

Once you can understand that what you perceive is only what you think is there and may not be what is actually there! Now you have the foundation to understand the next law!

Cause and effect!

This is a universal force of nature

C -> E

You are always on one side of the equation or another!

Either you assume causes for everything you do, or you are the effect!

E.g. my organization won't listen to me!

What side are you on with that statement? Are you a cause?

No.

What if you decided to be at cause and say that the results that I get from my organization are a direct response from my communication skills and ability to move them into action!

Our communication is always a result of that information we put out, not what is heard on the other side. If our message is not communication clearly, we should strive harder to improve our ability.

Now you are at cause.

It always easier to blame something or someone else with a result that you don't like.'

But if you do that you are no longer in control. You are not a cause.

Another e.g. how many of you run into "circumstances in life"....

What do you usually do?

Most blame others.

Many of us may have had that situation just recently, you always have two options:

You can blame the people around you, the weather, the events, the situation or whatever else and see how your circumstances are everybody else's fault but your own.... basically admitting that you are no longer in control of who you are and what you do!

Or you can choose to be a cause for your present moment! Personally, if a circumstance comes to me, I call it a challenge, and I think this was presented to me for a reason. I look at what other's use as reasons not to excel, and see them as challenges to test my mental toughness and emotional intelligence to see what I deserve, what reward may be just on the other side of that obstacle!!!

I am a cause! I am in control. I choose to perceive and respond do different things!

You see once you understand that YOU can choose how you perceive things... from what vantage point you want to view.... Then you we realize that you are a cause for everything in your life. You can always be in control.

You see most people never do this.... people are so predictable!

When we say something wrong... what do we do? We Blame, Mimic, deny and justify!!!

Most people will do this. You can't go around changing people. You simply must learn to control yourself.

A unique realization: When you decide to change yourself, you in fact change your environment!

How?

If you take a different viewpoint - you change your perception of reality. Your perception is what you perceive as real. Therefore by changing yourself you change your world!

So don't ask for your environment to change... That's in EFFECT

Ask for you to change... now you are a cause!

You are either affecting your environment or your environment is affecting you! Which is it?

The catch is, sometimes you don't want to be a cause. Sometime it's easier to blame... to stay inside the matrix!

That is what personal transformation is all about!

Is this too philosophical for you? Well let's substantiate this argument with empirical science!

If our perception is not actuality... What is? Actuality really lays the 2 million pieces of information that your brain is processing right now!

What?

Science has proven that at any give moment, you are be bombarded by 2 million BITS if information at a time.

Some of them you recognize.... See, smell, feel, hear, taste.

MOST YOU DON'T!

Here is the thing... your human neurology cannot take in and process 2 million bits of information at the same time.

It has been proven that the avg human brain can only take in approximately 134 bits at a time!

That 134 out of the 2 million that are all around you!

All day long. Our subconscious mind deletes, distorts, and generalizes all of these bits until it narrows it down to 134 bits!!

The system that does this is called our RAS... Reticular Activation System...

This component tells our mind what to seek out! It's our filtering system so we don't walk around on information overload all the time!

Right now as I am writing to all of you. There are 2 million bits of info all around us. Each of you is picking up your own 134... that is your perception! Each of you right now is seeing a different movie in your mind!

Another example: Look around the room...picture a color (e.g. BLUE). Shut your eyes and focus on BLUE and open your eyes and look around and notice how much BLUE is in the room. all different shades...

What? We now programmed our subconscious to pick up that bit!

How about anybody ever buy a new car! You never see them until you buy it, then what happens? Why is it that the cars were never there and the world just copied you! They were not a part of your unconscious mind; therefore, they were just among the other 2 million bits that got sorted out!

Pretty amazing, isn't it?

So the obvious question is what determines what 134 bits we pick up!

Ever hear of the law of magnetism! We attract what we put out! Here is why that is the case... your mind chooses the 134 bits that harmonize most with your unconscious mind!

In others words. What you perceive, or your so-called reality, is a direct result of what is going on in your own mind!

E.g. you ever notice how 2 people can have the same situation occur and have two completely different responses! They have different bits.

How many of you have those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed... and EVERYTHING GOES wrong? Why?

Do you see how this works? That is what I cringe on is when people think negative thoughts! Because you are shifting your perception to attract a negative 134 bits!!!

"If you really new the power of a negative thought, you would never even think about having one!"

Therefore, by understanding that it is scientifically proven that we only pick on 134 out of 2 million bits and that we are only in command of what bits we pick up, then we are perpetually at cause for our reality!!!

So the main question that you have to ask yourself is what 134 bits are you picking up?

What reality are you a CAUSE for creating for yourself!

Your reality as it is today is EXACTLY what you shaped it to be.

So if you are having success and you are happy and content, congratulations, you created that for yourself.

And if you are not successful (in your mind) and want things to change - then you must change! Become more aware... shift your perceptions and be at cause for your reality!

You choose your reality.

So now that we understand cause and effect and how we are truly at cause of everything that happens in our lives.

Lets take one last step...

Not only is this relevant for what we filer and how we perceive things, it is also tied into what actions we initiate and the results that they get!

Who here before this event, believed in Karma... or have heard the statement that "everything happens for a reason!"

What is this case?

Same philosophy here: for every cause that you initiate - other people are going to react or create an effect!

This philosophy has been around forever... its part of the universal law!

Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you!

What goes around comes around.

What you put out is what you get back.

All of these are quotes around the law of accumulation...

Once you decide to become a cause for everything in your life... you have to be careful with what you put out there!

Again, that's why this is a step in your personal transformation!

If you stop and consider all of your action and ask what could the effect of that action be... then you should live a long a prosperous life!

If you put your actions with integrity, honesty, good heartedness, and if you are responsible, disciplined, and focused, if you are committed, persistent, and congruent... then all of these causes will generate a desired effect!

However, the opposite is also often true. And this is where you have to be careful because being a cause, or being in control in your life allocates you a lot of power and freedom to shape your reality.

With great power, comes great responsibility.

The law of accumulation just states that what you put out will continue to come back.

Therefore, as long as you do the correct things long enough... over and over - you will get your desired result.

You see successful people are not successful by chance! They are successful because they deserve to be. Just as you will deserve to be financially free when you hit that point.

Successful people are successful not because they are extraordinary people, but because they put enough good actions out there that they got there due in return... that's it!

Do you want to learn to command the law of accumulation in your favor? I hope so!

That is the third phase of personal transformation!

I felt compelled to share this information because how to take control of your life and situation was a thought that was put in my mind years ago.

Also, at that time was the launch of our organization!

I hope that the information that stemmed for me wanting to learn to be in control of my situation can help you in your journey and your personal transformation...

Just expand your awareness, shift your perceptions, and see all vantage points.

Decide to be a cause to everything in your life.

Command the law off accumulation in your favor.

By dong this you are in control!

You will write your own check in your business. You will write your own check in life.

You take the only variable in your business and not only make it good, but decide to make it great!

So next time someone says, "are you going to retire? Are you going to be successful? Are you going to beat the system? What's your guarantee?

You can stand tall...look them directly in the eye, and without a flinch, without a stutter, say "I have a guarantee... my guarantee is me!"

About The Author

Ryan Blackport is a co-founder and owner of a marketing and training company: http://www.myfuturevision.com. He comes from years of experience in management with a Fortune 50 Company, speaking, and training. Be FREE: www.ryanblackport.com

tfnvictory@hotmail.com, 619.206.7926

How to Get the Most Out of Your Hourly Employees - Motivating Your Employees - Article 4

I need to step back and do some explaining before we move on. This system did not happen overnight it took years to develop. Some things I learned myself, some from observation, and some very valuable lessons were learned from the best manager a restaurant owner could ever have.

These strategies do work but not all the time and not on all people. The key is to develop a nucleus of core employees of at least 40% of your staff. You may at times have difficultly creating the vision within your part timers, those especially who may only work 10 to 15 hours a week. But If you have created that core of employees then you are on the way to getting the most out of your hourly employees.

Now the question becomes how to motivate your crew. Money is a big motivator for any employee but you as a business owner know that running a fast food restaurant is somewhat of a zero sum game. There is just so much you can pay an hourly fast food employee and maintain store profitability.

I did a lot of trade outs with other local businesses to start with. The movie theater was a big hit every month I traded sandwiches for movie passes.

When a customer gets service at closing or a little after that is above and beyond what is expected, it is refreshing. That employee would get 2 tickets to the movies. You see I had cameras installed and watched for employees going the extra mile. We worked very hard to constantly coach our employees to create higher expectations.

Although I must admit I didn't like the havoc it created at first, we always worked around special events in the lives of our employees. High School prom is a big one and you can lose a lot of crew for that special night. But even if I had something I wanted to do that night it got put on the back burner and I closed. Not a lot of owners are willing to do that but the benefits are worth it.

Many times important events came up in the life of our employees with very little notice. We moved the schedule around calling in other employees. When they know that you will do the same thing for them in an emergency all the employees cooperate.

Coming up with little prizes, time off even though they may be key to the operation of the store. These are all appreciated if the employees know the sacrifice you are making for them. And please understand the operations of the store are always first. Occasionally for an employee who was doing all that was asked of them I would show up and work the shift or the manager would. They got paid anyway. If I came in at 7:30 and closed the store for the closer it cost me nothing extra to pay the closer. It just was a little sacrifice on my part.

Probably the biggest motivation was the Christmas party. The location was never that expensive but I closed the store after the evening rush and we had contests and gave away over $500.00 of prizes, everyone got a prize.

We would also have a beach party for employees in the summer and the staff that stayed behind and worked got a special treat.

All this is not hard, but it takes a real commitment to your employees and a willingness to sacrifice for those people that can make or break you. Know your employees, take the time to find out about them, their friends and interests.

Expect the very best from people and you will almost always be surprised what you get. Expect the worst and you will get that also. You may think this system is too simplistic to work, or that I am plain nuts but it worked plain and simple. The key is your attitude as a business owner towards people. If you are phony, people can read you like a book. If you care, really care they know that also.

The key to a successful restaurant is to hire the right manager. Easier said than done. I actually hired very few managers, I learned to develop people.

Five years ago when I sold out my restaurants I was burned out, so when I laid out the outline for these articles I thought I barely had enough information for 4 articles. Now the passion is back and the juices are flowing, so expect more on hourly employees. I know I have just whetted your appetite; I will not lay it all out as then I would not have anything to consult on but look for more.

My name is Steve Whitaker, I have been a lifelong entrepreneur owning several businesses in 5 different business categories. It is my desire now to help existing and new entrepreneurs. I mentor or consult on occasion. I live in the Black Hills of South Dakota with my wife Connie. My point of contact is bizlogic@hotmail.com

E-Mail Address Trace - Have to Find a Person You're Looking For?

An email address trace will more than likely help you in finding a person. Even if you are not able to completely locate the person, it will at least provide you with enough information to try other means of tracing. But in order to take benefit of the service you must know how to use it. This article briefly explains how you can perform an email address trace with ease.

All you need to start using the service is the name or email address of the person you want to lookup. Just type the data in the search box and hit enter and within minutes you will be provided the required results. Imagine going through the whole process manually. It would take a lot of time and effort and even then you may not succeed in finding anything. A professional service makes all this possible within a matter of seconds.

Finding the identity of a spammer on the other hand may not prove to be that easy. These services give you the name with which the person registered the email address. In case of spammers, fake names and addresses are used. However, finding a regular person is quite easy. Email lookup services normally maintain a very large database of private and public email addresses registered across the globe. It doesn't matter where the person lives. You can trace them out with this service.

Countless people benefit from the email lookup technology every day. You need to check the identity of a person behind a mysterious email, are in search of a long lost friend or simply want to identify a spammer, email lookup services provide you with an easy, low cost and time effective solution.

Here is my best recommendation for a Reverse Email Lookup that will give you accurate information. It will save you time and frustration.

They could have a variety of emails from different services. A Hotmail Reverse Email Search will help you find what you need.

How Does Viral Marketing Work?

How does viral marketing work? Viral marketing is a very effective marketing tool, just look at hotmail as an example. Viral marketing may first sound dangerous as any word associated with virus and the internet is not good. However viral marketing is also called referral marketing and that is just what it is. Referral marketing is effective because of the increase in referrals; it works like a replicating virus.

So take Hotmail for example. Every time someone with a Hotmail account send an e-mail a link at the bottom offers a free hot-mail account to the recipient. They in turn get an account and send e-mails to their friends. The if the original sender sent it to 3 friends and those two friends get an account and send e-mails to two friends each and those friends sign up for an account and send and e-mail to two friends. Well the process is never ending and in a very short time you will have a lot of signups.

Viral marketing is very successful for those that are giving away a product or service, can scale easily from small to large, can utilize existing communication networks, can take advantage of others resources, and tends to exploit common behaviors. Free is a very powerful tool and almost anyone will join or sign up for something that is free.

What you are using to spread your message must be highly used otherwise you will not be able to build up a network. E-mail, graphics, downloads and website are all the best ways to transfer your viral marketing message. You also want to remember that short and sweet will do much better then long and complicated marketing messages.

The best viral marketing will exploit common behaviors such as the need to be cool. E-mail and being tech savvy is important in today's world so using web to communicate is very common. You need to hit on those common behaviors and use them to your advantage.

To get more help with your viral marketing, check out this Viral Sneakiness review.

Sure Home Business For College Students and Internet Home Based Business Seeker

For college students and other people who are struggling trying to balance the paying bills and living at the same time, articles like these can prove to be irresistible. Many of these articles make perfect sense ad easily hook you based on good concepts. Unfortunately, many times the products and services these articles promise do not match the brilliance of a great idea for making money from home or through the internet. In my many years of experience on internet, I have learned that the further you go down this road, the more excited you get which is dangerous for you newbie's. You are hooked, and if care is not taken you will end up working hard for nothing and falling further into debt.

Compare this to gambling, the lure or enthusiasm of easy making money and independence can make just anyone fall prey to work of scams that feed your mind with promises just to get to your wallet and strip you off your money so they can go on to the next victim.

Well I pray will never fall victim to these scam artists or if you have in anyway don't be afraid because the solution is here for you to follow. However, the fact of the matter is that these scammers would not be wasting their time if there were nobody falling prey to their watery trap. As long as these scammers make money because people continue to get mixed up in this business, these scammers are going to stick around to trick more and more people.

The best way to keep a scammer's hands away from your credit card or your pocket is to do thorough research on each opportunity. To detect scams from the genuine opportunities is to go to a search engine and simply type in the company name followed by the word "scam". If you do this about any company, you are considering. You will see if there was any scam activity pertaining to that company. If you follow this article with one mind, we published this article because of that research. This means doing much more just reading a bit about it online. In my personal experience, companies who were savvy enough to pollute the Internet have taken me with staged testimonials, guarantees, questionable references to big name endorsements, and even appearances in the Better Business Bureau.

What you need to do is check message boards such as the ASK section of Yahoo.com. Another simple method of weeding out the are barraged by an endless list of complaints, your friend have found a nugget of gold in a sea of mud. Before you decide to do anything, get in touch with the company that you are interested in. Can you get them on phone? Do they have a physical contact address? How long do they take to respond to e-mail? If you cannot even talk to the company before you start, there is not chance that they will be around when you really need them. I once made quite a bit of money selling vacation vouchers on auction sites. The marketing plan was sound, and the money saving vouchers was a hit. Only problem was, I could never get in touch with their customer service department to handle my customer inquiries and complaints once I realized that the promises that existed in writing on the vouchers were misleading at best.
This proved to be such a problem that it took me over a year to recover from the negative publicity on my auction site.

Of course, there are many legitimate home based businesses out there. With internet and the low cost and web producing tools, there seems to be a renaissance in netprenuer. Just make up your mind and choose the type of business to do online. Do your research and make sure you know practically almost everything that is pertaining to that business that you choose. This article is recommending forex (foreign exchange market) to you. I do not know may be you have heard anything about it. However, if you are familiar to internet very well you will have came across this online business. The net worth of forex worldwide is about 3.2 trillion dollars. It is about buying and selling of countries currencies against each other.

However, like anything else worthwhile, you have to do your homework and work hard at it. The problem is that too many people make you think you can practically go online and make money just clicking on a mouse. You want to steer clear of any business that asks to you to pay for their "Top Secret" e-book that will teach you how to make an automated income."

Think about it, if you are in dire need of cash, can you ever imagine making between $50-$500 per day while you sit down five minutes in front of your computer. Everything you need to do is just to set your trade and walk away for the rest of the day. I know it will LOOK like what you have BEING hearing online for long time. Yes, It sound like that but forex is a market that you can make above the imaginary profit within a hour that is if you have a proving strategy that you can use to trade for the best profit.

If this article make sense to you and you want to make that money you need, all need do to get started is to please send your name alone to the e-mail address that is below this article. I want you to know that everything you will get from us is free of charge. We will guide you on how to start trading forex with little that you can imagine and how to win 95% of your trade.

Send your name to us at moneymakingventure@hotmail.com Please act now because this is for limited people because as soon as we get the maximum number that we are looking for, there will be no available place or space for anybody to come and join the program again. Send your name to: moneymakingventure@hotmail.com and make sure you visit [http://www.winnersofforex.blogspot.com]

I know that making money is part of your daily routine, so act on that now and send us blank message indicating you name alone through our e-mail address.

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Mass Effects of Feelings and Emotions on the Physical Landscape

Your personal thoughts, feelings and emotions create the sometimes good and sometimes adverse physical effects that surround your personal life, be it your successes or a lack of creature comforts, a poisoned, unhealthy atmosphere, illness, poverty, absence of personal relationships and sometimes other detrimental defects inflicted upon your own body and your experience. You cannot separate your thoughts, feelings and emotions from the physical proofs inherent in your personal life. All realities originate from mental origins. Were this not true the world, the universe and what lies beyond could never have emerged from that "First" mental state of "All That Is".

At one time, in what you would call the indescribable past, there was what you could call a "FIRST THOUGHT", the first psychic acknowledgment of Being, and from that first mental murmuring sprung an evolution of consciousness that resulted in "Everything That Is" including you. It is important at this stage of the species development, to begin to understand that you live in many dimensions simultaneous, but for now it will suffice if you just understand that only a portion of your total identity is expressed in the objective world of matter and events. The Soul simply cannot fully express itself in the physical system in one personality but that one physical personality depends a great deal upon the unexpressed inner portion of itself for much of its information. So while you are busily involved with manipulation of your three dimensional, objective, physical body in time and space, your inner self is involved in supportive activities that make your physical life possible.

It is also important to begin to understand that there is and never was any "bedrock" solid, concrete world in the universe from which everything sprung. In those terms, everything emerged from thought and inspiration into something that you call physical matter, and that physical matter is only relevant to your type of perception. In a very real way, you condition your senses to create and then to perceive a certain kind of reality and you then name and classify it "physical", assigning certain specific properties to it such as solidity, density, duration etc. Physical, three dimensional reality is only real within its specific prescribed frequency range, exhibiting the conditions that you attach to it, and it will materialize again and again when those conditions are met.

Many books have been written discussing whether or not reality is an illusion, and within certain parameters, it is an illusion to which each living consciousness contributes. You actually hallucinate reality based on what you believe reality is, but the story does not stop there and there is a BIG difference between an illusion and a REAL ILLUSION. No one in their right mind could deny that the Sphinx, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building and the Rocky Mountains are REAL and there is no contradiction when you understand that one of the inherent rules of "Life on Earth" is that you will all accept atomic structure as REAL and honor the attributes that it manifests in a certain way.

The atoms themselves spring from invisible, non physical, condensed, self aware conscious energy thrust outward through an invisible barrier into a new kind of SOLIDITY that exists in the context of time and space. A dream table does not take up any space, but a similar table of the same size takes up space in the physical system. The fact that the illusion becomes real under certain conditions, simply acknowledges the process of thought coalescing into objects and events and agreeing to accept them as such while still understanding that you are in a very real sense hallucinating them into something that will trick your senses into believing in their solidity and duration over time. Once the "Earth" illusion provision is accepted, it cannot be penetrated except sometimes in the dream state or unless you choose to die out of it.

I wanted to make those points before moving on to the subject at hand, the mass effects of thoughts, feelings and emotions into events rather than objects, whether events, wars, pestilence and plagues. If you are to understand what I am saying here it might be of benefit for you to first "Google " NATURAL DISASTERS" and read about those destructive events that cause great loss of human life. You will find that almost ALL natural disasters where there is great loss of life, take place in what you would call underdeveloped or third world countries where a variety of difficulties make life within those countries almost unbearable..

Now, I know many of you will say that these countries are just not as prepared to react and deal with natural disasters as countries in the Western world. Furthermore, I know you will say that these countries lie on fault zones, or in the same areas as calderas or volcanoes and we should not think it unusual that they are subject to natural disasters. You may say that they live on low lying land masses and therefore are subject to floods and tsunamis, and of course all of this is true to some extent, but when you read the statistics, you will be amazed just how many of these disasters, both natural and man made, result in great loss of life. Six of the top ten natural disasters took place in China, the next four were in Pakistan, India and Indonesia and Bangladesh. Some of these countries, even though they are flirting with democracy, experience abject poverty and a disenfranchisement of their populations.

The Western world has had its share of disasters, but rarely is there any great loss of life as evidenced by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which to date was the most expensive natural disaster to hit the United States, devastating much of the Bahamas, and South Florida, but resulting in only somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 lives lost. The point I want to make here without going into statistics, is this, there will be world wide disasters, but great loss of life will usually occur where there is most discontent, hardship, poverty and political repression. In Western countries where freedom reigns and people are allowed to express themselves without fear, are able to choose their leaders, have jobs and sufficient food, rarely will there be any great loss of life from natural disasters or wars.

The point being that as I have alluded to before, that "weather" affects your moods and temperament and your feelings, emotions and thoughts affect the moods and temperaments of nature. Collectively self aware consciousness affects the great sweeps of nature across the continents, bringing not only the quenching effects of well needed rain and localized storms, but also the angry torrents that can swell a river out of its banks and kill thousands in so doing. A starving, angry and disenchanted population can affect, attract and trigger a destructive event that will sweep clean the landscape and make way for a new beginning as evidenced in Ache Indonesia in a recent tsunami. Sometimes the needs of an entire country, mired in poverty, suffering will arouse feelings of hopelessness, that will in turn coalesce into a weather event that will devastate the countryside, but bring financial help and aid that otherwise would not be forthcoming, as is not happening in Haiti.

We are talking about mass feelings and mass emotions here. The feelings and emotions of a population of a region or country collect, attract other like feelings until they reach an emotional state of critical mass and begin to coalesce into a weather event that can, in some cases trigger an event that can demolish a city that quite possibly should have been demolished anyway. A population that has been repressed, basic freedoms contained to the point where life is meaningless, will rise up in revolt and overthrow the government in a popular uprising causing great loss of life. In the greater scope of things, it matters not that great loss of life is the result, because those participating unconsciously understand the continuity of life and do not fear annihilation of the personality.

My name is W. Allan, single male 62, a resident of Naples Florida. I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and have in the past, written a column called SECRET REALITY which was carried by spiritual and metaphysical magazines. I have recently started a blog to publish my work with the intent of incorporating expanded versions of my blog in book form. You can contact me any at my e-mail address: w.allan@hotmail.com. You may also read other articles at my blog at: http://www.answersbygod.com

Congratulations! You've Won 10,000 Lottery Spam Emails!

Ten or fifteen years ago, we didn't need any fancy anti spam software, we got most of our lottery scams by snail mail. If all that dead paper was not so bad for the environment, I might wish we still did; because the lottery spam that sneaks past my anti spam filter and into my inbox is the pits. At least those Publisher's Clearing House "You have Already Won!" letters used to be sort of entertaining. They were brightly colored, and even came with fun stickers you could play with or give to your kids. I always enjoyed sticking that big "NO" stop sign sticker you know, the one intended for those who did not include a magazine subscription with their entry on the back of my brother's head. It was a much more innocent time.

Today's lottery spam is pretty similar to its low-tech cousin. It begins with that all-exciting email: You've won! or, if they're going for a business like tone, "Regarding Ticket Number 127289-56-8938." When you click to open it, hands shaking in excitement, you read:

We at EuroLotto are happy to announce that you are one of the winners of our recent Euro-Asian International Lottery draw, held on 24 June, 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden. Your email address was attached to an entry ticket numbered 123289-56-8938, which is being awarded a prize in the Third Category, in the amount of $1,000,000.

At which point you break out the champagne, hug your husband or wife, and promptly follow the instructions given. You have to pay $500 for processing fees in order to get your prize? Who cares! You're a millionaire!

Dealing with Lottery Spam

You don't actually do any of that, do you? You're smart enough to see the lottery spam that sneaks past your anti-spam filter for what it is: a cheap scam that plays upon our most sacred desires, namely, money. But while you're probably pretty adept at recognizing most lottery spam ("send to me email for to claim your money" is a pretty obvious indicator, after all), with the bazillion versions of this email out there, there are still a few that might catch you off guard.

Has a "Congratulations, you've won!" email sneaked past your server's anti spam software? First, keep this in mind: if you haven't bought a ticket for something, you can't have won anything. Traditional lotteries work when people buy tickets in order to be entered in a drawing for a pool of money. But if nobody buys, where does the pool of money come from? A fifth dimension that's brimming over with money trees? Probably not.

Remember this: nobody gives anything away for free.

You can also identify lottery spam by examining the email. What kind of email address did the email come from? If it's a free Yahoo or Hotmail address, you can guarantee that it's spam; reputable companies do not use free email providers. It's also spam if it mentions fees anywhere in the email, or requires you to give personal details.

So you've used your highly evolved powers of deduction to determine that a particular email is lottery spam. You've put away the champagne glasses and put down your checkbook. What's next? Generally, you should just delete the message. Never reply to it, as this will tell spammers that they've hit upon a valid email, and you'll be overrun with spam. But there is one more thing you can do if you'd like to be a good Samaritan.

While lottery scammers work hard to sneak past even the best anti spam programs, they also depend upon their victims' ability to email them back in order to 'obtain their winnings' (spam-speak for 'get scammed'). If you report any lottery spam to the free email provider from which it originated, the email provider can pull their account. Try it; it'll feel great to do your part to stop (or at least slow down) a lottery spam operation; sort of like an anti spam superhero.

Then you really should break out the champagne: you will have earned it.

Jesmond Darmanin is a freelance writer whose main interest is in corporate email security, for other related articles visit his business anti spam blog