Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
An Awakening
ELIZABETH HUGATE HUDGINS
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | ii
Copyright 2010 by Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins
All rights reserved.
1. Fig. 1. The cover photo is a compounded image: Earth_from_space.jpg.(Courtesy of Felix
at www.coolhdwallpapers.com) and Stack of books.jpg by me.
2. All photo-editing has been done with one or the other of the two following software
programs:
a) Micrografx Picture Publisher 10, CD-ROM (Dallas, TX: Micrografx, Inc., 2001).
MPP10.
b) Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 , CD-ROM. (San Jose, CA: Adobe Systems
1
Incorporated, 2001-2008). APE7.
3. All scanning has been done with Epson Perfection 1650 Photo color image scanner.
Long Beach, CA: Epson America, Inc., 2001. EP1650.
4. All OCR (Optical Character Recognition) inclusions were done with TextBridge Pro 11,
CD-ROM (Peabody, MA: ScanSoft, Inc., 2002). TBP11.
5. The word processing program used for doing the final draft of this writing was WordPerfect
Office 4, CD-ROM. (Ottawa, ON, Canada: Corel Corporation, 2004). WP4.
&/ or previous versions of ( 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0).
1
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | iii
CONTENTS
Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Acknowledgments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Part I -The Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About This Treatise .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
An Affirmation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
About My Writing Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A Critique on Biblical Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Part II-The Awakening.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Turning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
From Fear to Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
From Foolishness to Discretion.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
'And Then Perhaps to Wisdom [Understanding]'.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
And Death is a Destination .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
A GoingA Growing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Natures Electrical Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
'From Joy to Gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
From Loneliness to Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
A Sacred Pilgrimage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
'Not At Some High Place Along The Way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
From Foolishness to Discretion' - Extended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
And In Awe of Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Winter Wonders and Mythical Dilemmas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Firmament of Heaven?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
More Winter Marvels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | iv
Obscurity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
From Health to Sickness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
From Stage to Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
An Interim Moment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
I Am Saying You Are Free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
The Next Twenty-Five Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Or Strength to Weakness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
And Often Back Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
And Back, We Pray, . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
To Health Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
In Summation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Part III-Related Childhood Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
'From Innocence To Awareness .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
The Divine Presence, Source of Conscience ?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
From Offense to Forgiveness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
A Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
From Pain to Compassion . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
A Postscript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Part IV-The Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Ref. #011469 - 1961 to 1980 Floor Plan of Family Residence.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Ref. #021569 - OCR Excerpts from, Near-Death Experiences, by Elaine Landau. . . . . . . . 330
Ref. #022469 - About Contrails.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Ref. #041496 - A Copy of My Notification of Birth Registration Certificate.. . . . . . . . . . . 335
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | v
DEDICATION
To My Sons and Daughters
2
Fig. 2. A 1967 photo of James, David, Lisa, Anne--and in memory of deceased infant daughter Donna
2
(11/1957 - 01/1958).
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | vi
Birth is a Beginning
By Alvin I. Fine
Birth is a beginning,
And death a destination;
But life is a journey,
A going--a growing
From stage to stage.
From childhood to maturity
And youth to age.
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength
Or strength to weakness--
And, often, back again.
From health to sickness
And back, we pray,
to health again.
From offense to forgiveness,
From loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude,
From pain to compassion,
And grief to understanding--
From fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat--
Until, looking backward or ahead,
We see that victory lies
Not at some high place along the way,
But in having made the journey,
Stage by stage--
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning,
And death a destination;
But life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage
Made stage by stage--
From birth to death
To life everlasting.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
H
ow do you say thanks to a person youve never met, but whose work you greatly appreciate?
One way is to use it.
Alvin Fines poem is the most beautiful and soothing memorial prose I have ever heard. There
is no portion of it that makes me feel morbid or gloomy. Because of both the eloquence and
relevancy of the work, I am using some of Alvins verses as titles for my entries. For instance, the
entry for January 14, 1969, on page 61 is entitled From Fear to Faith.
Inspiration for attempting this project has come from many persons. Some of them are living.
Some of them, like Alvin Fine, are deceased. Other documented--but now deceased--persons whose
shared thoughts have encouraged me to acknowledge my own views include: Socrates/ Plato,
William Shakespeare, Rene` Descartes, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Clarence S. Darrow, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The following four ideas are of constant inspiration to me:
This above all--to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any. . . . William Shakespeare
3
In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of
all things. Rene` Descartes
4
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men [people] are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson
5
So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself:
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into
advance. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
6
From Hamlet: Act. I., Scene III. (Between late 1500's and/or abt 1601).
3
From Principles of Philosophy (1644).
4
From The Declaration of Independence ( July 4, 1776).
5
From his first Inaugural Address ( March 4, 1933).
6
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 8
Part I -The Introduction
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 9
1
About This Treatise
____________
A
round ten oclock on the morning of January 14, 1969, I
began to experience a set of physiological conditions unlike
anything I had ever experienced before. And as it happened, the
response I chose to make resulted in my instantly beginning to
experience a series of varying types of visions.
While it was a gradual rather than instantaneous enlightenment
process, the changes wrought upon my mind-set because of the
spirituality-related event and my efforts combined may be likened
to going from partial conceptual blindness to comparatively 20-20
I-sight.
To start with, questions arose regarding the authenticity of the biblical writings. In particular,
there were my doubts about the literal accuracy of the account about Moses revelation experience.
For inasmuch as none of the visions I experienced included speeches, it was relatively impossible
for me to take the Exodus account of Moses spiritual experience as a non-fictionalized one. It
would, however, take me until early spring of 1996 to acquire the additional information, the good
physiological health level, and the confidence needed for tackling the issue of the literary
exactness in the biblical and other literary documents about natural phenomena. Even then, I
Fig. 3. From a 1996 photo. Credit: F.
Scott Sadler.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 10
thought it would be sufficient to tell my children and a few other persons with whom I had an
ongoing relationship about the amazing spiritual-related happening I had undergone. But after
envisioning myself as a bystander who had never experienced such a wondrous event, I decided
that the general public should also be given the opportunity to view a non-fictionalized account of
what a transcendent level spiritual revelation experience is like. See Part II - The Awakening for
7
a detailed recount of the one I underwent, and associated commentary.
My interpretations and other commentary are ofttimes inserted in the form of footnotes, endnotes,
and/or epilogues. So, please, please pause to read this collateral material as you go along. In some
instances, the entry may also include a prologue. It all depends upon the specific theme or
condition the observed vision or other natural wonder evoked.
Whenever possible, I have also included one or more supportive photographs or illustrations
with my entries; for anytime we are left to develop our own mental images of the people, places,
and other tangible things recounted of by words alone, there is more cause for doubt about the
authenticity of the authors account. I know that upon meeting someone I have heard about or even
spoken with by phone, the persons physical appearance is always markedly different from what I
had visualized it to be.
Throughout this treatise, I shall be using my own personal experiences as a base from which
to expound upon my revised ideological views about (a) the Almighty Thou and (b) involuntary
natural phenomena. But please keep in mind that pleading a case is not the same as fussing n
fighting. It is not my intention to humiliate or belittle, and thus avoid or stifle serious debate. To
the contrary, serious debate is needed. For whether it is in a bible, a philosophical treatise, or a
science textbook, no persons word should be accepted on blind faith that it is error-free.
Since much of what I have to say involves the question of Absolute cause and associated
involuntary natural things, my arguments will necessarily implicate what other persons have said
on these subjects. To my present knowledge, the Torah (Pentateuch) was the first publication to
While transcendent level spiritual revelation experiences are beyond the more common everyday spiritual
7
revelation emissions, they are still within the laws of nature governing the involuntary subconscious part of the human
psyche.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 11
contain the proposition that the primary creations were the work of an Almighty (Infinite) Creative
8
Mental Power. Subsequent writings about (a) the presumed Cause of the primary cosmic world and
(b) involuntary natural phenomena include the Greek Christian Testament and the Arabic Koran.
Charles Darwins publication: The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection is the most
9
recent example. However, Mr. Darwins theory is only about the natural means whereby each
unique primary species was gradually caused to come into existence. No attention was given to the
Infinite Designer of the involuntary natural selection method.
*
I
n one of his dramas, William Shakespeare had this to say about personal honesty:
This above all--to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any. . . .
Honesty is my goal. And although one or more of my judgments or conclusions may not always
be correct, I will not have misled anyone if I provide a literally descriptive true account of the events
and views I have chosen to share with you.
This introductory section also includes an affirmation statement on my evolved metaphysical
beliefs, an outline of my writing styles, and a critique on biblical Hebrew. But first, I would like
to list some things I believe each of us needs to keep in mind when reviewing one anothers asserted
and/ or implied propositions about either {a} the envisioned Almighty Creative Cause of the primary
By primary creations , I mean only those things of the cosmic world which came into existence up to and
8
including the first generation of our species.
Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured
9
Races [Species] in the Struggle for Life ( London: John Murry, Albermarle Street, 1859). TOS
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 12
world, {b} physical and mental involuntary natural events and/or {c} semi-involuntary natural
10
events:
1. Every human being begins life on earth stark-naked, and totally ignorant of what
is safe or wise to consume or do.
11
2. All of our information comes from two known sources: (a ) involuntary nature or (b)
our speeches, writings, etc. other communicative messages. And of these two sources,
only involuntary nature is incapable of misrepresentation. To be in awe of natural
phenomena is understandable, but there is no logical reason whatsoever to be in awe of
or revere any one of us human beings (e.g., Moses, Jesus, Mohammed). Neither is there
any logical reason to be in awe of or revere any of our literary works (e.g., the Jewish
Bible, the Christian Bible, the Moslem Bible).
3. Neither are any of us mortal creative powers nor any of our works holy. The only
thing on this planet to possibly be of incorruptible holy essence is the conspicuously
silent spiritual presence within the involuntary subconscious part of our mental selves.
4. The only kind of life we know anything about and can relate to is finite organic
life. To ascribe a finite human nature to the Infinite Creative Power is a disservice to
both ourselves and this envisioned Almighty/Absolute Cause of our species.
5. Biographical writings are hearsay (second-hand) testimony. The sayings accredited
to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are biographical. Needless to say, neither is any
of the direct speech ascribed to either oh vkt/ the Almighty Creative Power or
vu vh / the spiritual presence autobiographical testimony.
6. We are constantly vulnerable to misinterpreting the cause and purpose of the
involuntary natural phenomena we directly observe or read about. In fact, millions
have become mesmerized or as spellbound by what some of us have said or written
about (a) the envisioned Almighty Creative Cause, (b) extraordinary natural disasters,
and/or ( c) transcendent level spiritual happenings.
I.e., events which occur independent of human choice: e.g., storms, volcanic eruptions, etc. natural
10
disasters; our sex drives, contrasting good and not good temptations; and the reproduction of animal young that occurs
independent of our interference or manipulation.
By consume, I mean everything that enters our body-mind systems, including the sounds and sights of
11
each others spoken, written, signed, or otherwise presented communicative messages.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 13
7. The freedom to direct ones own life is a natural endowment distributed over all of
humankind. We are at liberty to worship or not to worship the Almighty/ Absolute
Creative Mental Power. Our mortal death, however, is not optional. Thus, is it not of
good common sense to give some thought to how we ought to treat the envisioned
Creator-Ruler-Owner of the cosmic world? Such an Absolute Power could exist. And
whether ideal or not, immortal mental life could be our unavoi dabl e ultimate destiny.
8. All human experience is subjective. Whether the thing experienced is of our external
environment (as a sunset) or internal environment (as a dream scene), it is perceived by
the inner invisible voluntary conscious I part of our mind /psyche.
12
9. Be on guard against mislabeled memories. Our raw memory images of what we
experience are of four differing types: neuter, masculine, feminine, and collective
masculine and feminine. If each is not ascribed the appropriate word type, raw reality
is mislabeled.
Most mislabeling involves the use of sex-connotative names for things that are either
imagined supernal life forms, abstract things, or human-made things (e.g.,God
Almighty, mother nature, father time, a grandfather clock ).
10. All classifying and naming of (a) the particulars of our natural environment, and
(b) the particulars of our cultural environment have been done by certain of us
13
human beings. For instance, it was one or more of us mortal creative mental powers
who called (named) the sunlit time ouh /day and the darkness time vkhk /night.
__________
I.e., the whole aggregate of parts that make up the human mental self: (a) the voluntary conscious level
12
minds I, and (b) the involuntary subconscious part that produces dreams, visions, hallucinations, good and not-good
impulses, etc. other spontaneous things.
By cultural environment, I mean all the things that have been designed, made, established, said, or otherwise
13
produced by we mortal creative powers.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 14
M
ay each of you be encouraged to begin thinking for your individual self(s) after a common
sense manner about:
What is real, and what is of fantasy, envisionment, or mere speculation?
What is logical or credible, and what is not logical or credible?
What is fair or good, and what is not fair or good?
We also need to keep the things of nature distinguished from the things we mortal creative
powers have caused, established, or made. For instance, while spirituality appears to be of
involuntary nature, all religions are the product of human volition.
Again, do not be awestruck by any persons word. Every creative being ever to have come into
existence on this planet has been of the same breedHumankind. And however strange an event
might seem to you, all that has happened on this planet since the origination of our species has
either been of human cause, . . . involuntary nature alone, . . . or involuntary nature and human
choice combined.
Thus, may we cease spooking ourselves by devising ghost beings, demi-deities, etc. superstitious
characterizations to account for instances of involuntary natural phenomena which we might not
immediately fully understand. My as rule of thumb is__if the conclusion is contrary to one or more
of the laws of nature, the conclusion is incorrect.
Respectfully submitted,
14
See Ref. #041496 in Part IV- Appendix for a copy of my notification of birth registration certificate.
14
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 15
2
An Affirmation
____________
I
nasmuch as everything I now do or view is considered within the framework of what I have come
to believe or disbelieve since January 14, 1969, about the Cause of the primary natural cosmic
world and subsequent natural events, I am including a synopsis of those beliefs and disbeliefs here
at the forefront part of my account.
I. All things which exist, exist in time and space. Neither time nor space was
created. Both space and time are of an infinite dimension. Before the first primary
15
elements were created, time and space necessarily existed. The word universe
16
stands for only that portion of infinite or absolute space occupied by (1) primary
natural things, (2) sub-primary things, and (3) secondary things. Likewise, the
17 18 19
word year refers to only relative or astronomical finite time; fundamental time is
infinite.
I.e., was not created, has always existed, is of the absolute world dimension. Albeit infinite space is of
15
an indeterminate physical size, it is necessarily of a real size.
I.e., hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. molecules of atoms from which all things in the created cosmic
16
world are made.
I.e., Only those things which were caused to come into existence up to and including the first generation of
17
living things of human creative being kind.
I.e., (a) things produced or reproduced after a completely involuntary or automatic order, and (b) things
18
produced or reproduced by way of involuntary nature and human choice combined (e.g., human babies, crossbred
animals, hybrid plants, cloned animals).
I.e., all the language systems, speeches, religions, governments, tools, building, scrolls, books, etc. things
19
created or developed by us mortal level creative powers.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 16
II. I believe that both the primary elements and the primary entities made from
20
various unique arrangements of those atomic particles were the artwork of an
Infinite/Absolute Creative Mental Power. So was the preestablished primary natural
21
process by which each species was seemingly gradually caused to come into
existence. Of this I am unable to experience any sustained disbelief.
III. It is also my firm belief that our prayers are automatically intercepted and processed
by the ever-silent, but seemingly divine (holy), spiritual presence within the
22
involuntary subconscious part of our mental selves commonly called conscience.
However, it would appear that explicitly honest or straightforward I-to-You directed
praying is a prerequisite for stimulating this inner spiritual presence to significantly
helpful ordinary or routine sensory emissions, as well as the comparatively rare
visions.
I am also convinced that extraordinary spiritual revelation happenings are
produced by the involuntary part of our mental system. That is to say, I do not
believe that the envisioned Almighty Creative Power has ever directly communicated
with a mortally-existing human being.
IV. Neither do I believe that the Almighty has at various times altered or manipulated
the natural involuntary weather patterns and/or other involuntary nature forces in
23
order to selectively torture, confuse, abuse, punish, or even exterminate specific
individual ones of us while sparing some others of us.
24
Neither has any child been directly begotten by the Creative Cause of our
species, as was claimed in Mark 1:1: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God [ Qeovv H / the Supreme Deity or Power]. Every child is begotten via
the sperm of a reproductively adult male human being.
E.g., stars, planets, moons, et cetera, . . . and lastly, the first or origin generation of each species.
20
I.e., Even the Almighty Thou had to exist in real space and at some real time while designing, and causing
21
the primary cosmic world to come into existence in the universe sector of infinite space.
Al s o na me d : Con s c i e n c e ( Eng. ) , Ho l y Sp i r i t / ( Gr k. ) , a nd p r e s e n c e / vuvh
22
( He b . ) .
E.g., Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. turbulent and potentially destructive natural disasters.
23
E.g., Forewarning Noah of the impending deluge of flood waters, but leaving the other inhabitants to
24
drown; destroying the bulk of the citizenry of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but saving Lot; and killing the
firstborn of the Egyptian, but sparing the firstborn of the Hebrew slaves.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 17
V. I do not believe that any act of involuntary nature ever cancels or invalidates any
other act or law of involuntary nature. For instance, both immaculate conception
and resurrection are contrary to the laws of nature. For a fact:
1. A female human being can be impregnated against her will (raped) by a male
human being, but no child is begotten by involuntary nature alone.
Immaculate conception and other happenings dubbed miracles are merely
natural events of which the actual details are not immediately clarified by us.
2. Corpses do not come back to life. Be the corpse of animal kind or human
kind, a fully dead body cannot be revived (resuscitated/ resurrected).
3. Physical ascension of the body up into heavenly space is another unwarranted
biblical author(s) claim. Upon the death of the body part of ourselves, the
invisible mental soul may rapidly ascend upward toward another realm of
space. But for a human body to freely ascend or rise up into outer space, the
earths gravity would have to cease functioning--and it obviously never has.
VI. It is also my firm belief that all sensory presences that appear before us are caused
by the natural involuntary part of our mental self(s); that is, I do not believe in the
existence of either a Supernal demonic being (Satan ,Devil/ adversary), Supernal
25
angelic messengers, or mischievous little Supernal messengers (cherubs) that shoot
us in our hearts to cause us to fall in love.
VII. I do not know whether the Originator-Owner of the primary world is good or not.
All I can affirm to is that the more explicitly honest or candid I am when praying out
my thoughts to this envisioned Absolute Creative Power, the more I come to
understand, and more at peace I feel.
VIII. I also do not know that immortal life follows upon the death of the human body.
But if everlasting or continued mental existence is not our ultimate common destiny,
human life is of no more value than that of the gnat. My tentative thought is that
immortality is a fact. Its only a thought, not a firm belief.
Compound words containing the word nature or natural imply things of the natural world. Therefore, I
25
use the word Supernal rather than supernatural when referring to either the Creative Cause of the primary cosmic
world or associated metaphorical personified supernal beings (e.g., satan /lit. adversary, angel/ lit. messenger).
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 18
IX. I do not believe in either an infinite hell or everlasting damnation. That would be
an Absolute injustice. Moreover, there is no evidence in involuntary nature with
which to support such a theory. Indeed, why would any one of us s u p p o s e that
the Almighty Thou would make no allowance for the fact that each of us mortal
creative beings begins life on earth totally ignorant of what is safe or wise to do or
consume?
As for the born sinner claim, no child is a sinner at birth. It is our personal
choices that are more or less either sinful or not sinful. Neither are all of our
involuntary impulses or inclinations sinful; some are of a good or righteous quality.
And albeit the good or just behavior would be the only rational goal for us to
strive for, we naturally physically weak and emotionally frail finite level creative
beings of humankind cannot be expected to:
1. Never cease striving to overcome fear of the unknown or unfamiliar;
2. Never fail to discern and choose the good things over the not-good things;
3. Never fail to avoid misrepresenting ourselves;
4. Never fail to share the planets distributed natural resources with each other;
5. Never fail to appreciate each anothers diverse and differing high talents;
6. Never fail to avoid cowardly or unfair choices;
7. Never succumb to the self-defeating folly of making idols of some of us (e.g.,
Jesus), the creative works of one or more of us (e.g., the Jewish, Christian, or
Moslem Scriptures), or some other of-the-cosmic world thing (e.g., like those to
which the ancient Greek and Roman male and female deities of war, love, et cetera
were associated).
While I do not believe that either the biblical or modern day authors intended any
disrespect, it is both disrespectful and misleading to portray either (a) the envisioned
ohvkt/ Infinite Almighty Creative Power, or (b) vuvh/ the inner self-revealing holy spiritual
presence as speaking characters in fictionalized biblical narratives, poetry, novels, movies,
or TV dramas.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 19
X. I interpret life of creative being kind to be of three distinct types:
A) Infinite/Absolute__life without a beginning, and without an end.
B) mortal/or finite life__life with a beginning, and with an end.
C) immortal/or eternal life__life with a beginning, but without an end.
Mortal ( f i n i t e ) life is the only known or verifiable kind of creative life we can relate to.
Neither Infinite life nor immortal life is mortally knowable. Therefore, all of our conclusions about
these other two kinds of life are necessarily speculative.
I trust that my conclusions are not in error, and that my manner is acceptable.
Amen
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 20
3
About My Writing Style
Words are the clothes that thoughts wear__ only the clothes.
26
vkhk tre lajku ouh rutk ohvkt trehu
27
And God [the Almighty] called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. Gen. 1:5.
28
___________
L
iterature is of two general genres: fiction and nonfiction. Whereas the bulk of Genesis,
Exodus, and the other books of the Torah appears to be based on real events, the recounting of
those events is done in a heavily fictionalized narrative literary style rather than literally descriptive
nonfiction prose.
Figurative speech can be helpful, but it can also have the adverse effect upon our minds__ even
to the extreme. It depends upon wh a t the stated or implied subject is. Helpful figurative speech
is made up of words which stand for known or familiar things. Mr. Butlers metaphor is fair because
words and clothes and thoughts do refer to kn o wn things.
To be relatable, figurative speech must also represent an a c t u a l situation. Samuel Butlers
fictionalized statement does. For as with our bodies and the clothes we put upon them, the words
with which we label our inner thoughts are add-ons. Check it for yourself(s). Does not your mind
contain two types of memory images: (a) the natural or as raw unnamed ones of your experiences
and (b) the one or more words or other symbols you use for representing each of those unnamed raw
Butler, Samuel (1835-1902). English author.
26
Unless otherwise indicated, all of my included Hebrew examples will be taken from the copy of the Tanach
27
(Jewish Bible) included with the Hebrew/English word processor: DavkaWriter6. David Kantrowitz, CD-ROM ( Davka
Corporation and Judaica Press, 1996-2002). DW6. In each instance, the featured Hebrew word or phrase will be
underlined, and the corresponding English translation of it italicized.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the Hebrew verses will be taken from the Jewish Publication
28
Society of Americas 1917 English version of the Tanach downloaded from website: http://www.shamash.org. JPS
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 21
audio, visual, etc. sensory experiences or realities?
In contrast, the given biblical example of figurative speech is not helpful. Not only is the
envisioned subject an unknown, the predicated part is untrue. Points of Fact:
gBoth the parts of the cosmic world and all the events which have been detected to have
occurred within it have been named by one or more of us finite level human creative mental
powers__not The Almighty Thou.
gNeither is the Genesis dramatization of the origination of the primary cosmic world an eye-
witness account, for no human existed to witness the origination of the coming into
existence of the primary cosmic world creations.
When expressing our views or conclusions about either (a) the presumed Infinite Cause of our
species, or (b) the causes of involuntary natural events, we need to do so in a literally descriptive
straightforward nonfictional manner. Ascribing speaking lines to either the unknown ohvkt /The
Almighty Ones or the silent inner vuvh/ holy presence (or any other part of our subconscious)
29 30
is not at all helpful. Of this I am certain. Although I shall at times be expounding upon the
origination of our species and subsequent natural events of both ordinary and extraordinary kind,
it will not be done in the fictionalized style of the biblical authors.
But let me also hasten to note that the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures had several linguistic
disadvantages which we users of English do not have, . . . and that this handicap needs to be allowed
for. A detailed commentary on the integral flaws of Classical Hebrew and consequential limitations
imposed upon the users of that language will be addressed in the critique on Biblical Hebrew to
follow after this entry. All I wish to point to now is t h e n e e d to identify and distinguish
fictionalized statements from nonfictional ones, and discern when the fictionalized style might not
be the fair literary mode to use.
Differing from both the Hebrew and the Greek biblical historical narrations of times past, most
modern historical narratives include a clarifying caveat to protect the reader from mistaking
fictionalized historical narrations for nonfiction ones. And rightly so. For at first glance, modern
In the collective or unified sense of oneness, or Absolute/ Infinite Mental Power.
29
a self-revealing holy or incorruptible spiritual presence, also called conscience or holy spirit.
30
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 22
historical narratives can al so read like nonfiction accounts. In fact, it was only after I had
completed reading Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady and was
31
checking for the copyright date that I discovered the diary to be a work of historical fiction. With
all the supportive photographs and other factual material about the voyage of the Titanic included
or alluded to in the book, I had initially presumed the heart-warming little diary to be a
nonfictional one. Fortunately, the following clarifying message was included on the credits page
of the book:
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical
events and real people, Margaret Ann Brady is a fictional character, created by the author, and her
diary is a work of fiction.
Any language that does not include four differing cases of words: (1) masculine case, (2)
feminine case, (3) collective/duo-gender inclusive case, and (4) neuter case is necessarily a limited
or flawed language system; for there are in fact , these four differing types of things within the range
of human experience or contemplation.
Fortunately, English is a four-case language system. Albeit many of us English-speaking persons
use our native language anthropomorphically, it is not because English lacks a neuter case.
Neither is it because English lacks collective gender-inclusive case words that some of us still refer
to mixed groups of male and female entities with masculine case words. The English vocabulary
is replete with noun words, pronoun words, verb words, etc. other parts of speech words for each
of the four basic types of things which are either in, or in some other way pertinent to the cosmic
world of which we male and female mortals are indigenous members.
I CANNOT OVER-EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF MATCHING WORD CASE TO THE THING
REFERRED. Most especially, things which are either not known, exist within the involuntary part
of the human mind, or are things created or established by us should be referred to by neuter case
words.
Ellen Emerson White (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1998). VGT
31
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 23
Following next are some English nouns and pronouns illustrative of each case kind:
1. Masculine E.g., Lord, mankind, man, father, son, bull; he, him, his.
2. Feminine E.g., Lady, womankind, woman, mother, daughter, cow; she, her, hers.
3. Collective E.g., humankind, parents, children, cattle; they, them, their.
4. Neuter E.g., name, The Almighty Creative Power, presence/ holy spirit/ conscience,
star, planet, hope, love, fear, hate, idea, religion, book; you, your, it, its.
In English, all first person English pronominal words (e.g., I/me, we/us, my/our, mine/ours) are
of common or all-purpose neuter case. And again, rightly so; for mentally speaking, we mortal
creative minds I(s) are neither male nor female. It is our respective phys i c a l male or female
reproductive genitalia and associated sex hormones of either masculine or feminine kind that make
each of us either a male-gendered human being or a female-gendered human being.
I can find no justification for using anthropomorphic phrasing when speaking and writing about
32
spiritual issues and other natural history or natural science topics in English. Although I may at
times use some metaphor or other figurative speech likened to that composed by Mr. Samuel Butler,
never again shall I ascribe or support the practice of ascribing speaking lines to the Almighty Thou.
Neither shall I personify or support the practice of personifying either (a) the inner source of our
good i nvol un t a r y inclinations or (b) the inner source of our adverse or unholy i n v o l u nt a r y
inclinations like the author(s) did in the following Hebrew verse from the Writings portion of the
Tanach , and English translation of it:
33
: ohvkt cuht trh objv rnthu vu vh ,t iyav ighu
Then Satan [lit. the adversary] answered > the LORD [divine presence] , and said: 'Doth
34
Job fear God [the Almighty Power] for nought? (Job 1:9)
In Biblical Hebrew, every envisioned source of either primary or subsequent involuntary
To anthropomorphize and/ or personify is to ascribe human physical properties and attitudes to something
32
which is either (a) not human or (b) is a part of the involuntary subconscious part of our mental self(s).
I.e., The Jewish Bible
33
I use the keyboard symbol > to represent ,t when ,t is used as a Definite Direct Object pointer.
34
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 24
functions or events is described as if it possessed eyes, ears, nostrils, tongue, lips, larynx, etc.
organic life tangible properties like we mortal creative powers do. Thus, you have to look beyond
the fictionalized speeches and dialogues for the authors probable or apparent intended idea or
theory.
__________
O
ther aspects of my revised thinking, speaking, and writing patterns which may vary or differ
from the traditional or more conventional style involve the use of:
1. Bibliographical credits
Full bibliographical credits for a reference source will be footnoted for the first referral.
In each instance thereafter, only the devised acronym will be given. For some references,
acronyms will vary according to the year. Both the footnotes full listings and the Credits
listings in Part IV - The Appendix will include the devised acronyms.
2. Brackets, strikeouts, footnotes, and endnotes
All bracketed expressions, strikeouts, footnotes, and endnotes appearing in this
document will be by me for clarification or editing purposes. Footnotes will be indicated
by Arabic numerals, endnotes by uppercase Roman numerals.
3. Dates
Each human baby is equally precious and equally important. Significant human life
did not begin with the birth of Jesus around two thousand years ago; it began with the
firstborns of our species an indeterminate number of years ago. Thus, I do not use BC (i.e.,
Before Christ) and AD (L. anno Domini/ in the year of the Lord) with dates. In my writing,
BCE (i.e., Before Common Era) is affixed to dates prior to the common era. Common era
dates will usually be written without the CE (Common Era) suffix:
Ex 1. The Greek philosopher Socrates was reportedly born around 470 BCE.
Ex 2. Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasian Augustus conquered Jerusalem in 70.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 25
4. Underlining and /or other emphasis indicators.
Underlining will sometimes be used for emphasizing a word or statement. Bold
lettering, italics, expanded spacing between word letters, a different color font (or even a
different font) may also be used for emphasis. Sometimes ellipsis will be used to link
together a string of directly associated thoughts which I wish to emphasize. Occasionally,
I may use small caps. But generally speaking, strings of all capital letters will be reserved
for acronyms and other all caps abbreviated forms, or when quoting text that includes all caps
lettering.
Ex. My favorite fictional personality is Tarzan, the leading character in Edgar Rice
Burroughs book: Tarzan of the Apes (1914).
Ex. I am not of mankind. Only adult and under adult age male human beings are of the
masculine gender human being. Like my grandmothers, mother, aunts, sisters, daughters,
granddaughters, and nieces, I am of the female gender: womankind.
Ex. The Creative Cause of the primary cosmic world is not known.
Ex. Pl e a s e , p l e a s e read my footnotes, etc. collateral comments as you go along.
Ex. Of our whole mental self/psyche, only the conscious I part has independent voluntary
creative free will power.
Ex. And . . . said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM'; (Exodus 3:14)
Ex. All that has happened within our domain of experience since the origination of our
species has either been of human cause, . . .involuntary nature alone, . . . or involuntary
nature and human choice combined.
5. The Parenthetical Plural
At times, I shall use the parenthetical form of the plural. One instance is when I wish to
refer to the individual and the whole simultaneously. Another is when the exact number
cannot be ascertained.
Ex. Of all life on earth, only we conscious I-self(s) have creative free will power.
Ex. Even though the narration literally implies otherwise, the author(s) of Genesis
absolutely did not witness the Originating of the primary cosmic world creations.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 26
6. I/we, me/us, my/our, mine/ours
Since each of us has had an equal number of paternal and maternal p a r e n t a l ancestors
in all the preceding generations of our species, I tend to think of humankind in the
historically collective sense. To me, the word we means not only we mortals of this
generation but all of our respective deceased ancestors as well. Thus, I use pronominal
words like we, us, our, ours, ourselves more often than the human being, humankind, etc.
third person general titles when referring to both past and present generations of us.
7. Family names or titles
I reserve titles like father/mother, uncle/aunt, brother/sister, grandfather/grandmother, etc.
for referring to real human family members. The practice of referring to climatic or
geological events as works of mother nature, computer system boards as motherboards,
time as father time, the federal government as Uncle Sam, and non-kindred members of
a religious order as father, mother, sister, or brother, is both literally mis-representative and
disrespectful.
8. The General vs. the Particular
Words like man, mankind, and men are particular masculine case names. The
corresponding particular feminine case names are: woman, womankind, and women. When
referring to one or more male human beings, I shall use masculine case words. When
referring to one or more female human beings, I shall use feminine case words. Neither
mankind nor womankind refers to a species; thus, I shall use human being, humankind,
mortal creative powers or like non-gendered general titles when referring to our species.
The General vs. particular pattern also applies to the various species of animal kind:
Ex. And God [The Almighty] created man [the human species] in His own image, . . . ; male
and female He [, thus were ] created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Ex. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal.
( from Declaration of Independence)
Ex. The policeman [police officer] gave the driver a ticket for speeding.
Ex. When a person is born, he [he or she] is completely innocent, sin-free.
Ex. There is a flock of ducks [waterfowl] in the creek behind my house.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 27
9. Gender-specific words
The only time I shall use sex-connotative words is when I am referring to things which are
known to be endowed with either male or female sex genitalia and associated masculine
or feminine sex hormones. Neither shall I use he or she alone when referring to those
groups which by nature or assembly are known to be composed of both male and female
members.
Ex. After all, if Justice is truly just, she [it] need not be blind.
35
Ex. The Titanic, with her [its] glittering passenger list, seemed like the ultimate example
of human achievement . . . . __from the Historical Note section of VGT.
Ex. As Mathews entered the 20 Century, her [its] residents continued their close
th
relationship with the sea. __ http://www.visit mathewsva.com.
Ex. A student who wants to be educated must be courageous indeed. He [He or She] must
expect all his [his or her] comforts and illusions and complacencies to be ruthlessly ripped
away.
36
10. The words: vuvh and Lord
The only time I shall use the honorary title of Lord (Master, Sir) is when referring to a
male human being. The biblical Hebrew word for Lord is iust (adon). hbust is
pronounced as Adonai, and means either my Lord/ Master or Lord/Master of . . . .
The first two examples below illustrate (1) the use of the Hebrew phrase hbust
(Adonai)/ my Lord in the Torah, and (2) the English word Lord in British culture. Example
(3) shows the construct use of vuvh, and (4) the independent use:
E x-1 . . . . ; uagk hbstk vjuka tuv vjbn ceghk lscgk ,rntu
Then you shall say: They are your servant Jacobs; it is a present sent
unto my lord [or lord (of )me], even unto Esau; . . . . (Genesis 32:19)
Ex-2 Lord Charles Cornwallis was a British general during the American Revolution.
Ex-3 :ohnau .rt ohvkt vuvh ,uag ouhc`
In the day that the LORD [the presence (of)] God [ the Almighty Creative Power]
made earth and heaven. ( Genesis 2:4)
Guy Rocha, ( Nevada State Archivist). Seeing Justice In Virginia City (on -line) 09/27/2000 United States
35
site: http:/ / dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/ docs/ NSLA/ archives.
William F. Smith and Raymond D. Liedlich, From Thought to Theme: A Rhetoric and Reader for College
36
English ( USA: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968). 3. FTTT
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 28
Ex-4 :vuvh,t aht h,hbe rnt,u /and (she) said: I have gotten a man [male child]
with the help of the LORD [involuntary nature]. (Genesis 4:1)
The noun vuvh is derived from vuv, the emphatic form of the simple verbal root to be/
exist, and actually means presence/ existence (a self-revealing seemingly divine spiritual
presence). In order to faithfully represent it, the Hebrew word hw"hy / divine presence
needs to be pronounced according to the Masoretes vocalization of the word: Yeho-vah.
Again, Adonai is merely the transliteration of a different Hebrew word of different
meaning: hbust/ my lord, master. For further commentary on the literal meaning of vuvh
when paired with ohvkt, see item XI. in A Critique on Biblical Hebrew.
11. The words: ohvkt and God
It is inconsistent with the natural evidence to suppose that the envisioned Originator of
our species and other gendered living things of earth is of either gender form. Like
femininity, masculinity is a Created fi ni t e physical reproductive property. Gender-specific
words connote reproductive sex organs (e.g., penis and/or vagina) and associated masculine
or feminine hormone-driven sexual urges involved with the reproductive process peculiar
to living things of both animal kind and ourselves. Therefore, I shall neither devise nor
passively quote statements that refer to the Almighty Thou by sex-implicative words like (a)
God, Father, King, Lord, He, Him, His, or (b) Goddess, Mother, Queen, Lady, She, Her,
Hers. When used in the Torah with a singular verb, ohvkt means the Almighty Creative
Power envisioned to have made the primary cosmic world; when used with a plural verb,
ohvkt means other gods/ deities (e.g., the sun, etc. physical objects of worship).
12. Biblical Hebrew and other comparatively foreign words
Some biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek words have either been or will be included
and commented about at various places within this treatise. A table including the main
biblical words and their English equivalents is provided on the next page.
The literal ( abbreviated to lit.) meaning of each of the Hebrew ones is listed first. In
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 29
the third column are the Greek equivalents and their English translations:
Biblical Hebrew American English Biblical Greek
ohvkt
lit. The Almighty Ones, The
Absolute Creative Power
qeos , singular
(God, Supreme Deity)
vuvh
lit. presence /divine presence,
[also, conscience /or source of
conscience]
Pneuma Agion
(holy spirit* )
vzjn (qvzj)
lit. a vision (/ vb. perceive a vision)
/ o
iust\ ist
lit. Lord/ A-don (Master, Mister,
Sir, etc. honorary male titles)
ku/rio$ (Lord,)
ltkn
lit. messenger / mal-ach
u (angel)
iya
lit. adversary /sa-tan
Zu, ,
(Satan, Devil)
ktua
lit. asking place /sho-al
, ( hell, Hades)
jhan
lit. anointed one/ ma-shei-ach
(Messiah,
Christ)
* While the phrase PneumatoV Agiou in Matthew 1:18 is translated as Holy Ghost, it
37
necessarily means involuntary nature. In Ephesians 4:30, the slightly different phrase: Pneuma
to Agion tou Qeou is translated as Holy Spirit of God [the Supreme Power ].
The Greek is from The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English.. A symbolic Hebrew
38 39
Christian testament examples will be taken from (The Holy [Sacred (set apart)] Bible: Authorized King James
37
Version (London and New York: Collins Clear-Type Press. Printed in Great Britain, 1941). KJV.
Jay P. Green, Sr., ( Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985). TIB.
38
I.e., not literal. We may feel guilty before or want to hide from vuvh, but it does not call out to us.
39
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 30
equivalent to the quoted Greek phrase in Ephesians 4:30 may be found in Genesis 3:9:
:vfht uk rnthu ostv-kt ohvkt vuvh trehu
And the LORD [the divine presence] (of) God [the Almighty Power] called unto the man, and
said unto him: 'Where art thou?'
Keep in mind that it is we I(s) who do the interpreting of all that comes before us. You have
only to examine your own individual mental self(s) to know that vuvh /the involuntary level
spiritual presence (or source of conscience) within d o e s no t a c t u a l l y speak to you.
Likewise, the dialogues between iya (sa-tan) /an imagined infinite demonic adversary and
one or more of us mortal I(s) elsewhere in the Tanach (Jewish Bible) are also metaphorical
dramatizations rather then literally factual documentations.
So is the one about ajb (na-chosh) / the serpent (sorcerer) character in the idolatry temptation
allegory in the third chapter of Genesis. Both ajb and iya are personifications of the in-mind
source of our natural involuntary adverse (e.g., not-good, dishonorable, unfair) impulses or
inclinations.
As for the fundamental cause of these conflicting involuntary impulses, the Supernal cause is
necessarily The Designer-Creator of the human being mind-body system. Please note that without
this duality, we would not be capable of :
Choosing to kill hordes of wild animals that might otherwise kill us off__as well as choosing to
try to save the life of an endangered species,
Choosing to create shelters of various designs__ rather than automatically make shelters of
one kind only (as each species of animal kind is constrained to do),
Appreciating the primary creations__as well as resenting or disliking the floods, hurricanes,
tornadoes, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. natural disasters that regularly result
in some untimely deaths,
Choosing to worship or not to worship the envisioned (but actually unknown) Infinite Cause of
the natural cosmic world creations.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 31
Is not this natural freedom a most wonderful thing? I surely find it so. And although the
envisioned Creative Cause of the cosmic world (ohvkt) would be the only creative mental power
to possibly be worthy of our faithful submission and reverence, what a good thing it is to be at
liberty to think it through and reason about it before deciding to or not to submit to worship this
hypothetical Absolute Infinite Power!
By nature, we are both physically and mentally free beings. Whether it be physical or
psychological, all enslavements are of human cause. Enslavement is evil; no enslavement is
justifiable. Albeit the inherent involuntary desire to be physically comfortable makes us highly
vulnerable to making unfair choices over fair ones, there is always the option to choose the fair or
just action over that of the unfair or unjust kind.
Life on earth is challenging. As previously noted, each of us is born totally ignorant of how to
be a good and wise human being. Yet, are not our daily involuntary needs, feelings, and desires
the stimulus that causes us to think, to search, to discover, and ultimately grow in understanding and
hopefully good character?
Florence Nightingale.
93
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 87
ENDNOTES
I.
Fig. 15. Scanned copy of an illustration put together by me in the late 1970s of
cutouts from scraps of the kitchen soffit wallpaper.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 88
II.
Fig. 16. Scanned copy of an article from the September 15, 1966 issue of the Beacon newspaper.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 89
II-a
Fig. 17. Page below copied from the August 19, 1966 issue of Virginia Beach Sun.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 90
II-b OCR-scanned copy of an article that appeared in Ledger-Star on September 18, 1966:
Young Peoples Jerusalem
Showing a Model of The Ancient City
Clothespin and Egg Boxes
Make Biblical City Model
Virginia Beach - A model of
ancient Jerusalem may be seen
in the 5 and 6 grade class
th th
room in the Sunday School
building at Lynnhaven
Colony Church, Virginia
Beach.
Thereby hangs the story.
About a year ago Mrs.
James M. Hudgins and Mrs.
George J. Seals became
teachers of the 5 and 6 grade
th th
classes of the Lynnhaven
Colony Sunday School.
During their teaching they
noticed that many lessons
referred to the city of
Jerusalem.
Then came the idea to make a
model of the old city. The
teachers and the 19 members of
the class spent one year making
miniature buildings on a large
table top.
The clothes of the figures in
the model were made of crepe
paper. The figures were clothes
pins. The buildings were
fashioned from burlap, straws,
egg cartons and similar
materials.
Much of the work was done in
the workshop at the Hudgins
residence and in the year of
activity references to Jerusalem
have become more meaningful
as students and teachers aided in
the building of the model.
Fig. 18. Photo of old city of David's market place in Jerusalem model courtesy of Eric O. Anderson.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 91
II-c. A typed copy of an article in December 1, 1996 issue of News Topics, a newspaper published
by C&P Telephone Company for the employees and their families.
THE HOLY [ ] CITY
94
Jerusalem is not merely an ancient city on Bible pages for Sunday School students at one
Virginia Beach church.
Thanks to an imaginative, year-long
project, spearheaded by a telephone family, the
holy [ancient] city has become three-
dimensional. The youngsters now feel they
know the citys people, architecture and way of
life. And, they have developed a lasting
interest in Bible studies.
It all began, says Liz Hudgins, wife of
PBX Installer-Repairman J. Maxwell Hudgins,
with the simple classroom idea that a model
of Jerusalem might help to stimulate the
childrens interest.
The complete and authentic model that
resulted has won community-wide attention.
It is the work of 19 students, the Hudgins
family, and other volunteers including a
number of telephone people. Some of these are
Portsmouth Service Foreman Slim Hodges and
his son Horace, Churchland Central Office
Repairman Tom Reilley and his twin daughters
Donna and Lyn, Western Electrics Bell
Stallings and her daughter Sandra and Norfolk
Operator Georgianna Minerd and her daughter Sandy.
Mrs. Hudgins estimates that she herself spent an average of three to four hours a day working
on the project. Checking for detail and authenticity, she read through 30 or 40 books from the
public library. Friends, students, and the pastor supplied her with other books.
Much of the work was done in the Hudgins workshop, which was at one time mainly used
by her husband. But, because of the project, he hasnt been able to use it for a year, Mrs.
Hudgins said.
Fig. 19. OLD WORLD Clothespin figures, crepe
paper tunics, egg carton buildings, burlap baskets
combine to make realistic model of old Jerusalem.
[Again, photo courtesy of Eric O. Anderson].
Hallowed would be a more suitable word for plot of land of special significance to one or more of us.
94
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 92
III.
Fig. 20. Copy of song Glenna Crewe Hudgins xeroxed for me from a hymnal.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 93
IV. The scanned image below was copied from August 21, 1999 issue of The Virginian-Pilot
newspaper
95
I consider the featured part to be the following statement credited to Stephen Kendrick:
We are so used to thinking of religious revelation coming into the world by blinding visions . . .
that we too easily forget that spiritual truth is right here, right before us. It is just too obvious
for us to notice.
But keep in mind that spiritual revelation is not religious revelation. Spiritual revelation is
produced by the spiritual presence/holy spirit within each of us. People form religions.
Fig. 21. "Sherlock Holmes, spiritual guru" article by Gerald Renner.
Norfolk, VA: Landmark 103 Communications, Inc. TVP
95
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 94
3
From Foolishness to Discretion
______________
Date in Re: January 15, 1969
Place: Family Living room
Time of Day: Morning
Theme: "Doomsday"
96
A
s I was passing through the dining room on my way to
the living room, I noticed that the morning sun rays streaming
down the hallway from the east end of the house bore a yucky
salmon-pink tinge (likened to that in the photo at right).
Perplexed and a bit uneasy, I proceeded to step on down into
the living room where Anne was playing. The television was
on. To my wonder and amazement, the following three scenes
sequentially appeared upon the surface of the TV screen:
97
1 The globe of the Earth with a stork flying across "Nome"
st
(Alaska).
2 The blackened carcass of a burned out earth with spires of smoldering trees and buildings
rd
silhouetted in the background distance.
Fig. 22. My tinted copy of ww2-163.jpg ,
a black & white photo of atomic bomb
dropped over Hiroshima. Credit for original
photo: www.archives.gov.
I.e., destruction of the planet Earth, or the entire world/cosmic system. See item 1. in Epilogue.
96
As with an hallucination, a pictorial vision eclipses a portion of the scene that is in front of your physical
97
eyes. If your eyelids are closed, then the inside of the lids is the background upon which the vision part is layered.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 95
3 A lab with a male chemist working at the counter. The man was wearing a regular white lab
nd
coat. One side of his face was white, the other side was black. Also, there was a potato chip
commercial.
98
When I later went into the kitchen to get something, these words came to mind: "Take six
aspirins and lie face down on the floor." Though submitted to take what came, I nixed that
unsolicited thought. However, the impression that an atomic "Doomsday" might be an immediately
I
pending event could not be as easily dismissed. The vision of abnormally-tinted sun rays combined
with the vision of a charred earth were too suggestive of such an event for me to ignore them.
I was a smoker. Not wanting to be caught dead smoking, I tried to quit that vice. Wasnt
successful. My patience was becoming too heavily challenged to deal with nicotine withdrawals
too. I lit up another cigarette.
Anne was full of energy on this particular morning, and determined to
involve me in her game-playing. At times, playing with her did help
distract me from the foreboding feeling that the war that could end or
grossly mutilate all human life--a nuclear warmight be about to begin.
While picking at a pretty daisy broach of hers, Anne broke off one or
more of the metallic petals. It was a beautiful pin.
I, the supervising adult, should not have allowed
a five-year-old child to play with a piece of jewelry of this quality. But the
broken jewelry was not as disturbing as what Anne said at one point while
inspecting the broach petals, and I quote: The black flowers are for the
boys and the white flowers are for the girls. The broach daisy did not
include any black-colored petals. What could that child possibly mean?
I thought to myself, (forgetting how much fantasizing a young child is inclined toward doing).
Contemplating my impending death, I thought about what to take with me. The days issue of
the Virginian Pilot newspaper and a copy of a King James authorized translation of The Bible
Fi g. 23. ci garet -7. j pg
image by Paolo Neo,
www. publ i c- domai n-
photos.com.
Fig. 23.1. Photo by me.
The potato chip commercial was most probably TV-produced. All I recall about it is that there was one
98
within the same time segment as the lab and chemist (or other laboratory scientist) vision scene.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 96
were my two choices. [What a delusion! Even if our mental souls instantaneously ascend upward
toward eternal space when the body part of us dies, the only thing we beings could possibly take
with us would be our inner personal memories of what life on earth had been like. As you might
suppose, this was a shocking experience while it was occurring.]
Even at the hypothetical envisioning level, my own temporal life was a fact I could not fully
confront at the prime young adult age of thirty-six years. Life on earth had just taken on rich new
meaning for me, and now it might actually be about to end!? No, the fact that each one of us is
subject to the mortal death from the moment we take our first independent breath of earths organic
life-supporting air was too awesome a truth for me to confront in one mental gulp on this first
morning after the new awakening. But the visions of this day did cause me to begin thinking about
the unavoidable ending of my mortal life.
At the beginning of the premonition of an impending doomsday disaster, I was thinking that
the visions were as warnings, and that I would be taken in advance and thus be spared the fiery end.
I was also mistakenly assuming that my at-school children would be protected within the steel and
brick frameworks of their respective public school buildings.
As an employee of the local telephone company, my husband
was a designated civil defenseworker. If a nuclear war should
begin, I could not anticipate his making it back home to the aid of
our youngest child and me. What about her? She was not in a
bomb shelter like the older three children were. The envisioned
scenario of her wandering alone in the midst of the blazing inferno
99
screaming Mommie was more than even cowardly me could bear.
Wondering if I would be able to find the courage to do so while
suffering intense physical pain, I asked (and with absolute sincerity)
Fig. 24. Crop of photo of Anne taken
by her brother, James M. Hudgins, Jr.
Having suffered an accidental scalding when I was four years old, I knew what hot boiling stuff can do to
99
human skin. Although no noticeable physical scars remain, the memory of the excruciatingly painful burns and my
exhausting screams do. See From Pain to Compassion on page 318 in Part III - Related Childhood Events.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 97
that she be taken in advance, and I be the one left to die the slow agonizingly painful fiery death.
Melodramatically, I had set noon as the "maybe" deadline. When high-noon came and went,
I allowed one more hour--just in case. After one oclock came and passed without incident, I
figured that whatever might be the significance of the vision of strangely tinted sun rays and the
pictorial visions upon the TV screen, the prophesied fiery end of the world was probably not going
to occur that day.
Earlier, I had told Anne that we might go out for lunch that day.
Either way, I had wanted the two of us to be looking nice, and had
dressed each of us in our finest. Lace pantyhose were in vogue at the
time. I put on mine with my best navy blue two-piece dress (shown at
the left). All I can recall of Annes outfit was
that she had on white tights and black patent
leather shoes likened to those in the figure at
right. For former Depression Era me, black
patent dress shoes on a little girl were as a
badge of prosperity.
When one oclock came and everything was still standing, I took my daughter Anne and myself
out to lunch.
__________
Fig. 25.1. photo courtesy of
www.uniquehomestore.com.
Fig. 25. Crop of me from 1966
family photo.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 98
Epilogue
U
pon gulping my first breath of the earths finite life supporting air, I was of course subject to
the mortal death. But having a general understanding of this inevitable event is not the same as
grasping it as an ever-imminent moment. Unless critically ill, who contemplates or envisions his
or her death as about to occur? I never had. On this morning, I had to. If the unusual shade of the
morning sun rays was not provocative enough, there were the three vision scenes which, to varying
degrees, were thematically suggestive of planetary annihilation. In addition, there was all that I had
heard or read in school science classes or books between 1965 and this day in 1969 about a
developing doomsday of the cosmic variety.
1. Doomsday? Depending upon the mind-set of the speaker or writer, the word doomsday means
either (a) the end of the planet earth or (b) the end of the entire Cosmic System. In the Genesiss
authors perspective, it meant the earth. But in From Genesis to Doomsday , doomsday meant
100
the eventual collapse of the entire cosmic world:
Cosmologists say they can see the fiery beginning of the universe [ ] in the blackness of the sky,
101
and from this they prophesy when time itself will end. . . . Cosmologists predict that the entire
universe will be within our horizon some 30, 000,000, 000 years from now , when the expansion has
come to a standstill. Due to the steady pull of gravity, the cosmos will then start to contract, at first
slowly, then faster and faster. After another 40, 000, 000, 000 years, the galaxies will be smashed
together, their burnt-out stars will collide, and, in one gargantuan implosion, the cosmos will become
once more a fireball filled with light. It will be the light of Doomsday, and nobody will be there to
know whether it is also the light of a new Genesis.
The authors also spoke in detail about expanding space. On page 63, they provided an
illustration about the stretching space [and I will be including a copy of that illustration on the next
page of my entry] . Continuing on page 64, they compared the surface of a balloon as likened to a
E. L. Schucking and Brenda Biram, Science Year: The World Book Science Year (Illinois: Field Enterprises
100
Educational Corportation , 1967), 60-73. WBSA67
The word universe cannot mean both (1) the galaxies in space and (2) the space the galaxies are in. Such
101
duplicity of meaning inhibits understanding. I think of the universe as the amount of infinite space in which the
galaxies and their contents are located, and only that.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 99
stretching space. The surface, they said, space itself, grows, and each galaxy on it moves farther
away from all the other galaxies.
Here is a scanned copy of The Stretching of Space illustration from page 63 of the immediately
referred science book:
As I understand it, Schuchkings and Birams theory was that the borders of universal space are
changing because the galaxies that make up the cosmic world are stretching out and using up a
greater volume of infinite space. If you blow up a balloon, it will occupy more physical space than
it did before you enlarged it by putting a certain amount of air in it. However, the enlargement can
only happen if there is extra space around it for it to swell out to. Likewise, the galaxies can only
move apart to spread out over a larger volume of space if there is more empty space available.
Things made of atomic matter are finite entities. And as such, they are subject to
entropy__which leads me to the other scientific prediction about a cosmic doomsday that I had
acquired a memory image of prior to January 15, 1969:
The universe is running down, and when the energy is all used up, . . . [Poof! Thats It!]
Fig. 26. Illustration from WESA67.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 100
But as I noted in my questioning response to the 1967 ODC chemistry professors statement
about cosmic entropy, How can we say the universe [the natural cosmic world] is running down
when we can measure only one end of it, our end?
No, the cosmic world is not the space it is in. Nor would the end of the created celestial
entities by which we measure time remove absolute or infinite time. Mentally remove the above
boxes illustrations within the bordered space. What is left of the representative illustration? A
vacant area of absolute space, . . . infinite or absolute time, . . . and The unknown Infinite Creative
Cause of the known finite cosmic world.
Albeit infinite or absolute, I perceive space to be of a fixed dimension. That is to say, I believe
there is an Absolute Infinite World, Absolute Infinite Space, Absolute Infinite Time, and an
Absolute Infinite Almighty Creative Power.
2. The Visions:
During my formative years and on into my young adult years, my mind was repeatedly exposed
to the story in Genesis 6:1 to 9:17 of the KJV translation about how the Maker-Owner of the cosmic
world did once upon a time destroy all the human inhabitants of the earth excepting one man named
Noah, his spouse, their three sons, and their sons wives. However, it was the vision scenes I
was experiencing rather than the biblical story that was causing me to wonder if January 15, 1969,
might not be the fiery end of the planet earth.
a) The vision of Nome and a stork?
Nome is the name of a seaport settlement on the
Seward Peninsula of Alaska, and the site of some USA
military air bases and observation posts. Although I can now
recall having heard something about these vanguard posts
during the Cuban crisis in 1963, I was not remembering it on
this day. The strong vision of burned out lands plus the
impression vision of a forewarning were the only things that
came to mind on this morning concerning early warning
systems.
Fig. 27. Globe part photo is by me;
background with stork is courtesy of
Brad Kuntz.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 101
The only memory images of a stork I had on January 15, 1969, were comments or
pictures depicting a white stork carrying a human baby in a cloth sling. But since then, I
have come across the following interesting facts and legends about this long-legged bird:
The stork has no voice. Encarta 2004 Reference Library, CD-ROM, ( Redmond,
WA: Microsoft Corporation, 1993-2003). ERL-04
According to Ukrainian folklore, the stork is a symbol of life, of prosperity and of
hope for the future. (From an internet site).
The familiar legend that the stork brings the new baby into the home arises from the
fact that the bird takes loving care of its own young.
102
Although the vision scene of a stork flying over the city of Nome, Alaska, is not
remembered as carrying a newborn baby, my impression is that it was. Since dream scenes,
hallucination scenes, and vision scenes are made up of bits and pieces from ones in-mind
memory images, I wonder if: (1)Nome may have been representative of a USA military
"early warning" outpost in event of a nuclear attack, and (2) the stork part of the vision
pertained to human parenthood. However, I still do not remember having read or heard
anything about the stork having no voice and taking loving care of its young before this date
in 1969.
b) The vision of a destroyed earth.
As previously noted, the vision of the charred remains and still-burning spires where
once had stood trees and tall buildings was probably the vision that had the most to do with
my thinking a nuclear "doomsday" might be about to occur.
c) The vision of a half-black and half-white "chemist" at work in a lab.
In addition to the thought of nuclear [atomic] warfare that the vision of a "chemist" with
a half black and half white face evoked, there is also what I later recalled having seen in one
The World Book Encyclopedia, vol. S (Chicago, IL: Field Enterprises Educational Corp., 1966 ), 713.
102
WBE
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 102
of the original Star Trek shows about racial prejudices. I do not
recall the title of that episode, but here are some lines from a more
recent TV commemorative review of this story about how petty
racial conflict resulted in the annihilation of both races:
"Commissioner: 'It is obvious to even the most simple-minded that
the Loci (those black on the left side race) is of an inferior breed.'
Commander Spock: ''The obvious and visual evidence,
Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself.'
Commissioner: 'Are you blind, Commander Spock? Look at me.
Look at me.'
Captain Kirk: 'You are black on one side and white on the other.'
Commissioner: ' I am black on the right side.'
Captain Kirk: ' I fail to see the significant difference.'
Commissioner: 'Loci is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right
side.' "
Star Trek was not ordinary science fiction. The producers of this TV series also devised
fantasized situations for pointing out the idiocy of social cruelties like gender biases, racial
biases, and the mutually self-defeating consequences of such illogical behaviors. Through the
character Mr. Spock, logical reasoning about events and choices was featured in every episode.
Inspirational work is not and never has been limited to the writings of the biblical authors.
In fact, where is the good or rational inspiration in The Garden of Eden allegory? Woman as
an afterthought, . . . and made of a used rib from Man, . . . and for his personal needs and
domination? Really! Other parts of the biblical writings foster racial or ethnic bias. Worse yet,
these injustices are asserted to have been instituted by and/or are supported by the Infinite
Creative Power that c h o s e to originate both genders and all four basic racial varieties of us!
In fact, I have never seen a biblical text from either The Tanach testaments, the Christian
testaments, or the Koran testaments that does not portray the envisioned Almighty Thou as
likened to the worst of us.
Fig. 28. Image adapted from
my photo of Bruce-with his
courteous permission.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 103
3. Illusions (incorrect perceptions or beliefs):
Like a swimmer who might be cascading down a series of unexplored rapids, I had no clue
whatsoever as to when or how the happening I had (on the day before) consented to allow to proceed
would end. Throughout this phenomenal series, I strained against thinking about the biblical
versions of extraordinary or transcendent level experiences. Why so? Because what I was
experiencing was not as the biblical writers had described such events to be. The only visions I
experienced were either silent sensory or pictorial ones. So how could I not wonder about the
literal accuracy of the King James authorized translation of the Jewish (Heb) and Christian (Grk)
biblical testaments about vocalized visions?
Nonetheless, the memory images of the narratives about (a) Noah and the destruction of the
earth by flood waters and (b) about Lot and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by
brimstone and fire were still in my mind. In addition to the fear-evoking ancient biblical stories
103
about the Designer of involuntary nature having exterminated whole communities of people because
of a high incidence of immoral behavior among the citizenry, there was all that I had heard or read
about the potential for incredibly devastating nuclear disasters. In 1969, the following things had
either occurred or were occurring.
Various nations were building and stockpiling nuclear warheads."
Some people had built bomb shelters.
Certain public buildings in the USA were designated as bomb shelters in case of a
nuclear attack.
There had been the Cuban nuclear missile threat in October 1963.
Hence, my wonder about imminent oblivion was couched in current facts as well as certain of
our ancient past peers' premises about (a) the character of the Almighty and (b) the purpose of
catastrophic floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. involuntary natural disasters.
Genesis 19:24-25. This was probably either a catastrophic level volcanic eruption or an earthquake.
103
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 104
Masters of War and A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall (songs by Bob Dylan about peace-through-
balance-of-terror) playing on the airwaves heightened my senses in regard to potential global
nuclear war. Keep in mind that both vocal and instrumental music can, and frequently does
produce a mesmerizing or hypnotic-like effect on the mind/psyche of ourselves. Many patriotic,
"social reform," and religious songs are written for the purpose of doing just that.
But as awful as the thought of a nuclear war was, it was not as psychologically perplexing as the
biblical-associated doomsday stories were. My on-the-spot wonder if the premonition of an
impending nuclear disaster was as a divine forewarning was a force-of-habit delusion rather than
a reasoned logical conclusion.
I now recognize that the presumption that the Almighty Thou intermittently intervenes to
selectively punish or grant special favors to some of us is based on nothing more than superstitious
speculation. At some future time, the Created cosmic system may come to an end. As for the mass
destruction of human life on earth story, there is no evidence in involuntary nature that
catastrophic level flooding, extreme volcanic eruptions, etc. natural disasters are devised by the
Almighty Thou for the purpose of causing specific individuals and/or even entire communities of
men, women, boys, girls, and unborn babies to undergo an untimely death. As Robert G. Ingersoll
put it in Some Reasons Why:
g "In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences."
As I review this memorable and thought-provoking event, I am reminded anew of just how deep
and strong had been the adverse effects of the biblical narratives I grew up with upon my
psychological mind-set concerning "natural disasters" and untimely deaths. Please allow that even
the most unemotional persons among us would not be able to make an instantaneous transition to
perceiving the real world and their ignorances as they actually are. Neither is serious confrontation
with ones mortality an easy intellectual feat; for despite all that has been written to the contrary,
no one knows what happens to us mental souls upon the death of our body parts. All that can
be said of certainty is that the physical form within which we are embodied is of finite life kind and
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 105
limited duration. It does die. And once completely dead, the body parts decompose to become so
many dry fragments of nonliving atomic matter. Earths gravitational force keeps all bodies from
freely floating off into space.
The impression that I would die before the speculated atomic doomsday began to occur was most
probably a contributing vision, but I think it was the unnatural tint of the morning suns rays
combined with the three provocative pictorial visions that made it near-impossible for me to not
wonder if a nuclear disaster might not be about to occur. I do not mean that the visions were
messages from the Almighty Thou. Indeed not! But the sensory and pictorial visions I experienced
were thematically suggestive of fearful ideas or impressions that I either had deliberately avoided
thinking about, or was not aware that I needed to think about.
Spirituality-associated fears or hang-ups are the most difficult to confront. For instance, the
fear of death involves more than just fear of the physical death; there is also the question of what
happens to our soulful mental selves when the physical body parts die. At the same time, I have
since discovered that with the exception of human evil deeds, the thing feared is not as hard to live
with as the fear of it had been. But once,
I feared to allow that the biblical commandments were of Moses' origination; lest I find that there
are no absolute ethical principles.
I feared to admit that I really do not know anything about the character of the envisioned Almighty
Creative Cause of the primary world; lest I find out that Originator-Owner of the cosmic world must
necessarily be presumed to be unthinkably unfair or cruel.
I feared to think about what would have to be true for immortality to be true; lest I find no plausible
reason to believe that everlasting mental life follows upon the demise of the mortal body, and that
there will be a time of clarification.
Then I recognized__ it does not matter. Regardless of what the truth might be about (1) the
character of the Almighty Thou, (2) the absolute moral standards or principles of justice,
(3)immortal life, or (4) the quality of it, I have no power to change these truths.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 106
Verification of our theories about the Almighty Creative Power is not possible during our mortal
lifetime. Likewise, what happens to us inner mental beings at the death of our body parts is not
foreseeable. But it is significant, I think, that upon acknowledging these ignorances, there was
an immediate sense of relief. But then, my own ignorance is an undeniable truth, an indisputable
fact. What is unknown is unknown__ and both The Almighty Creative Power and immortality are
unknowns.
No, neither physical nor mental involuntary nature is our biggest foe, or greatest cause for fear.
It is the inferior or unwise choices we voluntary level souls make that causes war, torture, deception,
gender bias, racial bias or partiality, et cetera evils or cruelties. To wit, hell is an of-earth condition
brought about and sustained by our collective unwise, greedy, cowardly and/or deranged choices.
While it appears that the author(s) of the Torah may have actually believed that all involuntary
natural eventsbut especially those of the extraordinary degreeare directly caused by the Creative
Cause of the primary world, there is no justification for presenting one's own conclusions about such
events as having instead directly emanated from ohvukt / the assumed Absolute or Infinite Creative
Mental Power, as was done by the author of Genesis 6:13:
ovhbpn xnj .rtv vtkn-hf hbpk tc rac-kf .e jbk ohvkt rnthu
:.rtv-,t o,hjan hbbvu
And God [The Almighty] said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Point of Fact:
gAny use of the word I other than for referring to either our mind's I, our whole mind-body
system, or as a word under discussion is of fictionalized usage.
Although the experience I underwent between January 14, 1969, and mid-July 1970, has not
proven to me that the envisioned Creative Cause of our species is good, it has helped me to
recognize that there is no natural evidence to the contrary.
104
I.e., evidence that is not of human opinion.
104
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 107
Just because some past peers of ours have said that ohvkt /The Almighty did on certain occasions
contact various individuals of the Abram lineage does not mean that it actually happened.
Inspiration via spiritual revelation is not Supernal dictation. Like ourselves, the one or more
authors of the Torah narratives were not immune to errors in judgment regarding the cause and
purpose of "natural disasters" and other involuntary natural events. Moreover, we do we know that
some man named Noah ever said what he is recounted of as having said regarding the reason(s) why
he built an ark prior to the great deluge/flooding that occurred in the region of this planet where he
resided. The automatic involuntary movements of the birds and other animals in his community at
the time could have indicated that a serious weather condition was developing.
It is my firm belief that the Creative Cause of our species is totally impartial. But whether you
believe or do not believe in the existence of an Absolute Creative Mental Power, no human being
escapes the mortal death. That is not a faith issue. Each of us will suffer the death of the finite
body. Therefore, . . .
"That which hath been is that which shall be, and that which hath been done is that which shall be done;
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and there is nothing new under the sun. " (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 142
7
Natures Electrical Power
____________
Date in Re: April 2, 1969
Site: Dining room sliding glass doors to backyard
Event: Thunder and lightning storm
S
eated at a small table in the left corner of the dining room, I was typing away on one theme or
another. A thunder n lightning" storm was occurring outside. Every so often I would notice a
flash of light and the clash of thunder that followed shortly after, but I did not actually look up at
the lightning streaks. Suddenly, a big red flash about the size of an official softball went off just
outside the sliding glass door near where I was seated. It appeared to be at about 20-24 inches from
my face. In the middle of typing a sentence, I silently quipped, Cut it out; I am busy. But wow,
that red flash did get my attention!
Fig. 40. Crop of lightning photo by Floyd Menagh, www.crh.nooa.gov.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 143
Later, it bothered me a bit that my quip might have been unbecomingly impertinent.
119
Electrical storms are vibrant, dynamic, exhilarating, and exciting things to watch. But before
this transcendent happening, I had not been in the habit of looking very closely at thunder and
lightning storms. This standoff position was, I think, partly due to my rearing. As a child, my
experience with natural electricity had been to hunker down with near-bowed head during these
phenomenal summertime events, because:
My paternal grandmother (LetheAnn German Hugate) would not let us grandchildren remain
outdoors during an electrical storm. Whenever a storm would begin, she would make us come
inside, sit down on the floor in the parlor, and keep quiet. Then Grandma Annie would generate
more mystique to what was happening outside by pulling down the dark shades at the parlor
windows. It was almost an act of reverence or submission before The Almighty Power presumed
to have created such an awesome intermittently occurring involuntarily natural phenomenon.
At first, I thought the red flash I saw was a vision. Since then, I have learned that red flashes
sometimes actually occur during an electrical storm. For example, lightning struck a big tree in the
front yard of my daughter Anne and her family in late spring of 1997. Strips of bark were ripped
from various sides of the tree. Some chunks of the wood smashed against the house and broke a
window pane. Anne also reported seeing big balls of fire during the stormy event. As it had been
with me, Anne was inside the house when the bolts appeared close to her.
World Book:Millennium 2000 contains the following information on lightning bolts:
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A form of lightning called "ball lightning" differs greatly from ordinary lightning. Ball lightning
appears as a glowing, fiery ball that floats for several seconds before disappearing. It has reportedly
been seen during thunderstorms, usually after ordinary lightning has occurred. It is described as a
red, yellow, or orange ball that may be as large as a grapefruit. It has been reported floating along
the ground and inside houses, barns, and airplanes. No one knows how or why ball lightning occurs,
or what it consists of.
I had not yet clarified the necessary difference between the unknown Almighty Thou and the projected
119
vision of a hovered presence that I had experienced for a very brief moment on the morning of January 14, 1969.
Deluxe edition, CD-ROM. (World Book, Inc. and its licensors, 1999). WB-00
120
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 144
I have also read that lightning has important positive effects on the growth of plant life:
Lightning produces significant chemical changes in the atmosphere. As a stroke moves through the
air, it generates tremendous heat that unites nitrogen and oxygen to form nitrates and other
compounds. These compounds fall to the Earth with the rain. In this way, the atmosphere is able
continually to help replenish the supply of nutrients that soil needs to produce plants.
121
Isn't that neat! Electrical storms both frighten and delight me. Although potentially dangerous,
all that power and beauty combined is awesome! Yes, something can be dangerous and still be
beautiful. Look at the lion, tiger, panther. While I would not want to come face to face with either
one of those wild ones, these particular "wild cats" are beautiful beasts.
But on this day in 1969, I was not exactly comfortable with the red ball that flashed so close
to the glass door in front of which I was seated. I quickly put it aside. My knowledge on this date
did not include any information on "ball lightning."
In the aftermath of a summer electrical storm, the net
effect can be refreshing. Based on my eyesight, the dome of
sky/atmosphere above the earth appears to be cleaner and
clearer after a summertime electrical storm. It really does.
Sometimes there is another plus to follow after all the
thunder and lightening and downpour of rain showers has
subsided--a rainbow. Occasionally, there are two of them, a
double rainbow. But as it happened, no rainbow was
visible within my viewing range on this day.
While I was watching and listening to this natural
involuntary happening dubbed thunder n lightning in April
1969, I tended to think of masculinity. During a bi g full
Fig. 41. Double rainbow, www.usbr.gov.
Comptons Encyclopedia 2000, CD-ROM. (Novata, CA: The Learning Company, 1999). CE-00
121
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 145
moon event that occurred in early spring of the next year, the opposite feeling came over me; that
is, I thought of femininity.
Then there is what I recall having read about Mr. Benjamin Franklin and his kite and key
experiment in Encarta :
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Franklin demonstrated that lightning is a form of electricity. In 1752 he constructed a kite
and flew it during a storm. When the string became wet enough to conduct, Franklin, who
stood under a shed and held the string by a dry silk cord, put his hand near a metal key
attached to the string. A spark jumped. Electric charge gathered by the kite had flowed
down the wet string to the key and then jumped across an air gap to flow to the ground
through Franklins body. . . .
ERL-04
122
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8
'From Joy to Gratitude
____________
Date in Re: May 27, 1969
Site: Family yard
Time: 3:35 p. m.
W
alking around in the backyard on this warm spring afternoon, I suddenly began to get the
impression that a separation was occurring between me and the . . . to which I had subjugated my
conscious voluntary level will on the morning of January 14, 1969. My fumbling and silently
Fig. 42. Composite image made from two photos taken by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 147
expressed reaction to this sensation of a less restricted or more regular conscious level mental liberty
was as follows
Oh my God [Almighty Thou], how close we came to no knowledge of the world. Even
as the sun sets in the west, it also rises in the east. Every day is a sun day, isnt it? . . . We
are back in line.
Again, I selected the wrong word for the envisioned unknown source to which I was prayerfully
addressing myself. As to the use of we," I was also thinking of all other persons who had become
so mesmerized or spellbound by the biblical narrations about the Creative Cause of the natural
primary world (and hence the laws of involuntary nature), they could not readily grasp the
significant difference between the word Sunday and the word Sabbath.
To me, it was a wonderful relief to suddenly recognize the day named Sunday is like every other
day of the week; that is to say, Sunday and Sabbath
are not synonyms. Sunday is the name of one day in
a sequence of seven consecutive solar days. Sabbath
is the name of a day which some people have set apart
for rest and/or for religious commemoration. Any
day can be designated as a Sabbath. And whether
cloudy of clear, visible or invisible, every day is a day-
of-sun (Sunday).
I have also since learned that Sabbath is an English
derivative of the ancient Hebrew noun: ,Ca (pronounced Shabbat). ,Ca comes from the
verbal root ,ca, i.e., cease, desist, rest. But regardless of its purpose, every Sabbath holiday is
of human establishment and classification.
For me, this stark clarification of the meaning of the words sabbath and Sunday was a major mental
step toward eventually recognizing that al l words ar e separ at e f rom t he r eal i t i es t hey name
or ar e used t o r epr esent . Even as I exist independent of my social security number, my
memory images of the sun also exist independent of the word sun.
Fig. 43. Crop of a photo by Kim McLead.www.sxc.hu.
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Sun is but one of the many, many differing names that differing people have created for naming
the celestial energy source that provides both direct and indirect (via the moons surface) light upon
the earth. The Hebrew name for this primary celestial light and heat energy source is ana
(shemesh). If ana, sun, and all the other names given to the previously-pictured celestial object
were to suddenly cease to exist, this natural celestial object would not be affected in any way
whatsoever. Named or unnamed, this primary celestial entity keeps on radiating.
Another noteworthy thing about this day was the change in my inner minds I vision concerning
sunlight. On this day in May 1969, the rays of the sun were perceived as back to normal. Never
again was I to perceive any scenes of the suns rays tinged a yucky salmon pink like I had on the
morning of January 15, 1969, and the afternoon of February 24, 1969.
My remark: no knowledge of the world may have had something to do with my deep-down
fear about an atomic doomsday disaster. It could also be related to the fact that when I had presented
my prayer on the night of January 13-14, 1969, future life on earth had seemed bleak and without
much promise. Now it was different. Whereas I had no specific lofty or idealistic expectations, I
was beginning to delight in common everyday natural wonders like bright sunshine and clouds and
birds and flowers. As with our natural unadorned selves, these things of nature a r e extraordinary!
Was not the pristine natural cosmic world a Supernal marvel?
On this day, I could once again experience the world I am of as beautiful. The clear wide
expanse overhead was splendid with its blue background and pearly white sweeping clouds. Never
before had I noticed how convex-shaped and b i g or far-reaching the atmospheric dome above the
earths surface is. The sunshine was bright and clear, and the roses blanketing the mesh anchor fence
between my elderly neighbor and me did not separate us.
Looking upward, the old man tending his garden on the other side of the fence noted: Geese
fly with the wind. He was not trying to be poetic, merely state what he considered to be a truism
about the involuntary nature of wild geese.
*
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 149
My initial feeling of having returned, as I put it, to the living (less compressed state of
mind) made me less afraid. Fears all gone and soul at peace, I said. This hasty conclusion,
however, was immediately followed with the correction: Not so, am scared in my boots of
dying.
Thenand for the first time in my life--I felt "humbled." My knees actually buckled, and
I gently dropped to the ground upon them.
Indeed, there is every good reason to feel meek and awed before the manifested creative thoughts
of the Maker-Owner of the cosmic world. Not even one of our many creations can begin to match
the natural wonders of the cosmic world.
As a painting is to a finite human artist, the primary creations are to the Absolute or Almighty
Infinite Creative Power. I readily submit that as far as the Almighty Thou is concerned, my place
(and that of every other mortal human being, as well) always has been and always will be one of
natural involuntary subordination.
For a while afterwards, I lay face-down upon the ground. The grassy, dry land felt so
wonderfully solid beneath me. Lying down upon my stomach, I savored the comfort of this good
green earth. Alfred Joyce Kilmer must have felt something like I did on this morning when he
composed the first and the last verses in his poem "Trees:"
I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. . . .Poems are made by fools like you and
me, but only God [The Almighty Creative Power] can make a tree.
Yes, on this date in May 1969, I was becoming more and more aware of the great difference
between primary creations and the secondary creations produced by us mortal mental powers.
*
A burp? As I lay there, it seemed that the earth beneath me burped. Nay, that could not have
been true. So what did I hear when it seemed that from somewhere below where I lay prostrate upon
the ground came the sound of a big burp? [Well, things do boil under there. Otherwise there would
never be any volcanic eruptions.]
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 150
Turning face up, I began observing the fluffy white clouds floating along overheard. At times it
seemed that the clouds were still, and the earth was moving. At other times it was the earth that
appeared to be still, and the clouds moving.
*
Then came the depressing part of this days series of memorable ordinary and extraordinary (the
visions part) events. For when I went back into the house, the TV happened to be tuned to one of
the afternoon soap opera shows in which a funeral service was underway. To my solemn dismay,
Jesus name was repeatedly used as if he was instead The Almighty Mental Power that originated
the first generation of our species. The funeral scene was like an omnibus dark cloud. I was
concerned, for many people treat Mr. Jesus of Nazareth as either a demi-deity (son of God "[ our
Creator]) or our Creator-incarnate.
Neither idea is consistent with the known laws of nature for our species. Again, there are no
immaculate (sperm-less)conceptions; human young are begotten by the sperm of male human
beings. For a fact: gAnything that walks and talks and looks like a human being is either a human
being, or a human-made robot of a human being.
Again, there is one and only one thing to possibly be worthy of our humble submission or
worshipful reverence, and that is the unknown Absolute Creative Mental Power envisioned to have
originated the first generation of our species
123
Neither are there any real demi-deities (i.e., sons or daughters of a female human being and the
Almighty Thou ). How utterly absurd, and pos i t i v e l y i n s u l t i n g to our Maker, to suggest
such things!
Fig. 44. Crop of cloud panorama taken by me.
Either directly, or through some pre-established primary involuntary natural process.
123
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 151
9
From Loneliness to Love
___________
Date in Re: May 28, 1969
Site: Family yard
Theme: Discovery
I
magine! Visualize! Envision! To comply with either of these commands, we must use our
creative mental faculty. What a marvelous thing this part of our conscious mind is. We can use it
for discovery purposes as well as for creating entertaining stories and inventing all kinds of things.
Fig. 45. Our Milky Way. Credit: NASA. Inscription was added by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 152
Of the human mind, the authors of the previously referred civics textbook for youth had this to
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say:
Your mind is capable of doing wonderful things. It can travel thousands of miles and return again
in an instant, if need be, bearing either many beautiful pictures or very ugly ones . . . These mental
pictures we call imagination. Even as you are reading these lines, you may be adventuring far off
on a mental journey.
On this morning following the impression of having regained use of a big chunk of my
independent free will power, I was experiencing a flush of warm excitement. To regain some of
ones diminished free will mental power can be a powerfully uplifting thing.
Looking out the front door in a southeasterly direction, I was savoring the beauty and lush
greenness of the surrounding springtime landscape when suddenly, I think; therefore I exist. came
to mind. Remembrance of Rene` Descartes soon followed. Whereas I could recall having
125
heard the quote and the name of its author during the last session of French lecture I attended at
ODC in September 1968, I failed to see the connection between either Mr. Descartes or his famous
line and my of-the-moment situation. Thus, I put aside these spontaneous remembrances.
126
*
Nonetheless, the spontaneous expression had a special effect upon my psyche. Up to this
moment, I had not given any significant amount of concentrated thought to exactly how our species
came to be. With background thoughts of the revered-by-millions Bible and the renowned
Charles Darwins theory of organic evolution to intimidate me, I had shied away from speculating
about how our species and the other entities of the primary cosmic world were actually developed
and caused to come into existence. My focus had only been upon the fact that (1) we exist, (2) each
MWW, page 5.
124
the name of the author of the expression.
125
A few weeks later I chanced to find a book that included some of Mr. Descartes' major philosophical
126
discourses. Was I ever surprised and delighted at what I found! Although our reasons for doubting all things differed,
I also wanted to discern what I couldby way of logical or good common sense reasoningbelieve to be true or not true,
and fair or not fair.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 153
of us is at liberty to decide for himself or herself what is the fair or ethical thing to do, and (3) neither
gender nor race of us is more important or of greater value than the other.
But like a once-corralled horse set free to roam at will in the meadows, I was-- on this especially
pleasant spring morning in May 1969--feeling inclined toward experimenting with my newfound
intellectual freedom and sense of unchained liberty. And for whatever combining reasons, I started
thinking about the origination of the first pairs of male and female living things of human being kind
Bypassing the actual originating of the respective male and female bodies of the first generation
of our species, I began my intellectual experiment by trying to imagine what first consciousness
of life on earth may have been like for the origin generation of our species.
It follows that the first generation of human being kind would have begun conscious life under
a unique set of environmental conditions. Certain things which have happened between the first day
of human society and this day in 1969 had to be visualized as not having occurred. For instance:
a. No pair of either race of us organically-embodied creative mental powers has met and
fallen in love.
b. Neither any boy child nor any girl child of either racial variety of our species has been
begotten-conceived.
c. No clothing or body covering of any kind has been made.
d. No tents, huts or other human-made shelters have been constructed.
e. No harvesting tools, cooking utensils, or transportation vessels have been made.
f. No human communicative codes (languages or other signaling systems) have been
developed.
g. No religions have been established.
h. No hybrid plants have been produced.
i. No crossbred animals have been produced.
j. Neither has any idolatrous act been committed. These origin/ or first generation human
127
beings would have been as pure or sin free as new born babies.
The garden planet we English-speaking persons call Earth would also have been of a
comparatively unspoiled or pristine quality at the beginning of human society. No trees of the
I.e., worship of or reverence for some thing or someone other than the Almighty Creative Cause of the
127
first generation of our species and the other parts of the primary cosmic world .
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 154
forests would have been cut. No waterways had been polluted, and the sky overhead would have
been equally pure. In my estimation, fruits and nuts and berries and vegetables (especially root
vegetables like carrots, potatoes, et cetera) were in plentiful supply. And I would think that each
racial as Garden of Eden" site would have been near a fresh unsalted water supply of some kind
( e.g., a waterfall, spring, lake, or fresh water river). I would also estimate that each of these sites
would be located somewhere within thirty degrees of the equator. Otherwise, would not these
naked first men and first woman have soon died of hypothermia?
Although each subsequent generation of us has also begun life on earth in a state of innocence
and ignorance, we have had human elders to advise us regarding what is wise or safe to consume
or do. Not so for our most ancient paternal & maternal grandparents. For each of the first
generation human beings, it would have necessarily been a time of total innocence and ignorance
concerning what is and what is not wise or safe to consume or do.
Bypassing the origination of the body part of each first man and each first woman, I began
envisioning the first awakening or awareness of themself(s) by a pair of these first couples:
The figure on the left in the above illustration is intended to represent any first generation
woman of either race; the figure on the right any first generation man of either race. The round
yellow-orange figure is of course representative of the sun, and the green strokes represent the
Fig. 46. Illustration about first consciousness was created by me with cutouts and hand-
drawings.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 155
privacy forest. The bell is intended to stand for our mutual innate liberty. In this experiment, my
focus was upon the inner mental self discoveries. While feigning to be a first generation woman,
I began imagining what first consciousness might have been like for her. Since I do not know what
it feels like to be a male human being, her counterpart could only be envisioned as the woman
observer might have perceived him to be. If you please, try to visualize (as I did):
a young woman naked and stretched out full length upon her back, with eyelids closed. Suddenly,
she becomes conscious of heat upon her body. Opening her eyelids, she beholds the blazing sun in
the sky overhead. Lifting her head and lowering her chin upon her upper chest, she gets a good view
of her upturned feet at the lower end of her body. Flexing the toes, she notices her knee humps.
Turning her head first to the left and then to the right, she views her pair of arms and hands with
appendages longer than the toes of her feet. She flexes her hands and fingers, and flaps her elbows
a little. She sits up. Like everything else she has done, the sitting up is near-automatic. It is only
after she has done something that she realizes she has done it. The self-examination extended to the
other parts of her body. When that is finished, she rolls over upon her knees and pushes herself up
into a standing position. Again, the movement was near spontaneous. All these first movements
and consequential first discoveries followed the same pattern: Do and become aware of having
done, . . . up until the shadow.
Once up and moving around, she becomes aware of her shadow. All day long that thing tags
after her. She cannot figure out what it is. After the bright hot light disappears and is replaced by
a softer and cooler full moon light, the figure of the shadow dims, but does not go away.
By now, the young woman is tired. A slight gnawing feeling is occurring in her belly. She
does not understand that (hunger feeling) either, or why her throat feels a little dry (thirsts). She
sits down. Actually , the sitting is more like a plop. In so doing, she discovers that the grassy
ground under her feet is not as soft as it appears to be__ if you simply let go and fall upon it.
Reclining her slightly sore body against one of the nearby trees, she soon drifts off to sleep.
&
In the meantime, a similar kind of first awakening and physical self-inspection had been going
on by her counterpart on the other side of the narrow privacy forest barrier. Only the young man
had not tired so quickly. His exploration continued on through the night, and over a much larger
territory than the female human being had covered. Neither had the man stopped to rest and fallen
asleep like the woman had. By the dawn of the second day of human life, the male human being had
made it through the privacy buffer forest and was within viewing range of where the female human
being lay slumbering. At first glance, he wondered if she were of his own kind. In many ways,
she looked just like him. But in other ways, she was different. Her breasts were much bigger, and
she did not have any genitalia hanging at the crotch like he did. Also, her body was shorter and
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 156
of a more slender curvy shape than his was. The man moves toward the tree beside which the
woman lay slumbering, and . . . .
With the thought of a pair of our most ancient grandparents first sighting of each other, I stopped
the creative game. Even in pretense, it seemed inappropriate to imagine the details of what that
intimate meeting may have been like. We know what eventually happened, and has happened every
generation since then; for here we are__the procreatively reproduced grandchildren of those
nth 128
original (primary level) paternal and maternal grandparents
.
My visualization of a first generation woman and her mate-to-be coming into consciousness was
in part influenced by the Genesis author(s) portrayal of first couples. Notice that I said in part.
At no time during this creative venture did I ever suppose that each of the first generation women
was constructed from a used rib taken out of the body of each of the first generation men. How
messy! The in part I am alluding to is the idea that the first generation of our species was designed
and caused to come into existence by an Infinite Almighty/Absolute Creative Power.
As for the particular technique or process by which each primary thing was caused to come into
existence, that is still a mystery. Darwins theory about the origination of the species by means of
natural selection has some merit; but inasmuch as it is the nature of all of animal kind to reproduce
after a totally involuntary order, how could any species of animal kind have begotten-conceived the
first creative beings of mortal human kind?
As I see it, the major flaw in Darwins theory is that he did not allow for the Designer of the
evolution process he dubbed natural selection. I could not (and still cannot) imagine that the
process by which the human species and every other part of the primary cosmic world were caused
to come into existence were not designed by some Almighty or infinitely existing Absolute Creative
Mental Power.
Nor does the theory of organic evolution by way of involuntary natural selection cancel out or
refute the Genesis's author's premise of "intelligent design." Just envision empty space, . . . and then
think about how the entities that make up the primary cosmic world came to be. Regardless of the
natural involuntary process by which the creating was done or how long it took to complete the
I.e., indeterminate degree generation descendants.
128
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 157
primary job, how can the primary cosmic world not have been caused by an Infinitely
Existing/Absolute Creative Mental Power?
And although I strongly protest the biblical authors' practice of presenting their ideas as having
instead come from either the Almighty Thou or the spiritual presence within, the recount of Moses'
life story has also been of appreciable help to me.
*
This second illustration is intended to represent love at first sight," or the falling in love between
first couples of each of the basic racial varieties of our
species: Negroid (black), Mongoloid (yellow), Ameroid
(red), and Caucasoid (white). Our skin tones are of course
neither pitch black, bright yellow, scarlet red, nor snow
white. Although mentioning the traditional informal racial
grouping color values, I am mindful that there are many
differing shades of each races basic or primary level skin
pigment tone. [And would it not be grotesque if all of us
human beings were of the same skin tone, same hair color,
same body statute?]:
No t e : Within less than a week after this intellectual experiment, I was to experience a quickly
passing sensory (non-pictorial) vision of a seemingly typical or prototype first couple that left me
with the impression that such as I were considered to be lower caste level human beings. I kid you
not. The posture of the pair was in effect implying that with respect to the Almighty Thou, all later
generation human beings (i.e. those born of preexisting human beings) were beneath them.
At first, I put the vision aside. What snobs," I thought. Indeed, that superiority stance was
a real turnoff. By the time of that vision, I had come to recognize that no human being is naturally
greater or more important than any other human being. To the Almighty Thou and the Almighty
Thou alone would I submit to bow in humble submissive respect.
No, the superiority stance vision did not cause me to change my mind about the natural
subordinate position of all human beings with respect to the envisioned Creative Cause of our
Fig. 47. Illustration created by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 158
species. Like ourselves, the first generation of us creative beings of humankind was also beneath
and/or subordinate to the Almighty Creative Mental Power.
*
This third prototype illustration is intended to represent any quartet of our most ancient Paternal
and Maternal great grandparents__plus a first conceived and birthed child of each pair :
129
When I began thinking about the details of my genetic history, I soon came to recognize that
the origin generation of our species does occupy a special position in the human hierarchy chain; for
regardless of the exact process by which they were caused to come into existence, our most ancient
paternal and maternal grandparents could not have been begotten-conceived by pre-existing pairs
of reproductively adult human beings!
Fig. 48. Illustration constructed by me.
Some of the drawings in the sequence of three illustrations were done by me, and some of the objects in
129
the illustrations were adapted cutouts from old magazines or children's activity craft books.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 159
Without human parents to guide them, these most ancient f i r s t human parents would have had
to rely upon their raw natural instincts or intuition, creative intelligence, common sense, and the
divine spiritual presence within concerning what is and is not safe to consume in the way of liquids
and other foodstuffs, as well as what is and what is not wise or fair behavior.
The young of those second generation babies (the e. and f. in the previous prototype illustration)
would have been the first grandchildren of humankind. We are the great grandchildren (to the nth
degree ) of those origin-generation parents of human creative being kind.
130
Albeit a very long genetic chain, the basic pattern remains the same: One set of parents of
differing gender per each child, and two sets of grandparents: one paternal pair & one maternal pair
per each child. And whether the biological parents parent (raise) the begotten-conceived and
birthed child or not, each genetic human family consists of exactly one male parent, one female
parent, and at least one child of either male or female kind.
Whenever I recall, hear, or read the words: Honor thy father and thy mother," I think of each
generation of my forefathers and foremothers__even all the way back to the first ones.
And despite all the problems caused by the practice of ascribing speaking lines to the Almighty
Thou ( ohvkt), I also think about and feel appreciation for those Hebrews/Jews who have kept
before us the hypothesis or theory that our species and all the other parts of t he pri mary cosmi c
worl d were originated by an Almighty Infinite Creative Mental Power.
*
As for the type of temptation a prototype first generation couple was portrayed by the author of
Genesis to have succumbed to is concerned, the inclination to idol-making is a natural constant
peculiar to living things of humankind. And were it not for these contrasting good or wise and not-
good or not wise inclinations, we would be as animals__without free will power.
Referring back to the origin generations position compared to ours, no "born-of-woman" child
(other than a severely mentally disabled one) can have reached adulthood without committing some
willful unfair or unholy deed. Thus, I cannot support the practice of giving certain deceased
subsequent generation male and female human beings the posthumous title of Saint or Sainte,
I.e., a real but indeterminate number.
130
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 160
respectively. However, and as noted in my feigned rebuttal to the biblical personality Paul, these
titles might actually apply to our most ancient paternal and maternal grandparents (those men and
women not begotten conceived of human parents).
While we are involuntarily inclined toward idol-making, we are not involuntarily caused to
worship or revere the unknown Creative Cause of the first generation of our species and the rest of
the primary creations__and that power alone? To me, this freedom implies a lot about the
fairness/good character of the envisioned Almighty/Absolute Thou.
While we are at liberty not to choose the unknown Creative Cause of our species as the object
of worship, no thing of the known finite cosmic world would be a suitable object of reverence or
worship. The only possibly worthy object of our reverence or worship would be the envisioned
unknown Designer/Maker of the primary comic world.
Indeed, how refreshing it is to not be dogged by involuntary nature to as bow down in humble
submission or meek servitude like some of my guiding elders would have me do concerning the
deceased man sometimes referred to as "Jesus Christ."
Albeit I am not responsible for what the biblical authors have written, I am responsible for what
I say, write, illustrate, or might otherwise suggest. Thus, I edit (but without removing the original
text) quoted expressions that I interpret to be literally misrepresentative of what the author is either
apparently or seemingly alluding to, as in Genesis 1:26:
/ / / /ub,unsf ubnkmc ost vagb ohvkt rnthu
And said God [The Almighty Creative Mental Power], Let us make man [humankind] in our own
image, after our likeness. . . . [ Note :My translation is according to the actual word order].
Point of Fact: g Genesis 1:26 is a figurative rather than literally factual statement; for no human being
could have witnessed the envisioned Almighty/Absolute Creative Mental Power thinking about and/or
willing a species of creative human being kind into existence.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 161
The truth can be elusive, even feared. Nonetheless, the search for truth is necessary. One
author had this say about not letting "inherited" teachings become as chains upon our minds:
Too often, however, the shelters of childhood become the prisons of maturity; dependent reliance
upon others becomes weak indecisiveness, and many of us are tragically afraid to liberate ourselves
from the chains of yesteryear. A false idea of religion still encourages fear and hardens those chains;
it helps keep men and women in subjection to their childish and adolescent . . . at a time when they
should be trusted to make a proper distinction between fantasy and fact, dream and deed.
131
In the Principles of Philosophy (Abt. 1642), Rene` Descartes had this to say about methodic
doubting (i.e., a way of searching for certainty by systematically--though tentatively--doubting
everything.): The seeker after truth must, once in the course of his [or her] life, doubt everything,
as far as possible.
132
Indeed, deliberate doubting can help you to discover the true value of your acquired information.
While all that we experience is education of one kind or another, only involuntary nature can be
considered to be totally reliable evidence. Our interpretations about the natural world entities and
events are always subject to error. For instance, there was a time in human history when people
(who expressed their views on the subject) thought the earth was flat. We now know this is not true.
Mr. Descartes also noted in Discourse on Method: It is good to have examined all things, even
those most full of superstition and [seeming] falsehood, in order that we may know their just value,
and avoid being deceived by them.
I wholeheartedly support the proposition that we need to thoroughly examine all that has been
said, written, or otherwise presented by one or more of us concerning: (1) the origination of the
primary natural cosmic world, (2) spiritual revelation and other natural involuntary phenomena, and
(3) what is deemed to be wise or correct behavior.
Joshua Loth Liebman, Peace of .Mind ( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946.) POM
131
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol I, tr. by John Cottinghm, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald
132
Murdoch, (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 193. PWD
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 162
10
A Sacred Pilgrimage
____________
Date in Re: June 2-3, 1969
Time: Morning to morning
D
uring the day, I walked about the yard with my young daughters (Lisa and Anne), and talked
with them about the wonders of nature around about us. The overhead sky was the first thing we
looked at and talked about. After observing the various clouds, Lisa went back into the house to
write about what she had seen, and the things the cloud shapes resembled (to her). As I recall, the
essay she did was quite good. Regrettably, the paper was not filed away in some safe place.
Sometime during our stroll around the backyard, Anne
gathered a bouquet of roses from the rambling red roses that
grew along a piece of the chain-link fencing separating the
front yard of our house from the back yard, and presented
them to me. I do not recall how she managed to collect the
roses without getting pricked by the thorns.
After Lisa had gone back into the house to write about
the cloud formations she had studied so intently, Anne and
I walked on down to the pier that jutted out a short distance
over the salted waterway named Long Creek. From where my youngest daughter and I were
positioned, we could see the suns rays touching down upon the earths surface in the distant
southwest horizon.
Fig. 49. The two photos in this composite image
are the courtesy of Linda Rosenthal & AL71.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 163
In the rural community where I grew up,
folks would say of this striking natural
phenomenon: The sun is drawing up the
waters. It was only after I had acquired
internet service in April 2000, and had
begun searching for a photograph of sun
drawing up water, that I discovered that
the technical name for this atmospheric
phenomenon was crepuscular rays.
One of the internet authors included this commentary with the one or more exhibited photos of
the rays at his website:
Ofttimes, because it appears that these rays reach downward from the clouds, people will remark
that the sun is drawing up water. In England, they call this same thing Jacobs Ladder.
What you are, in fact, seeing here is what is referred to as crepuscular rays. This phenomenon
usually occurs when sunlight shines through a break in a layer of clouds. Dust, tiny water droplets,
or haze in the air beneath the clouds scatters sunlight, making that region of the sky appear bright
with rays. No matter what these sunbeams may be called, it is the scattering of sunlight by particles
in the atmosphere that makes them visible.
At the time this was happening, I was not inclined to speculate about the physics behind the
extraordinary scenes that appeared before my viewing minds I. Although I did not know the
technical name for them at the time, the sun's crepuscular rays were a familiar scene. But as
previously noted, I did try to make a written record of each unusual or especially impressive
thing I observed. In a few instances, a hand-drawn sketch of the scene was included.
Thus ended the daytime part.
*
Fig. 50. Crop of 2090044.jpg. Photo courtesy of Steve Smith.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 164
At about 8:30 p.m.
I went to the light switch near the front door of the house to
turn on the front porch lamp. When I flipped the switch, nothing
happened. I stepped out upon the porch to see what was wrong
with the porch light. That is when I noticed a lone firefly flitting
about near a cluster of pine trees across the street on the corner
where Centell Road and Long Creek Drive converge. When there
is one firefly, there are usually more. But even though I stood and
watched for a few minutes, I saw only one firefly.
A little bit later, I happened to look out into the backyard through the sliding glass doors from
the dining room to the patio. Lo and behold, there was that lone firefly flitting near the large live
oak to the left of the patio, or so I hastily assumed. It could just as easily have been a different
lightning bug. Either way, there was at least one firefly flashing in the vicinity of the nearby oak
tree, and one flashing its phosphorescent tail light in one of the pine trees to the far right of the
patio later on in the evening. The comment below fits the type of firefly beetles seen by me during
this summer night in 1969:
Flashing Lightning Bugs are trying to attract mates. Among most but not all species of North American
Lightning Bugs, males fly about flashing while females perch on vegetation, usually near the ground.
If the female sees a flasher and she's ready to mate she responds by flashing right after the male's last
flash. A short flash dialogue takes place as the male flies closer and closer, and then, if all goes well,
they mate. __http:// www.backyardnature.net/ lightbug.htm.
As I stood there peering outside, the premonition: Expect anythingswept over me. That's
when I decided to extend my nature review to an all-night watch. Upon hearing about my plan to
sleep out overnight in our backyard, David and Lisa decided to join me. As I recall, Anne was
already asleep. James did not join the backyard retreat group. It is possible that he felt someone
should stay inside with his five-year-old sister.
Fig. 51. Photo courtesy of Bruce Marlin,
Red Planet, Inc.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 165
Once outside, Lisa spread
her sleeping bag down
alongside mine on the
concrete patio. And for
whatever reasons, David
took his sleeping bagand
flashlightto the far right
side of the backyard to
bed down upon the grass
under the rustic wood-
framed Scuppernong
grape arbor. At the risk
of stooping to the
melodramatic, it did seem that my teenage son considered himself to be our night watchman. As
it happened, his father was away attending a job-related school. This was a rare situation. My
husband was usually at home from work by midnight.
By the time all were settled down, dusk had passed. Now it was dark. From my position
on the patio, the trees appeared to
be jet black__a like magical
black. My skin was perceived as
having a beautiful olive-toned
glow to it. In fact, the exotic glow
flooded the entire back yard. It
was the most exquisitely toned
light I have ever seen. The
composite image at right is
somewhat representative of how
the glow in the backyard and the
tone of my skin appeared to be
during this otherwise dark night.
Fig. 52. Backyard drawing is by me.
Fig. 53. Background scene photo is courtesy of webmaster at
wallpaperforever.com. Legs photo layer is by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 166
No stars were visible. There were street lamps about half a mile away on the bridge part
of Great Neck Road. On this night, those bridge lights appeared to be of a yellowish green
or chartreuse color instead of the regular street lights color, . . . and the red beacon near the
shore a few blocks to my right along the east shoreline of Long Creek appeared to be of a
bright melon color instead of the usual as stop light red. Both the bridge lamps and the
beacon light were too far from me to give any light in my yard. The only light I could see
shining upon the backyard on this night was the indescribably exquisite exotic olive-toned
light spray.
The trees can appear to black at night, but the only other place I have ever seen anything
likened to the beautiful tone of light that as sprayed my backyard and me on the night of
June 2-3, 1969, have been in photographs like the two cropped and merged photos included
Fig. 53. on the previous page. No doubt, I had previously seen some photographs or
sketches in one or more books, movie scenes, or greeting cards that included this exotic
olive tone cast.
Sometime between midnight and dawn, dark clouds had started to form. Soon the thunder began
rumbling like gigantic elephants tromping across the sky.
A few heavy raindrops started falling upon my upturned nose. There was
only a little rain, not enough to call a shower. But combining this night's
experience with raindrops to all my other remembrances of rain hitting
some part of my body, it is my conclusion that not all rain droplets are of
the same weight. Hitherto, I had not noticed individual raindrops. Neither
Fig. 54. Stormy-Sky-0747m.jpg, the photo from which the above cropped portion is taken, is the courtesy of
John Kasunich, www.jmkasunich.com.
Fig. 54.1. Photo of raindrops
on leaf is courtesy of Bruce
Marlin, Red Planet, Inc.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 167
had I thought about all precipitations ( e.g., dew, rain, sleet, hail, snow, etc.) as actually various
2
formations of the unique water compound: H O.
The dark grey storm clouds continued to float across the night sky from left to right. And
as I lay there following their movement from left to right, a number of puzzling visions began
to develop. If only I could do mirror-image level likenesses of all the visions I observed on
this night and at other times between January 14, 1969, and mid-July, 1970. As it is, rough
sketches and photo illustrations are the best I can provide. The star vision in the illustration
below is represented by a photo-editing lens flare. My two drawings are very close
133
likenesses of the two pictorial visions of cloud matter I witnessed on this sultry summer night:
1. From right to left, there first appeared a starlike or as lens flare flash of light to
the far right of my viewing range.
2. Coming into view next was the vision of an abstract form that appeared to be a mix
between an artist's atomic model and a royal Asian or Egyptian porta carriage.
3. Following last was the vision of an abstract version of a classic royal crown.
4. Closing, there was an impression vision of a first generation couple. And as noted
in the previous entry, both individuals seemed aloof, and as if they were superior
to me.
Fig. 55. Background photo same as Fig. 54. on previous page. Foreground layers and lens flare are by me.
See ENDNOTE I for further commentary and models associated with 2 and 3 vision scenes.
133 nd rd
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 168
Dawn
When dawn began to occur, it seemed that the sun was rising in the Western horizon
[which, of course, it was not]. Although it had lost some of the exotic olive-toned
appearance, the light glow was still of a sprayed effect.
While I stood watching the light of a new sunrise appear, I also got the firm
impression of the earth as being pulled through space. Why, we really do not know
where we are in space!, I silently acknowledged.
Following the impression of the planet Earth pulled through space, this renown
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson came to mind:
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star
and one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
when I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out
the boundless deep
turns again home.
Twilight and even bell,
and after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
when I embark;
For tho from out our bourne
of time and place
the flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face [ ]
147
when I have crossed the bar.
__________
Face is a physical thing of finite life kind. But if i mmo r t a l i t y d o e s ha p p e n t o f o l l o w up o n t he
147
mo r t a l d e a t h, I a l s o ho p e t o ha ve s o me de f i ni t i ve awa r e ne s s of t he Abs o l ut e Cr e a t i ve Me nt a l Po we r .
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 169
Epilogue
L
ocation of earth in universal (detectable) space?
I had never wondered about where we are in space. Due to the huge size of earth and the
vast amount of space between our home planet and each of the other celestial objects, it is
hard to visualize the earth as in motion. It is real to me now. The impression vision I
experienced of earth as undergoing a pulling motion helped me to think about and accept the
theory of the earth orbiting the sun as a plausible one. However, the concept of the earth
spinning around like a top while orbiting the sun is not as comprehensible to me. Yet, if a
planet were started in motion in space in the beginning, what would cause it to stop spinning?
The vision set of a "star", "porta carriage", and "royal crown?"
The star flash: Since this event included several visions about the direction or
relative position of the earth in space, perhaps the North Star (Polaris) is the celestial
object the star vision may be suggestive of; for that was the only star I knew of to have
anything to do with a constant or fixed direction. Time and time again, I had heard
some person refer to the North Star as a seafarer's natural navigational guide for
determining where" true North" is. [This vision also brings up the vision scene of a
lone star atop a pastel rainbow spray that I experienced on the night of February 14,
1996. In a way, that vision scene also had to do with direction__the direction to the
location of the envisioned Almighty Thou, . . .and also the general direction in which
we mental beings would go if eternal life does follow upon the death of our finite
mortal bodies.]
In searching for more information on the "North Star" (Polaris), I have since come
across the following new (to me) information about the position of this most significant
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 170
star with regard to the Earth's north pole at www.Space.com:
"Polaris is a moderately bright star. It is called the North Star because the North Pole
of Earth' s axis of rotation points up toward it. For thi s reason, Polaris remains
relatively fixed in the sky during the night, and Earth' s spin causes the other stars to
rotate around Polaris.
Polaris is also the outermost star on the handle of the Little Dipper, which seems to
pour into the Big Dipper." __ By Robert Roy Britt, Senior Science Writer.
Organic life and sexuality?
Human sexuality or sensuousness was also a featured part of this night. For the first
remembered time in my life, I had the impulse to suck my thumb. That happened during the
time the blue jays were squawking back and forth, . . .and the mallard waterfowls were
quacking, . . .and the fireflies were flashing their tail lights, . . .and I began perceiving the
vision of an enshrouding olive-toned exotic light.
Which I did.
163
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 189
14
Winter Wonders and Mythical Dilemmas
____________
Date in Re: December 19, 1969
Featured event: Ring around the moon
A
ccording to what I have since read on the subject,
a ring or halo around the moon is caused by ice
crystals in the earths upper atmosphere. Where I
grew up this natural phenomenon was generally
interpreted as an indicator of bad weather. Whether it
is true or not, I cannot say.
While standing there (in the side road that curves
into the road where I live) looking up at the halo
around the moon, I thought of wedding rings. Why
were wedding rings invented? I wear one. My
husband also wears one. And the first reason why both of us do is because it was the custom when
we got married in 1950 for the bride and groom to give each other a ring. A gold (or silver) band
on the third index finger over from the thumb was a sign you were avowed to another, and therefore
no longer eligible for courting. This tradition is, I think, a good one.
And why , I also wonder, was the trip my husband and I took following our wedding reception
called a honeymoon"? Could the compound word: honey+moon be associated to the earths moon
and the sweet stuff found in bee hives? Whatever the history of the compounded word, the
honeymoon honeymoon of my husband and me was extra sweet for both of us.
Fig. 65. Crop of photo DSC709.jpg. Credit NASA.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 190
*
During this pre-Christmas time, myth and pretense tend to block the real natural wonders of the
winter season: blanketing snowfalls, frosty trees, glistening icicles; red-berried plants like Nandina
scrubs and Holly trees; red-flowering plants like Poinsettias and cactus, etc., . . . and redbirds
foraging for food.
Young children gradually rid themselves of the Santa Claus myth. But ignorance of how our
species was originated and what happens to us at death makes many of us vulnerable to wishful
thoughts about a messiah(i.e., anointed one) who will come along and give us the answers to our
wonders about the Creative Cause of our species and our ultimate destiny. Well, it does not happen.
There are no real genies. Transcendent experiences can awaken a person to the reality of the
seemingly holy spiritual presence within, but that inner natural source of conscience is not proof of
either (1) the Almightys existence and character or (2) that immortality or continuing mental life
is our ultimate destiny.
*
No more idols for me. To the Creative Cause of the primary cosmic world and that Almighty
Power alone will I submit to humble myself. Albeit the righteous or just way of life is the only
practical choice, the seemingly holy inner spiritual presence does not unfairly pressure us to choose
justice or fair treatment over injustice or cruel treatment. I appreciate that. In contrast, all the
religions with which I am familiar deploy some degree of both (a) the fear of hellish suffering and
(b) promises of reward as a means for keeping and/or acquiring members.
In December 1969, I took no part in the upcoming Christmas (Christ+mass) festivities. The
dilemma continues for me, but I have since found a compromise I can live with. Both my adult
children and their children enjoy coming together and exchanging gifts. The festive tree I now
consent to do features only natural winter season things like snow, icicles, frozen dew drops, nested
birds, and pine cones. Starlight is represented by garlands of mini-white electric lights. Gifts are
wrapped in white paper and white ribbon. The tags include either a blue or pink ribbon marker.
When the gift is to a couple, the package gets a ribbon marker of each color.
164
Whenever I look at the festive tree with packages beneath it, I think of all the boys and girls
I
ever born on this planet, including the historical baby Jesus. But none are thought of worshipfully,
But now no colored bows like are shown in the ENDNOTES photos.
164
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 191
or with reverence. As far as I am concerned, all human families are hallowed or as blessed. How
each of us chooses to behave and what we involuntarily are, are two very different things.
I use this time to point out the glory of all human life. There are many people who have no
annual birthday celebrations.
Fairy tales of many kinds have been composed by both past and presently existing persons. But
do stories like Hansel and Gretel convey a psychologically healthy message to young children?
165
That is a question that had come to mind earlier in the day. If I had it all to do over again, I would
not read this storyor any other story about witches--to my young children. Neither would I read
Little Red Riding Hood to them. Our young need to be told about the dangers within our society
166
in straightforward explanatory terms. The mere reading of a fairy tale or fable to the young ones
leaves them to do what no young child is mentally capable of doing: decipher the subtle or imprecise
meanings for themselves. Even the comparatively nonviolent fables like the Country Mouse and the
Town Mouse by Aesop can convey an undesirable message. For instance, people of urban
communities are portrayed in a negative slant in this metaphorical tale starring two mouse cousins
As a country-reared child and a city-dweller adult, I know that there are advantages and
disadvantages to both rural life and urban life.
*
Another question that came up on this date involved the theory that the earth is spinning around
like a top while it orbits around the sun. At the time, I could not grasp that concept. Where, I
asked, is the force causing the earth to spin around? [However, I now recognize that this law
applies to things on the planet earth__not its motion in space].
In this story of treachery and abandonment, times are hard and food is scarce when Hansel and Gretel are
165
deserted in a dark forest by their wicked stepmother and poor father. While trying to find their way home, the children
encounter a witch who wants to eat them, but Gretels quick thinking foils her plan. ERL-04
the story of a little girl dressed in red who starts on a mission of mercy to her grandmother's house only to
166
be spied upon and intercepted by a wolf, who then by taking a shortcut arrives at the grandmother's house before the
granddaughter does. The innocent Red discovers the wolf lying in bed disguised as her grandmother. Before the wolf
can devour Red Riding Hood, however, a hunter bursts in and kills him. 2003 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Deluxe
ed. CD-ROM ( USA: Grolier Interactive, Inc. ; Scholastic, Inc.,2002). GE-03
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 192
ENDNOTES
I. The three images below are from photos taken by me in our family room.
Fig. 66. Photo of tree.
Fig. 66.1. Closeup photo of bird in nest.
Fig. 66.2. Closeup photo of some of the packages wrapped by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 193
15
The Firmament of Heaven?
____________
Date in Re: January 17,1970
Time: 7:45 p.m.
A
t the thought of this new year, I was again reminded that we actually do not know what
astronomical year it is. The number 1970 in the above given date represents only the most recent one
thousand, nine hundred and seventy years of human history according to the Gregorian calendar that
was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
Two young observers were out in the yard with me on this chilly winter evening. One was my
nine-year-old daughter Lisa. The other was eight-year-old Allison Stanton, Lisas best friend. The
girls had no comment, as I recall, about the rainbow-toned moon halo on this night. Their attention
was instead focused upon the motley clouds (similar to those in the above photograph) way up in the
sky (or firmament) overhead. I think the technical name given to middle-level cloud formations
of this type is altocumulus clouds.
Fig. 67. A darkened crop version of a photo by CincoBayou, at picassaweb.com.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 194 194
As we stood there together peering upward, Alison says: Its like we dont know where were
going or anything. [How astute. It took me until thirty-seven years of age to recognize that I do not
know where earth is with respect to the whole created cosmic system. . . . and then, only after an
extraordinary spiritual event had left me inspired to take a closer look at what was occurring within
and around about me.] Allison also mentioned having espied two stars in the nighttime heaven part
of celestial space. Lisas response to the same overhead scene was descriptive of the collective cloud
formation: It looks like just a bunch of ice cracking up. In the background, fifteen-year-old son
David was playing some record about Take a letter, Maria. . . .
Soon, rain began to fall. The girls and I went back into the house.
*
Beginning with the writing of the Torah scrolls, much has been said about a place called
heaven. The Hebrew word is ohna ( sha-ma-yim). ohna is classified as a dual rather than
plural noun . . . , and why not? Doesnt the sky above have two parts: (a) whats within the
atmosphere and (b) whats beyond it in surrounding cosmic space?
Within the context of Genesis 1:1, the word ohna /heaven means all the things surrounding the
surface of the planet earth (including the atmosphere part). The solar system (which includes the
planet earth and its satellite moon) is in this heavenly space. So are the multitudes of other stars.
I
Especially noticeable is the asterism dubbed "The Big Dipper. Altogether, these celestial lights
II
make for a dramatic cosmic scene. The clouds we see floating around above us are not in heaven
(i.e., outer space). Neither is dew, rain, nor any other kind of precipitation as manner from outer
heaven. All forms of precipitation develop within the firmament or atmosphere part of the planet
earth. But you have only to read the Genesis description of what surrounds the earths surface to
recognize that the author of those verses did not know where the dividing line is between the edge
of the earths atmosphere and the outer or heavenly space surrounding our entire homeland planet.
Nor did it become a firm reality for me until after the NASA astronauts went off beyond the outer
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 195
atmospheric edges of our planet into celestial space and were able to photograph our beautiful home
planet earth from a distance. From the NASA
evidence, images like the artistss impression at
right of the Integralspacecraft in orbit around
Earth have been created for showing the edge
of our planet and solar space beyond.
In-between the earths surface and outer
space ( heaven) is the atmospheric mantle of air
and clouds and electrical particles that sustain
life as we know it__finite organic life. Why, I
wonder, is our home planet the only planet to
have an oxidizing (organic life-supporting)
atmosphere?
True or not, I continue to find myself thinking that every primary nature thing of earth and in
immediate surrounding space was created for the benefit or interest of the last primary creation: life
forms of limited but real creative being kindour most ancient grandparents.
Is earth not special! Are we human beings not special!
Fig. 84. Scanned copy of an image at top of page 788 of vol. 13 of WBE.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 224
20
An Interim Moment
____________
Date in Re: July 2, 1970
N
o visions were experienced on this, the twentieth wedding anniversary of my husband and me.
If there were any gifts exchanged between the two of us, I have no recollection of them. But I do
recall ( and have kept) the greeting card my husband and I received from our seventeen-year-old
son, James, Jr. Here is a scanned copy of the cover and inside message of that treasured reminder
of how many joys I have experienced during the years James, Sr. and I have been married to each
other.
Fig. 85. Photo of scanned card parts taken by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 225
But to make an understatement, things were not typical in our household between January 14,
1969, and late December 1971. For instance, I would no longer participate in the annual family
ritual of decorating a traditional garish Christmas tree and exchanging gifts in honor of the birth
day of a dead man named Jesus. My sudden break away from the religion my husband and I had
been reared to was hard for him and other close family members to adjust to.
It was challenging for me, too; but from the onset of the transcendent experience, it was clear
to me that only the Almighty Thou could possibly be due worship or reverence. Thus, I had to
resist all idolatrous practices--even if my refusal to support the practices might result in my being
shunned by both family and friends.
Additional stress was put upon my husband and children by the changes that had occurred in my
housekeeping work habits. During the months that followed between January 14, 1969, and this
date in mid-1970, documenting the visions and following up with reading and studying did not
allow much time for domestic chores. Consequently, it was not uncommon to find beds unmade,
books and other reference materials cluttering the floor, and a layer of dust upon the furniture.
Our wedding vows and our love for our children helped my husband and me through those times
when, for one reason or another, we were not feeling kindly toward one another.
*
According to the following notes, romance and marriage was the featured theme of this date:
First big decision
Rod McKuen, a timely poet
What of marriage between very first persons?
First big decision? By first big decision," I was thinking of my decision to follow through
with the scheduled wedding of my fiance`and me on July 2, 1950. Becoming engaged and making
plans to get married was far different from actually doing it. No vows were exchanged during the
engagement and the wedding rehearsal parts. To me (at that time in my life), a wedding vow was
a forever kind of commitment. Once done, there was no undoing it.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 226
Rod McKuen"? This is the name of a husky-voiced man who writes and sings poems, and
who--through his recorded albums--coincidentally helped me feel more at ease with and appreciative
of my own sexuality. This mans poetry was the first I had ever read or heard recited that addressed
this aspect of our physiological nature. Although Rod. McKuen's poetics sometimes contains a
dash of the trashy," there is an underlining tenderness and seemingly genuine appreciation for
womankind in his work that I had not sensed in any of the poetics of Bob Dylan, a poet-singer of
the same Hippie period. Dont get me wrong, there is a lot of Dylans poetic work I do like. But
I do not find Bob Dylan to be the sensitive romantic stylist Rod McKuen is.
Anita Kerr, Peter Matz, and Arthur Greenslade are some of the conductors who have worked
with Rod McKuen. Although I prefer Anita Kerrs arrangements, each conductors musical
arrangement has been a fitting complement to the songs sung (or monologues done) by Mr. McKuen.
As with Rabbi Fines poetic memorial piece, some of Rod McKuens phrasing gives expression to
some thoughts and feelings of my own for which I formerly had no words. The poignant refrain of
his poetic song: Loves Been Good To Me is especially relatable:
I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
and never found a home.
Still in all I am happy
The reason is you see
Once in a while
along the way
Loves been good to me.
While we share our lives with other persons, each of us is alone in our respective bodies of
either male gendered kind or female gendered kind. It is not a bad design. Mental privacy is a
primary human need.
For me, home also used to carry an elusive connotation. During my growing up years, I never felt
that I had a home. And I didnt. All the places where I resided between the time of my birth and
adulthood were deeded to someone else. Even after I became an adult, married, and was at last
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 227
residing in a house with my name on the deed too, I still could not experience the full feeling of
home. But on the night of February 14-15, 1969, I got a glimpse of why that even the house owned
by my husband and me had not completed the word home: The planet Earth is the natural home of
each of us. When it is thought of as Earth, the word home seems more encompassing, more
complete.
*
What of marriage between the first human beings"? If I did anything
more than write down the question, there is no remaining written record
of it. My present response to the question is as follows:
Although I cannot even guess what the first generation weddings were
actually like, it is of certainty that the pairing-up of our most ancient
parents was not like the formal marriage ceremony underwent by my
husband and me on July 2, 1950. No such formal "legal" rites would have
existed in the beginning hours of human society.
Released in 1973, this film won a Golden Globe Award for its score by Neil Diamond. Jonathan Livingston
188
Seagull grows tired of the dull, routine life of his sea gull clan. When he experiments with new flying techniques, he
is expelled by the clan elders. Free of the restrictive confines of the group, Jonathan explores the world in search
of wisdom and enlightenment. ERL-04
With the entry for July 14-15, 1970, my original notebook on the extraordinary spiritual experience I began
189
experiencing on the morning of January 14, 1969 was closed.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 240
The Next Twenty-Five Years
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 241
22
Or Strength to Weakness
____________
Dates in Re: August 1970 to April 1974
A
lthough I can recall the visions and a number of other things I experienced between January 14,
1969, and mid-July 1970, the only evidence I have about what my life was like between late fall
of 1970 and the first quarter of 1972 are:
a few scattered memories,
some personal notes ,
some photographs,
a letter from one of the ODU 1971 staff professors, and
several of the books in my at-home library.
According to the information on paper records or in mind, the only secular educator I shared any
of my original records of the spiritual happening with was an ODU math professor sometime
between the fall of 1970 and early to mid-1971. No oral synopsis was provided by me, for I had not
yet developed the courage to speak openly about the extraordinary spiritual happening I had
undergone.
Neither had I made any attempt to interpret the visions I had experienced. It was my hope that
some college professor or scientist would help me figure out the significance of the sensory and
pictorial visions I experienced between January 14, 1969 and July 14-15, 1970. For various reasons,
that did not happen.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 242
But in retrospect, I can see that I was not sufficiently in charge of my emotions at that time to
motivate anyone to try to take me seriously. As I recall, much of what I said at the time was in the
form of insinuations. Without any knowledge of Biblical Hebrew grammar to help me evaluate the
Exodus account, I skirted over instances in my experience which corresponded to some of those
recounted of in Exodus. But again, the main lack of high interest on the part of the educators I
spoke with at ODC was no doubt due to my inability to present my case in a sufficiently coherent
manner.
Mid-November 1971
At various times between January 14, 1969, and July 14-15, 1970, I had experienced severe
headaches. By mid-November1971, they had become so painful I could no longer bear them, and
called my family doctors office for an appointment. After seeing me, Doc made arrangements for
me to be admitted to Norfolk General Hospital. The only other thing I remember following
admission to that hospital and my return home around December 23, 1971, was (a) myself lying face
down on a gurney with an orderly at either side, and (b) myself seated beside my husband in the
hospital solarium.
As it turned out, it would be several years before I would learn the reason why I was admitted
the hospital and given numerous electric convulsive therapy shock treatments over a period of six
weeks.
April 1972
Following the hospital stay, I gradually worked my way back to participating in social activities.
The first clear recollection I have of a social outing was a family gathering at my parents home in
Mathews County, Virginia, during the spring breakof April 1972. All four of my siblings were
in town. Some of my nieces and nephews were also present. Three of my four children were at
the gathering. I do not recall where seventeen-year-old son David was on this weekend. James, Jr.
had brought his 35MM camera along. It was he who took the following treasured photograph of
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 243
Ernest Hugate and Marion Sadler Hugate with their children, most of their grandchildren, and all
but one of their childrens spouses.
The Hudgins children in the group picture are of course the children
of my husband [ James (Mac) Hudgins] and me. Anne, Jeannie, and
Jimmy Pierce are the children of Margaret Hugate Story. Teresa
Hugate is the daughter of David Hugate. The other Hugate children
are the children of Milton Hugate and Jean Walker Hugate. Young
Don Gatlin was present, but did not line up for the photo shoot.
Alas, no one thought to get a group photo including the
photographer. The one at left is a copy of one taken by me inside our
house on James high school graduation day in June 1971.
Fig. 95.1. James, Jr.
Fig. 95. From left to right on front row: Darryl Gatlin , Jean Walker Hugate (wife of Milton Hugate), Donna Hugate, Anne
Hudgins, Jeannie Pierce, Lisa Hudgins, Teresa Hugate, Jimmy Pierce, Marion Sadler Hugate, and Ronald Hugate. From
left to right on second row: Anne Pierce, James (Jim) Story, Margaret Hugate Story, Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins, James
Hudgins, Sr., and Ernest Hugate. From left to right on third row: Milton Hugate, David Hugate, Billy Gatlin, Jean Hugate
Gatlin, and Albert Gatlin.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 244
James also took the photograph of my siblings and me with our parents inside the house included
on this entrys Endnotes page.
1972 - 1974
Sometime between April 1972 and the opening of the 1973-1974 public school term, I had
decided to visit a Jewish synagogue of the Reform denomination. From what I had heard about it,
the tenets of the Reform branch of Judaism might not be too far from my own. At the time, Ohef
Sholom in Norfolk was the nearest Reform Jewish synagogue, so thats where I went.
One of the most appealing aspects of the first Jewish Sabbath service I attended was the absence
of people with offering plates walking down the isles collecting money. How pleasant it was to not
have that distraction to break the mood of the worship service. Then there was the part I did not
like: the talking done by some of the congregants while the rabbi was conducting the service. I
simply could not imagine such willful rudeness. Yet, the rabbi seemed to be oblivious to the
distracting talkers. Had I been the presiding person, I would probably have stopped speaking, and
given the disruptive persons my most stern glare of disapproval.
After the Friday evening service, there was a light reception called Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath
delight). That was a surprise, too. Some of the people came up to me and introduced themselves,
but no one said anything to me about becoming a Jew, or even coming back again. This absence of
an immediate proselytizing embrace was another new thing for me. Did they not care whether I
came again or not?
Lawrence Forman was the rabbi. He was a good speaker. I was impressed with his style and
general warm manners, and decided to come back again. Even after coming back again, no one said
anything to me about joining the congregation or confirming to Judaism.
Another pleasant thing about the Ohef Shalom congregation was the breakfast prepared and
served by the synagogues mens club each Sunday morning (not a Sabbath, only a day of religious
school classes, The Jewish Sabbath is from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown). It was my first
time to attend a religious institution where the food was prepared and served by men rather than
women. I liked that. In fact, I liked it a lot. Usually, there was also a speaker at each of these
Sunday morning breakfasts. The topics varied, but all were interesting and included some beneficial
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 245
(to me) information. I do not recall how many visits I had made to the synagogue before I enrolled
my daughters Lisa and Anne in the religious school program, but I do recall what as moved me
to do so:
Anne comes in from school with tears in her eyes. When I ask her whats wrong, she starts crying.
I do not recall the exact words; but in essence, the reason she gives for her distress is that some of
her classmates had mocked her because she does not go to church. I could not bear the image of
this tender-hearted loving child undergoing such mockery. Although a little uneasy about letting
my impressionable daughters get involved with institutional religious instruction, I decided to see
about getting both Anne and Lisa started in the Ohef Sholom religious school program. The girls
could benefit, I concluded, from some reinforcement lessons in ethics, . . . and I would be
monitoring their studies.
Both of the girls were enrolled as students in Ohef Sholoms religious school on October 21,
1973. At ages twenty-one and nineteen respectively, my sons' James and David were no longer
under my legal custodial care. While it was my expressed desire that they would resist idolatrous
practices, the choice was solely theirs now that they were men.
Since I had to be at the synagogue anyway, I also started studying Judaism. Rabbi Forman
gave me a reading list of more than fifty books' length on Turning to Judaism. Ohef Sholom had
a well-stocked library. During the years between 1973 and about 1981 (the year I transferred my
membership to Beth Chaverim, a Reform Jewish congregation in Virginia Beach), I read through
almost every book on that list of recommended reading. One of the books was Wings of the
Morning, a textbook designed for confirmation age Jewish youth (but not used at that time by
190
Ohef Sholom). The Thought Starters question at the end of each chapter of the book provided me
with the structured opportunity to express my views on Jewish religious thought and its congruency
(or lack of ) concerning involuntary natural events. And although that level of participation was not
required of me, I did the questions and turned in my responses to Rabbi Forman. When I completed
the textbook course in 1974, the rabbi presented the book to me as a gift. I treasure it.
Roland B. Gittlesohn (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1969). WOM
190
Note: Roland B. Gittelsohn died in 1995. The first Jewish chaplain ever appointed by the Marines, he was there
at Iwo Jimo along with about 1500 other Jewish soldiers during the battle in 1945. It was Rabbi Gittelsohns job,
however, to minister to Marines of all faiths in this combat zone.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 246
To give you some idea of the general attitude of the author of the book, I am including a copy
of the last paragraph of: No Conclusion, the last chapter in Rabbi Gittelsohns book:
May you reread these pages from time to time. May they always stimulate a process of serious
thought which will never end, to the final day of your life. May you find comfort and challenge in
the asking of such questions as these and the answers proposed by Judaism. In religion, as in all
other aspects of life, may you never grow fearful of new ideas or of change. For change can mean
growth. And growth means progress. And progress means that we have moved a little step forward
and upward in our yearning to reach . . . [The Almighty Thou].
At various places within the context of his lessons, Rabbi Gittlesohn had inserted one or more
Hebrew words. On page 199 of the chapter: Thou Shalt . . . Thou shalt not! are the Hebrew words,
English transliterations, and the English translations for our two opposing impulses: cuy rmh
(yetzer tov)the inclination to do good, and gr rmh (yetzer ra)the inclination to do the
opposite or bad things. As for the ultimate consequences of bad choices, on page 354 of the
chapter: After Death, What?, no specific definition is given on the literal meaning of the Hebrew
word kuta:
191
Judaism has been singularly free of belief regarding heaven and hell. The Bible does mention a
rather vague, indefinite place called kuta (She-ol), to which the wicked are apparently[ ]
192
consigned, at least temporarily after death, but nowhere is kuta described in detail or made
into a necessary tenet of Jewish faith.
Statements like the above-cited ones stimulated my interest in how to pronounce and decipher
the meaning of the Biblical Hebrew words I had seen in the book. Perhaps my curiosity showed?
Anyway, sometime after I began this self-imposed textbook course on Judaism, Rabbi Forman
suggested that I start studying Hebrew. No adult Hebrew instructor was available at the time. My
first few lessons in the Hebrew alphabet were given by the Sharon Forman, the rabbis seven-year-
I have since learned that kuta is from the verbal root kta (ask, inquire), and means place of inquiry.
191
This is not apparent; nothing about afterlife is definite.
192
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 247
old daughter. What a neat unprecedented experience it was for me to have a young child for a
teacher. However, this private tutoring in the library back room only lasted a few weeks. A class
was setup for those who wanted to study Adult Hebrew. But both the availability of instructors and
the scope of study were limited. It was not until after I had joined Congregation Beth Chaverim of
Virginia Beach that I began a comprehensive study of the grammar and syntax of Classical/Biblical
Hebrew. I also completed two semesters of Hebrew at Tidewater Community College in 1983 under
the instruction of retired chaplain Rabbi Sobel. The textbook used for that college credit course was:
Introduction to Hebrew
193
Along with a small group of other interested congregants, I also completed a course of study
entitled Modern Hebrew under the direction of Rabbi Zoberman at his home on Monday evenings.
194
This schooling took place sometime after 1983.
When I first sat down with little Sharon Forman in 1973, it was merely to acquaint myself with
the shapes and sounds of the Hebrew letters and vowel signs so that I could read along in the sedur
(prayer book) during the Sabbath and other holiday services. Never, never did I ever expect to learn
enough Hebrew to someday be able to read the five books of the Hebrew Torah.
Public school term 1973-1974
In the fall of 1973, I also began working with the Volunteers In Education program at John B.
Dey Elementary school. One day a week I served as a volunteer teacher aide for a first grade class.
My job was to take aside and help students who, for one reason or another, needed additional help
with reading and mathematics. I was also assigned the task of doing the monthly classroom bulletin
board.
When December came around, I was in a bit of quandary. Whereas I could go along with the
teachers required Santa Claus theme, I could not agree to put up the greetings' sign: Merry
Christmas. As it turned out, she did not insist that I do it. Nor did she put up the sign.
Moshe Greenberg, (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1965). ITH
193
Harrt Blumberg, and Mordecai H. Lewittes, 3rd ed. (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1965).
194
MH
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 248
Workshops had been set up for training volunteers. These weekly training sessions were held
at night in different elementary schools throughout the City of Virginia Beach. Still suffering from
some memory loss, I could not trust myself to find my way to and from these unfamiliar locations
after dark. My husband suggested I do a trial run earlier in the day. With the aid of a city map book
and these test runs, I managed to make it to all the workshops and back home without getting lost.
Each of the three years of doing this volunteer work I was awarded a certificate of appreciation
for the help I had given to John B. Dey Elementary school. A scanned copy of one of the certificates
is included in the Endnotes part of this entry.
Fig. 125. This photo was taken with my camera by Patty Meyers.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 324
Part IV-The Appendix
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 325
Credits
____________
AHLB Benner, Jeff A. The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible. College Station, TX:
Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Inc., 2005.
APE7 Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0. CD-ROM. San Jose, CA: Adobe Systems,
Incorporated, 2001-2008.
BBA The Big Box of Art. CD-ROM. Hull, Quebec, Canada: Hemera Technologies, Inc.,
1997-2000.
B-LOE Audesirk, Gerald , & Audesirk, Teresa. Biology : Life On Earth. New York:
Macmillan Publishing Company, a division of Macmillian, Inc., 1989.
BMS Hanauer, Ethel R. Biology Made Simple . New York: Made Simple Books, Inc.,
1956.
CDER Stefoff, Rebecca. Charles Darwin and the Evolution Revolution. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996.
CLM Soriano, Nancy Mernit, Editor-in-Chief. Country Living. Red Oak, IA: Hearst
Communications, Inc., a Unit of the Hearst Corporation.
CM Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain. New York. NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997.
CWWS Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Roslyn, NY:
Walter J. Black, 1937.
DKIOD DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary. New York, NY: Dorling Kindersley Limited
and Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998.
DW6 Kantrowitz , David. DavkaWriter 6. CD-ROM. Davka Corporation and Judaica
Press, 1996-2002.
EBUR Encyclopedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004 DVD. CD-ROM. Chicago,
IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. and its licensors, 1994-2004.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 326
EP1650 Epson Perfection 1650 Photo color image scanner. Long Beach, CA: Epson
America, Inc., 2001.
EPDN Monroe C. Beardsle, ed. The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1960.
ERL-04 Encarta 2004 Reference Library. CD-ROM. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corp.,
1993-2003.
FGD Plato. Five Great Dialogues. B. Jowett, Trans. Roslyn, NY: Walter J. Black, Inc.,
1942.
FHPA Simon, Ethelyn, & Stahl, Nanette, & Mortzkin, Linda, & Anderson, Joseph. The
First Hebrew Primer for Adults . 2 ed. Oakland, CA: EKS Publishing Company,
nd
1983.
FTTT Smith, William F., & Liedlich, Raymond D. From Thought to Theme: A Rhetoric
and Reader for College English. USA: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968.
H Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1946.
HELOT Brown, Francis, & Driver, S .R., & Briggs, Charles A. A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
ITH Greenberg, Moshe. Introduction to Hebrew. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1965.
JLS Bach, Richard D. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. New York: Avon Books, a
division of The Hearst Corporation, 1970.
JPS JPS1917.zip, the Jewish Publication Society of Americas 1917 English version
of the Tanach downloaded from: http://www.shamash.org /tanach/text.shtml.
KJV The Holy [Sacred (set apart)] Bible: Authorized King James Version. London and
New York: Collins Clear-Type Press. Printed in Great Britain, 1941.
LOF Library of the Future - The Complete Text of over 5000 Historical, Classical &
Cultural Titles. CD-ROM. Lancaster, PA: World Library, 1990-1996.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 327
LPHD Feyerabend, Dr. Karl. Langenscheidtss Pocket Hebrew Dictionary : Hebrew-
English. Maspeth, NY: Langenscheidt Publishers, Inc.
MF4.0 MediaFACE 4.0. CD-ROM. Itasca, Il: Fellowes Inc., 2003.
MH Blumberg, Harry, & Lewittes, Mordecai H. Modern Hebrew. 3rd ed. New York:
Hebrew Publishing Company, 1982.
MLSB Magil, Joseph. Magils Linear School Bible . Hebrew test and English translation.
The Five Books of Moses. Delancey Street, NY: Hebrew Publishing Company,
1905.
MPP10 Micrografx Picture Publisher 10. CD-ROM. Dallas, TX: Micrografx, Inc., 2001.
MWW Capen, Louise I. & Melchior, D. Montefort. My Worth to the World: Studies in
Citizenship. New York: American Book Company, 1937.
NBK The New Book of Knowledge. Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated, 1980.
NDE Landau, Elaine. Near-Death Experiences. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press,
Mysteries of Science, 1996.
OEPD Pocket Oxford Dictionary. CD-ROM. Oxford University Press.
OMB Howard, Pierce J. (1994). The Owner's Manual For the Brain : Everyday
Applications from Mind-brain Research. Austin, TX: Leornian Press, A Bard press
book. Third printing, November 1996.
OMU Aristotle. On Man in the Universe. Edited with introduction by Louise Ropes
Loomis. Roslyn, NY: Walter J. Black, Inc., 1943.
PAH The Pentateuch and Haftorahs. Edited by Dr. J. H. Hertz, C.H., Late chief rabbi of the
British Empire. London: Soncino Press, 1967.
PCSB Gilbertson, Jim. PC Study Bible. CD-ROM. Seattle, WA: Biblesoft, 1988-2003.
POM Liebman, Joshua Loth. Peace of .Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946.
RIP Wyden, Barbara W. "The difficult baby is born that way." In Readings in
Psychology 76/77. Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1976.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 328
SCD Standard College Dictionary. Funk & Wagnalls, a division of Reader's Digest
Books, Inc. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966.
SDBW Strong, James. The New Strongs Complete Dictionary of Bible Words. Nashville,
TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996.
SF Setford, Steve. Science Facts. London: Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 1996.
TIB Green, Jay P., Sr. The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English. Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Book House, 1985.
TOS Darwin, Charles. The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the
Preservation of Favoured Races [Species] in the Struggle for Life. London: John
Murry, Albermarle Street, 1859.
TVP The Virginian-Pilot. Norfolk, VA: Landmark Communications, Inc.
VGT White, Ellen Emerson Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann
Brady. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1998.
WBE The World Book Encyclopedia. 50th Anniversary Edition. Chicago, IL: Field
Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1965.
WBSA66 Clarke, Arthur C. "Tuning In The Universe". In Science Year: The World Book
Science Annual. Chicago, Il: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1966.
WBSA67 Schucking, E. L. and Biram, Brenda. "From Genesis to Doomsday." In Science
Year: The World Book Science Annual. Chicago, Il: Field Enterprises Educational
Corporation, 1967.
WBSA68 Thorne, Kip S. Death of a Star. In Science Year: 1968. Chicago, Il: Field
Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1968.
WNWCD Websters New World College Dictionary, 3rd. ed. New York: Macmillan General
Reference, A Simon & Schuster Macmillan Company, 1988.
WOM Gittlesohn, Roland B., Wings of the Morning. New York: Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, 1969.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 329
Ref. #011469 - 1961 to 1980 Floor Plan of Family Residence.
Fig. 126. Floor plan drawing by me.
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 330
Ref. #021569 - OCR Excerpts from, Near-Death Experiences, by Elaine Landau
(Brookfield, CT: the Millbrook Press. Mysteries of Science, 1996). NDE
245
______________________________________________________________________
Note: The included excerpts represent some of the most commonly reported aspects of near-death
experiences. Statements preceded by an asterisk (added by me) are the ones that describe feelings
or conditions similar to those which I experienced during and/or following the transcendent spiritual
happening I underwent between January 14, 1969 and mid-July 1970.
But please keep in mind that I had never read this or any other book about NDE experiences
until after February 1999. /ehh
* Finding it difficult to describe what they have been through. Many people who have had
NDEs claim that there just arent words to convey the intensity or brilliant splendor of what
they saw or felt.
Hearing a doctor or other medical team member announce he or she (the person having
the NDE) has died. One woman scheduled for surgery went into cardiac arrest just before
the operation. The physicians tried unsuccessfully to revive her. One of her doctors had said,
Let*s try one more and then we*ll give up. When the woman eventually regained
consciousness, the only thing she recalled was hearing the doctor say that sentence.
Being outside their bodies. Large numbers of NDEers say they left their physical bodies and
watched what was happening to them from a distance. Eight-year-old Michelle had an NDE
after slipping into a diabetic coma. She spoke about leaving her body this way: All of a
sudden, I was floating above my body, looking down at myself. There were two doctors
pushing me on one of those stretchers towards a room. Both were women doctors. . . .
Interestingly, blind people who have NDEs say they can see during these episodes. In
such cases they have often been able to describe even small objects in various corners of the
operating room.
Even though people having a near-death experience claim to have seen and heard what*s
going on, they are unable to interact with those around them. A patient viewed by Dr.
Moody recalled what it was like: I saw them resuscitating me. It was really strange. I
wasn*t very high. . . I tried talking to them but nobody could hear me, nobody would listen
to me.
Calm, peaceful feelings. Many people who have had NDEs report having feelings of love,
well-being, and warmth at the time. Those in a great deal of physical discomfort prior to
dying claim that all the pain and distress immediately vanished.
The bold font and ellipsis are by me.
245
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 331
*The life review. During an NDE some people see their lives pass before them. This stream
of flashbacks begins with childhood, offering the person a chance to access how he or she
spent the time on Earth. The NDEer is not condemned for any wrongdoingsthe life review
is solely for the person*s benefit. *There was no one judging me one woman said of her
NDE life review. I was judging myself.. . . .
*Transformed lives. The majority of NDEers feel their experience dramatically changed
them. Author and NDE re-searcher Dr. Melvin Morse believes that following death
experience, many individuals attach a greater purpose to their existence. He believes they
have *more zest for living than ever before. Carol Zaleski, Ph.D., a Harvard University
lecturer on religion, agrees, adding that people who have near-death experiences appear to
gain wisdom.
Such individuals also seem to become more adventurous. One research study on NDEs
involved three separate groups: those who had NDEs, people who almost but did not have
NDEs, and others who had never come near to dying. Of the three categories, the
individuals who had near-death experiences were more willing to take risks than both other
groups. The researchers accounted for the results as follows: The near-deathers were ready
to go anytime. They tend not to be afraid of death.
Kenneth Ring, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut,
researched the long-range of NDEs. In surveying more than a hundred of these individuals,
Ring identified measurable differences in their life-styles following near-death experiences.
*For the most part, NDEers tended to appreciate life more. They developed greater concern
and compassion for others and became less interested in material wealth and outward signs
of status.
In summing up his conclusions, Ring wrote: After [an NDE] the person *can never
again return to the former way of being. [The NDE] comes to take precedence over whatever
he has been taught or previously believed. . . . It is not even just an experience that changes
one*s life. It is one*s life. And it becomes the source of one*s true being in the world.
__________
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 332
Ref. #022469 - About Contrails
1. Behind the Contrail Curtain - by Jim Scanlon
Exhaust gases from subsonic jet aircraft are affecting the ozone layer, the troposphere and cloud cover over
the Northern Hemisphere every minute of every day as hundreds of heavy jets fly back and forth through the
North Atlantic Flight Corridor and over the continental US. With commercial air travel expected to increase
by 200 percent over the next 15-20 years, there should be growing concern about the effect of jet engines
on the Earth's climate and its relation to increasing amounts of ultraviolet radiation reaching the planet's
surface but there isn't.
When aircraft burn fuel, they expel exhausts containing soot, carbon monoxide, water, three kinds of nitric
acid and sulfuric acid directly into the plane's turbulent wake. British Airways estimates that the air travel
industry burns 170 million metric tons of fuel each year.
For every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fuel burned, 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of water vapor are produced. Every
year, therefore, aircraft produce 255 million metric tons of vapor, much of it injected into the dry upper
troposphere and the even drier stratosphere. If the air is cold enough and there is enough background water
vapor, jets will produce a long, distinctly visible, white contrail (short for "condensation trail") across the
sky.
Some contrails may spread out and produce high altitude cirrus clouds, indistinguishable from natural cirrus.
All clouds act like a simultaneous warming blanket and cooling reflector, depending on their thickness. Thin
high altitude clouds warm more than they cool.
Aircraft emissions in the stratosphere 7-31 miles (11-50 kilometers) above Earth destroy ozone
when nitrogen oxides are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. In the troposphere 5.6-8 miles
(9-13 km) high these same oxides produce ozone, warming cold air and changing Earth's temperature
structure.
Is This a Secret?
For one week in March, I attended the eighth annual NASA conference on the atmospheric effects of
aviation held in Virginia Beach. There were 278 official attendees, almost all working scientists. I believe
I was the only journalist or writer present. I know of no mention in the print media of this, or any of the
previous seven conferences. The New York Times didn't mention it, and neither did Time, Newsweek,
Science or Nature. While New Scientist has published articles on aircraft contrails, it was unaware of these
NASA meetings.
The participants were mostly young, brilliantly articulate, healthy-looking men and women. Americans
predominated, followed by Germans and a smattering of Russians and other Europeans. They expressed
no emotion or concern over the dangers that might be involved in the apparently unstoppable, exponential
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 333
growth of the air transportation juggernaut despite the alarming numbers tossed around.
The scientific sessions were highly structured, technical presentations on the results of the latest international
research in atmospheric physics, chemistry, computer modeling, meteorology, field sampling and aircraft
emissions tracking.
And while the conference was not a secret, NASA did nothing to publicize the event. There were no press
invitations, no press releases. It would appear that the best way to keep a subject quiet is not to invite
attention by spoon-feeding information to the media.
Same Singer: Different Song
The big conference surprise was the session held by S. Fred Singer, a prominent "ozone depletion skeptic"
often cited by green-bashers like Rush Limbaugh. Singer argued that the steady increase in air traffic over
the last 20 years was responsible for the nighttime warming detected over North America.
Singer was one of the few scientists to generalize the issue, stating that "if this is true, then all the scenarios
of warming due to a doubling of carbon dioxide over the next century will have to be speeded up" a
startling statement from a man who has been called a shill of the energy industry and worse.
Researchers from NASA's Langley Research Center presented evidence that contrails are contributing to
global warming and causing local effects over areas with heavy air traffic. In April 1996, they found
contrails over New York during 40 percent of the month. Above Arizona, contrails appeared during 30
percent of the month. They concluded that vapor trails are a prevalent feature over US skies and that these
trails will "affect the radiation budget at some magnitude." The researchers also recommended that contrail
reporting become part of standard meteorological practices, with measurements repeated every few years
to assess the effects of increasing air traffic.
German researchers reported that up to one-tenth of the cirrus clouds over Central Europe could be attributed
to aircraft. A Swedish scientist said that it is difficult to distinguish between natural cirrus and aircraft-
created cirrus over Europe. He presented a composite satellite photo of Europe's cloud cover that showed
one remarkably clear area war-torn Bosnia where commercial aircraft do not fly.
Is the Stratosphere Threatened?
Air travel today mostly involves subsonic jets cruising in the upper troposphere, but many heavily traveled
air routes such as the North Atlantic Flight Corridor take subsonic jets into the stratosphere
almost half the time. This generally occurs on flights near the poles and when the stratosphere lowers in
winter. While substances injected in the troposphere remain for a few weeks at most, emissions in the
stratosphere can linger for months or years. Jets currently cruise at 10-11 km (6.2-6.8 miles), but the next
generation of jets is designed to fly higher, heading into the stratosphere more often. In the 1970s, the major
environmental battle over threats to the ozone layer concentrated on the atmospheric effects of supersonic
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 334
aircraft flying in the stratosphere. Nothing was known then about CFCs or chemical reactions taking place
on ice and frozen acid surfaces.
Today, there no longer is any doubt about the impact of large numbers of aircraft flying in the stratosphere.
Nonetheless, planes already are flying there subsonic planes. Environmentalists have been asleep in
their window seats.
Jim Scanlon writes for the Coastal Post. Reprinted with permission from the Coastal Post, PO Box 31,
Bolinas, CA 94924, (415) 868-1600.
2. by - Sid Perkins
Immediately after four hijacked airliners slammed into New York's World Trade Center [2001], the
Pentagon, and a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, the Federal Aviation Administration shut down all U.S.
commercial air traffic for 3 days. The unprecedented grounding of airliners enabled airports to step up
security measures. At the same time, scientists stepped up to a unique opportunity to study the influence
of high-flying aircraft on Earth's climate.
One way that aircraft may affect climate is through their cloud like contrails, which appear behind jets flying
at high altitude. Contrails are made of ice crystals that form within seconds around the small particles
present in aircraft exhaust, says David J. Travis, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-
Whitewater. Although jet fuel produces water vapor as it burns, more than 90 percent of the ice in long-lived
contrails comes from water vapor already present in the air, says Travis.
Wispy cirrus clouds are the only ones that form naturally at the high altitudes where jets cruise. These thin
clouds slightly cool Earth's surface by blocking some incoming sunlight, but they moderately warm the
lower atmosphere by trapping a portion of Earth's outbound infrared radiation. Scientists have suspected
that contrails have similar but stronger effects.
Travis and his colleagues looked at the average diurnal temperature range (DTR)the difference between
the day's high and low temperaturesreported at more than 4,000 weather stations across the continental
United States. During the 3-day hiatus of air traffic last September, the average DTR was a little over 1EC
wider than normal, even though the average DTRs computed for the 3-day periods immediately before and
after that period were below normal.
Furthermore, says Travis, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the Northeastareas of the country
typically blanketed with aircraft contrails in mid-Septembershowed the largest changes in diurnal
temperature range, mostly from increased daytime high temperatures. This bolsters the argument that
contrails can significantly affect climate, Travis contends. He and his colleagues will report their findings
next week in Portland, Ore., at a conference of the American Meteorological Society.
__________
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | 335
Ref. #041496 - A Copy of My Notification of Birth Registration Certificate.
Fig. 127. Scanned copy of my birth certificate registration. The given middle name of my father (Daniel) is in error.
His middle name was Delmer. My given nee middle name is Hoskins.
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