Christian Citizen - Dynamics of Democracy

Christian Citizen - Dynamics of Democracy

Copies of this LP were distributed to members of the Christian Citizen organization whose purpose was to train believers how to be politicians and "foster Christian principles in the nation's [United States] government and to combat 'an increasing sense of futility and apathy in America'" according to an article in the magazine Commentary.*

This LP demonstrates the organization's principles of training "principled" wannabe politicians to work at the precinct and county levels and to run for political office at those levels. Working on these lower levels is supposed to be a work your way from the bottom to top strategy in getting people to the ranks of national office (e.g. Congress). The liner notes explain in more detail the purpose of this LP:

DYNAMICS OF DEMOCRACY, Volume One emphasizes clearly that Christians must involve themselves in the political life of the country if the full impact of their God-given principles and influences for good is to be felt. If politics has become a dirty business, it is because Christian people have side-stepped their responsibilities. Freedom is a religious, not a political principle, and to be protected and preserved in a political atmosphere, freedom must have religious men for champions. The record is an exciting attempt to stimulate interest and shock sleepy imaginations into action. It assumes, of course, that some knowledge of the Christian Citizen study course program is held by the listener. And if not, the record is designed to prod the listener into full participation in the educational activities of Christian Citizen. It is not meant to be heard in solitude. It has been planned for group use in private homes, clubs, and other organizations. It supplements the regular Christian Citizen program which reaches into the grassroots of American life bringing back to citizens an awareness of their American heritage in its Christian perspective and teaching them the ways and means by which they may involve themselves in political life and become effective leaders in the local precinct and national convention.

I'm guessing that Christian Citizen's activities served as a blueprint studied by the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition and the modern extreme-right Republican party.

*The link only leads to an abstract of the article as one has to be either a subscriber or to buy the article to have access to the article. The abstract gives a little more information about Christian Citizen.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Dynamics of Democracy {23:23}

Side 2

1. Dynamics of Democracy {23:16}

Dr. Joseph Murphy - Developing a Wonderful Personality/Communicating with the Subconscious

Dr. Joseph Murphy - Developing a Wonderful Personality/Communicating with the Subconscious

A while back, I found a couple of records by this guy named Dr. Joseph Murphy. There are not any liner notes on the packaging (i.e. no information). However, I was sold on the titles for these records. Upon listening to this record, this guy comes across as a combination of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) self-help guru and preacher. Whether you like it or not, you will feel like you've developed a wonderful personality after listening. I'm sure the other side is self-explanatory. Yes, the divine one upstairs wants to help you know that you have positive attributes so therefore you should realize that you need a postive attitude to develop that wonderful personality that you were born with. Dr. Murphy sounds controversial as he is saying that He is not only the creator of mankind and this world, he is also the self-improvement guru of mankind rather than the usual view of judge, jury and executioner of mankind who are all a bunch of born sinners.

I went to do background research on Dr. Murphy (1898-1981) and I quickly found his bio. He made quite a lot of recordings and wrote a lot of books as I thought he would have done. However, I was surprised when I read his background as he has an academic background in studying Eastern religions. He was even a research fellow at the University of India. He has a Ph.D although there is no mention where he earned his Ph.D or the subject(s) he studied to earn his Ph.D. He was an expert on mysticism and "mind dynamics."

Dr. Murphy was the director and minister of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles for 28 years. The Church of Divine Science is a religious group that is a part of the New Thought movement. New Thought basically consists of metaphysical beliefs that promote positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization and personal power according to that top info resource Wikipedia. Also whoever contributed the entry for "New Thought Movement" in Wikipedia says that New Thought "promotes the ideas that 'Infinite Intelligence' or 'God' is ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, all sickness originates in the mind, and 'right thinking' has a healing effect." Knowing the background and context of Dr. Murphy's affiliations, the material on this LP starts to make a lot of sense especially when you are in your subconscious. This LP is another one I'll be playing during my hypnopaedia sessions when I go to bed.


Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Developing a Wonderful Personality {18:58}

Side 2

1. Communicating with the Subconscious {19:38}

grey calx on LibraryThing

For evaluation purposes, I set up an account on the social media/social networking book cataloging site LibraryThing to see if this site is useful for me in real life. So far, I've cataloged a few books. I cataloged only the kind of books that I found during my digging that let's say are "off the beaten path" or rather the stuff I would post on this blog. Maybe it's an attempt to rival that Abebooks virtual weird book room. By the way, a few of the books in my LibraryThing library may look familiar as they have already been posted here at the Basement. Yes, I actually own a copy of every single book cataloged as of this writing.

Come visit my library.

Fire and Ice, Ltd. - The Happening

Fire and Ice, Ltd. - The Happening

LP released sometime during the late 1960s

This is one of my favorite LPs from the 60s. To me this album is what the 60s are about. I may go as far to place this in my top 20 albums of the 60s. Yes, I would. You want to know why. Here's why:

It's happening now.
Spontaneously, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and many other parts of the nation young musicians are assembling to create for themselves and their friends a new kind of sound. As Lewis Carroll's Alice stepped through the drawing room mirror into a world of rich imagining, so these gifted young experimentalists are determinedly breaking through the limitations of the old familiar forms - rock, and jazz, and folk, and blues, et cetera - freeing themselves to create a sound that encompasses all the as-yet- unexplored possibilities of music.
These get-togethers are called musical happenings. The sounds they produce are called, by some, spontaneous music, and by others, free form music. Some also call it "mind-manifesting music." And as one of the performers in this album half-humorously stated, it might with equal aptness and equal imprecision be called "ethnic psychedelic Afro-Cuban folk rock." It is an exhilarating, exciting, galvanizing symphony of musical moods, an exploration into a kind of completely unchained sound that has never happened before.
But it's happening now!

Indeed it is (or was). The liner notes with equal aptness and equal precision describe what is in store for the listener of this album. Fire and Ice, Ltd., led by a couple of "brilliant young men of many talents" Tony Scott and Paris Sheppard, have created fun spontaneous (although dated) music. This is in my top 5 all-time favorite thrift store finds.

Credits:

Tony Scott - organ, piano
Paris Sheppard - vocals, flute
John Green - bass
Joseph Connoly - guitar
Roy Durkee - drums
Barbara Jackson - Arabian drums
Dorothy Erwin, Daniel Westen and Mildred Richard - vocals

Lawrence Schiller - producer


Tracklisting:  (link will be back soon)

Side 1

1. I Just Thought of the Moon {6:08}

2. The House of Saturn {7:05}

3. Star In Flight {2:57}

Side 2

1. Summertime {5:54}

2. The Happening {9:33}

A Basement of Curiosities is Two Years Old (Plus a Poll of Visitors' Favorite Posts)

Yes, you've read the post title correctly. We are celebrating the second birthday here at the Basement (actually it's just myself, I just like to use "we" to make it sound more important, that an organization is running this enterprise because apparently nowadays people like organizations over individuals; this blog contradicts mainstream social norms as it is mostly individually ran although I've had some help this past year from other individuals). Speaking of help this past year, I would like to thank those generous enough to contribute some materials to the Basement library and archive as well as fulfilling my requests. Next, I would like to thank the fans and visitors to this blog. I also would like to thank my fellow bloggers and webmasters for linking to the Basement.

I strive to not only bring you, my lovely visitors, some of the most interesting works of entertainment that has the power to help you forget your problems and tribulations in your life, I strive to bring you works that could change and improve your life. Occasionally, there is something that I intend to post that meets one of those criteria, but instead it ends up meeting both criteria.

I could go on and on, but instead of writing out a long self-indulgent and self-congratulatory anniversary or birthday post, I am going to have this post be an interactive one as I let you, my lovely visitors, be involved in this post. I would like to know what are your favorite posts here in the Basement. It can be one, five, ten, or whatever number you think is fit. This is an unscientific survey, but I am curious to know what are the most popular posts of A Basement of Curiosities. In the meantime, I am going to treat myself to a combination of chocolate cake and ice cream as I think I deserve it.