Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

A wild durian fruit from the rain forests of Borneo is cut open, its vivid red flesh exposed. Wild durian has a spiny green exterior, emits an infamous rotting stench, and is mainly eaten by birds.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Borneo’s Strangler Fig Trees," April 1997, National Geographic magazine)

Makes 8 Éclairs.

• Pastry
  • 1 cup water (284ml)
  • 1/2 cup butter (118ml)
  • 1 cup flour (235ml)
  • 4 eggs
• Custard Filling
  • 1/2 cup sugar (117ml)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (2.5ml)
  • 6 tablespoons flour (88ml)
  • 2 cups whole milk or half and half, do not substitute low-fat milk (474ml)
  • 4 egg yolks, or 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10ml)
• Glaze
  • 2 tablespoons butter (30ml)
  • 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate (57g)
  • 1 cup powdered sugar (100g)
  • 2 tablespoons boiling water (60g)

CUSTARD

1. Make the custard first.
2. Separate eggs and add them to a small mixing bowl. Or add the 2 eggs, if using, to a small mixing bowl.
3. Beat eggs in small mixing bowl.
4. Add sugar, salt and flour to a saucepan. Whisk together.
5. Stir in milk or half-and-half.
6. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil.
7. Boil 1 minute.
8. Remove custard from flame.
9. Temper the custard by pouring a small amount into the eggs in the small mixing bowl.
10. Whisk custard and eggs together.
11. Add egg and custard mixture to the remaining custard in saucepan.
12. Whisk together.
13. Bring to boiling point.
14. Cool custard and blend in vanilla.
15. Cover custard with plastic food wrap and chill.

PASTRY

1. Add 1 cup water to saucepan.
2. Add butter.
3. Bring to a boil.

3. 

   Bringing water to a boil.
4. Add flour and stir in with a sturdy spoon.
   

   Adding flour.
5. 

   Cook flour mixture for 1 minute.
   Cook flour mixture for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
6. 

   Add the eggs one-at-a-time.
   Add eggs, one-at-a-time, beating well after each addition.
7. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230C).
8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
9. 

   Ready to bake.
   With pastry tube squeeze out 4-inch (10cm) fingers onto prepared baking sheet.
10. Bake 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 325 degrees F (165C), and bake for another 35 minutes. The eclair shells are done when they make a hollow sound when tapped.
11. Let cool.
12. Insert plain pastry tube into pastry bag.
13. Fill pastry bag with custard filling.
14. Slice baked éclairs in half vertically. Insert pastry tube into éclair and fill with custard.
    
    
    • Alternatively, split éclair pastries vertically in half. Spread custard filling between halves. Place the halves together.
15. 

    The finished éclair.
    Drizzle with chocolate glaze.
16. Chill until ready to serve.

GLAZE

1. Melt shortening and chocolate together in a small saucepan.
2. Add powdered sugar and boiling water.
3. Stir until smooth.
4. Drizzle over éclairs.

• To make lazy éclairs make cream puffs instead. Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake. Slice cream puffs in half, fill with custard, drizzle with chocolate glaze.
• Éclairs can also be filled with sweetened whipped cream.
• Cream puffs can also be filled with ice cream.
• Both éclairs and cream puffs use the same pastry. The only difference is how the dough is shaped.
• If travelling with the dessert: after separating top from bottom scrape out any of the "doughy threads" and bake again for 5 to 7 minutes to crisp up the inside. Then fill.
• Can also be filled with cooked then cooled pudding. Instant pudding doesn't work nearly as well.

Things You'll Need

• Baking pans
• Parchment paper or silicone baking liners
• Saucepans
• Pastry tube
• Plain pastry nozzle
• Sturdy spoon or spatula
• Plastic wrap
• Mixing bowls
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Oven mitts

7 Reasons to Drink Green Tea

The Seven Laws of Psychic Energy

"These laws of energy are not alterable. These laws have always been and will always be in existence."

Sources: Silver Birch, White Eagle, Sathya Sai Baba, Barbara Brennan, Leslie Flint, George Meek, Arthur Findlay, Anthony Borgia, George Meek, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir William Crookes, Dr Robert Crookal, Sir William Barrett, the Rev C Drayton Thomas, Rev. Johannes Greber, Geraldine Cummings, Allan Kardec, Emmanuel Swedenborg, Dr Ian Stevenson, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Helen Greaves, Stainton Moses, et al.

Traditional secular scientists are now in agreement with the spiritual scientists and have conceded that all visible matter and invisible waves in the world can be reduced to 'vibrating energy'.

Below you will find laws of energy taken from information accumulated over the last few hundred years of documented human experience.

When I first started doing research into psychic phenomena I was looking for psychic laws. I found that although the laws existed by imputation, no one had hitherto formulated specific universal psychic laws.

We have laws for everything - civil and criminal laws to conduct human behavior, laws of physics describing the forces which regulate the universe, laws of biology and other laws.

Accordingly, now for the very first time it is proposed that specific laws be codified about psychic energies - not just those which operate in the physical world but energies that also transcend the physical world.

Whilst more than half of the people of the world to-day will readily attest to the validity of these laws of energy it may take some decades for these laws to be universally accepted.

1. First Law of psychic energy:
All 'solid' objects are vibrating energy.
Unseen waves are also vibrating energy- sound, radio, electricity, light, television waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays and psychic energy waves.

2. Second law of psychic energy:
The mind is an 'energy station' which creates transmits and receives energy.

The will (of the mind) can change the form of energy. Thoughts, which are waves of energy, can be transmitted to and from human minds within the earthplane and to human and other entities in the afterlife in a process called telepathy.

3. Third law of psychic energy:
All living humans have a body made up of vibrationary energy which is a duplicate of the physical body and will survive physical death.
This vibrationary energy body invisible to physical eyes can change form but can never be destroyed and retains consciousness.
At the time of physical death, the duplicate body will have reached a certain vibrational level and will go to an energy sphere that can accommodate those vibrations.
Selfless spiritual service increases the vibrational energy of the duplicate body.

4. Fourth law of psychic energy:
The afterlife has different levels of energy which form different spheres according to the speed of vibration.
The faster the vibrations of a sphere the higher and more spiritually evolved are the entities which reside there.

5. Fifth law of psychic energy:
The more spiritually evolved a being is the brighter the energy of the aura.

6. Sixth law of psychic energy:
Slowing down the speed of the atomic vortices of the energy will result in materialisation. Speeding up the vortices will result in de-materialisation

7. Seventh law of psychic energy:

 Energy is a 'boomerang' - the energy you give out will return to you.

One reason for this is because 'if you don't know what it is, then it could be anything.' This can lead to very strong reactions to what you sense or feel and the actions you take because of those reactions can, at times, undermine you in all areas of your life. Also, how you interpret the 'shadows' within your sensing is strongly based in your personally rooted belief system. If you are caught within the net of good vs evil, then every darkness will be interpreted as a demon trying to catch you in their web. If you are attracted to drama, then your interpretations will be dramatic. What in truth is just sensing a problem with a car rapidly becomes interpreted as a high speed car crash with injuries.

All that being said, psychism is a natural part of personal growth and inner development.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

INTRODUCTION

For better or worse, the sermon for which Edwards is probably most famous—or infamous—is the one preached to the congregation of Enfield, Massachusetts (later Connecticut) in July 1741. Anthologized in high school and college textbooks, Sinners represents in many persons' minds the bleak, cruel, and hell-bent outlook of Edwards and his Puritan predecessors. But of course such a representation is only a caricature, for Sinners, if it represents anything, stands for only a small part of Edwards's view of the relationship between humankind and God. As a specially crafted awakening sermon, Sinners was aimed at a particularly hard-hearted congregation. But, at the same time, the awakening sermon and all it expressed—the awful weight of sin, the wrath of an infinitely holy God, and the unexpectedness of the moment when God will execute justice—were integral to Edwards's theology. This sermon, therefore, deserves to be studied and meditated on for its ownsake, but also as part of a larger vision of the spiritual life.

We are in the process of preparing this text for publication in the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, which currently features some 25,000 pages of Edwards manuscripts. Until the text is ready, please click here to download a PDF file of the document_