From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #62 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, March 16 2000 Volume 02 : Number 062 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/faith redeemed ["Susan J. Kroupa" ] Re: b/faith redeemed ["Susan J. Kroupa" ] Re: b/faith redeemed [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/faith redeemed [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/tropes? ["Hilary L. Hertzoff" ] Re: b/faith redeemed [Robert Stacy ] Re: b/comments 3/11 [allenw ] Re: b/comments 3/11/game news [Todd Huff ] Re: stillpt-digest V2 #61 ["Jennifer Stevenson" ] Re: stillpt-digest V2 #60 ["Jennifer Stevenson" ] o/ Rosicrucian hoax [GHighPine@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 08:16:27 -0700 From: "Susan J. Kroupa" Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed Good analysis (as always), Don. One small point: I think Faith could have been referring to herself as she attacked Buffy in the church _and_ still show up to be the same old bad Faith in LA. Iow, Faith, in a moment of extreme agitation speaks the truth--her real feelings come out--but it is not a truth she can accept and so she doesn't change. This is more than possible--it is likely, as a "good" Faith wouldn't cause nearly as much dramatic conflict for Angel as a bad Faith. But Joss often has surprises, so as you say, we shall see. Sue Donald G. Keller wrote: > > >...I think that if Faith (in Buffy's body) wasn't referring to > >herself when she was calling Buffy those names at the end, then, at > >the very least, I think we were meant to _wonder_ about it. Too > >many other people have seen it way I saw it--which isn't to say > >that you're not right and Joss is once again misleading us...Part > >of me understands David's unsympathetic assessment of Faith, but a > >greater part yearns (like Buffy does, I think) for Faith to be > >rehabilited.... > > I had already pondered taking up the theme of Faith Redeemed again, > but Susan's comment (excerpted above, I hope not misleadingly) gives > me a comment hook. > > If I speak of this metaphorically as though it were a religion, it > is without irony and with no intention to mock, but to indicate the > intensity of the feelings people have on this issue (and I'm not > unsusceptible myself). > > I don't think there's any question that the "high priestess" of this > "cult" is Buffy herself; how many times has she expressed the hope, > wistfully or urgently, that Faith might "come around"? How many > times has she tried to talk to Faith, to give her the space > to...well, redeem herself? > > Answer: a lot. And =every time= so far, Faith has refused. So > history is against it. > > But just as Susan acknowledges that =she= might be wrong, I > acknowledge that =I= might be, too. Make no mistake: I think the > writers could certainly make it =work=, make me =believe= that Faith > has reformed...but I'll still believe it when I see it. (Guess that > makes me an agnostic.) > > At the risk of running on, let's take a look at the History of > Faith. We don't know much about her early life except that her > mother was drunk and neglectful; she became a Slayer in roughly May > of 1998 (somewhere in her mid to late teens), and we know of two > incidents--one in Boston involving a priest, another involving > alligators--where she killed vampires. Then her (female) Watcher was > (in some unspecified way) tortured and killed in front of her, and > Faith managed to escape, at which point she came to Sunnydale. > > By her own account, Faith wanted only to meet Buffy, and perform her > Slaying job as best she could. She freely offered her friendship and > her collaboration. What did she get for it? Buffy spent about half the > time criticizing Faith's methods and the other half stonewalling her, > refusing point-blank to talk about Angel, and also refusing to become best > friends (she already had Willow for that niche in her life). > > To be fair, from Buffy's point of view, here comes this interloper > trying to share her life when she'd just come back to reclaim that > life; and Buffy, Privileged Only Child, didn't want to share with > Faith, Deprived Only Child (both with absent fathers as well, note). > > And then, to make matters worse, Faith gets stuck with a severe new > Watcher, Mrs. Poste. And =then=, it turns out that Saint Buffy, whom > everybody loves, has been harboring a Dark Secret (i.e. Angel), and > when Faith goes off to Do the Right Thing, Buffy prevents her, and > pounds her face for good measure. Why indeed should Faith trust > Buffy after that? As I've said before, their relationship hasn't > ever really recovered from that contretemps. > > For the next six episodes (end of "Revelations" to beginning of "Bad > Girls") Faith is little in evidence, presumably sulking in her > little motel room. She accepts at length a Christmas invitation > (insisted upon by Joyce, note), is mentioned as being "on walkabout" > in "Helpless," and carries on with Xander in "The Zeppo." > > But it's not until "Bad Girls" that she makes a last-ditch attempt > to bond with Buffy, seizing upon Buffy's patent disaffection with > new Watcher Wesley to try and persuade her that they don't need > anyone to tell them what to do. (This may, it just occurs to me, > have influenced Buffy to eventually "fire" Wesley in "GD.") Buffy > goes along with this for a while (even snubbing Willow in the > process), but of course it leads to disaster (the accidental killing > of Alan Finch), which sets them back to Square 1: Buffy critizing > Faith and stonewalling her. > > We should be careful to be evenhanded here: Buffy is partly to blame > for the situation (vacillating between the two extremes of pro- and > anti-Faith), while at the same time acknowledging that Faith really > goes out of bounds: killing a man, trying to blame Buffy, trying to > strangle Xander. And oh by the way beating up Wesley and the other > Council members while escaping. > > Then we come to a crux: Trick and other vampires attack the arguing > Buffy and Faith, and Faith, after disposing of the rest, also dusts > Trick who is threatening the injured Buffy. =What= unspoken > communication passed between Buffy and Faith as they stared at one > another? It's very important, and very mysterious to this day. Because the > result was 1) Buffy is left with the impression that Faith was ready to > "reflect and grow" 2) Faith goes and joins the Mayor's team. > > So this was the first point where Faith had an opportunity to redeem > herself. Question: =what= motivation did she have to do so? What were her > prospects? To end up playing second fiddle to Buffy again? Not what she > wanted. But she played along--and that's exactly the role she was > given--while being treated like a princess by the Mayor. From a purely > "commercial" point of view, which was the better deal? > > We'll skip over the "evil" phase, her skirmishes with Buffy (though let's > note Willow's quite uncharacteristically dismissive attitude towards > Faith--"it's way too late"--and contrast it with Buffy's attitude), and > fast-forward to "GD," where Buffy--also uncharacteristically, though not > from Faith's point of view--hunts Faith down with the firm intent of > murdering her in cold blood. And why? Oh yeah, on account of Angel > (again!). And Buffy nearly succeeds; Faith ends up in a coma. > > Next there's the case of the dream in "GDII," in which Faith =appears= to > be a kind of spirit-guide, giving Buffy "the answer" to the dilemma of > the Mayor. This gave a lot of fuel to the believers in Faith Redeemed. But > as I attempted to demonstrate in my analysis of said dream, it made just > as much sense, not as a shared dream, not as a spirit-message, but as > Buffy's unconscious figuring things out for itself, as usual. > > So Faith wakes up. Now, remind me: =why= again should she "go to tea" with > Buffy and play nice? She has reason to feel mistreated, after all; Buffy > has basically given her nothing but grief, and furthermore has attacked > her quite ferociously, twice, on account of Angel. Faith's unconscious has > perfectly good reason to be afraid of Buffy, however good a front her > conscious maintains. > > And I think it's fair to say that believers in Faith Redeemed had their > hopes, for the moment, dashed. Again, I was agnostic; if Buffy had had > more dreams about Faith, if they had clearly been shared, I would have > said, OK, that works, too. But the writers chose the other road. > > So now we have this new situation, where Faith has had a chance to sample > what Life As Buffy is like. Did it change her? Having a mother who loves > her? Getting thanked, feelingly, by someone she saved? Having a boyfriend > who loves her tenderly? Feeling a real sense of responsibility, and > purpose, in being "the one and only" Slayer? > > Well, maybe. And again, if the writers choose to go that way, I'll go > along. But I'm not so sure. Because Faith =really thought= she had Buffy > =out of the way=, and she could decide how to live her (or rather > Buffy's) life at her leisure. > > But then Buffy, Thorn in Her Side, shows up again, manages to > (re-)turn the tables, and make herself kingpin again. And Faith has lost > her opportunity, again. And flees the scene. Now, it's very suggestive to > have that montage-dissolve of Buffy looking pensive (and pained), and > Faith looking pensive as she's leaving town. And believers in Faith > Redeemed can continue to hope that she will see the light. > > But, again, I don't think so. Why should she? I think she's going to show > up in Los Angeles, badass as ever, threaten Wesley (who will stand up to > her as best he's able), terrorize Cordelia, and fight Angel to a > standstill. And then what? Who knows. > > As always, we'll see. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 08:34:45 -0700 From: "Susan J. Kroupa" Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed That's how I see it, too, Allen. Sue allenw wrote: > > I don't see many, or any, posts or posters claiming that Faith *is* > redeemed; rather, I see myself (and others) arguing that Faith is still > working towards redemption in fits and starts (and stops), and that the > intent of the writers appears to be to lead us to so believe. Kind of > like the Willow/Tara love story, except that that's moving rather more > quickly . We could still be surprised in both cases, of course, but it > would a result of deliberate misleading from the writers. > -Allen ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:35:30 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed Donald, I just wanted to let you know I am not ignoring your posts. Sometimes I have time to post and sometimes I don't. (Lucky that this time when I don't coincides with rerun season.) Great points on Faith. And the Rosicrucian etc stuff is super fascinating -- please keep those up (thanks to Jennifer too). When I have time I'll talk more about the Marvel influence on BUFFY, among other things. (I was into Marvels only about from 1963 to 1966 and didn't keep up with what happened in that universe after that, but the Marvel influence on BUFFY's style and tone is very strong and very obvious, at least and especially if you got into Marvel early enough to be able to see Marvel style in isolation before its influence filtered somewhat into general pop culture.) Anyway, more later when time allows. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 11:03:47 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed A brief point since I don't have time at present to write much -- I don't think this has to be an either/or choice. Either Faith was referring to Buffy =or= to herself, etc. BUFFY's characters are very layered and have complex and multileveled motivations, including motivations that are not fully conscious to themselves. Personally, I think that that scene was =intended= to be able to be interpreted in several different ways, because in BUFFY the characters' own motivations are not simple or transparent even to themselves. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:48:24 -0500 (EST) From: "Hilary L. Hertzoff" Subject: Re: b/tropes? On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > Here's an interesting aspect of =The Dumas Club=. There is a > character (played in the movie by Emanuelle Seignier, as I > mentioned) who follows the protagonist around, a young woman > (nineteen, it's mentioned at one point), blonde, green-eyed, who > suddenly at one point in the book displays surprising street- > fighting expertise. Made my jaw drop. Not to put too fine a point on > it, the character could have been played by SMG. > > Now, this novel was written in Spain in 1993, so it's highly > unlikely that Perez-Reverte has any awareness of the =Buffy= > mythology; but it makes me ask, not for the first time, how =do= > these tropes replicate themselves > Don, Please stop recommending books...just for a little while. I now have on my to be read pile all of the Dumezil (which came remarkably quickly), one of the Slotkin volumes, and am working my way through The Seville Communion, having finished The Club Dumas yesterday. I don't know which edition of the last book you had, but I read the Vintage paperback and every illustration mentioned in the text seemed to be there. > > And then there's the Patsy Walker/Hellcat stuff that Hilary brought > up. (Is this stuff collected in such a way that one could look for > it in a comicbook store?) A more literal-minded critic might try to > find evidence that Joss Whedon knew this stuff (and we do know now > that he's a longtime Marvel reader), but I'm actually guessing that As someone pointed out, this has never been collected. This is a storyline that has sort of dragged out over more than 50 years. At her peak, Patsy was starring in at least two romance comics that accumulated over a hundred issues each (most of which was episodic ala Archie). What I think made her most interesting is that she didn't disappear from the scene when the romance genre collapsed, but mutated (no pun intended) to fit the Marvel universe and keeps changing to fit the times, surviving by staying on the fringes - a quirk rather than a major player. While Joss Wheden might have seen the comics in which she first becomes a super-hero (Avengers 140's) and the story line where she meets Daimon Hellstrom (Defenders 92-125 which fans either love or hate), I somehow doubt he was aware of her background except maybe subconciously. After her marriage she fades into the background of the Marvel universe. And as someone else pointed out, most of the stories she appeared in were not the best Marvel had to offer. I got interested in her because she combines three of my favorite reading interests...40's-60's teen romances/high school stories, supernatural gothic (rather than gruesome) horror and comics; which probably explains why I like Buffy. > maybe he doesn't; he's stated before that the line of thought that > gave rise to =Buffy= comes from horror movies, wondering what would > happen if the blonde girl who always got killed could fight back. > > It can be pointed out, of course, that this forbidden-love plotline > goes back at least as far as =Jane Eyre= and =Wuthering Heights= > (and the Gothic literature that gave rise to them; one line of > pursuit I haven't given enough time to is that =Buffy= is very, very > Gothic in any number of definable ways), if not all the way back to > demon-lover ballads and courtly-love literature. But the > =specificity= of the similarity of the tropes I've mentioned here is > quite startling. > At some point I should do a post on Buffy as high school (horror) story. She is in some ways a successor to the R L Stine (Fear Street/slasher horror), Christopher Pike (ditto) and (more directly) L.J. Smith (lots of lovely trilogies or quartets about girls falling in love with demons or vampires and a few with boys doing the same) teenage horror genre. (Sorry, I'm a young adult librarian...does it show?) Hilary Hilary L. Hertzoff Then she was smoked, delicately. Mamaroneck Public Library She was delicately smoked. Mamaroneck, NY Delicately smoked was she. hhertzof@wlsmail.wls.lib.ny.us - _Arlene Sardine_ hhertzoff@worldnet.att.net by Chris Raschka ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 20:40:10 -0500 From: Robert Stacy Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed GHighPine@aol.com wrote: > > A brief point since I don't have time at present to write much -- I don't > think this has to be an either/or choice. Either Faith was referring to > Buffy =or= to herself, etc. BUFFY's characters are very layered and have > complex and multileveled motivations, including motivations that are not > fully conscious to themselves. Personally, I think that that scene was > =intended= to be able to be interpreted in several different ways, because in > BUFFY the characters' own motivations are not simple or transparent even to > themselves. After finally seeing tapes of the two episodes, I have to register agreement with Gayle about this. I got a strong sense Faith, at the moment of her violent rant, was no longer operating from a clear-cut me-Faith/she-Buffy POV anymore. This was underlined for me by her confusion and disorientation when moments later, she found herself back in her own body, herself once again, the very target of much of the unconscious anger she'd been pouring out. Really fine acting in this. My favorite body language moment was when SMG, shot from behind, opened the door to Giles's apartment and entered with that loose-jointed, who-the-hell-cares Faith swing of the shoulders. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:52:02 -0600 (EST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/comments 3/11 On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > Allen: So if you =can= understand F/B's phone conversation, what =is= the > text of the short phrase she mumbles in between the card's expiration date > and "I'll take it"? I still can't parse it. By your command: F/B has just found "her" passport, and is reading off credit-card numbers over the phone: "Six four four seven. Uh, expiration five oh one. Uh-huh. Yeah. Ten A. M.'s your earliest flight? I'll take it." So, F/B is planning on running clear out of the country at the first opportunity, and purchases tickets for a 10 A.M. flight. Later, when she's at the airport, she's checked in, she has her ticket, it's near her departure time; all she has to do is get on the plane and she's history. But she sees the news story about the church, and she comes back to deal with it. Two people ask her why she goes to the church: Riley and the vamp leader. To Riley, she says "I'm Buffy. I have to do this." And when the vamp asks her why she wants to stop their massacre: "It's wrong." With absolutely no irony. Seems to me the only likely options are incipient redemption, or a full-fledged "I'm Buffy" delusion (which aren't mutually exclusive, of course). -Allen W. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 17:59:32 -0800 (PST) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/comments 3/11/game news > Two people ask her why she goes to the church: > Riley and the vamp > leader. To Riley, she says "I'm Buffy. I have to > do this." And when the > vamp asks her why she wants to stop their massacre: > "It's wrong." With > absolutely no irony. > Seems to me the only likely options are incipient > redemption, or a > full-fledged "I'm Buffy" delusion (which aren't > mutually exclusive, of > course). > -Allen W. > > Gotta agree with you. Here's some non-show news: Company Press Release `Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Stakes Out Gaming Platforms Fox Interactive to Put Gamers in the Role of `The Chosen One' and Rid the World of Evil LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2000--Fox Interactive today announced its plans to publish ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' a game based on the popular television series, for Sega Dreamcast(TM), PlayStation¨ and the PC. Scheduled for a fall 2000 release, ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an interactive adventure game set to deliver all the action, fighting, humor, drama and characters from the show that fans have come to know and love. ``Fox Interactive is taking advantage of the vast number of `Slayer' fans who want more than just their usual Tuesday night Buffy fix,'' stated Karly Young, director, worldwide brand marketing. ``Of all entertainment properties available today, `Buffy the Vampire Slayer' is THE franchise that gamers have been asking for. Now's our chance to give gamers the opportunity to live out their own Buffy adventures anytime they feel the need to kick some serious vampire butt.'' About the ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' Game ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' will be a third-person action adventure game where players take on the role of Buffy Summers, a typical high school cheerleader by day and a fierce, but savvy, destroyer of the undead by night. With the help of her allies and featured characters from the TV series -- Angel, Xander, Cordelia, Willow, Oz and Giles -- Buffy must destroy the enemy by using her slaying powers, martial arts, slaying senses and quick healing ability. The game combines action, fighting, drama, humor, exploration and puzzle solving in rich interactive 3-D environments. 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Airing Tuesdays (8-9 p.m. PT/ET) on The WB, ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is produced by Mutant Enemy Inc., Kuzui Enterprises, and Sandollar Productions, in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television. About Fox Interactive Recognized as an innovative industry leader, Fox Interactive, an operating unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a News Corporation company, is committed to developing a full range of bold and engaging interactive entertainment. The company creates computer and video game software based on Fox franchises as well as new and original properties. Fox Interactive games currently released include the 3-D platform game ``CROC 2,'' the top-selling PC hit ``Aliens versus Predator,'' ``The X-Files,'' ``Die Hard Trilogy,'' ``Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas,'' ``The Simpsons Cartoon Studio'' and ``Virtual Springfield,'' as well as the FOX Sports brand of video games. Upcoming releases include ``Aliens versus Predator Gold Edition.'' Check out Fox Interactive online at http://www.foxinteractive.com. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 22:04:53 -0600 From: "Jennifer Stevenson" Subject: Re: stillpt-digest V2 #61 Omnibus reply. IMO it's narratologically imperative that Faith redeem HERSELF, and that Buffy have NOTHING to do with it. I think Joss gives every character enough autonomy that they are permitted this much, at least. Faith may be able to do this in LA, where Buffy isn't hanging over her like a murderously critical mother. And Angel will be perfect for the right kind of help, because a) he knows how rotten people can be with and without demonic possession, and b) he's tired of it all for himself, but forgiving. > From Ted Hughes' =Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being= > [wherein he is summing up Frances Yates' ideas in her books on the > Hermetic Tradition or Rosicrucianism, which he refers to as Occult > Neoplatonism], p. 30: Hughes kind of over-glorifies Yates, but okay. I think Couliano makes a much better martyred-magician-scholar than Yates does. She was a fascinated skeptic; he was the real thing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 22:26:11 -0600 From: "Jennifer Stevenson" Subject: Re: stillpt-digest V2 #60 Don, replying backwards to your posts from #60, > Yates constructs, not so much a line as a web of associations, that > runs something like this: Hermeticism --> Cabalism --> Alchemy --> > Art of Memory --> Rosicrucianism --> Freemasonry --> Science; =all= > of these were opposed to organized religion, because their spiritual > dimension was not according to dogma, and therefore heretical. Plus > their adherents were politically liberal, and so the religio- > political institutions of the day persecuted, witch-hunted, and > frequently crushed said adherents. For the sequel to this (not the prequel as you rightly note GB&theHT) see Ioan P. Couliano's EROS AND MAGIC IN THE RENAISSANCE, an English translation by Margaret Cook from his original dissertation in French (I think Sorbonne/Milan dual PhDs but don't quote me), originally published in Holland when he was teaching there. Yale University Press 1992 or something like that, only $13.00 in trade paper. Couliano has a clearer take on the problem you condense in the above paragraph; clearer because unlike Yates he both understood and believed in the Art of Memory both as a rhetorical tool and as an aid to magicians. His belief is that BOTH sides of the 30 years' war, protestant and catholic, turned on magic with tooth and claw because of the crisis of culture precipitated by the Rosicrucian hoaxes: Too Much Information! Akin to the shock experienced in this country during the nineteen-sixties when a lucrative war was ended, a president toppled, music and culture were brought low and raunchy, youth was deified, all kinds of weird shit happened => because television made it happen. Television showed too much to too many people at once. Just as the printing press of Michael Meyer showed too many people the Rosicrucian propaganda all at the same time. Too Much Information! To better understand and put both Yates and Couliano in perspective, then read Mary Carruthers THE BOOK OF MEMORY, Cambridge University Press 1996 or something like that, should be out in trade paper by now goddammit since the "sequel" THE CRAFT OF THOUGHT is still HC at $75.00. Carruthers makes it clear that the old-timey (Dominican) Art of Memory, which was taught to school children for a thousand years before Bruno, was to Bruno's magic what the PC is to the dedicated word processor. The original Art was a basic tool. The Brunian magical Art was an =application= to be =run= using the basic tool. And damned inconvenient, quickly outdated, cumbersome, and politically dangerous to use to boot. > For one example, Francis Bacon, one of the pioneers of science, > rejected Copernican astronomy and early work on magnetism, not > because he thought them unworkable, Yates suggests, but because they > smacked of magic, and in the court of James I (who was desperately > afraid of anything magical) this was dangerous. > My impression, at this point, is that the science that emerged from this > situation, the purely mechanistic model, stripped of any spiritual > dimension that could arouse the persecution of the established Church, is > a simplification, an =impoverishment=, of the more holistic understanding > of the universe that the Renaissance "magicians" had. That, in fact, > =something has been lost=. (It's very similar, in fact, to the > relationship between Freud's narrow view of human psychology and Jung's.) Read Evelyn Fox Keller, REFLECTIONS ON GENDER AND SCIENCE, Yale U.P. 1985 (trade paper) for the straight poop on Francis Bacon's role in creating science-as-we-know-it. Your point about demystification is well-made. Bacon (Keller says) made history by separating magic from science. The way he did this was by separating mind from body, man from nature, and man from woman, in ways far more radical than ever before, and of course elevating the first from the second in every case. His basic argument was, Since God gave nature to man for him to enjoy, therefor, anything man chooses to do with nature (including scientific exploration) is BENEATH God's notice, since it goes on between man and the lower orders of creation which God gave to man. So the clergy can just back off, man, 'cause we're scientists, making mud-pies down here well BELOW and therefor BEYOND the nosy-parker reach of clerical oversight. I summarize, of course. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 01:05:16 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: o/ Rosicrucian hoax Jennifer, could you explain what the "Rosicrucian hoax" was? Gayle ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #62 ****************************