1 result for (book:deavf1 AND session:895 AND stemmed:left)
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David is one of the kindest people we’ve ever known. Jane initiated her ESP classes late in 1967—so each Tuesday night for the next seven and a half years, our friend put up with a vast amount of shouting and banging over his head. He knew what Jane was up to, but had only a peripheral interest in “psychic phenomena.” David never complained about the racket, though sometimes he secluded himself in a back room down there, or left the house until class was over. It seemed that we were always apologizing for bothering him.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
In March 1975 Jane and I purchased the hill house just outside Elmira, and within a few weeks David acquired his own place not far from us in the valley below. We didn’t see each other as often as we used to, but one morning each week, on his way to school, David left his magazines and newspapers at our back porch door, whether or not we were up, or saw him.
[... 20 paragraphs ...]
Give us a moment…. You have taught yourselves to be aware of and to follow only certain portions of your own consciousnesses, so that mentally you consider certain subjects taboo. Thoughts of death and suffering are among those. In a species geared above all to the survival of the fittest, and the competition among species, then any touch of suffering or pain, or thoughts of death, become dishonorable, biologically shameful, cowardly, nearly insane. Life is to be pursued at all costs—not because it is innately meaningful, but because it is the only game going, and it is a game of chance at best. One life is all you have, and that one is everywhere beset by the threat of illness, disaster, and war—and if you escape such drastic circumstances, then you are still left with a life that is the result of no more than lifeless elements briefly coming into a consciousness and vitality that is bound to end.
[... 20 paragraphs ...]