“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Through all of our challenges, we were aware of at least some of the incredible variety of positive and negative world events in the news—the bombings and the peace talks, the sports contests and the religious controversies, the national strikes and the latest developments in the arts. Amid the economic difficulties in our own country, and after a number of often very expensive delays, the second flight of our shuttle spacecraft, Columbia, came due on November 4. Of primary importance was to be the testing in space of the 50-foot-long remote-control robot arm, which had been designed to place satellites in orbit and retrieve them for service and repair. Only seconds before lift-off, however, computers shut down Columbia’s flight because of a drop in pressure in oxygen tanks. Then clogged oil filters were discovered. The launch was rescheduled for November 12.

In a passionate, bloody series of events later in the seventh century, a split occurred in which the Moslem religion was divided into two main branches, the Shiite and the Sunni. Now Iran is ruled by the Shiites, and is religiously oriented; Iraq is ruled by the Sunnis, and is more secular and socialistic. Iranian leaders emphasize the religious aspects of the war, Iraq the ethnic. The rulers of each country have urged the citizens of the other to revolt against their leaders. There is much disillusionment in Iran over the excesses of the Shiite clergy. In Iran martyrdom is encouraged—at home, in the war, and in terroristic activity abroad. Iraq has been accused of using chemical warfare (courtesy of the Russians) against its enemy. The Moslem world, then, is hardly a monolithic entity; as within Iran itself, the myriad consciousnesses making up that whole framework are much too varied for that to be true.