OPEN LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: HONOR YOUR ANCESTORS
At the outset, I wish to express my deep appreciation and respect for the Founding Fathers of the United States, and for all those who fought and gave their lives to inaugurate a new era for Humanity — an era of hope, justice, liberty, respect for the Dignity of the Human Person; an era in which totalitarianism is replaced by the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws.
I have no doubt whatsoever about the greatness of these spirits chosen by Our Lord Jesus Christ to unfurl the banner of liberty and justice with God.
I remember the enthusiasm, the emotion, and the profound emotion I felt when I visited the Capitol and saw the portraits of the Founding Fathers of the Nation in 1977.
I felt I was in a sacred place!
However, unfortunately, I am witnessing, appalled and indignant, the betrayal of Christian humanitarian ideals and the Constitution of the United States by those who swore to defend it, and who were elected by the people, but who have strayed from the straight paths of Divine Justice.
I write this OPEN LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE in solidarity with the victims of judicial violence, as an impartial witness, after closely following and analyzing, since March 2025, the trajectory and the judicial struggle waged in Defense of the Constitution of the United States, Due Process of Law, and the human rights of victims of judicial violence and abuse by senior constitutional attorney Scott Erik Stafne — whose professional license was illegally and unconstitutionally cancelled by the Washington State Bar Association in May 2026, in disciplinary proceeding WSBA 25#00042, in a decision tainted by an incurable defect of absolute nullity, by obstruction of justice, violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, by direct affront to the Constitution, to the rights and prerogatives of attorneys, and to International Human Rights Treaties, with the sole objective of silencing a Christian attorney who works for free for the poor and the destitute, a worthy man who does not bow before the judicial corruption that prevails in that state, and who is being persecuted for having dared to demand respect for Due Process of Law and compliance with the laws, in the exercise of his Mission as Attorney for The Church of the Gardens, a Christian, nonprofit association created to fill a structural failure of the State in defending the poor and vulnerable against the abuse of the powerful.
For more than one year, I have been following the violations of the fundamental human rights of the elderly and the vulnerable in fraudulent mortgage foreclosures, in guardianship courts in the State of Washington, in family courts, especially the cases of Jayakrishnan Krishna Nair and his mother, Omana Thankamma, Key Philips, Alicia M. Frank, Paul Cook’s father, journalist Janet Phelps, Bandy X Lee, Billie Powers, and many other citizens.
I have received countless reports of fraud in judicial proceedings from Dr. Scott Erik Stafne, Dr. Richard Cordero, and several other attorneys, from victims of violations of fundamental human rights and judicial violence.
I am following the complaints presented by Bandy X Lee, Julie M. Anderson Holburn, several journalists, members of women’s movements, the grandparents’ movement for vaccines, war veterans and their attorneys, and I cannot remain silent.
Judicial abuses in the United States have surpassed every boundary of the unimaginable and represent the greatest civilizational regression ever seen since the Second World War.
Contrary to what is said out there, the United States has reached the 251st anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence not by honoring, but rather by denying, the humanitarian ideals that moved the CHOSEN ONES by JESUS CHRIST to change the face of the earth, inaugurating an era of the pursuit of the primacy of respect for the Dignity of the Human Person, individually considered, for families, children, women, the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable, without prejudice of any kind.
Against the attempts to sell an image of a superpower stands the sad reality hidden behind the closed doors of offices, of parliamentarians and courts of (in)justice, and behind empty words, shadow dockets, teratological judicial decisions, decrees and abusive, discriminatory laws that dehumanize people, that deny CHRISTIAN ideals and the REPUBLICAN ideals of a GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE.
The omission by Marco Rubio regarding the militiamen who resisted and imposed severe casualties on the British, under the leadership of Colonel William Prescott, is unforgivable. They were the true heroes who, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, with unmatched courage and indomitable bravery, proved to General George Washington and to the British general that honor and liberty have no price, and that YES, militias of free men, poorly armed, poorly fed, and not trained for war, could stand against and ultimately defeat the powerful and numerous British armies!
It is inadmissible for a Secretary of State to attribute the victory of the AMERICAN PEOPLE to the training of the militias by “Prussians.”
It is unforgivable that this official manifestation of independence should omit the centrality of the small group of militiamen who, under the leadership of Colonel William Prescott, occupied the Charlestown peninsula on the night of June 16, 1775, and raised, within a few hours, the defenses that would make the Battle of Bunker Hill a turning point of the American Revolution.
Although the battle was fought mainly on Breed’s Hill and ended, on the ground, with the British taking the position, the colonial resistance imposed devastating casualties on the British army and destroyed the certainty of imperial invincibility.
Historical tradition records that, during the British bombardment, a cannonball brutally killed one of the men inside the defenses, scattering blood and human remains and morally shaking the combatants.
Perceiving the state of mind of his soldiers, Prescott climbed onto the parapet of the redoubt and calmly walked over the trenches, under enemy fire, encouraging the men with his personal courage.
His image walking upon the redoubt became a symbol of moral leadership: the commander who does not merely order resistance, but exposes his own life to danger in order to rekindle the courage of those fighting by his side.
Therefore, William Prescott and his militiamen cannot be treated as a footnote.
Before any later training of the Continental Army, before Valley Forge, before the glorious narrative of final victory, free men, poorly armed, poorly supplied and at a profound disadvantage, faced professional troops of the British Empire and proved that American liberty would not be crushed without cost.
Bunker Hill was lost on the ground, but won in the soul of the Revolution; from then on, it was demonstrated that imperial tyranny could be faced, wounded and, at the end of the war, defeated.
America owes respect to its true heroes, from those who declared ENOUGH OF TYRANNY in 1775, to the anonymous heroes who cry ENOUGH IS ENOUGH before JUDICIAL TYRANNY, corruption and the abuses that currently prevail in many courts.
Psalm 1 is the spiritual mirror of this historical moment.
It teaches that there are two paths: the path of the righteous, who take root in the law of the Lord like trees planted by the waters, and the path of the wicked, who are like chaff carried away by the wind.
A nation that honors its ancestors chooses the first path: it meditates on justice, protects the vulnerable, respects human dignity, and submits itself to the moral law of God.
A nation that abandons the elderly, children, women, the sick, veterans and the poor to the gears of predatory systems chooses the second path: it loses root, loses soul, loses direction, and walks toward judgment.
Therefore, the Fourth of July cannot be merely a celebration. It must be an examination of conscience.
The spiritual question of Psalm 1 is also America’s constitutional question: on which path does the nation stand?
On the path of justice, truth and human dignity, or on the path of the wicked, the mockers and those who transform the law into an instrument of oppression?
PSALM 1 — THE PRINCIPLE OF WISDOM AND HAPPINESS IS THE FEAR OF GOD!
Psalm 1
Blessed is the person who does not follow the counsel of the wicked,
does not stand in the path of sinners,
and does not sit among mockers.
On the contrary, his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on that law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in its season,
whose leaves do not wither;
and whatever he does shall prosper.
Not so with the wicked.
They are like chaff that the wind scatters.
Therefore, the wicked shall not stand firm in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked shall perish.
The essence of Psalm 1
Psalm 1 teaches that there are two spiritual, moral and existential paths.
The first is the path of the righteous: the one who does not allow himself to be governed by the counsels of the perverse, by the logic of sinners or by the mockery of the arrogant.
This person seeks guidance in God, meditates on His law, and creates deep roots. For this reason, he is compared to a tree by the waters: firm, alive, fruitful and resistant.
The second is the path of the wicked: people without moral roots, without fear of God, without commitment to justice. They may seem strong for a time, but they are like chaff carried by the wind: fragile, unstable and destined for dispersion.
The central message is: whoever takes root in God remains; whoever gives himself over to iniquity falls apart.
Psalm 1 does not speak only of individual religion.
It also serves as a public warning:
societies, governments, judges, leaders and institutions that abandon justice, mock truth and follow the path of impiety lose the spiritual and moral root that sustains their legitimacy.
The final result is ruin, dispersion and judgment.
Where is the FEAR of GOD?
Where is the honoring and loving of GOD? And the loving of one’s Neighbor as oneself?
America wallows in the shed blood of the innocent, of aborted children, of debased women, of elderly people placed under guardianship, tortured, evicted from their homes, murdered in “slaughterhouses” falsely named “nursing homes,” “foster homes.”
The policy of NO MAN LEFT BEHIND becomes a farce — a dead letter — before the reality of millions of families destroyed by war, millions of victims of drug trafficking, thousands, perhaps millions of war veterans, of the sick whose medical treatments and medicines are being denied, cut, suppressed by those who were elected by the people to govern for the people, for the benefit of the people and the Nation, but who, corrupted by vices, by the abandonment of moral principles, ethics, honor, by the illusion of power and the importance of their own personality, wallow in the illusion of “unlimited” power and “impunity.”
The North America of today seems to have forgotten that it has a responsibility toward its own people, first of all, before meddling in the affairs of other nations, individually and collectively considered.
A country where corruption reigns — shamelessly — where citizens are dehumanized and transformed into “numbers” — the spoliation of all their rights, freedoms and property — according to the “Nazi model” — where all those who try to defend the human rights of victims of abuses and violations of fundamental constitutional rights are attacked, threatened, assaulted, silenced, punished, excluded, tortured and forgotten, has lost its identity, its unity, and has become easy prey for the true traitors of the Constitution.
It would be excellent IF, on this Fourth of July 2026, the GOVERNMENT — THE THREE BRANCHES OF THE REPUBLIC — and the PEOPLE REMEMBERED the SACRIFICE of their ANCESTORS, their IDEALS, their moral and ethical principles and THEIR responsibilities, and FULFILLED their DUTIES toward GOD, toward their neighbor, toward their family, toward their homeland, toward other nations, toward the environment, and toward the legacy they will leave to this and to future generations.
God is not mocked!
When iniquity overflows in this manner,
When the people lose trust and respect for institutions,
When abuses and violations of fundamental human rights surpass every limit and the law is no longer respected, when all moral, ethical, constitutional, statutory, legal and juridical principles are routinely violated, including by magistrates who should administer JUSTICE, but do not,
The result is catastrophic, and the History of Humanity is there, online, for anyone who wants to see!
I leave for reflection the lecture delivered yesterday on the individual responsibility of each person before the laws of God and his own conscience, which is inscribed in the eternal and immortal spirit of every human being from the moment of his creation:
The Law of Reincarnation
THE EXPIATORY REINCARNATION OF AN ARROGANT AND UNJUST JUDGE
The Spiritist Doctrine teaches that reincarnation is not eternal punishment, nor divine revenge, but a mechanism of justice, expiation, reparation and learning. In The Spirits’ Book, Allan Kardec devotes Chapter IV of Part Two to the plurality of existences. In questions 166 to 170, the Superior Spirits clarify that the soul that has not reached perfection during corporeal life continues its process of purification through new corporeal existences. In question 167, the purpose of reincarnation is summarized in two essential expressions: expiation and the progressive improvement of humanity. Without this, the Spirits ask: where would justice be?
Question 171 deepens this foundation. The justice of reincarnation rests upon the justice of God and upon revelation, because a good Father does not forever close the door of repentance. Reincarnation, therefore, does not humiliate the Spirit: it reeducates him. It does not destroy him: it gives him another opportunity. It does not erase his responsibility: it offers him the path of reparation.
It is in this context that one understands the story attributed to D. Mayse Braga, reported in the transcribed Spiritist study, about a five-year-old boy taken in by the Educandário Nosso Lar. According to the account, he was a Black child, poor, abandoned on the streets, of lively intelligence, difficult temperament and striking personality. The leaders of the house, perceiving his particularities, would have spiritually consulted Dr. Bezerra de Menezes, who explained the gravity of that Spirit’s previous trajectory.
In the past existence, according to the account, he had been a famous jurist in old Rio de Janeiro, an admired, powerful man publicly honored. However, behind the social prestige, he carried an intimate pattern of arrogance, prejudice and injustice. As a judge, he would have used the law not as an instrument for the protection of the innocent, but as a tool of oppression. His moral criterion was perverse: if the person was Black, poor, alone and defenseless, then that person was guilty. With unjust judgments, he would have led many to prison, despair and even suicide.
The spiritual gravity of this account lies precisely in the misuse of jurisdictional power. The judge knew the law, mastered the technique, possessed intelligence, status and authority. But, instead of serving justice, he would have served his own pride. Instead of protecting the vulnerable, he would have crushed those who most depended on judicial impartiality. Instead of fearing God, he would have placed himself in the place of God.
Upon awakening in the Spiritual Homeland, according to the narrative, that Spirit would have seen the veil of illusion fall. He was no longer the honored magistrate, the celebrated jurist, the feared and admired man. He was only a conscience before itself, confronted with the suffering he had caused. Before the Tribunal of Conscience, he understood that divine justice cannot be bribed, cannot be bought, cannot be deceived, and does not bend before human titles.
For this reason, after suffering and repentance, he would have asked for the opportunity to return to Earth in a condition opposite to the one of which he had abused. He then reincarnated as a Black, poor, abandoned boy, dependent on the charity of others and on the protection of people who could welcome him without prejudice. That which he had previously despised in others — poverty, solitude, Blackness, vulnerability, and the absence of social defense — became the very pedagogical field of his new existence.
This narrative powerfully illustrates reincarnatory justice: the Spirit is not cast into suffering by divine cruelty, but placed before the experiences necessary to learn what he refused to understand when he had power. Whoever despised the poor may be reborn in poverty. Whoever humiliated a Black person may return beneath the skin he discriminated against. Whoever oppressed the defenseless may return in a condition of dependency. Whoever falsified human justice will have to meet again, sooner or later, the justice of God.
The account also states that, even as a child, that boy showed sympathy, intelligence and affection, but also impulses of disorder, conflict and transgression. When there was confusion, he was involved. If someone did something wrong, he justified it: “if he did it, I also have the right to do it.” Later, upon falling from a tree, he suffered serious fractures and began to limp for the rest of his life. According to the spiritual interpretation of the account, this physical limitation also formed part of his process of humanization, inner discipline and learning.
The lesson is profound. Expiatory reincarnation does not immediately erase the tendencies of the past. No one transforms magically from one life to another. The Spirit brings with him marks, inclinations, vices, impulses and needs for correction. But he also brings new possibilities: welcome, education, love, discipline, work, coexistence and reparation.
For this reason, this case speaks directly to the theme of human justice. Magistrates, prosecutors, legislators, attorneys, public authorities, bankers, doctors, guardians, fiduciaries, directors of nursing homes, administrators of foster care, probate and family systems — all those who receive power over the lives of others — must remember that no human authority is absolute. Power is a loan. The robe is a loan. The office is a loan. Fortune is a loan. The pen that signs a judgment is an instrument of spiritual responsibility.
The one who unjustly condemns the poor, the Black person, the woman, the child, the elderly person, the sick person, the veteran, the vulnerable or the abandoned is not merely violating human law. He is creating for himself a moral debt before Divine Justice. And Divine Justice, unlike the corrupt justice of men, does not archive the truth, does not manipulate evidence, does not sell judgments, does not protect the powerful and does not transform victims into guilty parties.
Léon Denis, in After Death, summarizes the evolutionary march of the Spirit as a succession of existences in which, little by little, the evil that still exists within us disappears; souls strengthen themselves, purify themselves and advance to the higher circles, where they radiate beauty, wisdom, power and love. This is the essence of reincarnation: not punishment without hope, but the education of the soul through experience, responsibility and love.
The story of the arrogant and unjust judge, reborn as a poor, Black and abandoned boy, is a severe warning to all those who today use institutions, courts, banks, hospitals, nursing homes, family courts, adoption systems, foster care, probate, guardianship and administrative structures to oppress the vulnerable. Whoever today judges himself untouchable may tomorrow need to be born exactly in the place of the one he despised.
God is not mocked.
Human law can be defrauded.
A human judgment can be sold.
A human proceeding can be manipulated.
A human victim can be silenced.
But Divine Justice remains.
And every Spirit, sooner or later, will answer not only for the evil he did, but also for the evil resulting from the good he failed to do, when he had the duty, the power, the knowledge, the office, the authority and the opportunity to protect the vulnerable, the wronged and the innocent.
On this Fourth of July 2026, we sincerely wish that the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD may enlighten each and every one, Americans or not, because, whether one wants it or not, whether one believes it or not, there EXISTS an ALMIGHTY GOD, unbribable, incorruptible, immutable, whose natural and eternal laws are non-negotiable, who will give to each one according to his works, if not in this life, then in the next reincarnations, where each one will answer not only for the evil he did, but for all the evil that resulted from his omission before the good he should have done.
Peace and Light!
Marcia Almeida
REFERENCES AND SOURCES
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U.S. Department of State. “A Salute to America.” Author: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Published July 4, 2026.
https://statedept.substack.com/p/a-salute-to-america
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Washington State Bar Association. Scott Erik Stafne — WSBA public profile / attorney status page.
https://www.mywsba.org/PersonifyEbusiness/Default.aspx?TabID=1538&Usr_ID=6964
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Academia.edu. “THE SUPREME COURT OF WASHINGTON — In re SCOTT ERIK STAFNE — Unanimous Order of Justices of Washington State Supreme Court barring Scott Erik Stafne from practicing law in Washington as of May 13, 2026.”
https://www.academia.edu/166935204/THE_SUPREME_COURT_OF_WASHINGTON_In_re_SCOTT_ERIK_STAFNE_Unanimous_Order_of_Justices_of_Washington_State_Supreme_Court_barring_Scott_Erik_Stafne_from_practicing_law_in_Washington_as_of_May_13_2026
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Stafne, Scott E. “Washington State Bar Association — In re: Scott Erik Stafne: ODC File No. 24-01379 — Stafne’s most recent letter on behalf of the Church and himself to Bar Association being captured by Washington State’s judiciary.” Academia.edu. 5 pages. Top 3%; 727 views. Categories: Constitutional Law; Political Philosophy; Access to Justice; Human Rights Law; International Law; Courts; Political Science; International Human Rights Law; Social Justice; Philosophy of Law; Justice; International Humanitarian Law; Courts and Elites (History); Court History; Corruption; Human Rights and Corruption.
https://www.academia.edu/129655816/Washington_State_Bar_Association_In_re_Scott_Erik_Stafne_ODC_File_No_24_01379_Stafnes_most_recent_letter_on_behalf_of_the_Church_and_himself_to_Bar_Association_being_captured_by_Washington_States_judiciairy?source=swp_share
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Justia Dockets. “In Re Scott Erik Stafne,” Western District of Washington, Case No. 2:2026rd00010.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/washington/wawdce/2%3A2026rd00010/362996
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National Park Service. “William Prescott: A Glorious Immortality.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/william-prescott.htm
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National Park Service. “Breed’s Hill v. Bunker Hill.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/breeds-v-bunker-hill.htm
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Massachusetts Historical Society. “The Battle of Bunker Hill & Siege of Boston.”
https://www.masshist.org/revolution/bunkerhill.php
-
American Battlefield Trust. “Bunker Hill Battle Facts and Summary.”
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/bunker-hill
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Kardecpedia. Allan Kardec, The Spirits’ Book, questions 166–171, on reincarnation and the plurality of existences.
https://kardecpedia.com/en/study-guide/2/the-spirits-book/442/book-twothe-spirit-world/chapter-ivmultiple-lives/on-reincarnation/166/166-a
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International Spiritist Council. Allan Kardec, The Spirits’ Book, English PDF edition.
https://cei-spiritistcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-Spirits-Book.pdf
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FEB Editora. Léon Denis, After Death / Depois da Morte, English edition.
https://www.febeditora.com.br/after-death--depois-da-morte---ingles-
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Léon Denis. After Death, public online copy.
https://www.scribd.com/document/719624525/After-Death-Leon-Denis
14. Weiss, Brian L. Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster / Touchstone, 1988. ISBN: 9780671657864 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Many-Lives-Many-Masters/Brian-L-Weiss/9780671657864
U.S. Department of State. “A Salute to America.” Author: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Published July 4, 2026.
https://statedept.substack.com/p/a-salute-to-america
Washington State Bar Association. Scott Erik Stafne — WSBA public profile / attorney status page.
https://www.mywsba.org/PersonifyEbusiness/Default.aspx?TabID=1538&Usr_ID=6964
Academia.edu. “THE SUPREME COURT OF WASHINGTON — In re SCOTT ERIK STAFNE — Unanimous Order of Justices of Washington State Supreme Court barring Scott Erik Stafne from practicing law in Washington as of May 13, 2026.”
https://www.academia.edu/166935204/THE_SUPREME_COURT_OF_WASHINGTON_In_re_SCOTT_ERIK_STAFNE_Unanimous_Order_of_Justices_of_Washington_State_Supreme_Court_barring_Scott_Erik_Stafne_from_practicing_law_in_Washington_as_of_May_13_2026
Stafne, Scott E. “Washington State Bar Association — In re: Scott Erik Stafne: ODC File No. 24-01379 — Stafne’s most recent letter on behalf of the Church and himself to Bar Association being captured by Washington State’s judiciary.” Academia.edu. 5 pages. Top 3%; 727 views. Categories: Constitutional Law; Political Philosophy; Access to Justice; Human Rights Law; International Law; Courts; Political Science; International Human Rights Law; Social Justice; Philosophy of Law; Justice; International Humanitarian Law; Courts and Elites (History); Court History; Corruption; Human Rights and Corruption.
https://www.academia.edu/129655816/Washington_State_Bar_Association_In_re_Scott_Erik_Stafne_ODC_File_No_24_01379_Stafnes_most_recent_letter_on_behalf_of_the_Church_and_himself_to_Bar_Association_being_captured_by_Washington_States_judiciairy?source=swp_share
Justia Dockets. “In Re Scott Erik Stafne,” Western District of Washington, Case No. 2:2026rd00010.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/washington/wawdce/2%3A2026rd00010/362996
National Park Service. “William Prescott: A Glorious Immortality.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/william-prescott.htm
National Park Service. “Breed’s Hill v. Bunker Hill.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/breeds-v-bunker-hill.htm
Massachusetts Historical Society. “The Battle of Bunker Hill & Siege of Boston.”
https://www.masshist.org/revolution/bunkerhill.php
American Battlefield Trust. “Bunker Hill Battle Facts and Summary.”
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/bunker-hill
Kardecpedia. Allan Kardec, The Spirits’ Book, questions 166–171, on reincarnation and the plurality of existences.
https://kardecpedia.com/en/study-guide/2/the-spirits-book/442/book-twothe-spirit-world/chapter-ivmultiple-lives/on-reincarnation/166/166-a
International Spiritist Council. Allan Kardec, The Spirits’ Book, English PDF edition.
https://cei-spiritistcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-Spirits-Book.pdf
FEB Editora. Léon Denis, After Death / Depois da Morte, English edition.
https://www.febeditora.com.br/after-death--depois-da-morte---ingles-
Léon Denis. After Death, public online copy.
https://www.scribd.com/document/719624525/After-Death-Leon-Denis
14. Weiss, Brian L. Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster / Touchstone, 1988. ISBN: 9780671657864 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Many-Lives-Many-Masters/Brian-L-Weiss/9780671657864
This is true.
Cross-posted from a U.S. Department of State post
Richard Luthmann,
July 4 · This is serious.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “A Salute to America” message is a forceful statement in support of America’s 250 years: the Revolution was not an accident, a tantrum, or a tax dispute. It was an act of courage that represented civilization.
The Founders were prosperous men with everything to lose, but nevertheless they risked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor against the most powerful empire on Earth.
Washington’s freezing army, Trenton, Princeton, Valley Forge and the long journey toward victory proved something permanent about the American soul. This country was built by people who did the impossible because liberty, faith and destiny demanded it.
Source link to the U.S. Department of State / Substack post:
https://statedept.substack.com/p/a-salute-to-america
A Salute to America
Department of State
July 4
Author: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Two hundred and fifty years ago, in a brick hall in Philadelphia, our forefathers declared their independence from the most powerful empire on Earth.
They were not fools. They knew exactly what the words on that parchment meant. They knew that, in that moment, they were condemning themselves for treason in the eyes of their mother country — and that the penalty for treason was death.
Thus, at the end of that document, beneath the inspiring words about self-evident truths and the rights of man, they wrote a final sentence: “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Their lives, their fortunes and their honor — everything they had and everything they were. Everything was at stake.
Think about the kind of men we are talking about. It is easy to forget: these were not poor and helpless indigents with nothing to lose. They were some of the most successful and prosperous men of their time. Lawyers, merchants, landowners and wealthy farmers — men with families, farms and fortunes.
Common sense would indicate that they would be the last to lead a revolution — much less to risk everything, including their lives, to do so.
But they did it anyway.
And they accomplished it against all odds.
On one side stood the British Empire — the most formidable power the world had ever seen. On the other, a scattered collection of colonies at the edge of the known world, with a small agricultural economy and a heterogeneous force of poorly trained farmers and militiamen — what a British general of the time called, with contempt, “a ridiculous parade” and “an armed rabble.”
In 1776, very few people believed that these American rebels had any chance of winning.
Across the Atlantic, the elites of Great Britain dismissed them as a mere nuisance, nothing more.
The First Lord of the Admiralty declared that “the mere sound of a cannon would make them run away... as fast as their feet could carry them.”
General James Grant — former royal governor of East Florida — boasted before the House of Commons that he knew the Americans very well and that “they would never dare to face an English army.”
King George himself predicted that “as soon as these rebels feel a hard blow, they will surrender.”
The first months of the war seemed to confirm that prediction. George Washington’s army was brave, but hungry, unprepared and poorly supplied. They had left their farms, shops and frontier settlements to fight for their country — only to suffer one devastating defeat after another.
In December 1776, the Revolution was on the verge of collapse. The Continental Army had been driven out of New York, crossed New Jersey and reached Pennsylvania — defeated and suffering in the bitter cold of the harsh northeastern winter.
The army itself was rapidly shrinking in size. That month, George Washington wrote to his brother: “I think the game is pretty near up.”
Unless something changed, the cause of independence would die, the rebellion would be crushed, and the men who had risked everything to lead it would be hanged as traitors to the Crown.
But they did not surrender. That is not what Americans do.
On Christmas night, Washington gathered what was left of his army and crossed the frozen Delaware River under the cover of darkness. His men marched through the night with broken shoes and rags wrapped around their feet, leaving blood in the snow. At Trenton, they attacked. A few days later, at Princeton, they attacked again.
Two resounding victories — and the aura of inevitable British victory began to collapse.
Still, one miracle was not enough to lead the patriots to victory. The war dragged on. The following year, the British captured Philadelphia and the Continental Congress was forced to flee. Washington’s army staggered into its winter quarters at Valley Forge — hungry, freezing and poorly clothed, sleeping in huts they had built with their own hands.
There, in that brutal winter, something extraordinary happened. The Continental Army did not collapse. It transformed itself into a disciplined, hardened and professional fighting force: trained by Prussian officers, united by common sacrifice, the Americans emerged — against all odds — as an army capable of bringing down an empire, driven by an unshakable belief in the country they were helping to build.
Every American knows what happened next.
From the beginning, Americans have done the impossible. It is who we are. It is in the blood of our people.
It is the deepest and most fundamental characteristic of the American soul, reaching back long before the Revolution.
We saw it in the wooden forts of Jamestown, in the first colonies of Plymouth, on the decks of the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, carrying Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic to the shores of a new world.
It is a spirit that despises limitations, that yearns for new frontiers; an unlimited ambition to do what others cannot do, to go where others will not go, to venture into the darkness and discover what lies beyond the horizon.
America did not represent a total break with the past, but rather the culmination of an ancient history that began millennia ago.
We owe much of ourselves to the very country with which our Founders went to war 250 years ago: as President Trump said earlier this year, “this land was settled and forged by men whose veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage”; whose language, culture and fierce love of liberty were a “majestic inheritance” from their ancestors overseas.
Our destiny was shaped, over the centuries, in the kingdoms and empires of Europe, before bursting forth on this continent to build a new world in its image.
Its seeds were planted by the philosophers of Athens, by the imperial majesty of Rome, by the monks and kings of medieval Christendom — centuries of European exploration, science, faith and relentless ambition, finally freed from all restraints on the boundless American frontier.
America was the destiny of an entire civilization. It was here, in our country, that thousands of years of history came to fruition and painted the fullness of its promise on the blank canvas of a new world.
And look at what this has caused.
In only two and a half centuries — the blink of an eye from the perspective of history — Americans have surpassed every precedent that came before us. From microchips and atoms to railroads and rockets, in every new frontier and plane of human progress, we not only transformed a wild and unexplored land into the most powerful nation on Earth; we led all humanity into a new era of history.
We did not do these things out of obligation. We did them because we could. Because no one had ever done them before. Because Americans have always been pioneers — the sons and daughters of the frontier. There is no place we cannot go. There is nothing we cannot do.
And for us, the frontier never closed. When we ran out of land at the western edge of this continent, we began to build upward — airplanes and skyscrapers that pierced the horizon. When we ran out of sky, we went even farther, building machines that could take us to the Moon.
Now, we are at the dawn of a new era, filled with new frontiers and possibilities that our ancestors could barely have dreamed of. And just as we did in every previous chapter, Americans will lead this one as well.
We Americans are the creator people: the spirit of world history is here, in this land, in our hands.
This is our essence. For 250 years, this has been a land of miracles, where extraordinary men performed extraordinary deeds. Tonight, we reaffirm our commitment to our country and to the sacred duty of ensuring that America’s future will be as glorious as its past.
Marco Rubio was sworn in as the 72nd Secretary of State on January 21, 2025. The Secretary is creating a Department of State that puts the interests of the United States first.
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