Prolonging the life of your strings, some comments on my ad

[unknown-user]

Dear Friends,

I will be placing a classified on the web site any day and in the

next print edition. The ad offers a proven method for greatly

prolonging the life of your gut stings, or even saving a frayed

string noticed right before a concert!

I have used this method over the course of a forty-year career as a

professional harpist in all kinds of weather. I mention this both so

that you know this method has been tested in the field, and so that

you hopefully feel comfortable with the following offer. I am a

colleague with a good idea, not some Internet scammer.

I don’t want anyone sending in any money if, by chance, they already

know the secret. So, if you think you know it, send me an email with

your guess. I’ll answer you right away. I want to save you the time

and trouble. On the other hand, if you don’t know it, you could save

hundreds of dollars as I have.

Richest blessings in your harp career,

Joel Andrews

[Zen Sojourner]

No offense, but why not just share the “secret” with your “colleagues”?

[Zen Sojourner]

OK, I got an e-mail from this guy suggesting that people who “aren’t interested” should keep their opinions to themselves.

[unknown-user]

Thanks for checking this out, Zen.

[unknown-user]

Dear Friends,

Scam mail has certainly become a problem, so it is understandable that one or two of you were suspicious of this offer. But to judge it without any investigation is not only unfair, but not based on the facts.

Sincerity, honesty, and integrity are guiding principle here at Golden Harp. Please check out our web site: http://www.harpofgold.com. Joel Andrews, acclaimed for his concerts and workshops in 11 countries, has been a healer with the harp for 30 years (see his book “A Harp Full of Stars”). It is next to impossible to do healing work without higher principles in your heart. He is also an ordained minister with love and respect for all people of the earth, and does spiritual counseling. His Pacific Summer Music Colony for harpists ran for 14 years and he now takes it on the road. After a 40-year career he is a fund of valuable information.

We hope you will honor yourself by making your own private decision about this legitimate and valuable offer, which could save you hundreds of dollars and frustration. Income from this offer will fund a worthy project. We have a stack of the Instruction Sheets on our desk ready to be mailed out.

Richest Blessings in your exploration of out beloved instrument.

The Golden Harp Staff

[Zen Sojourner]

Alrighty then.

[unknown-user]

Hmmmm…another New Age music healer???

[Zen Sojourner]

Thanks, I’ve asked the library to send me a copy of that book.

[unknown-user]

Dear Friends,

This is not directed to those few souls who have taken it upon themselves to distort my work for their own motives (most innovators have to suffer this indignity) but to those others who might be affected by their biased ridicule — those who have a sincere desire for the truth. I doubt that my detractors are open to anything but what they have already decided, so entrenched in their stand are they. From the standpoint of a student of psychology anyone who has a need to ridicule others (especially those they don’t even know) probably has a bruised ego whose self-esteem requires bolstering, usually at the expense of others. The sad thing is that whenever you do this it comes back to you, eventually. What I see here is that these minds have put themselves in the service of “a priori” judgments (stances made before research.) This is one of the traps of logic called a “tautology” where the answer is inherent in the question.

I am hard at work serving people from many countries, so I don’t have much time for refutation, but here are just a few examples of my critics’lack of thoroughness and honest respect for the truth.

Why don’t the many glowing and grateful testimonials from my clients listed on my website mean anything to them? (I have over 400 letters of this kind on file.)How about the signed comments by doctors reporting the effectiveness of my music with their patients? How about the comment by Dr. C. Norman Shealy, founder and director of the Shealy Clinic for Comprehensive Health Care, and founder of the Holistic Nurses Association who commissioned me to make four tapes which are used extensively in the clinic, and asked me to present for the nurses?

Then they say there are no scientific reports on my website. To be sure it’s not a site for scientists, but there is a letter from Dr. Marcel Vogel, scientific researcher, who worked for IBM for many years, reporting on the laboratory results of my music on water. In it he says that the music changed the Ph of the water,it’s electro-conductivity, and its ability to transmit the UV spectrum. Also, they seem to be ignorant of the research that’s being done in the correlation between DNA patterns and musical notes. I never solicited that group of Japanese researchers to write me about the patterns they found in a concert I played in Tokyo. I would be more inclined to believe these scientists who have spent many years studying DNA, wouldn’t you? My critics don’t show their credentials in this highly specialized research.

Then. How do they presume to make assumptions about my family? I was married to Alan Watts’ daughter, Ann, for 10 years and had two children by her, Myra and Michael.Alan’s book, “This Is It” is dedicated to Ann, and his book “The Book” includes in the dedication, Myra and Michael. In Alan’s autobiography “In My Own Way” he mentions me as his son-in-law. Yes, he died in 1973. Yes, I started giving workshops around 1976 and it is also absolutely true that he invited my to take part in his workshops at Esalen and on his ferry boat (the Vallejo) in Sausalito in the ’60s. He wanted to play Herman Hesse’s “The Bead Game”, a fascinating exercise involving translating from one art form into another. I still remember the details of that game we played. Esalen would have, of course, records of those workshops and the concerts I played there. They don’t have flakes present there. I have performed there often through the years, with Al Huang, Paul Winter, and Paul Horn.

How can they presume to know my financial situation? Working very hard I have been able to make a living, and do my part to support my family,

[Zen Sojourner]

1) I can’t afford your workshops.

[unknown-user]

I would like to point out, which Joel Andrews doesn’t for some reason, that he has very good credentials as a harpist. He studied with Salzedo at the Curtis Institute, taught at the University of Texas for several years and organized a major harp festival there, where Salzedo made his last concert appearances. I heard Joel play in New York in the late ’80s, at a famous psychic bookstore. He plays beautifully, and his improvisations sound a lot like Hovhaness. A lot of arpeggios in dorian mode and such. There were a lot of very needy people in the audience, reaching out with their weaknesses for some help. As a trained healer, I tried to feel some emanation from his music or charisma, and I’m sorry to say I felt none. Gerald Goodman was there next to me. I remember turning to him and saying, “I have more healing in my little finger…” What is most disturbing to me is, of all the creative aspects of Salzedo’s great mind and spirit, to become a California-fried showman-I mean “shaman” huckster–I mean harpist–is to lose my respect. There are healers in the world, and too many equate healing with receiving gold. The fact is, it’s not that effective compared with medicine. Of course, doctors have perfected the art of receiving gold. I think if Joel Andrews got back into being a great harpist he would find more fulfillment and healing ability than he will on the ego plane of existence that is California Culture in my view. I hope he at least gives free healing to the needy part of

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