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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 28, 2021 20:05:15 GMT
What happened to Elizabeth Engstrom? Seems she runs a "Love and Mercy Ministry" in Oregon and writes on theology under her married name Liz Cratty, though she still writes fiction as Elizabeth Engstrom (her last novel, Guys Named Bob, was published in 2018 and seems to be some sort of crime/thriller I think). Her religious beliefs seem to come from something called The Urantia Book, which wikipedia tells me "originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955", "aims to unite religion, science, and philosophy", and "is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an 'epochal' religious revelation". There is a video from 2014 of her speaking about this stuff on YouTube. Oh dear.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 28, 2021 20:15:31 GMT
Quite. In the video she says she was an alcoholic before finding her faith. Ironically, I needed a drink after watching it.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Apr 28, 2021 23:24:19 GMT
Her religious beliefs seem to come from something called The Urantia Book, which wikipedia tells me "originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955", "aims to unite religion, science, and philosophy", and "is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an 'epochal' religious revelation". Wow. That's a new one on me.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 29, 2021 2:28:36 GMT
You guys are cracking me up about Ms. Engstrom. Sounds like "horror" of a sort one wouldn't expect to come upon in this venue.
cheers, Hel
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 29, 2021 7:51:31 GMT
Her religious beliefs seem to come from something called The Urantia Book, which wikipedia tells me "originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955", "aims to unite religion, science, and philosophy", and "is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing an 'epochal' religious revelation". Wow. That's a new one on me. Me too. There's a long article about it on wikipedia. Seems it was a favourite of some musicians in the 60s/70s, including Stockhausen, Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia. It seems to fit with some of the "New Age" ideas of the time, but also has some unsavoury aspects hinting at eugenicist thinking. Science writer and skeptic Martin Gardner published a book about the movement, Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery, in 1995.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 3, 2021 1:25:43 GMT
What happened to Elizabeth Engstrom? Seems she runs a "Love and Mercy Ministry" in Oregon and writes on theology under her married name Liz Cratty, though she still writes fiction as Elizabeth Engstrom (her last novel, Guys Named Bob, was published in 2018 and seems to be some sort of crime/thriller I think). I just discovered that Engstrom has an original story, "Vivid Dreams," in Volume Four of The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories (2020). As far as I can tell, it doesn't include any references to the The Urantia Book.
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Post by Dr Strange on May 3, 2021 8:06:07 GMT
I just discovered that Engstrom has an original story, "Vivid Dreams," in Volume Four of The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories (2020). As far as I can tell, it doesn't include any references to the The Urantia Book. I've read that - I liked it, and thought it was one of the stronger stories in the book.
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