Dear Friends,

In order to keep new and old members of the WhiteGold list up-to-date on the customs and procedures involved with the use and administration of this list we have created this  manual.

JOINING OR LEAVING THE WHITEGOLD EMAIL LIST

To join or leave the WhiteGold list send an email to:

whitegold-list@zz.com

Put the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" on the "Subject:" line  (leave out the quotes around the words).

If you have trouble getting the response you wish, send me a note with your wishes and I will take care of it for you. My email address is bcarter@igc.org.

GETTING THE DAILY DIGEST INSTEAD OF INDIVIDUAL EMAILS

You can subscribe to the daily digest of all the day's WhiteGold posts by sending a message to:

whitegold-request@zz.com with "subscribe digest" on the "Subject:" line of the message.

The digest is sent out at midnight every day.

MODERATED FORUM

The WhiteGold Forum is a moderated email list. This means that the moderator of the list reviews every post you send to the list before it gets sent on to the whole list. Here are some guidelines that The moderator uses when deciding whether or not to forward a message on to the whole list:

FOUR POSTS PER DAY: Due to the volume of email to the WhiteGold list we recommend that you post no more than four posts per person per day to the list.

STAY ON TOPIC: Be sure that your post is related to ORMUS in some way. Generally, my policy about this is quite liberal since it could probably be shown that virtually everything is related. Certain topics--like "colloidal silver"--are generally accepted as being related though this connection has not been formally stated anywhere. Other topics--such as political or religious viewpoints--should be related to ORMUS somewhere in the text of the message.

RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL POSTS: In the past we have had problems when religious or political posts have sparked animosity and heated debate. In order to mitigate these problems I created the ORMUS and Spirit list and the ORMUS Politics list for these kinds of discussion and debate. The rules of civil discussion still apply to these forums.

In some situations, a person's religious or political background may be germane to their ORMUS experience. I want to encourage people to describe their religious or political perspective when this is the case. These statements of belief should not be construed as an opening for discussion or debate on the merits of specific political or religious values.

TRIM YOUR QUOTES: When replying to an existing message be sure that you only include those quotes from previous messages in the thread, which directly relate to the issue that your post addresses. Not trimming your quotes is inconsiderate because it uses up other people's expensive hard drive space, it wastes Internet bandwidth and because it wastes people's time by forcing them to review messages that they may have already read while checking to be sure that there are no more reply sentences hidden in the quote.

A related problem is that reply sentences can be very difficult to find when they are interspersed with quoted text especially if one does not put spaces between the quote and the reply. When interspersing your reply we recommend that you separate your reply from the quote and the following quote with double spaces, an underline or your name ahead of your reply.

If you have any formatting problems which you cannot solve feel free to contact the moderator for help.

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR: Misspelled and improperly used words can be a barrier to clear communication and greater acceptance of one's ideas. If this concerns you, you may wish to run a spell checker on your messages before sending them.

Remember that the spell checker will not find words that are spelled right but used improperly. This problem is most frequently seen with the improper use of words that sound the same but are spelled differently according to their meaning. The most commonly misused words in this category are there, they're, their, to and too.

Here are some hints for choosing the proper word among these. "Their" means "belonging to them", "they're" is short for "they are" and "there" refers to somewhere else as in "over there".

Another similar situation is improper use of capital letters. Folks sometimes don't capitalize the first letter in sentences or capitalize other words when it is not necessary.

It also makes for easier reading if you double space between paragraphs as I have done in this document. This helps by dividing the page up into separate thoughts and gives your reader more visual clues to where they are as they read the page.

BE CIVIL: We do not forward posts which are rude, threatening or which are not respectful of the political and religious viewpoints of others.

This forum is not a competition. It is, instead, a cooperative effort. We are at the cutting edge of our work and need a variety of views to keep breaking new ground.

We need appreciation without adoration and disagreement without denigration. Stay eye to eye with each other whether one is an expert or novice, a newcomer or an old-timer--all can contribute something to the whole.

Own your views--saying "I believe . . .", or the equivalent, which allows you your space and still leaves room for others.

Keep your enthusiasm, humility, and your respect for one another.

CITING SOURCES AND PROVIDING EVIDENCE: Some disagreements on the WhiteGold list might be toned down a bit if people are more careful about citing their sources and/or providing evidence in support of their claims. I'm going to give some examples of how this might work.

Suppose someone writes:

This might be considered to be an extraordinary claim that flies in the face of conventional understanding. This statement, alone, provides no clue as to the source of the information and provides no evidence in support of the claim.

A simple change of wording would make this statement more acceptable. This change can take several forms:

"I believe that all Americans levitate daily." - This is a statement of belief and does not require any supporting evidence though folks may be curious about why someone believes this.

"A random survey of 500 Americans conducted by ZYX News shows that 98% of the survey sample believe that they levitate daily." - This looks more like verifiable information. The source and some scientific criteria for the information is stated.

"At www.zyxnews.com you will find a story about how all Americans levitate daily." - Though the story on the web site may be a hoax or may be totally unsubstantiated the claim that you will find a story on that subject at that web page can be easily verified.

"God told me, through my spirit guides, that all Americans levitate daily." - Here, the writer has cited a source. We might question the availability of this source for this writer but at least we know how the writer came by this information.

"According to a report in the Journal of Outrageous Science (see www.jos.out/levitate.htm), scientists working at JOS Labs in the American state Alaskansasia have measured a one percent decrease in the weight of all Americans studied at the time of high tide. This weight decrease is greater than would be expected by tidal effects alone." - This statement sounds scientific, is verifiable and has some indication about the reliability of the evidence in support of the extraordinary claim.

In summary:
Express opinions as opinions by prefacing them with "I believe", "I suspect", "Pater believes" or something similar. Cite the source for your information. Provide supporting evidence if you have it.

I want to encourage people to share their personal experiences with ORMUS. When you are describing a personal experience it is almost impossible to  question your facts.

Please be wary of statements that include universal qualifiers like "all Americans" or "all alchemists". Such statements presume that the person who is making them has direct knowledge of all of the thoughts and actions of all Americans or all alchemists. Though it is possible that the person making such statements is omniscient in this way, I think it is very unlikely. Such statements often appear more as evidence of the hubris of the person who is making them than as the product of rational thought or compassionate communication.

I may forward an occasional post from any given individual that violates the rules described above. If your posts violate any of these rule often I will send them back to you for correction often.

ANONYMITY

Since its inception in February of 1996 it has been the policy of the WhiteGold Forum to keep the names and contact information of its subscribers as private as those subscribers wish to be. We determine whether a person wishes to make this kind of information available to the entire list by whether or not they include this kind of information in the body of their post or in their signature lines. If you include only your first name at the bottom of your post that is all that will be included in the "From:" line in the header.

That having been said, we recommend that you identify yourself to the group in some way or another. This helps people to follow discussions and to get a feel for the people they are communicating with. If you wish to maintain anonymity you can still do so by using a "screen name" or alias in this forum.

SIGNATURES: I have noticed that folks sometimes do not include contact information in their emails to this forum when the context of their note suggests that they intend to. It is easy to forget to do this sort of thing but there is an easy way to make sure that you always include this information. You can set up a signature file which will automatically include this kind of information at the end of every email. If you sometimes include this info and sometimes do not, you can set up several signature files so that just the information you want is included with each email you send.

To add a signature in Microsoft Outlook Express click on Tools, choose Options and select the Signatures tab to set up signatures. In Eudora; click on Tools and select Signatures. In Netscape Mail; click on Edit, select Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings and choose a text file with your signature information in it.

A signature is especially useful if you sell or promote an ORMUS product on the WhiteGold list as it can include a link to your web site and information on how to contact folks in your company. It can also include a quote or thought that you wish to convey to everyone without posting it in the body of your note.

ARCHIVES

You can download the old WhiteGold posts year by year on my website from the following link:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/wgarchives.htm

These are zipped Eudora files and can be viewed in any wordprocessor after unzipping. They can also be imported into the Netscape and Outlook mail programs.

You can search recent WhiteGold archives at:

http://www.pleiadian.org/alchemy

You can search older WhiteGold archives at:

http://whitegold.twentythree.us/

You can also share your experiences with various ORMUS products at:

http://www.pleiadian.org/products/

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

You can find a web page with answers to some frequently asked questions about ORMUS at:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/faq.htm

There is a wealth of additional information on the web. Much of this is linked from the following web page:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/index.htm

PARTICIPATION

If you have any suggestions for additions or corrections of this manual please feel free to let us know.

We have set up a number of local email lists so that people can get together with others in their area to share ideas and to work on ORMUS projects together. Local email lists also make it easier to invite the participation of people who do not have email. It will help me to direct you to a local workgroup if I know your approximate location and something about the nature of your interest in ORMUS.

We would like to encourage everyone on this list to tell others about ORMUS and invite them to join the WhiteGold Forum. Please spread the word about ORMUS in any way you can. You can read more about local email lists and other ways to get involved at:

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/help.htm

I want to thank all of you for your continuing participation in the WhiteGold Forum.

With kindest regards,
Barry Carter