Christianity: Opium or Truth

Christianity: Opium or Truth PDF Author: David Gooding
Publisher: Myrtlefield House
ISBN: 1874584540
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Is Christianity just a belief that dulls the pain of our existence with dreams that are beautiful but false? Or is it an accurate account of reality, our own condition and God’s attitude toward us? Gooding and Lennox address crucial issues that can make it difficult for thoughtful people to accept the Christian message. They answer those questions and show that clear thinking is not in conflict with personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Christianity: Opium or Truth

Christianity: Opium or Truth PDF Author: David Gooding
Publisher: Myrtlefield House
ISBN: 1874584540
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Is Christianity just a belief that dulls the pain of our existence with dreams that are beautiful but false? Or is it an accurate account of reality, our own condition and God’s attitude toward us? Gooding and Lennox address crucial issues that can make it difficult for thoughtful people to accept the Christian message. They answer those questions and show that clear thinking is not in conflict with personal faith in Jesus Christ.

The Truth about Opium Smoking

The Truth about Opium Smoking PDF Author: Benjamin Broomhall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description


Opium Fiend

Opium Fiend PDF Author: Steven Martin
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0345517857
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A renowned authority on the secret world of opium recounts his descent into ruinous obsession with one of the world’s oldest and most seductive drugs, in this harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery. A natural-born collector with a nose for exotic adventure, San Diego–born Steven Martin followed his bliss to Southeast Asia, where he found work as a freelance journalist. While researching an article about the vanishing culture of opium smoking, he was inspired to begin collecting rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking equipment. Over time, he amassed a valuable assortment of exquisite pipes, antique lamps, and other opium-related accessories—and began putting it all to use by smoking an extremely potent form of the drug called chandu. But what started out as recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that consumed Martin’s every waking hour, left him incapable of work, and exacted a frightful physical and financial toll. In passages that will send a chill up the spine of anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of substance abuse, Martin chronicles his efforts to control and then conquer his addiction—from quitting cold turkey to taking “the cure” at a Buddhist monastery in the Thai countryside. At once a powerful personal story and a fascinating historical survey, Opium Fiend brims with anecdotes and lore surrounding the drug that some have called the methamphetamine of the nineteenth-century. It recalls the heyday of opium smoking in the United States and Europe and takes us inside the befogged opium dens of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The drug’s beguiling effects are described in vivid detail—as are the excruciating pains of withdrawal—and there are intoxicating tales of pipes shared with an eclectic collection of opium aficionados, from Dutch dilettantes to hard-core addicts to world-weary foreign correspondents. A compelling tale of one man’s transformation from respected scholar to hapless drug slave, Opium Fiend puts us under opium’s spell alongside its protagonist, allowing contemporary readers to experience anew the insidious allure of a diabolical vice that the world has all but forgotten.

Imperial Twilight

Imperial Twilight PDF Author: Stephen R. Platt
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307961745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War. As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to “open” China even as China’s imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country’s decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China’s advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable—and mostly peaceful—meeting of civilizations that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history. Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American characters, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today’s uncertain and ever-changing political climate.

The Truth About Opium

The Truth About Opium PDF Author: William H. Brereton
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781547052998
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
But if Mr. Storrs Turner has declined the contest, an acolyte of his, Mr. B. Broomhall, -who appears to be the Secretary of the Inland China Mission, and one of the "Executive Committee" of the Anti-Opium Society, -comes upon the scene like King Hamlet's ghost, declaring that he "could a tale unfold, whose lightest breath would harrow up your souls, freeze the hot blood, and make each particular hair to stand on end." Plagiarising, if not pirating, my title, with a colourable addition of the word "Smoking," he produces, in November 1882, a compilation entitled "The Truth about Opium-Smoking," rather a thick pamphlet, made up of excerpts from all the writings and speeches, good, bad, and indifferent, that have been published and delivered within the last thirty years on the Anti-Opium side of the question, with some critical matter of his own, from all of which it appears most conclusively that he, Mr. B. Broomhall, is perfectly innocent of the subject he undertakes to enlighten the world upon. I think I see through this gentleman and his objects pretty well. With respect to the authors of these writings and speeches, I may say at once that I hold them in as much respect as Mr. B. Broomhall does himself.

The Truth about Opium: Being a Refutation of the Fallacies of the Anti-Opium Society and a Defence of the Indo-China Opium Trade

The Truth about Opium: Being a Refutation of the Fallacies of the Anti-Opium Society and a Defence of the Indo-China Opium Trade PDF Author: William H. Brereton
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465590390
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
ÊThe object of these lectures is to tell you what I know about opium smoking in ChinaÑa very important subject, involving the retention or loss of more than seven millions sterling to the revenue of India, and what is far more precious, the character and reputation of this great country. With respect to the former, I would simply observe that I do not intend to deal with the question on mere grounds of expediency, strong as such grounds unquestionably are, for, if I believed that one-half of what is asserted by the ÒAnglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade,Ó as to the alleged baneful effects of opium smoking upon the Chinese, were true, I should be the first to raise my humble voice against the traffic, even though it involved the loss, not of seven millions sterling, but of seventy times seven. But it is because I know that these statements and all the grave charges made by the supporters of that society, and repeated from day to day, against the Government of India and the Government of this country, and also against the British merchants of China, to be not only gross exaggerations but absolutely untrueÑmere shadowy figments, phantasies, and delusionsÑthat I come forward to draw aside the curtain, and show you that behind these charges there is no substance. Were my knowledge of the opium question derived merely from books and pamphlets, articles in the newspapers, and ordinary gossip, I would not venture to trespass upon your time and attention, because in that respect you have at your disposal the same means of information as I have myself. But I come before you with considerable personal experience, and special knowledge of the subject, having lived and practised as a solicitor for nearly fifteen years in Hong Kong, where I had daily experience, not only of the custom and effects of opium smoking, but also of the trade in opium in both its crude and prepared state. I had there the honour of being solicitor to the leading British and other foreign firms, as well as to the Chinese, from the wealthy merchant to the humble coolie; so that during the whole of that period down to the present time I have had intimate relations in China with foreigners and natives, especially with those engaged in the opium trade. Under these circumstances I had daily intercourse with the people from whom the best and most trustworthy information on the subject of opium and opium smoking could be obtained, and my experience is that opium smoking, as practised by the Chinese, is perfectly innocuous. This is a fact so patent that it forces itself upon the attention of every intelligent resident in China who has given ordinary attention to the subject.Ê

Narcotic Culture

Narcotic Culture PDF Author: Frank Dikötter
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226149059
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
To this day, the perception persists that China was a civilization defeated by imperialist Britain's most desirable trade commodity, opium—a drug that turned the Chinese into cadaverous addicts in the iron grip of dependence. Britain, in an effort to reverse the damage caused by opium addiction, launched its own version of the "war on drugs," which lasted roughly sixty years, from 1880 to World War II and the beginning of Chinese communism. But, as Narcotic Culture brilliantly shows, the real scandal in Chinese history was not the expansion of the drug trade by Britain in the early nineteenth century, but rather the failure of the British to grasp the consequences of prohibition. In a stunning historical reversal, Frank Dikötter, Lars Laamann, and Zhou Xun tell this different story of the relationship between opium and the Chinese. They reveal that opium actually had few harmful effects on either health or longevity; in fact, it was prepared and appreciated in highly complex rituals with inbuilt constraints preventing excessive use. Opium was even used as a medicinal panacea in China before the availability of aspirin and penicillin. But as a result of the British effort to eradicate opium, the Chinese turned from the relatively benign use of that drug to heroin, morphine, cocaine, and countless other psychoactive substances. Narcotic Culture provides abundant evidence that the transition from a tolerated opium culture to a system of prohibition produced a "cure" that was far worse than the disease. Delving into a history of drugs and their abuses, Narcotic Culture is part revisionist history of imperial and twentieth-century Britain and part sobering portrait of the dangers of prohibition.

The Opium Prince

The Opium Prince PDF Author: Jasmine Aimaq
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1641291591
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Jasmine Aimaq’s stunning debut explores Afghanistan on the eve of a violent revolution and the far-reaching consequences of a young Kochi girl’s tragic death. Afghanistan, 1970s. Born to an American mother and a late Afghan war hero, Daniel Sajadi has spent his life navigating a complex identity. After years in Los Angeles, he is returning home to Kabul at the helm of a US foreign aid agency dedicated to eradicating the poppy fields that feed the world’s opiate addiction. But on the drive out of Kabul for an anniversary trip with his wife, Daniel accidentally hits and kills a young Kochi girl named Telaya. He is let off with a nominal fine, in part because nomad tribes are ignored in the eyes of the law, but also because a mysterious witness named Taj Maleki intercedes on his behalf. Wracked with guilt and visions of Telaya, Daniel begins to unravel, running from his crumbling marriage and escalating threats from Taj, who turns out to be a powerful opium khan willing to go to extremes to save his poppies. This groundbreaking literary thriller reveals the invisible lines between criminal enterprises and political regimes—and one man’s search for meaning at the heart of a violent revolution.

DOPE, INC. Britain's Opium War Against the World

DOPE, INC. Britain's Opium War Against the World PDF Author: Executive Intelligence Review
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781615772858
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
The Opium Wars of 1840-1860 were dark chapters of history. Britain went to war to force China to import thousands of tons of opium, to cripple and impoverish that nation. The Opium Wars never really ended. The U.S., like China, was too great for the London money lords to occupy by force. One way America is being brought to heel is by the drug trade. Crime and other social problems in the U.S. and Mexico are massively influenced by drugs and drug dealing. Illicit drugs may now account for as much as $1 trillion annually in financing for criminal activity and corruption. TOPICS: The East India Company; British role in the drug trade, from the wars on China, the HongShanghai Bank, Bronfmans, Prohibition, and Organized Crime in the U.S. Financial derivatives; Wall St., money laundering; medical marijuana. decriminalization; Soros and IMF links to drugs. Afghan opium; Colombian cartel; terrorism. Russia targeted by Dope, Inc. cocaine, heroin, amphetamines. More than 30 years have passed since the first edition of Dope, Inc. was published, in 1978. Commissioned by Lyndon Larouche, it threatened the world's power structure. It became America's underground best-seller. Dope, Inc. drew the line between American patriots and the British apparatus destroying the USA. The London and Wall Street bankers ran for cover. A mammoth campaign of slander and government dirty tricks tried to bury the authors, because Dope, Inc. revealed the most deeply held secrets of the big names behind the world's illegal narcotics trade. In Venezuela, the leading drug-running families who were exposed in the Spanish-language version, Narcotrafico, S.A., used their political influence to have it banned and confiscated. Financiers scrambled to control the damage of this unprecedented exposure. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was denied a license in New York State because it failed to refute the charges in Dope, Inc, when the state demanded accounting of its hidden profits, silent subsidiaries, and paraphernalia of money-laundering. Now in 2010, Dope, Inc. is completely updated: Soros - Afghanistan - the government and bankers behind the cartels. Today the British-controlled dope trade finances the world's leading terrorist entities - Afghanistan's Taliban, the Chechen rebels, the FARC guerrillas of Colombia. Dope money supports the bankrupt world financial system. A trillion dollars goes through the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Dubai. Speculation makes it trillions more. It sucks the blood of the real economy; and the dope destroys mankind's powers of reason.

AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire

AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire PDF Author: Nancy Turner Banks
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450201717
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
It is a mistake to think that wars only concern armies involved in active engagement. Nothing is farther from the truth. The real forces of evil wage a financial war. The dark princes of debt finance have gained leverage over every important social, economic, and political institution-including the health care delivery system. In AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire, author Nancy Turner Banks draws the connections between free market strategies, the destruction of national sovereignty by the process of globalization, and AIDS as one of the health consequences of a neo-Darwinian philosophy. Through meticulous research, Banks found a medicalpharmaceutical- industrial complex that was taken over one hundred years ago by the titans of financial capitalism. Their aim was to create profit, not to conquer disease. This book of social history points to a cauldron of historical events that contributed to the HIV/AIDS crisis. AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire tells the dramatic story of a financial ideology that is damaging to everything that it means to be human. It is the story of profits over people. In the end, it is the story of hope and how we can regain our sanity and our health in a world gone mad.