Why migrate to Substack?
Shortly after I emailed the last Bartholomew Material Newsletter (No 8), I was surprised by the almost total lack of response from the current 100+ recipients on the mailing list. So I checked the percentage of people who opened that email and discovered that only 25% of them had received it. I checked further by asking a few of them individually if they had received it and the answer was overwhelmingly negative, confirming that there clearly was a problem with the delivery mechanis
Add to that the facts that a) writing and sending the newsletter the old way is very labor-intensive and - more importantly - b) it didn’t allow for any type of interaction except bilateral emails, and it became clear that another solution was needed.
Enter Substack, the new program that allows anyone with minimal writing skills to publish anything they want and have it sent to a specific mailing list and/or make it available to the public. In addition, it can be accessed for free, with an optional paid subscription.
A new beginning.
So here we are. I am hoping that this new medium will facilitate more frequent communications and discussions about the many fascinating aspects of Bartholomew’s teachings. My intention is to send regularly a message with the latest updates on the tapes uploaded to the BartholomewMaterial.com site, with comments and observations gleaned from listening to this wonderful material.
You will notice a space for comments at the bottom of this message, so comment away if you feel so inspired.
Let’s start building a community! How about sharing:
a. what you think of this new format, and
b. how did you discover the Bartholomew material and what impact it has had on your life so far?
This will be also a useful platform to answer questions anyone might have about the tapes and their content.
How it all started
Since I never explained in writing how I ended up as custodian (for the time being) of the remarkable treasure of the Bartholomew tapes, this seems a perfect opportunity to do so.
Some seven years ago I woke up one day wondering where I had misplaced some old cassette tapes that had to do with some channeling material I had acquired in Tucson, AZ many years before and remembered to be excellent. For some unknown reason, I felt it was important that I find the list of tapes that I knew I had somewhere in the piles of papers on my desk, but I couldn’t find it. By then thankfully Google had appeared as the go-to solution to all the problems of the world, but when I asked about “Bartholomew tapes”, the search came up empty except for one link that provided an email address to Mary-Margaret Moore, the channel through which Bartholomew dispensed his wisdom (for an explanation by Mary-Margaret herself on how she came to become such a channel and who Bartholomew was, see here).
Mary-Margaret Moore channeling Bartholomew
I sent an email to Mary-Margaret asking where I could find a copy of that list and purchase some of the tapes. Much to my delight, she answered the next day… to inform me that the tapes were not sold any more. As I didn’t hide my disappointment, she added that they were “in storage”. Now puzzled, I asked if anyone was doing anything with them, to which she responded that no, they were simply in the custody of her friend Phyllis in Taos (Mary-Margaret herself was in Albuquerque). To make a long story short, I contacted Phyllis, who said that she didn’t handle any type of tape duplication and shipping, but if I wanted to come over and pick them up, with Mary-Margaret’s approval, I could have them.
As luck - or fate - would have it, my wife had planned a trip for the two of us to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos a few months later! As soon as she told me, I contacted Mary-Margaret again and asked her if we could meet with her to allow me to explain what I thought could be done with the tapes. She readily agreed, but then two days before the day we were to meet, her husband Justin had a stroke. I immediately contacted her again to suggest another date given this tragedy, but much to my surprise she insisted that we should meet as planned.
My wife and I met Mary-Margaret for lunch in Albuquerque and I explained that on average cassette tapes have a shelf life of about 50 years, depending on the conditions in which they are kept, but after that they start to decay, and their content is then lost to posterity. I said that I was really concerned that since no one appeared to be doing anything to preserve them, the mountains of wisdom contained in these tapes could just disappear and nothing would be left of their precious content, except for the few that served as source for the five books published to date. I said that a salvage operation was urgently needed, and I offered to convert all the tapes (on a voluntary basis) into electronic .mp3 files, which would not only guarantee that they would be safeguarded, but also that that they could be easily duplicated.
Mary-Margaret gave us her blessing to meet with Phyllis to collect the tapes. We then went to Taos where we had a delighful meeting with Phyllis, who was pleased to hand the tapes over to us. Only then did I realize what that meant: over 1,200 cassette tapes! They were shipped (at my expense) to San Diego where we were living at the time, and as soon as I received them a couple of weeks later, I started the conversion process in earnest.
As of today, I am pleased to report that all the tapes have been converted and are thus preserved (except for a handful still missing, listed here). But a simple conversion from tape to .mp3 file is only the first step. More information on the process involved will be given in future posts. In total, approximately a quarter of all the tapes have been uploaded to the site so far. The complete listing can be found here.
Between our first meeting and her passing, Mary-Margaret regularly expressed both her approval and her gratitude that the material she devoted most of her life to would be preserved and, thanks to the communications tools available today, become available to the whole world, a world that she loved so much to travel (see the map of her trips).
Thanks J.J for all that you have done and continue to do to keep Bartholomew's wisdom alive.
Hello, JJ, I have not used substack before, but I hear that it is a great forum for spreading ideas. I will write more about my experience with Bartholomew! Thank you for continuing to do this important work.