Surviving Off-Off-Grid: Introduction

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INTRODUCTION

If you pay attention to the news there seems to be much trepidation and worry in the world today. Western Civilization seems to be coming apart at the seams; economies around the world are crashing; there are massive job layoffs and bank failures; governments are printing and spending trillions of pretend dollars to try to stem the tide of collapse. There is a palpable nervousness in the air, and it seems that most people are just trying to pretend as if nothing permanently serious is really going on.

For over a century the Western Democracies have seen unprecedented growth and apparent success, and have been the envy of the whole world when it comes to standard of living. Now, if one looks closely, it appears that there is a change coming – and that change is making a lot of people really nervous.

But… have we been here before? Is there a time in history that we can look to in order to learn what is likely to befall Western society in the coming years?

Urbanism and Suburbanism, the Modern Rome

Towards the end of the 4^th century, Rome, the capital city of the Western Roman Empire was a metropolis of more than a million inhabitants. Most of the citizens of Rome were purely urbanites, people who had never known any other life and whose families and households had lived in the city for generations. The agrarian skills and trades that had allowed people to survive and thrive for thousands of years around the world had been almost completely lost by the city-folk in Rome, and, much like today, city dwellers looked down on and sneered at people who actually had (or chose) to work in the soil and with their hands to provide the necessities of survival. People who arrived in Rome from the “country” or from the provinces were considered to be backward bumpkins when compared with the cosmopolitan and progressive people of the city.

Do you think of Rome as an ancient and unrefined city? The city of Rome had running water, a sewage system, baths, mausoleums, temples, clubs, restaurants, pubs, and shops. Many of the homes had air-conditioning, milk delivery, and indoor plumbing. Students attended the city’s many schools and universities. Writers and artists worked by commission for religious leaders, politicians, and rich citizens. Specialization thrived. Most of the residents lived in apartments, walked to their jobs on cobblestone and brick streets lined with flowers and topiary, and spent the majority of their lives within the boundaries of the city. Many Romans had never even seen a farm nor did they possess any practical agrarian survival skills.

JIT – Just In Time

The city was provisioned in much the same way large cities are provisioned today. Away from the city there were clay and stone excavations, gold mines, tin and lead mines, metal forges and factories. Large granaries and warehouses in the harbor city of Portus, south of the city on the Tiber River, stored grains for daily transport for the JIT (Just In Time) supply of Rome. An advanced system of transport and supply kept the city well stocked from every direction. Highways and roads, advanced even by modern standards, allowed for goods to be transported to Rome from all over the known world. With ease a middle-class shopper in Rome could, in a relatively affordable way, buy spices and fabrics from Asia, clothing and tools from local artisans or from the Middle East, and food from Western Europe.

Most of the citizens of Rome were employed in jobs that were necessitated and supported by the massive amount of consumption by the citizens of the city. It was not uncommon for a wealthy Roman citizen to employ as many as 50 full-time paid workers, some whose day might consist solely of polishing candle sticks or sweeping floors, or carrying things from one place to another. Others worked in shops, thermal bath houses, restaurants, accounting offices, business trades, or in the city’s many venues of entertainment. Constant wars and conquests provided the means for a constant inflow of money and material for expansion and for the maintenance of jobs and a stable economy. It is true that Rome had massive slums and areas of poverty and degradation inhabited mainly by slaves and the poorer classes, but it also had very wealthy districts with upscale shops and boutiques.

The Romans, after centuries of living the urban life, had little or no concept of how their food was grown or produced. If you asked a Roman how sustainable his existence was, he might reply “Rome is the eternal city. It has always been here, and it will always be here”. You would have to admit it was something to behold! If you asked that same Roman citizen from where his water came, he would have likely shrugged and pointed to the aqueducts. Like the city, it seemed that free and plentiful water had always just been there. Eleven towering aqueducts, technological marvels built over a span of 500 years, brought cool, clear, potable water into the city from dozens of miles away. Underground pipes brought running water into and provided for air conditioning for the houses of those able to afford it. Huge buildings and structures, built by both paid and slave labor loomed over the city streets. The imposing Roman Colusseum, capable of seating 50,000 spectators, was a marvel of engineering and construction. The Colusseum had stood for over 300 years and was the site of gladiatorial contests, executions, animal hunts, savage battles, and other public spectacles. The Colusseum could even be filled with water for staged mock sea battles. Construction was a way of life in Rome, and, much like in our present cites, construction meant jobs and it gave a sense that things were always going to get bigger and better.

But, at the turn of the 5^th century, even though the Romans did not know it and could not have conceived of it, the end was very, very near. The thought of disaster would have been implausible to a Roman. Rome had not fallen to an enemy army in 800 years, and even though cultural and social memories and historical awareness were much greater back then, it seemed as if Rome, the eternal city, would indeed continue on for centuries more.

The Roman juggernaut was both hated and feared by friends and neighbors alike for hundreds of years and it could be said that, much like America in the early 21^st Century, world opinion had ceased to be favorable for the lone western superpower. By the end of the 4^th century many of the barbarian tribes had begun to unite against domination from Rome. The Visigoths had moved into the Eastern Roman Empire to escape persecution and subjugation by the invading Huns. The Visigoths led by Alaric, and other barbarian tribes now found themselves subjects of Rome, and they often suffered from persecution, high taxes, government intervention and corruption, and forced conscription. Uniting together against Rome, the barbarian armies on several occasions besieged Rome, and in 410 the Eternal City – that shining city that sits on seven hills - fell to the barbarian hordes. The destruction of Rome was unthinkable. But the unthinkable happened, and hundreds of thousands of people – those who were left alive and who had not starved, died of disease, or been killed during the siege – fled into the countryside as Rome was sacked and burned.

During the sieges of Rome by Alaric (there were three in all) starvation and disease killed tens of thousands of people, and the city descended into a maelstrom of bloody violence, robbery, and even cannibalism. It is said that the Roman leaders continued to hold the spectacles and gladiator battles during the siege in order to keep people’s minds off of their miserable condition, only now, instead of merely cheering at the destruction, death, and dismemberment of criminals, slaves, and political and religious prisoners, the people demanded that the bodies of the dead be given to them for meat. In a scene that has been repeated many times in history, city and suburb dwellers, angry, hungry and without any practical skills or means of support, devolved into pitiless beasts when the JIT (Just In Time) means of provisioning dried up, and when the means of production and distribution of mass-produced foods were destroyed.

Europe descended into a period that is now called the Dark Ages. It was dark, not because Rome had been some kind of beacon or a shining light - Rome had always been dark, brutal and nasty, blood thirsty and murderous – it was called “dark” because the elements that fallen man has come to regard as “progress” were all destroyed at the same time and in magnificent fashion. The vacuum created by the fall of Rome was filled by power hungry priests, monks, and Popes, and, because of the ignorance of the people, un-Biblical superstition would reign for nearly a thousand years.

A hundred years after the sacking of Rome farm animals grazed in the now crumbling Colusseum. Adults and children looked at the towering aqueducts and the fabled city streets and marveled at the technologically advanced society that must have created them. Another hundred years after that people were chiseling rocks and stones out of the walls of the Colusseum in order to build rudimentary stone buildings for housing. Many history students look at Roman ruins and believe that the destruction they see is solely the result of time and the elements, but in reality many of those structures were disassembled or torn down piece by piece for the base materials in them that could be had and used for the bare maintenance of life. Students today are taught that the destruction of Rome caused a great leap backwards in technology and knowledge, but wiser and more spiritual minds know that the advancement and success of Rome was actually a work of God designed to show forth his manifold wisdom in its eventual destruction. The technological feat that was Rome was actually a huge deception, a monstrous hologram of success and achievement. Rome was a city powered by blood, coercion, and foreign domination (as any huge city or state must be). The success of Roman life came on the backs of slaves and conquered peoples, and was upheld by the use of crushing tyranny and the usurpation of God-given freedoms. Like in any major metropolis, the maintenance of the city of Rome required massive amounts of taxes and human investment. True wealth, created by the hard work and creativity of productive people who tilled, planted, harvested, milled, mined, built, etc. was expropriated at the point of a sword and by threats. Taxes, as they are in any nation, were acquired in myriad ways, but all of those ways rested on the threat of imprisonment, death, or worse… the Colusseum.

The “advancements” of Rome (those accomplishments that allowed hundreds of thousands of people to live in an artificially built society, separated from the means of production) actually served to cripple and mentally enslave the people who became addicted to city and suburban life. People moved out of the countryside and into the cities and suburbs for many reasons, but most went to Rome because:

1. Agrarian life had become difficult due to the continuous hardships imposed by the constant warfare required for the maintenance of the big city-states. Oppressive taxes were bad enough, but the knowledge that your entire crop (along with your sons and sometimes your daughters) might be “requisitioned” by the next passing army was too much for many to bear. If everything was being stolen or destroyed in order to maintain Rome… why not move to Rome?

2. Rome had assumed an almost mythic status. Country-folk were considered backward and ignorant. Knowledge was in Rome. Advancement was in Rome. Enlightenment was in Rome. Rome, as a woman dressed in red, had become the beautiful and seductive harlot of the world, and fallen man was easily enticed to go in unto her.

3. Greed. It was said that Rome was the richest city in the world. God had commanded man to live simply, and to be satisfied with food and raiment and not to seek riches; but the carnal mind is able to rationalize any behavior. To be frank, GREED is the primary reason most people end up moving to the city. The carnal mind knows that country life is hard, and that there is no safety net. In the country you work and you pray, you plant and you water, and you look to God alone for the increase. City life provides a buffer zone between man and God. Unified work and specialization mitigates the immediate risk of failure, and provides an insurance-like effect when God’s judgment causes failures or disasters. In the country, if your crop failed, you alone were responsible and you were exposed and open before a sovereign God to whom you owed obeisance and service. But if you lived in a city and disaster struck, you could always just get a job polishing furniture or sweeping out kitchens. Risk could be spread out and shared in a Babylonian fashion.

The city-dweller is almost never survival minded. Why should he be? His job is to perform his individual task and let others worry about the details of survival. The advent of specialization fractured the mind and caused man to focus on pieces of the puzzle instead of the whole picture. The urbanite doesn’t concern himself with whether or not the grocer has food or the peddler has supplies because during good times those things are not his concern. His mind is to be focused on his daily specialized tasks and the rest of the brain is allowed to atrophy. Governments and the prophets of urbanization provide entertainments to keep the mind numbed and fractured, and always new trinkets and wonderments to keep the soul anaesthetized. New products must always appear on the shelves in order to stave off boredom – and the manufacture of eternally useless baubles serves to maintain an ever increasing need for jobs, employment, and growth. Survival and preparedness, once an unconscious way of life and a God-given instinct for the continuance of the race and for motivation to productive work, became nothing more than a hobby for enthusiasts and a pacifier for worry-worts.

Modern Society and the Myth of Mitigation of Threats

Today, the idea of corporate mitigation of the threat of disaster or judgment is the foundational idea behind industrial and urban society. Our world now functions on the premise that if people become more specialized and come together to create a global corporate economy (a prosperity machine), that nothing bad can happen to the new global Rome. Modern society is unconsciously designed to take the mind off of the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God, and off of man’s responsibility before God. It is a sublime spiritual irony that, had man remained within God’s declared will as to the manner and means of life and living, he would have not been so susceptible to the massive and destructive threats that face him today… and at the same time, having remained within God’s will, he would be less likely to be facing wrath as a result of his rebellion.

It is an unhappy reality that it often takes massive and devastating economic interruptions in order to get people to think about doing things they ought to have been doing all along. It is a sad commentary on humanity that it often takes the fear of a second great depression to motivate people to learn the lessons of the first great depression. It is a sign of the human condition that most people, most of the time, will not do that which seems uncomfortable for them at the outset, even if it means that doing so will spare them the unbearable in the long run. This book is for the few who are willing to look at facts the way they are, and not just the way that people want them to be.

The 80/20 rule - and why I believe that it is overly optimistic

In every field of endeavor in which I have ever engaged, especially while I was back in the world, there existed what was called an 80/20 rule. Many of you may have heard of it. The 80/20 rule is flexible and it changes based on different situations or genres, but in general it goes like this...

20% of the people do 80% of the work, while 80% of the people do 20% of the work.

20% of the people are producers, while 80% of the people are consumers.

20% of the people provide 80% of the benefits that sustain society, while 80% of the people provide 20% of the benefits.

Many years ago I was in a survival related course, and the instructor said that 80% of the people are “victims, just waiting to happen”, while 20% of the people are rarely victims because they are intelligent, engaged, aware, and responsive. Well, I am going to go on the record as disagreeing with the 80/20 rule in this case. I do not believe that anywhere near 20% of the people are producers, workers, or survivors. I believe 20% is overly optimistic in virtually any situation, and it most certainly is overly optimistic when it comes to survival today. In reality, most of the people you know (likely including you), if examined in a historical context, are now not viable or sustainable, meaning that they would not survive even a short amount of time after a systemic failure of the JIT industrial/consumer life support grid that is our world today. I call this industrial-consumer life support system “the perpetual 72 degree consumer womb”. If a situation were to arise where people were forced, even for a very short amount of time (say weeks or months) to live exactly as their great-grandparents or ancestors lived, they would die off in massive numbers in very short order.

For example, when rural electrification was underway during the depression of the 1930’s, had a huge systemic disaster wiped out the entire electrical system in America for a year, there likely would have been zero deaths that could be directly attributed to the power outage. By contrast, a similar unexpected and systemic loss of electrical power across the whole of America today would likely lead to deaths in the millions (more likely the hundreds of millions) if the outage were to last for a single year.

Industrialism coupled with modern consumer capitalism has created generations of non-viable people, each generation more non-viable than the one before it, each peopled with individuals who cannot and would not survive even the mildest interruption in goods or services without massive government outlays and government rescue programs. We need look no further than Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, or more recently, Hurricane Ike here in Texas, to see how absolutely necessary massive government interventions (with funds and material) are to the short-term survival of modern man. In every case during the last several decades where massive disasters have been recorded, there has always been (however weak and/or slow it may appear) an outside source of stability that was ready and able to jump in and provide aid and comfort to support those who are otherwise unable to survive and support themselves. When hurricane after hurricane punished Florida and the American eastern coast in 2004, aid poured in almost immediately from the rest of the country and around the world. When Hurricane Katrina (historically not the biggest or most devastating storm) destroyed most of New Orleans, we saw the almost immediate complete devolution of that society and the monstrous result of carnal people being stripped of the support structure that has become necessary to sustain them. Even those who did survive well enough, who did not riot, who did not loot, who did not kill or rape – these were bolstered and supported by the knowledge that help was coming, and with the understanding that if they could hunker down and wait it out, they would soon be returned to their former state of dependency on the system which sustains them.

I am going to make a statement that might shock some people, and you would do well to ruminate on it for some time...

I believe that if tomorrow there were some sort of massive and comprehensive systemic disaster, resulting in a loss of JIT goods and services and a loss in available grid electrical power and water, and if that disaster (whether man-made or natural) caused a scenario where omnipresent paternal government could not or would not be able or willing to send any appreciable aid for a long period of time, that fully ½ or more of the population of the United States (or of just about any country for that matter) would die in less than a year. 150+ million deaths in less than a year, just in the United States; and I believe that my prediction is probably on the conservative side.

Think about that. Most people who read that might scoff or deny that such a thing could be possible. Like the Romans in 410 they cannot conceive of such a thing coming to pass, nor can they even begin to quantify the difficulties and realities of what will occur when such a thing comes to pass. If Americans today were forced, without warning, to live for just 1 year exactly like their ancestors lived 150 years ago, the greater part of them would die in a very short amount of time. This is exactly what I mean by “the perpetual 72-degree consumer womb”. This is the very definition of a system that is not-viable, that is unsustainable. Most fat, ignorant, and lazy modernists are likely to disagree with me, because most fat, ignorant, and lazy modernists do not have any idea what life would be like (even on a very short term level) without the government sponsored artificial womb that has been created for them and in which they now live. In every case, for the entire life span of virtually everyone who reads this, there has been a system in place to support and provide for all those who are unable or unwilling to take care of and provide for themselves and their families – and by that I do not mean to say that they are unwilling to “go to work”. I am saying that they are unable or unwilling to provide and support for their families OUTSIDE of the unsustainable JIT system that has put everyone within it at risk. We are several generations removed from the last generation that had to “make it” off the land without a safety net, or an artificial system which piped in food, water, electricity, and whatever else is necessary for “survival”. Even the term Survival, as it is most commonly used today, implies “lasting” or “making it through” to a time or place where the artificial womb of government or industry supplied material comfort and safety is in place. Most survivalist instruction and materials are predicated on the idea that survival means “to persevere until help comes or until ‘normalcy’ returns”, which means that this type of survivalism assumes a return to the crippling and atrophying way of life that put people at risk in the first place. Now, in and of itself and in the short run there is nothing wrong with this type of survival, if it is necessary and if it works. The problem is that so long as we deny that our current system of life and living is unsustainable, then we refuse to move towards a more realistic and honest system of life and living. In the current situation, every person is in daily peril of that very likely and impending reality where the system itself collapses and is either irreparable, or it cannot be restored to its former condition.

So Why This Book?

This book is not really a “how to” book. There will be some how to and plenty of “why to”, but this book was not designed to be a manual on Survival. This book is about decolonizing the corrupted and atrophied mind and teaching people another way to think.

What do we mean by “decolonize”? Well, every colonial power admits that there are certain things it must accomplish when it colonizes a formerly independent and free people. The colonial power must first convince its new subjects (by warfare or education or whatever means necessary) that they must change their former way of life and living. It is not enough that the people be forced to act differently, but, in the long term the newly colonized people must be taught to think differently. They must be reprogrammed. Their minds must be colonized. Colonialism, whether good or bad, is designed to make a people change the way they think and operate so that they can become valuable and beneficial to the colonial power. Well, in order to make a successful and thriving Agrarian people (the American colonies prior to the War Between The States) accept that industrialism would bring prosperity and unity, the minds of the people had to be subjugated and colonized. There is a long story of how this colonization of the mind came to be, and it is a subject that could fill a whole book in itself, but it is inarguable that this colonization of the Western mind took place. Thousands of years of history and successful living were thrown out, the baby with the bathwater. Over a period of 100 years, the Agrarian mind was overthrown and the Industrial and Urban mind was developed. Independency was replaced with dependency. Individuality was replaced with a horrible fake of the same name. The whole mind was fragmented and compartmentalized so that the man or woman can be forced into specialization – like an ant or a bee in a colony. People were robbed of their concept of “wholes” and instead were sold on the virtue of “parts”. Marketers and salesmen applied to the baser desires of greed and covetousness to convince people that their old lives were hard and unprofitable, but in the Brave New World they would have gadgets and fun and free-time, and leisure. The family was fractured, and each member became replaceable. Even the definition of “family” was altered.

Sin is Codified and Man attempts to Reign in God’s Stead

It is our opinion that urban-industrialism (and the inter-connected/inter-dependent world required to support it) is responsible for most of what is wrong with the world. Ok, sin is what is wrong with the world, but industrialism is the coalescence of all that sin does and can do in the world. It is distilled sin, in that it perpetuates and allows all that man imagines, and therefore, in industrialism nothing is restrained from man that he might imagine doing:

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. (Gen 11:6)

Now this makes industrialism the modern tower of Babel. It is the one language of the world, and it is the result of the carnal man saying "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven". Of course the city is urbanism and the tower is industrialism.

Ok, so if you disagree with that, then you have no reason to read further or to investigate the solutions provided for you in this book. Your system (urban industrialism) already reigns and is already out there on the plain of Shinar and you may go get your fill of it. If, however, you agree with what I have said, then Agrarianism is God's survival alternative. We believe that disconnecting from the current system is necessary for our spiritual safety, our physical well-being, and for our eternal good.

The Grid

The connection that ties people into this modern Babylonian system is the system we call "the grid". That grid consists of physical and spiritual connections and services that intertwine us with the world, and cause us to rely on the world system instead of on God. There is a huge difference between utilizing some aspect of the world system, as necessary, for the purpose of further separating from it (much as you would, if you were in a small boat, push off from a dock in order to gain speed to separate from it), and loving the world by being tied to it - so do not let naysayers and illogical barkers convince you that if you believe in separation, that this separation must be complete, total, and immediate - else you are a hypocrite. Let dogs bark. You just go on about the business of being obedient. Dogs defend what they love - never forget that. A barking dog is just defending his first love.

It is ridiculous and stupid for anyone to assert that because, at any particular time, we are still connected in one way or another to the grid, that we are hypocrites or that we are in the precise same position as someone who is completely and utterly dependent on the grid. It is such an illogical assertion that it barely merits a response. Unhappily though, it is the argument that world and grid lovers use the most when trying to defend worldliness. They will look at the Amish and they will say “Ha! Some of the Amish use cell phones or diesel generators! Ha! They are just as worldly as me, and they are hypocrites!” No. They are 99% less dependent on the system than you are. They are almost certainly not dependent on that cell phone or that diesel generator, and they almost certainly will not die if they have to go without it – since they have spent centuries learning how to live and survive off of the grid. So, like I said, the “hypocrisy” charge is as inevitable as it is stupid and illogical. Never mind barkers because they are just defending what they love.

Ok, as I was saying… this world "grid" system is most perfectly represented by the electrical grid. In the electrical grid, everyone is tied together and reliant on some mega-corporate (or fascist state/corporate conglomerate) system to provide them with power. (This is not the section where we discuss electrical power, we are just using electrical power as a parable) Now, the trick for the industrialist is to provide sooooo much power, and at such a seemingly low cost, that people will go out into the corporate industrial stores and buy tons of once needless stuff that can be plugged eternally into wall sockets. Each one of these things in and of itself uses only a nominal amount of power, but each is designed to accomplish several things:

1. To cumulatively provide huge amounts of money to the power company.

2. To make us daily MORE dependent on the power company for the maintenance of a certain "standard of living".

3. To make us daily LESS viable as creatures dependent on God alone for our provision, safety, happiness, and well-being. In other words, each generation is less and less able to survive without the comforts and conveniences provided by grid power.

4. To enslave us to our baser lusts. The system itself is designed to provide proxies for all that God would have for His children. The grid-system provides a perpetual 72 degree womb where every carnal need is met instantly by the world system.

So, after fallen man discovered the ability to create electrical power and to channel it down long power lines to each individual dwelling, the marketing arm of Satan clicked into business. Daily, more and more power gulping systems and gadgets are provided which take mankind farther and farther away from the way that God has ordained that His people live.

The Bible tells us what was the job of man before the fall:

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Gen 2:15)

And this was the job of man after the fall:

Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Gen 3:23)

We are to work with our hands (1 Thess. 4:11), in the ground/soil (Gen. 3:23), and to be content with food and raiment (1 Tim. 6:8). The lie of the industrial grid system is that if you will enslave yourself to your baser lusts (for comfort, leisure, entertainment, sin) then you will not have to labor in the soil. That is basically the gist of it. That is why your parents always told you to go to a worldly college to get a degree... so you won't have to dig ditches. The world hates the idea of working in the soil, because that is what God has decreed for man. The world hates the idea of working in the soil because it reminds us that one day our mortal man must return to dust. Anyway, I digress...

So this grid system is a tool of the world for the enslavement of the minds and hearts of the people. Once again, if you do not agree, you may go your way... your system is out there and you may go have your fill of it. If, however, you still agree or you are considering what I am saying - we can move on to the next step.

GETTING OUT

Getting "off-grid" looks like a monstrous and overwhelming task. It is the giant in the land that keeps us from going in and taking the good land that God has promised us. The grid system is easy and relatively cheap (when you consider that you are already in it, and enslaved to it) in that it will cost you more to get out than to stay in. To be honest with you, our flesh loves air conditioning and microwaves and hair dryers and such things. All the junk we plug in to outlets is designed to please and anaesthetize our flesh. That is why they are so hard to get rid of. The first task in getting off-grid is to fall out of love with these things - to realize that they enslave us and they are poisonous to our souls and to our hope of eternal life. Not that going off-grid could ever save us - but be assured of this one thing, living for our flesh will certainly damn us. Think of going off-grid as going into a lifeboat from a sinking ship. You may not be saved if you go off the ship, but you will surely die if you don’t. Anyway, we have to fall out of love with these things that pamper and cater to the flesh. We have to look at them with a true and pure eye and we must evaluate the true purpose and need of things. We must convince ourselves that most of these things are poisonous to our well-being. Then we can more easily toss them. Those things that are conducive to off-grid living, or that can be used to our benefit, or that can be used to help us on our pilgrimage OUT of the system - we can retain for a time. The next step is to train ourselves to go without these things, and train ourselves on older and better ways of doing things:

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein (Jer. 6:16).

Don't be one of those people who say "we will not walk therein. God has said that the old paths are better than the new ones. That is a fact declared from heaven. Learn it and love it.

The next step is to practice and begin to live the things we say we believe. This is the first real step on the Pilgrim's Progress. Step out and start to practice and live a different life. Sell all of the junk you don't need and begin to procure those things that will help you to live off-grid... which means you need to sell almost everything you own. Best to get used to it, since you won't take any of that stuff to wherever you go after you die anyway. Get rid of stuff and start to make do without.

This book is about a whole new way of thinking and a whole new philosophy of life (new for you, but old when examined historically). It is a paradigm changer, and it is also a spiritual road map to simpler and Godlier living. It is designed to challenge every thing you think about the world around you, and to offer alternatives to modern maxims and accepted shibboleths. In fact, there is nothing new here at all. This is, of all things, a history book – a time machine through which you may become acquainted with your own ancestors and their more successful and holy ways of life.

I pray it succeeds in whatever way the Lord would choose to use it.

GO TO CHAPTER 1