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Miracles

Posted by Roberta Grimes • May 27, 2023 • 26 Comments
Human Nature

Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us. Above us, only sky.
Imagine all the people Livin’ for today.
Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people Livin’ life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will be as one.
John Winston Lennon (1940-1980), from “Imagine” (1971)

All of humankind has every reason to grieve as we consider that year-325 fork in the road that sadly never was taken. Burdened as we all have been by the almost continuous wars and the senseless restrictions imposed on us by Western civilization, and burdened as we all still are by the Roman Emperor Constantine’s bloody Christianity, I think we always have known, at least on some level, that there must have been some better way! From my own perspective, I am finding that it is only now, after my two dear friends have spent that one week taking me back to visit again the place that I had almost forgotten, with people living free of restraints who never had heard of Jesus but who nevertheless were living as if He walked among them, that I even can begin to make some sense of the exotic Atlantican way of life. But might Atlantica ever have been in any sense real?

And that was the most amazing thing about it for me. Back in the early Seventies, I remember now that I found the whole Atlantican way of life to be so flat-out strange that it didn’t seem real, and I never connected it with Jesus at the time. And yet, by 1975 or so, after I had spent years of floundering, my experimenting with trying to reinvent civilization had at last settled down and begun to be stable. And it had become so detailed by then that it had on some level begun to seem like an actual place. But the people on Atlantica just kept on doing things that simply still confound me. Back in the Seventies, when I thought that I was inventing Atlantica all on my own, only about half of this made any sense to me at all. And I had no idea where most of these ideas were coming from. But as I shortly will tell you, I realize now that Atlantica was not after all my own invention. Here it all is again, in summary:

  • The people go naked all summer. Their clothing is unisex pants and tunics made of homespun wool. Think Medieval peasants. The summers there are hot, so in the spring of each year they just abandon clothing. Men who are running or logging or doing something else vigorous that might result in injury will tie things up, and nursing mothers bind their breasts so they won’t drip, but otherwise they are as naked as jaybirds all summer long. No one looks. No one cares.
  • They don’t have personal possessions. Everything is communal, including even clothing and things like hairbrushes. They don’t use toothbrushes because they clean their gums and tongue with a fresh twig from a specific kind of tree, and then they throw that twig away. Otherwise, everything is homemade, and it is all in common use. They teach a lack of attachment to objects with sharing-games for infants and toddlers, and all their stuff for general use in each village is kept in one big building where the children and young people sleep until marriage. There is no rule against having something of your own, but there is an Atlantican term that translates as “too big bother.” They take that saying to heart.
  • They never assign jobs. The most they will do is to announce that this or that kind of work is ready to be done. Someone will stand up as people are eating in the greathouse and say that fish are running, and there were only two boats out there this morning. Or someone else might say that they just came through the garden, and a lot of squashes need to be collected or they will soon be overripe. That, plus the fact that most people like to do a variety of things during any given day so they wander around looking for things to do, tends to ensure that everything gets done. Those who have favorite workshops will set them up so doing your own little bits of productive work in them is as easy as possible.
  • They don’t judge. If someone does something harmful to someone else or to the community, or if someone even acts in an inappropriate way, everyone is all over the miscreant at once, trying to help him or her feel better. Even whoever may have been specifically harmed will try to make the evildoer feel better, and for years thereafter the whole community will watch that miscreant to see whether she or he might do it again. This way of treating crime is so central to the culture that it seems to act as a deterrent to wrongdoing. As a wise Atlantican friend once put it to Marvina, “If you know that just kicking up your heels that one time is going to put a loving bull’s-eye on your back for years, don’t you think that might act as a deterrent?”
  • There are never individual standouts. They have all the children playing lots of games on constantly changing teams. Their teams are assembled on the spot – four, seven, ten children on each – and then they run, and the point might be that the team that can all manage to finish at the same time first wins. Or each team tries to get all the woolen balls of a certain color first through a hoop. Or they hold swim races to collect the most clams in their team’s bucket. But it is always the whole pickup team that is praised, and never just one child. This seems to foster in all the children a sense of strength in community, which is the likely point of it.
  • They consider a leadership talent to be a potentially dangerous trait. Well, perhaps not dangerous, but carrying some risk. As they approach puberty, a few of the children – and nearly always they are boys – will show signs of leadership abilities and charisma that in a different culture might have had them contending to become the next chieftain. But here, of course, there is no chieftain, so two or three of the old men and women will befriend each of these standout children as soon as they are spotted, and in conjunction with the boy’s parents, they will do and say whatever it will take to adopt them more fully into the culture of their birth. The real thing that likely solves the problem, though, is the Atlantican custom of early marriage and fatherhood.   
  • They are all married. That may be one reason why the nakedness is not a problem. Everyone is paired up. They marry at puberty, and falling in love with someone else later in life is fine, and it even is encouraged: that later love is your deepfriend, and deepfriends can be of either gender. You just don’t have sex with anyone but your original spouse unless that first spouse dies, at which point you can remarry. I don’t know how they make this system work, but they do, and apparently quite happily so.
  • Their minds are much better developed than ours are. They are able to communicate by mind by the time they are teenagers, and even over long distances. They also can easily join their minds. They drop in circles into a trance which seems to be quite powerful, and it can even work miracles. Its power is undirected, however. Marvina calls it circle-yielding. They call it getting out of the way so good things might happen.
  • They have no religion. Seeing the way these people live, it seems hard to believe that they have no religion, especially since they talk with the dead all the time, and their dead talk back to them. But they never pray to or refer to a god. When I first knew them and I thought I was inventing them, I found their spirituality to be rather spooky. But their degree of spiritual development seems to confirm that an absolutely free and simple way of life is what would ideally best foster our own spiritual growth.
  • They have benefited from very limited contact with Western civilization. Atlantica is far from shipping lanes, but it is located off the coast of Brazil and it was known of and claimed by the Emperor of Brazil in the early 1800s. I thought I had invented a fictional history in which the Emperor of Brazil sold the island to a slave-holding South Carolina family that was trying to escape the Civil War. I thought that was my idea, but maybe not. In any event, the island’s minimal contact with Americans has meant that many younger Atlanticans can read, although they treat their books about the outside world as high humor. They also have access to a small clinic now, although they rarely use it. At this point, I am no longer sure where reality ends and fiction begins.

   … All of which brings us to this past Tuesday. By then, we had written just the first two paragraphs as a lead-in to a post about Jesus’s year-325 road not taken, which is what we now plan to use as our topic for next week. Because sometimes, reality will intervene. Our blog-writing generally begins in earnest on Wednesdays, since Thomas is our lead writer and he seldom steps in to help until then. But I had been having severe pains in recent weeks, like knives in the middle of my chest and back, and pains that extended down both arms and sometimes recurred when I was trying to sleep. When I mentioned these pains to my retired-pathologist husband, he insisted that I have a physical exam right away that included an EKG. So I did that on Tuesday morning, and the nurse practitioner said I was fine. On Tuesday afternoon I had more pain, so Edward then told me to call their office again. When they suggested I just go to an emergency room, he demanded that they give me a referral to a cardiologist, stat, and they did that. And when the cardiologist’s office heard my symptoms, they told me to come in for a better electrocardiogram first thing Wednesday morning.

The definitive sort of electrocardiogram is now electronic and nuclear. Who knew? It is done first at rest, and then done a second time after physical activity that is chemically simulated to be more taxing than it actually is. I had a Zoom meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, so we couldn’t wait for the test results. Edward and I raced home through a rainstorm while we talked about all the reasons why we were sure this was going to turn out to be nothing, as you always do. But it was not nothing. The cardiologist soon called me, sounding stressed. He said, “Your result was abnormal. Take four baby aspirins and do nothing to bring on that pain! Nothing to eat or drink after midnight. Be at Heart Hospital of Austin at five tomorrow morning.” I said, “Um, What?” Edward was standing in my office doorway. He said, ‘Just say, “Yes.”And so I did.

It is fortunate that we live just twenty minutes away from the best cardiac hospital in Texas, and one of the best in the country. Because goodness knows for how long one of my coronary arteries had been gradually filling with junk. When the cardiac surgeon later showed me my “before” photo, that coronary artery was officially 95% blocked, but it looked to be more like 99% blocked. My god, what an amazing picture! My husband is convinced that it is only the fact that I have been taking daily baby aspirins for years that in the end saved my life.

But my goodness, what a delightful experience that operation actually was! It began at seven on Thursday morning, and I was barely sedated at all. My body was draped, and there was a giant screen, maybe six by ten feet, suspended right above me to my left, and a machine maybe a foot and a half square just above my chest that moved all around in the air, making busy noises, while young male attendants flitted about and would lean in and whisper to me to be still if I moved at all. My cardiologist that I had met just the day before, and my cardiac surgeon that I had met only minutes before, were standing by my right hip, happily chatting and playing some cheerful video game with big squiggles on that gigantic screen. I never felt pain or pressure at the tiny wound site in my hip, or in my chest, or anywhere. And this is heart surgery? Are you kidding me? Some fellow paused and whispered to me that things were going very well as the machine in the air above my chest moved and buzzed, and moved and buzzed. The doctors chatted and the squiggles squiggled. The whole thing took about an hour from the time when they first rolled me into that room. And then the machine stopped and lifted. The cardiac surgeon came to my head and told me that it had gone very well (which must be their standard mantra). He took out his cellphone and showed me two pictures. One was of my coronary artery with what looked like a quarter-inch-long snip taken right out of the middle of it. And the second was of what was clearly the same artery, but you couldn’t even tell where the blockage had been. Wow, amazing! And that surgeon was grinning a great big grin! Are cardiac surgeons supposed to grin when they are on duty?

On Friday morning I felt terrific and as if I could run a Marathon, but we had no blog post yet to speak of, and not enough time left in the week to write one. Marvina’s solution was to make this post primarily about Atlantica, which I now realize has been her longstanding obsession. She channeled all the bullet-points above, while she encouraged me to – sure, go ahead – write about my operation, an experience with which I am now in love, and be sure to include my cardiac surgeon’s promise that I am good to go now for the next twenty years. My Thomas has let me know that when we accepted this body before my birth, we knew that it had that one health risk which now has safely been addressed. For my part, I cannot get over the fact that they do those video-game miracles all day, every day in that operating room that is just twenty minutes away from my house.

But having worked with Marvina on her bullet-points has made me even more curious about Atlantica! And I know now that there actually could be such a place, somewhere in the astral plane. We know, for example, that there is a permanent Dickens village in the astral, and I would not be at all surprised to find that there is a Harry Potter village there as well. So, have we also conjured our own fictional Atlantican Shangri-la into being? Just how difficult is that to do?  Marvina tells me that we have tapped into and adapted, rather than having conjured Atlantica into being there. And I kind of understand that now. One of the facts about the astral plane that is difficult for people in bodies to understand is that things there can be simultaneously true and not-true without contradiction. So, yes, it exists there. I do get that now.  

As you read our bullet-points, you may be thinking that you would be reluctant to give up some of the trinkets of your modern American way of life. Cars and airplanes. TV and video games. But doesn’t it seem that what is most important is to look at what each culture produces? The fruit of the Atlantican culture is universally gentle, loving, and happy people, and it is easy to see why that is true. Atlanticans make producing universally gentle, loving, and happy people the focus of their whole way of life! But the fruit of Western culture is too often tragic insanity. And we can see why that is true as well. A good and gentle father was bludgeoned to death last week by what were just your average middle-class American men as part of a schoolboys’ brawl over thirty dollars. And this is what America has now become? What are you and I leaving to our grandchildren? 

Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world.
You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will live as one.
John Winston Lennon (1940-1980, from “Imagine” (1971)

 

 

Roberta Grimes
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26 thoughts on “Miracles

  1. Wow! Roberta I am so glad you are good for another 20 years and Thomas says you pick your body agreeing to 1 medical, corrective episode.
    I’m happy it’s just 1 because then I have had mine.
    5 years ago I had a liver transplant. My thought was well I am going to have a long life-must have been eavesdropping
    I so happy I’m good for another 20 years! Much love gflerica

    1. Oh my sweet Erica, I guess that now we are both part of a cozy little club! Although my implants are all metal, dear, so I think you must outrank me in that. I have metal in my heart now, and also metal in my face from my horseback-riding days, when I broke my cheekbone. Breaking a fall with your face is never a smart choice! It’s called a tripod fracture, and to fix it, they used metal clips. And yes, my sweet friend, the fact that we have had these sturdy tune-ups does mean that we have been given a wonderful fresh start in this life!

  2. Roberta,

    We all thank God that you are doing OK. You are much loved by us and we pray for you and your family to be blessed.

    Some day we will all transition to the Greater Reality, but not today!

    Be well,

    David D.

    1. My sweet David, this all happened so quickly – in just three days! – that I didn’t have the time to think about it much as it was happening. But my husband was so worried that he wouldn’t even let me walk the few steps from the car into the hospital lobby. I had to have a wheelchair. He was sure I was about to have a heart attack, and his alarm did make me focus on the danger to my life. So for the first time, really, I got to put my own beliefs to the test, which was actually a good thing.

      Do I really in fact believe what I have been teaching for all these years? Oh my goodness, yes! I truly do! While Edward was panicking, I was looking around for Thomas holding my horse, Beau, even though internally I could feel that Thomas was right there inside me and calm. I doubted that he would be so calm if I were about to transition. And at the same time, my genuine concerns were coming to the fore. My family, without me. Edward, and my daughter and son who live with us were all over me with their concerns. And right beyond them of course was this community. And beyond you, the seven thousand people who would worry when my blog post never arrived. The close to a million people who eventually hear each Seek Reality podcast. Actually, my dear David, it was good for me to have my attention focused this week on all the people whose lives I have been touching, even minimally! This really is not just my private life, is it? Not anymore. And I can see that now. I love you, my precious David, and for you and so many others I promise to take much better care of myself!!

  3. Dear Roberta, I’m so glad that your surgery went smoothly, was so noninvasive and that recovery was so fast. It’s amazing! I had no idea! They used to have to open up the rib cage; leaving lifelong restrictions. There seem to be great advances in medical science. Unfortunately, your first experiences; being blown off and missed diagnosed is all too common. I’m so thankful that your husband got you to persist. Huge hug 🤗.

    1. My dear Ray, my being married to a physician has always had its benefits! And my situation proves that anyone can develop coronary artery disease. Edward has always been obsessive about our diet, and I have never smoked or used drugs, have always exercised, and so on. As Thomas told us, this problem came with this body, and in fact everyone of whom I am aware on both sides of my family has died of a stroke, a heart attack, or very old age.

      And you’re right about how hard this problem once was to fix! Edward tells me that until a few decades ago they had to open the chest, open the heart, and replace the whole clogged vein with one taken from a leg. Recovery took at least three months. OMG, can you imagine?? As it is now, that poor cardiologist who had known me for barely 24 hours came into my recovery room to find me feeling so good that I was telling him how wonderful he was and I thought I was in love while my husband was sitting right there, and he had to give me the speech that I’m sure he gives to all his stent patients: “You’re going to feel all better right away, but you’ve got to respect that there is a recovery period!” By now, I can truthfully say that I feel at least twenty years younger. Modern medicine is really amazing. And a big hug right back to you, dear!

  4. Blessings, so glad it went so well. And what marvellous physicians y’all have down there in Texas!

    Who is Marvina? Is there more writing about Atlantica? First I’ve heard of it.

    1. My dear Hilary, both Marvina and Atlantica were introduced last week. She is my only other spirit guide that I know by name. Thomas brought her into my life in the early seventies as my writing tutor and fiction channel, and when I set out to try to invent a better alternative civilization, she introduced me to Atlantica.

  5. My dear Roberta,

    I am so thankful that your medical intervention was a success! Medical marvels we are witnessing!

    Two weeks ago I had the upper lobe of my lung removed because of effects from radiation 29 years ago. The procedure was done robotically to minimize pain and recovery time. The BIG story is the dramatic peace I felt for weeks leading up to the surgery and afterward. My BP even stayed normal in the hospital before and after the surgery. That is not my normal reaction. Pain has been present, but ever so easy to manage mentally. Honestly, I have never felt so much love and support surrounding me before surgery and during the recovery thus far. Totally, the peace that passeth understanding (at least my understanding!) I cannot comprehend this peace, but I accept it with much gratitude and as a gift of love.
    Oh, my lung has already expanded into the blank space! I never felt short of breath once!

    I normally do not share such medical details, but I hope this might help someone ask for and expect this gift of peace from those who love them unconditionally. Quite the miracle!

    1. Oh yes, my dear, and that is why I shared my story here as well, because it was so amazingly easy and so positive. That, and the fact that I assumed that it would be impossible for the fact of my having had a heart operation to get out, and I wanted to get ahead of the story and assure everyone that I really am fine. But I do think that the emphasis nowadays is on making all these procedures and the medications used with them as easy on us as possible! Even the “twilight sleep” wasn’t a sleep at all, but I felt wide awake and only mellow and carefree. I have already had the opportunity to tell a legal client who is about to have a hip replaced that this is going to be a piece of cake, my dear – don’t you worry!

  6. It is great you re feeling so much better. Did you have an angioplasty done? Your previous work made me check out other forms of healing. Meditation and Reiki have been my passion for the last couple of years. My Fibromyalgia was going away until recently, when i was told I would be in training for a year with more pain, exhaustion and nausea. My higher self is not allowed to tell me why. Confusion reigns and suffering begins. Any idea why?

    1. Oh my dear Myron, I’m so sorry that your problems are persisting! I have a cousin with fibromyalgia, so that is what I thought all this pain was at first – but then where it was, and the fact that it would result from exercise, made me realize that it was likely heart-related. And yes, angioplasty is using a balloon to clear the blood vessel’s blockage, and they do that before they put in the stent. My cardiac surgeon told me that the blockage in my case was very soft, and there was no damage at all done to my heart, so the blockage just had happened when the pain started happening. We caught it right away, which is a very good thing!

  7. Dear Roberta
    Very grateful all went well for you. I am glad you brought up the thought about your beliefs being put to the test, because I was having those thoughts while reading-“did she think about all she’s learned? Was she cool with all possible outcomes?”
    Thank God you have Edward too! You’ve visited Reality…if left on your own, you might have sprinted across!
    I’m grateful also you brought up accepting a body that comes with quirks so to speak. Is it possible the same can be said for accepting said persona/avatar within a family with certain “karma”?
    Enjoy your new and improved heart!!!

    1. Oh my dear Fran, the whole thing was such a great experience! That was why I wanted to talk about it – it was all so wonderfully positive and I learned so much from it. You may have noticed that usually I don’t respond to comments here for the first day or so, since I have learned that if I do respond, that tends to be taken as the final word, and it keeps other people from commenting; but in this case, I noticed that comments were slow in coming. I think it felt shocking and kind of funereal to some people to read out of the blue that I had been struck by a life-threatening illness. But these things happen, and actually it was a wonderful experience! And yes, my dear Fran, I thank that all sorts of unexpected things that might be negative-seeming on the surface might be actually quite positive and even enjoyable when we look a bit deeper. 🙂

  8. Dear Roberta,
    I know I echo everyone’s sentiments here that you are very loved, cherished & appreciated! So thankful that you are alright! Please take care of yourself and take it easy for a while!
    Much love, blessings and a complete & thorough healing & recovery,
    JenniferK

    1. Oh my sweet JenniferK, I love and treasure all of you much more than you can imagine! And actually, I needed no healing period with this surgery. They have learned that if they do it all through a tiny slit in the top of one leg and go in through the femoral artery, the body is unaware that it even has had surgery. Already I feel better than I have felt in the past twenty years. It’s amazing! Please don’t worry at all, my darling. Our dear Thomas assures us that this was expected, and now that it has happened and the fix is in, I am good to go for many more years, so no worries!

      1. I’m so happy & relieved to hear that! And like Efrem said below, we do want (and need – I had almost put that in my first message but, well, didn’t want it to seem too “needy”, Lol) you here on Earth for as long as we can have you!
        Love,
        JenniferK

        1. Oh my sweet JenniferK, one of the revelations in this for me has been just how many people there are who kind of depend on my being here for them! It’s not just my family, but my very longtime legal clients, my friends, and all those who receive my blog post each week, who number another eight thousand people. And then there are those who hear my seek reality podcast, and I am told that there are north of a million people who eventually hear each weekly podcast. My goodness! I couldn’t die now, if I wanted to!

  9. Dearest Roberta,
    Oy Vey! What a sudden and crucial medical diagnosis and procedure you have rapidly undergone last week! I rejoice at its stellar outcome my dear, and there is really no keeping our Roberta down !! I send you hugs across the airwaves. 🥰

    Many of us are relieved, I’m sure. We do want (need) you with us on Earth for another twenty years and counting. Methinks this tenure is necessary too, to consolidate and further your work. We humans need to hang on to those who shed light on the deep reality for quite some time; somehow it feels necessary for growth and for growing together.

    And I don’t need to ask if you ‘lived’ your understanding of life and afterlife during this turn of events. I know you were absolutely ‘there’ and secure in the knowledge of being held by Love. I know you were without fear. 😉❣️

    Inevitably, your sharing of events makes me reflect on my own life and it’s tenure: To be candid, Roberta, I am looking to another 19 and a half years of life as ‘Efrem’. Not more, really. By the end of 2042, I will be 80 years old. I may have had enough of this life by then, quite possibly. Just being open about it my dear, I don’t know if I’ll have more to give. I get the feeling that I’ve already had to internally process a lot; maybe it will be enough by 80 years.

    I certainly don’t want to transition now though, or any time soon. I’m enjoying things too much, including experiencing how problems arise suddenly and melt away. I’m experiencing how that happens often now, and I am seeing how consciousness plays its part in this. In short, it’s a strange and gratifying time. 🙏🏼❣️🌅

    1. Oh my dear beloved Efrem, it actually was wonderful to go through this because I realized, and really for the first time, that I truly do believe what I teach. I had no fears at all! I was delighted by the thought of “tonight is the night!” until I saw the looks on my family’s faces, and I realized how many people I would be upsetting if I simply boogied on out. And Thomas was always right here, and calm. I knew he wouldn’t be calm if I were actually leaving. And my dear sweet Efrem, nowadays 80 is really much too young! You’ll see. Edward is 83, for heaven’s sake, and he still isn’t leaving any time soon. Just really put your mind to it, and try for the very top of level five!!

  10. I had a feeling something was going on, but thought it might be work related. Glad to hear you’re good! Knowing the truth, that life never ends, it feels a little selfish to wish someone would stay. So here is us being selfish and happy you are staying. 🙂

    With the way technology is going, soon AI will be performing surgeries with robots as their hands. The internet pushed us ahead in a massive way and it looks like AI will be doing the same.

    Anyway, please be sure to rest up. We will always be here for you.

    Thanks and appreciate all you do for us.

    1. Ah, my sweet Thomas, it really is knowing that life never ends that makes it feel fine to be staying around, you know. I’ve got plenty of time to devote to the people that I love here, and far beyond oodles of time for playing there as well! Objective time does not exist anyway, which means that my time is really infinite!

  11. Dearest Roberta, I am truly so glad that you will be here for at least another 20 years and that your now feeling so much better after your surgery. I did not even know until about an hour ago,when I joined up here, that you had been so sick and I thank God that he blessed you with such a wonderful husband and you had excellent surgeons !!! I love reading all these things you write and first saw you on Facebook. I am totally alone in this world now, I of course, lost my parents but I also lost my precious son in 2014 and my best friend in 2020. I am going to be 79 in Sept. and not in great health so when my time is up it is fine with me !! Thank you so much for all the good things you do Roberta and many blessings to you always!!!!!

    1. Ah, my dear Sarita, you will be with the ones that you love soon enough, and all will be very well indeed! And meanwhile, just let me assure you that there is such a feast of joys awaiting you, my dear. It’s all good! Enjoy this world, and look forward to what is to come and being again with those you love. What could be better?

    1. Welcome, Mark! My dear, I’m not sure how much more I can say about Atlantica that I haven’t already said? One thing is that since it is closer to Africa than it is to Brazil, most of the ships and boats that have landed there have been from west Africa. The people are dark-skinned, and there black is beautiful: in courting, darker skin is preferred. Another thing is their amazing mental development. They even can simply chat by mind. I think that eventually we will be doing that, too.

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