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I used to meet up with this girl quite a lot. She was a student as well and we seemed to have a lot in common. She was really nice. She started to talk about NOS and encouraged me to come along to the services. I put it off for quite a long time. I wasn’t really interested in religion but this girl was so nice that I began to think there might be something in it. The services were amazing, nothing like I was expecting. There was a lot of music, not happy clappy stuff, more like dance music, really. The light show was fantastic. A lot of time and effort had been put in and the experience was really uplifting. The people at the church were lovely. I remember meeting a lad who told me that he’d been sniffing glue. As he was walking up the road, he felt drawn to go in to St. Thomas’s. As soon as he entered the church, the effects of the glue sniffing left him and he felt the Spirit enter. He never touched glue again. After a while I moved out of the house I was living in and moved into a house that was owned by one of the main NOS people and his wife. It was a really nice place, just off Barber Road. It was great to live in such a supportive environment. We used to do a lot of Bible study together and there were lots of people coming and going. NOS was about making the Church relevant to young people. We were really keen on trying to understand the real meaning of the Bible and living as Christians in an imperfect world. I felt a real sense of belonging. I was encouraged to produce some art for the group and I was really pleased to see it displayed during services. After a year or two, I started to see more and more of Chris. I was really involved in NOS by then. Most of my time was taken up with work on the services, painting banners and rehearsing music in the church hall and other stuff like that. 20
Chris wasn’t really good looking but he was very charismatic. I felt flattered by his attention. I used to go to Chris’s house on Parkers Road a lot. We became really close. Chris started to talk about the need for people to express themselves sexually. He said that sexuality was a gift from God and that it was wrong to deny it. The Bible forbids adultery but it didn’t say anything against touching. Physical embraces were an expression of God’s love. We never slept together but we did other stuff and it felt really good. It wasn’t like being with my other boyfriends. It was really awful when the stories about NOS started to appear in the papers. Chris must have known what was going to happen because he went back to America before the stories came out. A lot of NOS people were saying that the stories weren’t true but I started talking to other girls and I was amazed at how many of them had been intimate with Chris. He used to talk about what we did as some kind of private communion so we didn’t really talk about it in the wider group. The fallout from NOS was really hard to deal with. I felt betrayed and depressed. I had to go for counselling to begin dealing with my feelings. The friendships I made in the group didn’t last. I’ve had a lot of trouble with relationships since then. I lived with the father of my children for three years but we split up when my daughter was little. I don’t have anything to do with religion these days. I don’t even read the Bible any more.” It should be remembered that NOS was accepted as a parish of the Church of England. The absurdities of NOS could not have flourished without the support of the established church. NOS is a particular manifestation of a sick and sickly organisation. 21
Page 1 and 2: BALM OF GILEAD SELECTED WRITINGS FR
Page 3 and 4: CROSS OF LIGHT I am lost in the woo
Page 5 and 6: I follow the stream into a forest.
Page 7 and 8: The Church and the Holy Cross The c
Page 9 and 10: Two orbs of light appear in the sky
Page 11 and 12: your flesh is shining. The glory of
Page 13 and 14: Christ is no restriction in love. T
Page 15 and 16: To gradually abandon thee hopes and
Page 17 and 18: In the spacious black painted cella
Page 19: lived and preyed upon his followers
Page 23 and 24: FIVE FROM THE LODGE OF THE SONS OF
Page 25 and 26: Head of the Lodge Head of the Lodge
Page 27 and 28: All Hail The Sons of Amos Brearley!
Page 29 and 30: I lead my dog Through student flat
Page 31 and 32: Yorkshire wrapping their arms aroun
Page 33 and 34: THE SONS OF AMOS BREARLEY SET THE C
Page 35 and 36: Jesus. The energetic light form beh
Page 37 and 38: 2. The mews exists. I did not regis
Page 39 and 40: A vision of the Cross of Light form
Page 41 and 42: FREE ART FOR FREE PEOPLE A ridiculo
Page 43 and 44: that allows them to conceive of sti
Page 45 and 46: The Way of Liberation A series of s
Page 47 and 48: DRUM & BASS IS MUSIC FOR MORONS It
Page 49 and 50: 1. Photocopy - enlargement x 205 =
Page 51 and 52: A German (Nazi) youth, part of a gr
Page 53 and 54: in the pubs and clubs of Stoke-on-T
Page 55 and 56: with the music of Behemoth and Levi
Page 57 and 58: Death Note Death Metal Thursday Beh
Page 59 and 60: Behemoth and Leviathan The Boardwal
Page 61 and 62: It is ‘Viking’. It is anti-homo
Page 63 and 64: a representation of the Roman churc
Page 65 and 66: ever young, even if they abide in t
Page 67 and 68: Tam Lin is a newt, which is the van
Page 69 and 70: Donal Og The most commonly known ve
Page 71 and 72:
not seem timeless, but of its time,
Page 73 and 74:
Heaven. ‘Anathema’ and ‘Sermo
Page 75 and 76:
Zos is no respecter of tradition. T
Page 77 and 78:
We see an image representing ecstas
Page 79 and 80:
‘The Angelic Conversations’ was
Page 81 and 82:
I was inspired. ‘A year’ passed
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