--------------------------------------------------------- This is an anti-chain letter. It was written by Jed Hartman, not a missionary and not from South America, in November of 1994. There's no way of telling how many times it's been "around the world" or in fact exactly what that phrase means -- though at the time of writing it has clearly never been around the world in any sense. You are under no obligation to forward this letter. Nothing bad will happen to you because of failure to forward it. Furthermore, this letter absolves you of *all* bad luck you might otherwise have experienced through failure to forward *other* chain letters. That means you never again have to write "I'm not superstitious but..." on a chain letter and send it on; you never again have to worry that if you don't forward a chain letter Bad Things will happen to you. Next time you get a chain letter, read this letter again and throw out the other one without forwarding it. If you want to, you can send this letter to the person who sent you the bad-luck chain letter, but again, you will not experience bad luck because of failure to pass this letter on. You may wish to keep a copy of this letter around for future use, but you may also delete it immediately without ill effects. Please note that by forwarding a standard chain letter to someone, you are engaging in a veiled threat: "If you don't do what I tell you to do, something bad will happen to you." Would you make such a threat under any other circumstances? Would you be upset if someone else made such a threat to you? Just say no -- don't be a victim of bad luck wished on you by others. Refuse to propagate the chain. In 1994, Liz Berry received a chain letter. She sent it on, saying, "Fully aware of the perversity of perpetuating this silly superstitious nonsense, and sharing the annoyance I know you now feel upon receiving it, I neverthelesss feel compelled to hit you with the following . . . besides, who knows?" Don't be like Liz -- don't feel compelled to forward errant nonsense (in the form a patently false letter which, after blatantly lying, insists that you obey it or suffer). Consider yourself un-bad-luck-ified by the letter you're reading right now. Gloria Acosta received the same chain letter. She sent it on too, saying, "I'm very sorry, I hate to do this but I'm not about to break this also..." Don't apologize and don't feel bad; break the chain and demand to know why your so-called friends are threatening you. If they're worried about bad luck, give them a copy of this letter. Why do thousands of people around the world threaten each other on a daily basis, simply because they're told by others that they must or else? Doesn't that sound like extortion? Please feel free to modify this letter to suit your circumstances. It's in the public domain. Nobody ever modifies the standard chain letters (have you ever known anyone who's changed them? If you changed one, you wouldn't be forwarding it exactly right, so you might have bad luck, right?), so how did the testimonials get into them? You know the ones -- "Mikhail Sarnikov received this letter and didn't forward it. In ten hours he was pummeled to death by thugs. Two days later he remembered the letter and sent it on; he instantly won the lottery and was elected President of the US." I got news for you: those testimonials are fakes, written by the original authors of the chain letters. Don't believe me? Try looking up any of the people mentioned by name. None of them exist. Besides, the testimonials are invariably vague and disjointed -- "so-and-so lost his wife, then sometime before he died he got a lot of money." That sure sounds like it must've been caused by a chain letter, a-yup. Then, too, how does a standard chain letter know how many times it's been around the world? Does it ever come with a map? Does it have a visa? No; the author simply thought it sounded good to say it had been around the world a bunch of times. (Does it count if it goes to a computer in England and then back to America? Does it count if the letter doesn't actually travel through each country in the world? What exactly does "around the world" mean in this context, anyway?) Besides, the most popular chain letter claims to have been written by "a missionary from South America" and says it "comes from Venezuela" -- if so, then why is the "original" of it "in New England"? Good Luck but please remember: In ten years of receiving chain letters, I have never once passed one on. I've never once experienced bad luck associated with not passing one on. I've never known anyone who's experienced good luck associated with passing one on. Others I know have also refused to propagate the chain, and have never experienced bad luck because of it. You can do it too; you're strong enough to disbelieve in those letters and break the chain. And if you're not, just remember that this letter will prevent any bad luck you might experience from breaking any chain letter. This is no joke.