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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

sacred-texts.com collage of texts, (c) 1999, J.B. Hare

JUMP TO FAQ TABLE OF CONTENTS

READ THIS FIRST

This page answers frequently asked questions about the sacred-texts site. Please take a look at this page before you write for the first time. The answer you are looking for may be right here.

My name is John B. Hare; I run sacred-texts.com, and if you write to this site, you'll be corresponding with me. I'm very busy running the site and proofing books, so if you have a question for me, please read the FAQ in its entirety first to make sure that I haven't already answered it.

I run this site and manage the Internet Sacred Text Archive. Together with a team of volunteers from all parts of the globe, ISTA produces and posts free etexts of public domain books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric. ISTA relies on the work of volunteers and is completely funded by sales of the CD-ROM.

If you have questions about the CD-ROM, such as price, contents, shipping, how to buy it, what's on it, upgrades, replacement disks, etc., click here to read the CD-ROM FAQ.

For the email and postal mail address of this site, click here.


To begin with, the mission of this site is to be a repository on the Internet of public domain (and redistributable) etexts of books on religion, mythology, folklore, esoteric and related topics; no more, no less. Many of the questions below arise from a misunderstanding of this mission statement, or the concept of 'public domain etexts'. Furthermore, we only publish etexts in English; we publish etexts in other languages only when they are the source texts for primary scriptures such as the Bible, Rig Veda, etc., and only when an existing data file is available.

This figure explains the set of books which are candiates for posting at this site:


(Click to enlarge)

Another common issue is the mistaken assumption that I wrote material at the site which was actually written by someone else (normally long dead), or worse still, endorse their views. I CAN NEITHER TAKE CREDIT NOR BLAME FOR MOST OF THE MATERIAL AT THIS SITE. NOR CAN I PUT YOU IN TOUCH WITH THE AUTHORS OR PROVIDE COPYRIGHT CLEARANCE. A number of the entries below deal with people who insist on ignoring this fact. I'm simply an archivist, not an advocate.

JUMP TO FAQ TABLE OF CONTENTS


I can't answer all of the emails I get about the site. So please keep in mind the following before you write:

This site is primarily about creating etexts of public domain books about religion and related topics. Correspondence about matters unrelated to this is probably off-topic.

I am not a spiritual advisor. Please don't ask me questions about your life or spiritual needs, or make requests for esoteric information. I can't help you with these issues.

My involvement with the material at this site consists of making sure that it is accurately transcribed, properly attributed, and reasonably complete. Don't ask me to explain the meaning of any of the texts, translate material or track down books or manuscripts for you. Furthermore, I can't conduct research projects or Internet searches for you, so please don't ask. There are abundant resources on the Internet to support these activities, just not at this site.

This is not an advocacy site. This means that it does not promote some specific religion. Think of this site as similar to a public library. I try to cover a balanced range of topics. When I offer an opinion, it is simply my personal opinion, not an official policy of the site, and it shouldn't be construed as speaking for any particular religion or belief system.

The texts posted here are mostly from public domain books. I didn't write them. They were written long ago by someone else. So getting mad at me for something you see at this site out of an old book isn't going to change anything (and is just plain rude).

Since this site specializes in public domain material this means that most of the texts here were originally published before 1922. They reflect the prejudices and cultural biases of their time, and need to be read with a critical mind.

This is not a portal site; there are plenty of other sites which supply links to religious sites. Material at this site is mostly located at this site, not elsewhere. So I very rarely link to other sites unless they also have large collections of public domain texts related to religion that dovetail with this site.


So what am I most interested in hearing about?

Email about the CD-ROM. General inquries about the CD-ROM, or any issues regarding payment, shipment or upgrades to the CD-ROM will be answered promptly. Please read the CD-ROM FAQ for answers to many questions about the CD-ROM.

I am always interested in reports of typos, glitches and other problems with the site. I will need to know the URL of the file you are reporting about and enough information so I can find or reproduce the problem. If you believe that I've made an error of fact in any editorial material, please write me.

If you know of any books in the public domain which would fill gaps in the site, please let me know. I'll need specific information such as date of publication, name of author and so on. Please keep in mind that I don't publish copyrighted books at this site. Also I generally don't publish material which is already available somewhere else on the Internet.

I'm also interested in contributions of electronic texts for the site. If you want to help scan and proofread texts, please read this file.

If you are the copyright holder of a text posted here, and you'd like it removed or want to change its attribution, please write me promptly and I'll comply with your requests.

FAQ TABLE OF CONTENTS

Most Frequently Asked Questions

1. Q: How can I help support this site?
2. Q: Can I link to your website?
3. Q: Can you link to my website?
4. Q: Can I use the public domain files from your website at mine?
5. Q: I'm looking for a particular book.
6. Q: I wish to use files from sacred-texts in a commercial project
7. Q: What material at your site is copyrighted?
8. Q: Please tell me whether a particular file is in the public domain.
9. Q. Who runs this site and what is your background?
10. Q. Why isn't my religion/belief system/philosophy represented at sacred-texts?
11. Q. Why don't you post each book as one file? Why do you split each book into many files?

General Questions About This Site

Q: I'd like to volunteer to help produce texts for the archive.
Q: I'd like to volunteer to help produce a Project Gutenberg version of a text at your site.
Q. Why not translate the site into Portuguese/Italian/Spanish (etc.)?
Q. Why don't you include zipped versions of the entire site for downloading?
Q. What is B.C.E. and C.E.?
Q: Why don't you post files about free energy, Psionics, or ESP?
Q: Why don't you post documents about Marxism, the Declaration of Rights of Man, or the Constitution?
Q: The text you call the 'Khandogya Upanishad' is actually the 'Chandogya Upanishad'...
Q: What happened to the transliterated Hebrew and Greek Bibles?
Q: I saw a book listed in a bibliography in one of your texts. Can I buy this book? or Does this mean you are going to make an etext of this book? or Does this mean this book is on the CD-ROM?
Q: Why do you only have ten volumes of the Talmud?
Q: Explain what the symbols on this amulet mean.

Cost of Running the Site

Q: Why don't you change hosting services? It sounds like your current hosting service is overcharging you.
Q: Why don't you use bittorrent?
Q: Why don't you get grants from foundations to cover the costs of the site?
Q: Why don't you just turn the site over to a free hosting service if the bandwidth is so expensive?

Books

Q: I want to order a copy of a particular book.
Q: Tell me how much a particular book is worth.

Abuse of this Site

Q: I can't access the site any longer from my IP address!
Q: I downloaded your site. Are you going to ban me?

Recent Religions

Q: Why don't you cover Scientology, the Urantia Book, the Unification Church, or similar topics?
Q: Why don't you post a link to the Urantia Book, Scientology, etc.
Q: But you cover neo-Paganism, isn't that recent?
Q: Why don't you post the Urantia Book?
Q: Why don't you post materials about Scientology?
Q: Why don't you post materials about Satanism?

Additions to This Site

Q: Please post a text I've written about my beliefs.
Q: Why don't you post some particular book?
Q: Why don't you post the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Q: A file which I wrote is posted on your site; I'd like to change something in it.

Removing Files

Q: I am the copyright holder of a file at your site and I want it removed.
Q: I object to the presence of some file, but I don't own the copyright on it. I want you to remove it.
Q: The African/Native American/Australian section contains some offensive material. Remove the entire section.
Q: I object to the presence of some book because it reveals tribal secrets.
Q: I object to the presence of books by a particular author, because that author held views or did things which I find objectionable.
Q: I object to some sexually oriented content at this site and want you to remove it.
Q: I object to the presence of Masonic secrets at your site, and I want you to remove any reference to them.

Links

Q: Can you link to my website?
Q: Please join my webring.
Q: Why won't you link to my site?
Q: Do you have any banners I can use?

Using Files From This Site

Q: Can I use the public domain files from your website at mine?
Q: Can I put files from your website on my (for profit) CD-ROM? Or turn your files into PDF and sell them at my website or Ebay?
Q: I wish to use files from sacred-texts in a commercial project.

Copyright and the Public Domain

Q: What is this public domain you keep on talking about?
Q: Do I have to pay anything to use public domain material?
Q: Can I create a derivative work based on public domain material at this site, and how much will you charge?
Q: I'm confused. Why do you want a licensing fee for your files, then?
Q: How do you determine whether a book is in the public domain in the United States?
Q: I purchased a copy of the Internet Book of Shadows on EBay and it appears just to be a copy of that part of your site. What gives?
Q: Why are you so picky about copyrights? I thought there was an exemption for religious texts.
Q. I need to get in contact with the author of some document.
Q. What is the copyright status of the Rider-Waite Tarot Cards?
Q: Why don't you post [some text]. Of course it is in the public domain, it can be found posted all over the web!
Q; I want to quote some material from your site and my publisher needs proof that it is in the public domain.
Q; My book is about to go to press and the publisher needs proof of public domain status for the following list of {dozens of files, some from sacred-texts, some not}.

Other Questions

Q: What are your personal beliefs?
Q: Please help me interpret some Sanskrit, Latin, Sumerian term, etc.
Q: I am a mage and I want to acquire some magical object.
Q: I need to learn a ritual or spell of some specific kind.
Q: What is the meaning of some magical word or object.
Q: I was searching for my family name on the Internet and found a hit at your site....

10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. Q: How can I help support this site?

A: Thanks for your support! You can purchase the CD-ROM, as well as shop for books or other items at Amazon.com listed on these pages or in the bookstore. You can also help by creating new etexts or preparing Project Gutenberg versions of Sacred-texts files.

2. Q: Can I link to your website?

A: Thanks for asking. No need to ask, link as much as you want.

If you link to sacred-texts, it will be most helpful if you identify material at sacred-texts.com as such on your webpage. This is called 'attribution'. Attribution is important because a user needs to know where the material they are viewing is stored at, in case they want to contact the site, learn more about its policies, or reference the site correctly in an academic or commercial publication.

3. Q: Can you link to my website?

A: Refer to the criteria on the links page.

Please note: if I don't add a link to your site, this does not mean that I don't like your site. It simply doesn't fit my linking policy.

4. Q: Can I use the public domain files from your website at mine?

A. Please refer to the copyrights page.

Normally this is no problem at all. You don't even have to ask me. It is considered polite to attribute the source of the files to sacred-texts (for instance, by including a link to this site). A lot of hard work has gone into producing these etexts, which we'd like to be made widely available. If you include a link to sacred-texts for each file which you copy, this will help us to continue to provide this free content to the entire web.

Not everything at this site is in the public domain. Copyrighted, redistributable files, will be clearly labelled as such. Other obvious things that are copyrighted are the index pages, and all of the pages at the top level, and some of the graphics. For example, the mission statement, editorial material (such as the Introduction to Donnellys' Atlantis), graphics made specially for the site (such as pag/henge.jpg) and certain site features such as the Timeline of World Religions are copyrighted and can't be used without permission. If you're not sure, write me.

5. Q: I'm looking for a particular book.

A: Help is on the way! I've put a lot of effort into my Books page. Because of time constraints I can't help you personally. But if you find a book with a public domain version or translation, I'd be delighted to hear about it.

6. Q: I wish to use files from sacred-texts in a commercial project.

A: The commercial publishing rights to the files created at this site (primarily those listed in the Bibliography) are reserved by sacred-texts. Using these files as the basis for a commercial publishing project may require a licensing agreement and payment of royalties to sacred-texts. The payment of royalties may be waived or reduced to a one-time payment.

This does not apply to academic fair use of this material, reasonable quotation of sacred-texts material in print publications, or non-commercial use of the material. However, if you are going to use one or files on the above list as the basis in their entirety for a commercial project, please contact sacred-texts for terms.

7. Q: What material at your site is copyrighted?

A: Any page named 'index.htm' is copyrighted. Any introductory material which I've written is copyrighted. Any image (graphics file) specifically labelled as copyrighted is copyrighted. Material derived from bulletin board postings or contributed by the author is copyrighted, specifically material indexed on these pages:

Internet Book of Shadows
Zen Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
the UFO files

None of this material can be republished without explicit permission of the author. Please note that I can't provide copyright clearance for any file at this site unless I (John B. Hare) wrote it.

8. Q: Please tell me whether a particular file is in the public domain.

A: Many of the public domain files at this site will bear a notice to that effect. If a file is listed in the Bibliography it usually means that I believe that it is in the public domain. Many other files at this site, not listed in the bibliography, are, with some degree of certainty, in the public domain. If you're not sure, consult a copyright attorney.

9. Q. Who runs this site and what is your background?

A. This site is run by John B. Hare, an individual. I have no specific religious affiliations and the site is completely self-sustaining financially from sales of the sacred-texts CD-ROM. My academic background is in Linguistics and Anthropology, and I am a computer programmer by profession.

10. Q. Why isn't my religion/belief system/philosophy represented at sacred-texts?

A: Please rest assured that I respect your beliefs. However:

1. There may not be any public domain texts about this topic. In particular see this set of answers. This is usually because all of the available material is of recent origin and still covered by copyright laws. If I posted texts of this nature without permission it could result in legal action by the copyright holder which would shut down the entire site. This applies to most religions or belief systems which have originated in the past century, including Urantia, Scientology, the Unification Church, Soka Gakkai etc.

2. If there is redistributable or public domain material about your belief system, and it is available at a permanent site elsewhere on the Internet, there may not be a compelling reason for sacred-texts to duplicate this effort. This applies to many Christian, Islamic and Esoteric groups. While this site has archived most of the important texts on these topics, there are numerous websites which cover specialized material which I lack the expertise and space to cover properly.

3. I may have overlooked something. If you have suggestions about public domain texts which should be added to this site, by all means let me know.

11. Q. Why don't you post each book as one file? Why do you split each book into many files?

A: When I first started the site I posted most books in one big file However I started to get numerous complaints that people couldn't download some huge files. The time-to-live field expires on packets if you are distant from the Internet backbone and your service provider can't reconstruct the entire file. This was particularly a burden for readers in countries with limited Internet infrastructure, which didn't seem fair to me. So I started to split some longer books into smaller files on a case-by-case basis. Then the site started to get quite a lot of traffic, and it became necessary to balance the server load by splitting files. So now it's not just an end-user problem, it is central to the financial health of the site to have smaller files.

Many people have written that it this is inconvenient for offline reading. However, if you want to download an entire book, or books, from this site, you have a lot of options, ranging from free software like wget, to commercial packages. Just be sure to read the Terms of Service before you download.

General Questions About This Site

 

Q: I'd like to volunteer to help produce texts for the archive.

A: Thanks for volunteering!

There is a detailed descrition of how to contribute files to sacred-texts on the this page.

Producing a new text for sacred-texts is a very difficult task. It consists of the following process:

1) Identifying and acquiring a public domain book compatible with the existing content at this site.
2) Scanning and OCRing the book.
3) Proofreading the text.
4) Generating an HTML version of the text.

This requires a set of technical and humanistic skills which don't often converge in the same person, an extremely long attention span (some projects may take months to complete), and attention to minute detail. This is a volunteer project and there is no compensation other than bragging rights.

All that said, if you think that this is for you, by all means contact me and tell me about your interests.

Q: I'd like to volunteer to help produce a Project Gutenberg version of a text at your site.

A: Thanks for volunteering!

First of all you should familiarize yourself with the site. Then visit http://www.sacred-texts.com/stbib.htm, which is a bibliography of texts which have been produced at sacred-texts. Practically speaking, this bibliography is the list of texts at sacred-texts which I can vouch for as potential PG submissions. I have TP&V (Title Page and Verso) images for about 75% of the books on this list.

Please contact me before starting to produce a text at this site for PG so that I can verify that:

  • It hasn't already been produced for PG,
  • It isn't currently being worked on by a volunteer,
  • It has a chance of meeting PG public domain criteria,
  • I have TP&V for it.

Prior to starting a project, you will need to submit the TP&V to PG legal and get it officially in the pipeline. Texts from sacred-texts get dual PG attribution, yours, and that of the original redactor (usually J.B. Hare)--this is my only stipulation.

The principal task is to convert the HTML versions of books at sacred-texts (which may comprise multiple files) into a single text file formatted to PG standards and practices. I can supply 'proof' files of the HTML versions (one file per book) once we identify which text you'd like to do.

Note that this usually involves producing a 7 and an 8 bit version of each file, since most of the texts at this site have accented characters in it. The 7 bit version is a 'plain ASCII' version with some convention for representing accented characters.

There may be some extra proofreading involved in a given project, and sometimes the HTML version needs rearranging so that it 'works' as a PG etext. I can help resolve any typos you might find in the text, however best case is if you can locate a printed copy of whatever book you decide to produce, either on the used book market or through a library.

Thanks for volunteering and I look forward to your assistance in this matter.

Q. Why not translate the site (or the CD-ROM) into Portuguese/Italian/Spanish (etc.)?

A: There are two good reasons why this is unlikely.

1) There is so much material at the site (over half a gigabyte as of June 2004) that it would take a long time to do so.

2) If the site was translated into Italian, or Portuguese, etc. that translation would not be public domain.

You can also use Altavista's translation page to view pages from this site in various languages.

Q. Why don't you include zipped versions of the entire site for downloading?

A. My hosting service bills for excess bandwidth above a certain amount, as well as blocks of disk space. This is the biggest expense at sacred-texts, currently in the four figures yearly. If the entire site was available as a zip file it would probably increase the disk space usage by 50%; also every bot coming to the site would download the whole file, increasing the site bandwidth. If you want a copy of whole site (at least the public domain portion, which is most of it), buy the CD-ROM.

Q. What is B.C.E. and C.E.?

A. Before Common Era and Common Era. These are the same as B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini--'Year of our Lord' in Latin). Since the purpose of this site is to serve readers of all religions I have adopted this terminology because not everyone uses the birth of Christ as a reference point; however, the dates correspond to the civil calendar used by most Western countries. Writing a website for a global audience with diverse beliefs and sensibilities is difficult at times. This seems a good compromise. However, where B.C. and A.D. occur in scanned texts, I have not altered them.

Q: Why don't you post files about free energy, Psionics, or ESP?

A: There are a number of other sites which have very good collections of texts on these and other similar paranormal subjects; one I like is KeeleyNet; check it out.

Q: Why don't you post documents about Marxism, the Declaration of Rights of Man, or the Constitution?

A: This site has a very specific list of topics which it covers. These texts, although some people consider them sacred in a broader sense, fall outside the sites' mission.

Q: The text you call the 'Khandogya Upanishad' is actually the 'Chandogya Upanishad'...

A: The spelling of Sanskrit terms reflects the transcription in the original book (in this case the Sacred Books of the East, volume 1 and 15) which I scanned it from. I do not alter the transcription of public domain texts, such as the Sacred Books of the East. Other systems of transcription for Sanskrit are used at this site and elsewhere on the Internet. There is no 'official' system for transliterating Sanskrit; as long as a particular system is applied consistently, no harm is done.

Q: What happened to the transliterated Hebrew and Greek Bibles?

These have been superceeded by Unicode Hebrew and Greek versions.

There are a number of downloadable transliterated versions of the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Bible (without vowels) at the highly recommended Unbound Bible site. [External Site].

Q: I saw a book listed in a bibliography in one of your texts. Can I buy this book? or Does this mean you are going to make an etext of this book? or Does this mean this book is on the CD-ROM?

A: The answer the first case is no (see this answer) and the second and third case, it depends.

I sometimes get confused inquiries which start off something like: "I'd like to order {some obscure book} which you have listed for sale", or "I'm pleased to see you are going to prepare an etext of {some huge work in German}" or "Is {some long list of French books} on the CD-ROM?". As it invariably turns out, the book is simply listed in a scanned bibliography, for instance this one, this one, or this one. These are not to be confused with the site bibliography, which lists books which actually are at sacred-texts). I think this happens because, while looking for a highly desired book, these individuals get a search engine hit which leads to one of these scanned bibliographies. In their excitement, they fire off an email without reading the contact instructions, let alone this FAQ.

As for the books on the CD-ROM, please refer to the comprehensive CD-ROM catalog.

I sometimes get important clues as to books to scan from references (including the bibliographies) in works that I have previously prepared. But I don't have a list of these works anywhere other than in my own mind. And I don't have the time to prepare etexts of books in languages other than English. I spent a whole day proofing a ten page passage in French in The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, (about one tenth my normal throughput).

I could leave out the bibliographies, but I'd rather not.

Q: Why do you only have ten volumes of the Talmud?

A: Because this is the most extensive version in the public domain. The Rodkinson translation of the Talmud was published in 1917, which makes it public domain in the United States. Rodkinson labored in poverty for decades to translate the Talmud, and finished the 'Festivals' and 'Jurisprudence' sections. The next available translation, which was published in the 1930s, is not in the public domain, and will not be so for many years to come.

I spent a year and hundreds of dollars to purchase a copy of this text, scan it, proof it, and post it at this site. Prior to this, the most extensive translation on the Internet was a site with exactly one page of Talmud!

Q: Explain what the symbols on this amulet mean.

A: The site is about public domain extexts. It is an archive where you can research questions relating to religion, mythology, folklore, etc. As I have stated many times, I don't provide answers to questions about magical objects, jewels, talismans, etc. etc.

 

Cost of Running the Site

Q: Why don't you change hosting services? It sounds like your current hosting service is overcharging you.

A: I have done a cost analysis of the hosting service market and my hosting service (cruzio.com) is actually charging slightly below the median price for bandwidth.

All hosting services list a lowball price for bandwidth or say 'free bandwidth' on their front page. However when you dig a bit deeper there is always a limit (typically 10-20Gb per month, which is a couple of days usage for sacred-texts), after which they charge a fee per Gb. Usually called by some euphemism such as an 'overage fee', this usually runs anywhere from $1 to $2.50 per Gb.

Another important thing to consider is long-term stability. It is comparatively easy to set up a hosting business, too easy. The problem is that there is so much competition, very few of these hosting services last very long. I've been a cruzio customer for over a decade; they are locally owned and operated; they keep the site running 24-7, in spite of the heavy bandwidth usage, without any noticable problems. The fact that cruzio.com has been in business since the 1980s and is currently profitable is a big plus as far as I'm concerned. Also, since I can walk in their front door, I've been able to work with them on a personal basis to keep the cost structure under control.

Q: Why don't you use bittorrent?

A: For the uninitiated, bittorrent is a program which distributes large files in a peer-to-peer network; clients can then access the files from the p2p network as if downloading them from a virtualized host. This distributes bandwidth costs over the entire p2p network instead of having one centralized server incurr those costs. Several readers have suggested that I distribute sacred-texts partially or exclusively over bittorrent to avoid paying the costs of bandwidth.

Now for the answer: I know my audience, and most of the people who use this site are not very technically sophisticated (although some obviously are--If you understand the previous paragraph, you may be the exception to this, or to coin a phrase, 'you may be a geek.'). Requiring readers to download and install a specialized open source program just to access the content of this site would be, for many people, an insurmountable hurdle.

Q: Why don't you get grants from foundations to cover the costs of the site?

A: The overhead of getting grant money would be a paperwork burden, and many grants come with conditions. In order to do this I would have to achieve formal non-profit status with the US tax authorities, and then hire grantwriters, support staff, and so on in order to seek grants. This would probably mean that I would have to stop scanning texts and become a non-profit corporate administrator.

I don't exclude this path in the future, but it is infeasable at this point in time. (And whatever happens, I personally have no intention of becoming a bureaucrat, just so we're clear on this.)

Q: Why don't you just turn the site over to a free hosting service if the bandwidth is so expensive?

A: Because the free host would have to pay the same amount as I do. In case you missed this fact, site bandwidth is running over 200Gb a month, which is several thousand dollars of bandwidth a year no matter who you host with. Also note that the traffic is doubling at sacred-texts roughly every nine months.

Abuse of This Site

 

Q: I can't access the site any longer from my IP address!

If you use a program to download the site (or portions of it) abusively, you may be banned from accessing the site. These activities waste bandwidth, and cost the site real money. For this reason, mechanisms are in place to detect this activity and to shut off access to specific IP addresses. For examples of what is considered abusive downloading, and a list of banned IP addresses, refer to the Abuse List. If you believe that your IP address has been banned in error, you can contact this site and request unbanning.

Q: I downloaded your site. Are you going to ban me?

Most people respect this site and want it to continue to stay online. Some people hate sacred-texts.com, and the only way they have of attacking the site is to attempt to shut it down, by downloading the entire site or some specific text repeatedly, in hope that they will cause the server to overload. Because my server is on a very high speed connection, this is unlikely.

My ISP automatically emails me a digest of my site activity once a day, at midnight. I monitor my logs on a daily basis to look for abnormal access patterns, either a spike in hits on some file, or excessive access by one particular IP address. If I spot an anomaly, I can then download relevant entries from the full system logs and analyze them. I then make an informed decision as to whether it constitutes an abuse scenario.

I have additional confidential security procedures in place which allow me to distinguish between someone who downloads the entire site and those who are attempting to attack it (and no, I'm not telling you what those procedures are!). If you download the entire site just once in a day, you probably won't get banned.

You can assume that if you weren't banned, your behavior wasn't considered to be an attack. However, downloading the entire site on a high speed connection creates hidden costs for the rest of the community which uses the site, so please keep this in mind. If you want the official site image, please buy the CD-ROM.

Recent Religions

Q: Why don't you cover Scientology, the Urantia Book, the Unification Church, or similar topics?

A: I have a general policy of not covering religions or belief systems without an extensive body of texts in the public domain. In order to post a text, I need to be able to clearly identify its copyright status without resorting to a copyright attorney. This normally means that it was published prior to 1922. The reason for this policy is because the institutions promoting recently emerging religions actively use the copyright laws to restrict electronic access to their texts. One copyright lawsuit against this site would probably shut it down. Hence, this site focuses on posting works about religions which have extensive material in the public domain.

To be clear, this should not be taken to imply a disrespect for adherents to these beliefs or their texts. There is abundant information on the Internet about these groups, just not at this site.

Q: Why don't you post a link to the Urantia Book, Scientology, etc.

A: This site is not about links, it is about content which is hosted at this site. Unless I have some existing material about a topic, there is no reason for me to create a link to other material about it, and then only rarely. And if I have no content about a topic at this site, I don't just arbitrarily create a page with links to material about that topic. For more information on this topic, refer to the Site Linking policy.

Q: But you cover Neo-Paganism, isn't that recent?

A: This is a bit different. Even though Neo-Paganism itself is comparatively recent (post-World War II), it emerged from historical belief systems about which there numerous books in the public domain, as can be seen on the Neo-Paganism page. Furthermore, there is no centralized institution which runs Neo-Paganism, and numerous individual Neo-Pagans have shown a willingness to release their copyrighted documents for free electronic redistribution, as can be seen in the Internet Book of Shadows. This is in contrast to the Urantia Foundation and Scientology, which have vigorously used copyright lawsuits to attempt to restrict or control electronic redistribution of their materials. This is not a value judgement about Urantia or Scientology, simply a statement of fact.

Q: Why don't you post the Urantia Book?

A: The Urantia Book was published in 1955 by the Urantia Foundation, who are the legal owners of the copyright. The Urantia Foundation registered the copyright in 1956, and renewed it in 1983. By current copyright law, a book published between 1922-1964 and renewed in a timely manner (as this book was) has a copyright which is in force until 95 years from the date of first publication. A book published in 1955 and renewed in 1983 would be copyrighted in the US until 2050 under current law.

This book was the subject of a famous lawsuit. In 1991, Kristen Maaherra was sued for copyright infringement by the Urantia Foundation for distributing the Urantia Book on computer diskettes. Maaherra claimed that it was written by an incorporeal intelligence, and hence not subject to earthly copyright laws. The court didn't make any decision one way or another on the books' authorship. However, the court ruled that, even if this was the case, earthly copyright laws still apply and the work is copyrighted.

This landmark case represents a cautionary precedent for anyone still under the delusion that if a book is about religion (in particular, one's own religion), that it is free of copyright.

For an excellent article on this very strange case, refer to http://www.kicon.com/law/cases_e/copyright.html [External Site].

However, the story didn't end there. Some adherents of the Urantia book are adamant that the work should be in the public domain. In 2001, the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, in the case of Micheal Foundation Inc., v. Urantia Foundation, ruled that the renewal was invalid for technical reasons, which would invalidate the US copyright. This kind of determination is very rare because most copyright cases never get this far in a court of law due to the expense and complexity. The Urantia Foundation appealed this ruling, but it lost.

This would appear to give a green light to post the Urantia Book at sacred-texts. However, I've decided not to do so. This simply means that there is one book about Urantia in the public domain, which is not sufficient motivation to add an entire topic about it at sacred-texts. Furthermore, there are plenty of sites which cover this topic, and I see no reason to duplicate their efforts.

Q: Why don't you post materials about Scientology?

A: Scientology is a very recent development and there are no public domain books or texts about it (see above).

Q: Why don't you post materials about Satanism?

A: Satanism (as an organized religion with texts) is a very recent development and there are no public domain books or texts about it (see above). Note that the Evil section has books about the 'problem of evil,' which includes information about the history of the concept of the Christian Devil.

Additions to This Site

 

Q: Please post a text I've written about my beliefs.

A: If you'd like to submit copyrighted texts about your belief system, keep in mind that once these texts are on the Internet at a high profile location such as sacred-texts, they can be downloaded by anyone. This is regardless of any restrictions you'd like to impose on their use. If a document has been released by the copyright holder for free redistribution, and bears an unambiguous notice to this effect, then I would consider posting it. Such texts must be supplied in either text (ASCII) or HTML format. I can't guarantee that I will post your material.

Please note that if your text is already online somewhere, and isn't a historically important document or a public domain book, there probably isn't a compelling reason for me to repost it at sacred-texts.

Q: Why don't you post some particular book?

A: Thanks for the suggestion! I always appreciate suggestions for new books or topics, particulary if they are in the public domain and on topic.

I have a list of dozens of candidates for scanning, some of which are in progress. Most of these are in a big stack in my office. I welcome suggestions about new ones, but it may take a long time for the material that you request to appear at this site, as each text posted here usually involves weeks of effort.

Q: Why don't you post the Dead Sea Scrolls?

A: Since the Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) were discovered in 1947, there are probably no copyright-free translations of it. In fact I've researched some available translations, looking for versions with deficient copyright registrations, which would allow me to post them, but all of them seem to be in order.

Q: A file which I wrote is posted on your site; I'd like to change something in it.

A: This is usually because it was part of the Internet Book of Shadows collection, which has been posted on the Internet long before the World Wide Web. I'm happy to make any changes to your file, including adding a specific copyright or re-use message, changing your byname, adding a link to your website or your email address, or updating the file if you have a more recent version. Don't forget to include the URL of the file in your message since there are tens of thousands of files at this site and I probably won't know off the top of my head which one you're referring to.

Removing Files

 

Q: I am the copyright holder of a file at your site and I want it removed.

A: If I can establish beyond a reasonable doubt that you are the copyright holder, I'll remove it promptly.

Q: I object to the presence of some file, but I don't own the copyright on it. I want you to remove it.

A: If I started removing files because someone found them objectionable, the site would soon be completely empty. This is not an advocacy site--this site is an archive, like a library: this means that it stores transcriptions of documents. I work hard so that these transcriptions are as close to the original form of the document as possible. Hence these documents may include invalid information, controversial views, racist or sexist language or statements, and so on. If a document is posted at this site, it doesn't imply endorsement of the views expressed in it.

There are some instances under which I will consider removing material from the site for non-intellectual property reasons. If a document contains statements which I believe to be libelous, I may, at my discression, delete it completely from the archive. If a document contains a large amount of incorrect information, I may remove it, or add a rebuttal in an editorial comment.

Q: The African/Native American/Australian section contains some offensive material. Remove the entire section.

A: Please refer to this answer for a general discussion of censorship issues at this site. Certain sections contain historical documents which may contain racist characterizations or statements. These sections bear disclaimers, so that readers understand that these views do not reflect those of the site's editor. However, I will not remove an entire section of the site just because there are a few objectionable passages in some document contained in it.

Q: I object to the presence of some book because it reveals tribal secrets.

When I first started the site and posted a few books about Australian Aborigines and other traditional peoples, I got a most unexpected reaction. I received several very intemperate emails from activists and people who claimed to be specialists in the field demanding that I either take the site down or censor these texts because I was "revealing tribal secrets." They usually started out by claiming that I was "exploiting" native traditions. Because I could only take these emails at face value, I attempted to accomodate their demands and made a few changes to the site, particularly adding disclaimers, removing pictures and descriptions of ceremonies, and so on.

Then something else happened. I started to get emails from actual Aborigines, Polynesian islanders, and Native Americans. These people were not activists or scholars, and in contrast, they were very polite, and appreciative of the fact that this material was on the web so that they and others could read about their traditions. They wanted to know: "where are the pictures? why don't you describe the ceremonies?" They wanted to know who had censored the site. I couldn't bear to tell them that it was someone who had claimed to speak for them. So who is exploiting whom?

The books at this site were published long ago. This information has been sitting on the library shelves for decades, in some cases over a hundred years, gathering dust. So it's specious to claim that this site is revealing anything that is particularly secret. It's not like I personally spied on some secret ritual last week and then posted a video of it on the Internet.

Publishing this information on the Internet is a lot different than the actions of some museums and academic institutions which have native remains or sacred artifacts under lock and key. If my grandparents' bones were in a museum somewhere I'd be angry too. But I'd feel a lot different if pictures of my ancestors or their writings were featured in a website which promoted respect and tolerance.

After all, what other website gives equal time to the Bible, the Quran, the Rig Veda and Maori, Iroquois, and South African sacred texts? Would you rather see native traditions taken out of this equation? So please consider carefully before you pass judgement on this website.

Q: I object to the presence of books by a particular author, because that author held views or did things which I find objectionable.

A: Please refer to this answer for a general discussion of censorship issues at this site. Certain authors, such as Max Müller, Margaret Sanger, or Margaret Murray, are controversial figures in their own right, for one reason or another. Simply because a document by a particular author is posted at this site doesn't imply a blanket endorsement of the views or actions of the author. Nor will I remove any or all books by some author simply because of their views, biographies, or reputation.

Q: I object to some sexually oriented content at this site and want you to remove it.

A: Sacred-texts contains some clearly identified texts about sexuality as it relates to religion and spirituality. These texts are archived here because they have historical, artistic, or cultural significance. Sacred-texts encourages readers to make up their own mind as to what they want to read. If such material offends you, please don't read it, but don't assume that you can make this decision for the entire world.

Q: I object to the presence of Masonic secrets at your site, and I want you to remove any reference to them.

A: All text at this site in the Freemasonry section is from public domain books, most of which have been in print for over a century. For instance, my copytext of Duncan's Ritual was purchased off-the-shelf at a Borders' Books. So these are hardly secret anymore, it makes no sense to blame this site for publishing these texts, and requests to censor these files will be ignored.

Links

Read the Links page. NOTE: DUE TO THE EXCESSIVE SPAM, I HAVE STOPPED RESPONDING TO LINK EXCHANGE REQUESTS IN ANY WAY. Please do not ask for a link exchange of any kind.

 

Also see these answers:
Q: Can I link to your website?
Q: Can you link to my website?

Q: Please join my webring.

A: Sacred-texts is not joining any webrings at this time. They slow down page loads if a graphic is involved (which is an issue at this site, which gets heavy traffic). In addition, the content of the links in the ring can be uneven. When I make a link to an external site, it's because I've visited it and determined that it dovetails with this sites' mission.

Q: Why won't you link to my site?

A: Because, the point of this site isn't to link to other sites.

This site focuses on content. Links to other sites are not content. The Internet is littered with millions of half-baked 'portal' sites which make it harder to search for actual information. Back in the day (say, 1998), everyone thought that the royal road to IPO riches would be to start a site with a lot of links, the more the better. For instance, a fish oil company (!), Zapata, started a website called "zap.com", put up a directory of links, went public, burned through a fistfull of investor cash in a hurry and disappeared completely. As it turned out, there was only room for one Yahoo, and even Yahoo had to go beyond the web directory business to survive.

Many people who started personal sites (many of which are now abandoned) just imitated this business model, without even knowing why. These 'link dumps', as I call them, usually consist of links to other link dumps, and typically half of their links are dead. I call this a 'self-referential hairball.' Search for any popular topic at google (I suggest "Mystery Science Theatre 3000") and you'll see what I mean.

For more information on sites I do link to, refer to the links page.

Q: Do you have any banners I can use?

A: Sure, there are two banners you can download from the following URLs to put at your site: http://www.sacred-texts.com/stban.gif and http://www.sacred-texts.com/stauxban.gif.

Using Files From This Site

 

NOTE: If you want to use public domain material from this site for any purpose, please refer to the Copyrights Page.

Q: Can I put files from your website on my (for profit) CD-ROM? Or turn your files into PDF and sell them at my website or Ebay?

A: You need to check the copyright status of any texts before you use them commercially. Some files at this site are copyrighted and the author will not appreciate you using them for commercial purposes without permission; in fact doing so may get you in big legal trouble. While I research the copyright status of each file before posting it, my opinion is no substitute for that of a copyright lawyer or a copyright clearance firm. Also keep in mind that you will have to reformat the files if you use them commercially, as the HTML (markup) for most of the files here was developed at sacred-texts and has site-specific features built into it.

 

Copyright and the Public Domain

Q: What is this public domain you keep on talking about?

A: 'Public Domain' means that a copyright has expired. Copyrights protect the rights of an author to be paid if their book is published. If someone uses their copyrighted work without their permission (for instance, publishes it on a web site), the author can sue for substantial monetary damages.

Copyrights are not permanent; they expire eventually. In most countries copyrights expire a certain number of years after the death of the author (normally 50 to 70 years). Copyright laws are very complicated and constantly changing. At present in the United States works published before 1922 are in the public domain; a great many books published between 1922 and 1964 also entered the public domain because they were not registered at the copyright office or renewed on time, or lacked a copyright notice in a special format as was required at the time. Today copyright is automatic; it starts from the moment a work is published. The US copyright laws have changed recently and a book published today will not become public domain in the US until 70 years after the death of the author.

Once a book is in the public domain, its text can be redistributed freely without the permission of the author or their heirs. This is the foundation of the free etext movement, and the reason that sacred-texts can distribute these texts freely.

If you'd like to know more, refer to the US Copyright Office, the Online Books Page, or the Project Gutenberg, all of which have abundant information on this topic.

Q: Do I have to pay anything to use public domain material?

A: You don't have to pay anyone to use public domain material, ever.

Q: Can I create a derivative work based on public domain material at this site, and how much will you charge?

A: You can use public domain material in anthologies, quote passages of any length from it, re-edit it or alter it in any way, produce dramas, novels, cartoons, movies, short stories and art work based on it, basically any kind of derivative work, without paying anyone for its use, or asking anyone for permission.

Q: I'm confused. Why do you want a licensing fee for your files, then?

Q: Sacred-texts has invested a great deal of labor and expense to produce HTML versions of public domain books, and, also at great expense, maintains these files on the Internet for free worldwide access. In the case that a substantial amount of these files are used in a commercial project, we reserve the right to request a licensing fee. This does not mean that we are claiming a new copyright on this material, nor does it mean that we believe that our HTML markup deserves a separate copyright. This is a voluntary agreement where a publisher pays sacred-texts licensing fees as a way of contributing to the archive's work and supporting the development of additional etexts.

Q: I purchased a copy of the Internet Book of Shadows on EBay and it appears just to be a copy of that part of your site. What gives?

A very popular rip-off at EBay is to take some material from the web that is freely accessible, and/or copyrighted, burn it on a CD-ROM and then sell it. For some reason, the Internet Book of Shadows seems to attract these scam artists.

The Internet Book of Shadows at my site is derived from old and orphaned BBS postings which I've spent a lot of time sorting through and formatting. A number of people who have entries have graciously contacted me with updated information or instructions to delete outdated or confidential material. In addition, this part of the site contains other articles donated to the collection on the same premise, for instance The Book of the Goddess.

All of the IBOS articles are copyrighted by the individual authors, since it was written very recently (during the 80s and 90s). I don't claim a copyright on the individual entries, however, the arrangement of the articles, the index page itself, as well as some other material which they probably pirated (for instance the photograph on the top of the web page) are copyrighted by me.

The whole point of this collection is that it should be freely accessible, and no money should be charged for it. I don't include it on my CD-ROM for that reason. This person has ripped you off, because they have just downloaded something off the web and sold it to you that the neo-pagan community has entrusted to the commons as freely redistributable. I didn't authorize them to do this.

If you can tell me what their EBay handle is, there is a standard procedure for dealing with them which gets them banned from EBay. I can't help you get your money back, but I can help prevent other people from being ripped off by such unscrupulous operators.

Update 5/18/2003: I've posted a zip file of the entire IBOS to make it easier to download for personal use; hopefully this will deflate the market for pirated versions of this.

Q: Why are you so picky about copyrights? I thought there was an exemption for religious texts.

A: This is something of an urban legend on the Internet. US and International copyright laws don't make any content-based distinctions. A religious text is as subject to copyright laws as a cookbook or novel. Many religion sites (particularly advocacy sites) tend to ignore basic copyright issues; this is a mistake, since a copyright judgement could lead to huge monetary damages, particularly if the infringer did it knowingly or benefited financially. For more information, also see this answer.

Q. I need to get in contact with the author of some document.

A. Most of the authors of the documents at this site are unavailable for the obvious reason that they are dead. Most public domain documents at this site were published prior to 1922. In most countries other than the US, books enter the public domain 50 to 70 years after the death of their author.

There are a few archives at this site (particularly Zen Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist and Pagan) which have more recent material. These documents were posted to the Internet a long time ago at other sites (some of which are long gone), and I have no way to contact their authors. If you need commercial copyright clearance, you should use a copyright lawyer or a copyright clearance firm. You may also be able to locate some of the authors on the Internet using standard search engines. Unfortunately, due to time considerations, I can't assist you with this process.

Q: Why don't you post [some text]. Of course it is in the public domain, it can be found posted all over the web!

That means nothing. People pirate copyrighted material on the web all the time. If you see a text elsewhere on the Internet, even if the site claims that it is in the public domain, that is no indication as to its actual copyright status.

Q; I want to quote some material from your site and my publisher needs proof that it is in the public domain.

A: In some cases I may be able to provide images of the title page and verso of specific books, particularly if the book is listed on the Sacred Texts Bibliography page.

Q; My book is about to go to press and the publisher needs proof of public domain status for the following list of {dozens of files, some from sacred-texts, some not}. (This actually happened!)

Q: If you need copyright clearances for a commercial project, you or your publisher need to retain a copyright lawyer and plan ahead. I can provide title page and verso images for some files (see above); but I can't help you if the file is not located at my site or wasn't scanned at my site.

Books

 

Q: I want to order a copy of a particular book.

A: This site doesn't sell books. You can't order books directly from this site. It has free electronic copies of rare texts, which you can read on-line. These texts are also available on our CD-ROM. You can also purchase books through our Amazon affiliate links ("Bookshop"), which help support the site. You can find resources to look for books on the Books Page. But I can't sell you a particular book or books.

Q: Tell me how much a particular book is worth.

A: I'm not a book dealer, so I can't answer this question. If you'd like to get some comparison prices for a used book, I'd suggest visiting abebooks.com and searching for the book. That may give you an idea of what other used copies are selling for.

Other Questions

 

Q: What are your personal beliefs?

A: I appreciate your interest but I regret that I can't disclose my personal spritual beliefs nor am I likely to comment on them, as that would compromise my site's mission, which is to provide unbiased and unfiltered information.

Q: Please help me interpret some Sanskrit, Latin, Sumerian term, etc.

A: I probably can't help you with this. All of the non-English material at this site was created by someone else; I'm not a specialist in Sanskrit, or any other liturgical language for that matter. What I do know about is issues of transcription and conversion to etexts. You might want to check out sacred-text's sister site, wordgumbo.com, where I've put together an extensive set of online flat text dictionaries.

Q: I am a mage and I want to acquire some magical object.
Q: I need to learn a ritual or spell of some specific kind.
Q: What is the meaning of some magical word or object.

A: Sorry, I can't help you with these sort of questions. Most esoteric and occult traditions require that you be initiated before you get this kind of information, so even if I knew (which I don't), I probably couldn't help you.

Q: I am searching for information about some esoteric tradition and want you to put me in contact others who practice this.

A: If you're looking for some specific group, most of them have web presences, so you just need to visit google.com and type in their name. Pretty simple.

Q: I was searching for my family name on the Internet and found a hit at your site. What can you tell me about this?

A: I can't provide information of that nature. Please refer to a geneology site.


"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

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