This is an anti-chain letter. It was written by Jed Hartman, not a
missionary and not from South America or Asia, in November of 1994, and
modified slightly several times since then. There's no way to tell how many
times it's been "around the world" or even what that phrase
means -- though at the time of writing it has 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 dispose of it immediately without ill effects. If you do pass this
letter on, please send only a single copy of it to any given recipient;
never send multiple copies of anything to anyone. Mailbombing someone with
this letter is every bit as bad as any other form of
mailbombing.
Please note that by forwarding a standard chain letter to someone, you are
saying, in effect, "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, with this note
attached: "Fully aware of the perversity of perpetuating this silly
superstitious nonsense, and sharing the annoyance I know you now feel upon
receiving it, I nevertheless feel compelled to hit you with the
following... besides, who knows?" Don't be like Liz -- don't feel compelled
to forward arrant nonsense (in the form of a patently false letter
which, after blatantly lying, insists that you obey it or suffer). Any
potential bad luck resulting from failure to forward such a letter is
negated by the letter you're reading right now.
Gloria Acosta received the same chain letter. She sent it on too, adding,
"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 friends are threatening you. If they're worried
about bad luck, give them a copy of this letter. Don't threaten people just
because you've been told that you must or else.
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, so you might get 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. Consider
this: how could the information about what happened to a recipient get into
the letter, after the person forwarded the letter (or failed to)?
And while we're dissecting chain letters, how does a chain letter know how
many times it's been around the world? Does it 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 the letter only makes it halfway around the world and then gets
sent back? What exactly does "around the world" mean here,
anyway?) Besides, the most popular chain letter in circulation 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 because of not passing one on. I've never known anyone who's
experienced good luck because of 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; disbelieve those letters and break
the chain. And if you can't disbelieve, just remember that this letter will
prevent any bad luck you might experience from breaking any chain
letter. This is no joke.
later,
erik g