why do people gamble?

Ok, so we all understand that gambling offers you the chance of winning money or prizes, but have you considered some of the other reasons why we might choose to gamble?

It is human nature to feel excited when taking risks and the positive feeling gained from gambling is no different. “Will my numbers come up?” “Will my team win?” The sense of anticipation creates a natural high, an adrenalin rush, a feeling that very many of us seek when looking for fun and entertainment. A feeling that some people believe they cannot live without.

No I framesThe gambling environment can provide an escape from everyday life. Whether it be the glitzy casino environment, a loud and exciting amusement arcade or even an online betting company, for the time that we are taking part we can be surrounded by different people, different sounds and emotions, all of which stimulate and arouse our senses.

The media and advertising often portray a stylish, sexy, fashionable image of gambling. In film and TV we see characters enjoying a night at the casino or an afternoon at the races. There is often a suggestion of ‘high society’ and attending at ‘a place to be seen’.

Gambling is accepted as part of this country’s culture and as such is widely articipated in (with varying frequency) by the majority of the population. Some young people are introduced to gambling by learning to play card games with their parents at home, maybe we go the bingo with friends on a Friday night or meet after school at the amusement arcade.

“Electronic gambling machines and Internet gambling are the most addictive gambling games out there.”

The first thing to consider when asking this question is that not all gambling problems are created equal. Of the four different types of problem gamblers, the two that are possibly the most opposite in nature are the Action Gambler and the Escape Problem Gambler. The Action Problem Gambler tends to be drawn toward skill-focused games such as poker or blackjack, while the Escape Problem Gambler prefers to sit in front of a slot machine, alone. That being said, there are studies that show some gambling games to be more addictive than others.

Electronic gambling games may be the most addictive gambling games out there. Help Guide suggests that gamblers who play using electronic machines become problem gamblers almost three times earlier than those who stick with table games and racetrack gamblers. The exact numbers are 1.08 years for an electronic machine gambler to become addicted, versus the 3.58 years that is average for table game and race track gamblers to become addicted. No Iframes

The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery considers slot machines and video poker to be the “crack cocaine” of gambling. The Institute claims that it is their immediate gratification that makes video poker and slot machines so very addictive. Also, the Institute has found that gamblers progress much more quickly to the dangerous phases of gambling addiction when playing these electronic machines.

Internet Gambling can be one of the easiest forms of gambling to hide from friends and family. Gamblers can shut the door and erase their internet files to hide any evidence that they have been gambling online. Help Guide studied 389 gambling addicts who sought care at a health clinic. Only 31 participants reported that they were addicted to internet gambling, but these 31 were pathological gamblers. The study indicated that while internet gambling was the least common type of gambling noted, those who gambled on the internet were more likely to develop problematic gambling habits.

“There are three phases to a gambling addiction: winning phase, losing phase and desparation phase” How do you go from being a social gambler to compulsive gambling? Robert L. Custer, M.D., former Chief of Treatment Services of the Mental Health and Behavioral Science Service of the U.S. Veterans Administration, is widely considered to be the father of professional help for the compulsive gambler. In 1972, Custer, a psychiatrist, established the first inpatient treatment center for compulsive gamblers at the VA Hospital in Brecksville, Ohio. Dr. Custer was the first to suggest that pathological gambling is a treatable illness. Through his efforts, the American Psychiatric Association classified pathological gambling as a psychiatric disorder in 1980. Dr. Custer identified the progression of gambling addiction as including three phases: 1. the winning phase 2. the losing phase 3. the desperation phase The Winning Phase No IframesThe winning phase is a time when gamblers win at gambling multiple times, leaving them with an “unreasonable optimism” that they will keep on winning. Such gamblers begin to love gambling and trust that their luck will not run out. They keep on bidding and begin adding to their bids. These gamblers feel confident and comfortable, until the losing phase. The Losing Phase In the losing phase, gambling addicts begin to withdraw from friends and family. Gamblers start gambling alone and consider borrowing money by legal or illegal means. They become isolated by their gambling, and this isolation infiltrates their home lives. As these gamblers increase the quantity and amount of their gambling, their debts become a problem. These gamblers start chasing their losses, wanting to return to gambling directly after a loss with the hope that they can win the money back. The Desperation Phase The desperation phase occurs when the gambler spends more and more time gambling. This excessive time spent gambling leads to these gamblers feeling guilty, blaming others for their problems, and alienating their family and friends. The gamblers may begin to engage in illegal acts in order to have gambling money. They may turn to alcohol or drugs to combat the helplessness they feel and may experience psychological and social problems such as depression, emotional collapse, divorce, suicidal ideation or attempts, divorce, or arrest.

Problem gambling can be helped with the proper treatment which includes psychological therapy and support groups for compulsive gamblers.

When it comes to treating a gambling addiction, there is no magical bullet cure. Gambling addiction, like alcoholism, is an illness, and should be treated as such.

Treatment of a gambling addiction includes psychological, cognitive, behavioral and relaxation therapy either singly or in combination. It is essential that the person concerned acknowledges the progressive illness and shows a strong desire to stop his activity. Denial always results in failure of therapy.

Like smoking, the gambling addict should never gamble again. A major change in lifestyle is required and constant therapy is required to prevent the destructive behavior to re-occur. Therapy is long and may take years of professional counseling. Many times, as part of treatment, the compulsive gambler will be urged to join Gamblers Anonymous – a self-help support group program for compulsive gamblers.

Triggers such as alcohol and drugs should be strictly avoided. Those with associated depression, anxiety, mania and obsessive compulsive disorders, may need to be treated with drug therapy along with psychotherapy.

“The compulsive gambler will do anything to spend more time gambling and the impact can be huge.”

Pathological gambling affects the gambler, their family, their employer and the community. As the gambler goes through the phases of their addiction as previously mentioned, they spend less time with their family, spend more of the family's money on gambling until their bank accounts are depleted and then may steal money from family members.

At work, the pathological gambler misuses time in order to gamble, has difficulty concentrating and finishing projects, may show abnormal mood swings and may engage in embezzlement, employee theft, or other illegal activities.

SAW 6

Simone and Eddie awaken in a room with a caged-in scale in the center, wearing head harnesses. The overweight Eddie cuts fat from his body, but Simone chops her left arm off and tips the scale in her favor, saving herself. Lieutenant Mark Hoffman is called to the scene by Dan Erickson , who found Peter Strahm's fingerprints around the room. Erickson also shows that Lindsey Perez is alive; while explaining that he protected Perez after her incident in Saw IV due to her being a target of an unknown accomplice, now believed to be Strahm. Jill Tuck meets with Hoffman at her clinic; he informs her that he is taking control of the games, and Jill hands him only five envelopes received in the box from John's will.

William Easton , executive of Umbrella Health, talks with his company's attorney about Harold Abbott , whose insurance policy was revoked after a discrepancy was found on his application and who later died from his illness. In his office, William is kidnapped and placed in a trap, with a large vise enclosing his torso, and a breathing mask covering his face. Hank , his janitor and a smoker, is in the same situation across from him. Hank is killed when he fails to hold his breath longer. In the second test,Jigsaw's puppet informs William that he must choose to save either his file clerk or secretary, named Allen and Addy respectively, and let the other die. In the end, William chooses to save Addy, and Allen is hanged by a barbed wire noose when his platform retracts. His third test takes place in a large boiler room, the company attorney, Debbie, stands at the bottom of a caged-in maze with a device on her chest set to fire a spear through her head. At the end of the maze, Debbie discovers through X-ray films that the key has been implanted in William's side, and attacks him with a circular saw, but fails to before the timer runs out and kills her. In the final test, William finds his six staff members chained to a spinning carousel with a shotgun pointed towards each person, but he can only choose to save two of the six by pushing buttons in a device that will drive spikes into his hand and divert the shotgun upward. He reluctantly chooses to save Emily and Shelby.

Meanwhile, Erickson and Perez inform Hoffman that abnormalities were found in Strahm's fingerprints, and that the scrambled voice from theSeth Baxter tape did not match Jigsaw's. They lead Hoffman to the site where the voice is being unscrambled by a technician. The moment Hoffman's voice is unscrambled from the tape, he kills all three of them and then sets bodies on fire. Tara and Brent wake up in one locked cage, while Pamela Jenkins wake up in another. The former cage contains a switch labeled "Live" and "Die". When Hoffman returns to the observation room, he finds a letter that Jill has placed on the desk, which he himself had written to Amanda and Jill enters suddenly and attacks him from behind, while William simultaneously reaches the end of his path, finding himself between the two cages. It is shown that he and Pamela are brother and sister, while Tara and Brent are the family of Harold Abbott. Now they can choose to either kill William or set him free using the marked switch next to the tank. Brent shifts the switch to "Die", and a platform of needles swings into William's back, pumping hydrofluoric acid into his body and killing him. Jill straps Hoffman to the chair and places the "Reverse Bear-Trap" on his head. She leaves Hoffman with a 45 second timer; he escapes the chair by breaking his hand and freeing himself, then jams the trap into the door's frame to stop it from fully opening, and he pulls his head free, only with his mouth partially ripped open.

news!!!

Apple Turns Up The Heat in Nokia Battle

Nokia said it would defend itself vigorously against Apple’s new complaint to the United States International Trade Commission.

The two phone giants are in the midst of a major legal battle, which started last October when Nokia charged Apple for using its patented technologies without paying for them.

Apple filed the new ITC complaint on Friday.

“Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously,” said a company spokesman.

“However, this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia’s innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007,” he said.

In late December Nokia also filed a claim with the ITC, alleging Apple infringed seven of its patents in “virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers” sold.

“The fact that two such prominent companies have now filed complaints will likely mean the ITC will seek to deal with this as a matter of urgency,” said Ben Wood, head of research at British consultancy CCS Insight.

“That said, a lengthy legal battle is almost inevitable irrespective of a decision from the trade commission,” he said.

The ITC can ban selling products in the United States — a market crucial for Apple, but Nokia makes only a fraction of its sales there.

Analysts say it could take years to solve the legal battle.

“This dispute is still in its infancy. I don’t think Nokia is finished with evaluating the infringements by Apple, it might be just the surface,” said Steven Nathasingh, chief executive of U.S. research firm Vaxa Inc.

Nokia, along with Ericsson and Qualcomm, holds many key patents for making mobile phones.

Nokia has stumbled badly in the fast-growing smartphone sector and relative newcomer Apple has gained ground against the market leader thanks to the iPhone, but still trails Nokia in smartphones sales.

The legal dispute, potentially involving hundreds of millions of dollars in annual royalties, reflects the shifting balance of power in the mobile industry as cellphones morph into handheld computers that can play video games and surf the Web.

Apple, which entered the industry in mid-2007, overtook Nokia in the September quarter as the cellphone maker generating the highest total operating profit.

Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/apple-turns-up-the-heat-in-nokia-battle/#ixzz0d1SIvKSf

frances the mute interpretation whole album

Frances the Mute:

Frances is a prostitute in a small town that is influenced by the Catholic Church. One day a preist hires her, and gets Frances pregnant. The church doesn't want anyone to find out, so to clean up the mess, they give Frances an abortion. However, the baby survives and Frances is thought to be dead. L'via had seen the whole thing and did nothing about it.

The church didn't want Frances, her sister (L'via) or mother (Miranda) to tell anyone, so they threatened to kill them if they told, so there was always someone watching their every move.

Cygnus (the almighty fetus) was raised in the orphanage, where he was frowned upon and abused or possibly molested by the priests. As he grows up, he constantly wonders about his origin, which the priests wont tell him about. Cygnus grows up to hate the nature of males, the way they rape peple and etc, and he is sortof ashamed to be a male. He develops a female split personality, Cassandra, who "talks" to him in his mind. Cygnus has a bad drug habit, and possibly one day Cassandra encourages him to go find the origins of his family. His friends tell him not to, but he wont listen.

Cygnus sells drugs because he has no money, so he becomes notorius as a drug dealer. One of his main customers is The Widow, who is actually Frances. Neither the widow or Cygnus know this. Frances might have gotten married and her husband died, which is where she got the name "the widow". But the widow develops a heroin addiction and joins cygnus on his journey to get her drugs, and possibly sleep with cygnus. (the line "ill never sleep alone" could refer to her never sleeping without medication, or never sleeping withour Cygnus). The Widow eventually dies from her drug addiction, and Cygnus goes on, not realizing he killed his mother.

Cygnus finds out about L'via nad Miranda, and finds them in hopes of finding out more about his origins.. He finds them, and talks to them, and Miranda tells Cygnus about his mother being "killed" by the catholic church. Miranda has been trying to tell the public about how corrupt the Catholic Church is, but noone believes her. Cygnus's other personality, Cassandra, takes over and she kills L'via and miranda while he is on heroin because he is enraged that they did nothing to stop the priests from killing his mother. Cygnus spends little or no time sober and lets Cassandra get the best of him. By now there are wanted signs on the streets for him, but he doesnt realise it because he is always on heroin.

Cassandra influences Cygnus to get revenge on the Church, so he goes and rapes 25 priests (because apparently there had been 25 other women raped and killed ("25 wives in the lake tonight")). By now he is dying of aids, and one night when he is sober Cassandra is talking to him , and reveals her "plan". She tells cygnus about how the whole thing with Frances and the priests had never happened, that the priests and the people at the church had tried to tell him that his parents had abandoned him when he was a baby. L'Via and Miranda were people he had dreamed up and the whole story is something he had made in his mind when he was high. Cygnus had murdered two random people who he thought were L'via and Miranda. He doesnt believe Cassandra, so he plays the story out in his mind and realises that it wasnt true, and he had done all this for nothing. Then he realises that The Widow was his mother(his father had died), and he realises he was the one responsible for her death, and many others who bought heroin from him and ODed, and the 25 men who he had raped and killed. He is no better then the men who are rapists, killers, etc with a violent nature. He decides he will start a new life, but Cassandra reminds him he is dying of AIDs, so basically hes screwed. He then dies, and in his mind he hears cassandra taunting him, saying " No theres no time, No theres no light, You aint got nothin, your life was just a lie."

The reason i think that that acoustic riff (Sarcophagi) was played aty the end and the beginning of the cd is because this will probobly happen in a similar way again, with diffrent people and different stories, children of rape. This starts the cd over, which is also why i think there are no real giant details, but just a similar basic plotline, to show that this will happen again and again, but different stories every time...

that was all i could do but if u want to read the lyrics just search the album:

France the Mute

Artist: The Mars Volta

setlist

1."Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus"

• I. "Sarcophagi"
• II. "Umbilical Syllables"
• III. "Facilis Descenus Averni"
• IV. "Con Safo""

13:022."The Widow" 5:503."L'Via L'Viaquez" 12:214."Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore"

• I. "Vade Mecum"
• II. "Pour Another Icepick"
• III. "Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)"
• IV. "Con Safo""

13:095."Cassandra Gemini"

• I. "Tarantism"
• II. "Plant a Nail in the Naval Stream"
• III. "Faminepulse"
• IV. "Multiple Spouse Wounds"
• V. "Sarcophagi""

32:32

cassandra gemini (last part)

Vismung Cygnus

best video ever

Vismund Cygnus interpretation

ive trying to understand this song cuz i like it so much but is a lil hard, the writer use a lot of metaphores but i made a effort to explain to u.

"The ocean floor is hidden
From your viewing lens
A depth perception
Languished in the night"

This line is used in a 3rd person perspective we all see it in. To show that he can't see what has happend.


"All my life,Ive been
Sewing the wounds
But the seeds sprout
A lachrymal cloud"

He tries to move on and keep the pain inside but he can't compleatly.

Niño preparate
Que vas sufrir
Niño preparate
Salte veneno
Niño preparate
Salte de aqui
Niño preparate
Labios temblando
Niño preparate
Salte veneno
Niño preparate
Salte de aqui
Niño preparate
Brincan los cuerpos
Vas a sufrir

All of that is used for drama. To show what is going to happen to him. "Vas a sufrir." "Your going to suffer"

"My nails peel back
When the taxidermist ruined
Goose stepped the freckling impatience"

He has been surprised by something from someone and is no longer patient with finding his real family.

"All the brittle tombs
Five hundred little qs"

He is searching the graveyards for any clues. he has so many questions

"Im splitting hairs to
Match the faces"

He's stressing out to find out who these people are.

'All night long Ill hunt for you
Let me show you what I mean"

Showing how determined he is.

"Sangre
Sonando
De rabia naci"


If you know the term blood sweat and tears he is only on the blood part right now. He is dreaming of his family. and I guess he was born of rape.

district 9

In 1982, a large unidentified flying object hovers above Johannesburg, South Africa. Reports suggest that the craft became stranded and dropped to Earth after a command module separated from it and was nowhere to be found. An exploratory team discovers a group of one million unhealthy and leaderless members of an arthropod-like extraterrestrial species who are given asylum on Earth. Some of these aliens engage in criminal and destructive activities, which lead to demands from the human population for more control. As a result, the aliens, derogatorily referred to as "prawns", are confined to a government camp inside Johannesburg, called District 9. The camp is secured and, with a massive police presence, soon turns into a slum. In the first decade of the 21st century, Multinational United (MNU) is placed in charge of policing and relocating the now 1.8 million aliens to District 10, a new camp 200 kilometres outside of Johannesburg. They use a private military corporation, headed by Koobus Venter (David James), to enforce the relocation effort with impunity.

Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), an MNU field operative, leads the relocation with the serving of eviction notices on August 9, 2010. During the eviction Wikus confiscates alien weaponry and "aborts" their eggs. As this continues, some nearby aliens are shown distilling a mysterious fluid, into a small canister. One of the aliens designated as Christopher Johnson (voiced by Jason Cope), resists. While raiding the shack of the alien that was helping Johnson, Wikus discovers and removes the container, accidentally spraying some of the liquid onto his face; and his left forearm is also injured by one of the aliens. Consequently, Wikus begins to feels sick and sees his fingernails loosen. That night, he falls ill and is taken to a hospital, where his left forearm is revealed to have mutated into an alien appendage. He is immediately taken into MNU custody. After discovering that Wikus can now operate alien weaponry due to his mutating DNA (the weapons being unresponsive to humans), they force him to test various energy weapons, including against a live alien target. The scientists then intend to vivisect him before he fully transforms, but a panicked Wikus overpowers his captors and escapes.

Now a fugitive, Wikus takes refuge in District 9 and returns to Johnson's shack. Noticing Wikus' arm, Johnson reveals that the canister contains a fluid that he gathered over 20 years by scavenging, which would allow him to reactivate the dormant mothership. After revealing the location of the lost command module hidden under his shack, Johnson agrees to help reverse Wikus' genetic transformation if Wikus retrieves the canister from MNU. Wikus agrees and tries to buy weapons from a local Nigerian gang. Their leader, the paralyzed warlord Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa), abducts Wikus, seeking to gain his ability to operate alien weapons. Wikus finds an alien firearm and kills some of Obesandjo's men before stealing a cache of weapons and escaping.

Wikus and Johnson break into the MNU offices and retrieve the canister, fleeing back to District 9. Johnson, having just seen that MNU is performing medical experiments on his fellow aliens, tells Wikus that he will not let his people be experimented on and informs Wikus that he will seek help for the other members of his species before curing him, which would take three years. Enraged, Wikus knocks Johnson unconscious and powers up the command module. Soon after takeoff, one of the craft's engines is shot off by an MNU missile battery and it quickly crashes nearby.

MNU forces enter District 9 taking Wikus and Johnson prisoners, but Obesandjo's gang ambushes them. During an intense fire fight the Nigerian gang captures Wikus. From the downed command module, Johnson's son activates the mothership and an alien mechanized battle suit which frees Wikus. Wikus pilots the suit and rescues Johnson. Promising Wikus that he will return to reverse his transformation, Johnson activates a tractor beam in the mothership, which lifts the stricken command module towards it. Heavily wounded and in a much more advanced state of his mutation, Wikus crawls out of the wrecked battle suit to be confronted by Venter. Just as he tries to kill Wikus, several aliens appear and tear Venter apart.

The mothership begins to leave as Johannesburg's residents celebrate its departure. A series of interviews and news broadcasts show the aliens have successfully moved to District 10, and are said to have a population of 2.5 million and growing. MNU's illegal experiments on aliens are exposed. Those interviewed theorize about Wikus' fate and hypothesize that Johnson might return for the refugees or declare war on humanity. Wikus' wife reveals that, having found a small metal flower on her doorstep, she has hope that her husband is still alive. In a scrapyard, an alien with a bandaged left arm and a single blue eye is seen crafting a flower out of metal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PDlMggROA

Journal about To Build a Fire By Jack London

The title itself implies that the story is more of a manual on how to build a fire than it is a tale with many lessons. The story’s deep description, symbolism, and purposeful diction all contribute to its strong portrait of the dominance of nature.
The first lines paint a vivid picture of a cold gray scene. The man, as he is always described, has no name and therefore can be interpreted as the reader or someone the reader knows or I don´t know. Also, without a name, the man does not represent individuality, but is a symbol for all men relying on fact over instinct. The man is a mathematical, scientific thinker; he follows the enlightenment ideals that science is the answer to everything. This is the only point in the story where Jack London seems to make any judgment on the man or his way of thinking. London focuses his point that the man never thought more of things than their scientific basis, never conjectured further thought or facts significance.
In almost the complete opposite of the man, his dog carries a vital role in the story. The dog represents a reaction to the situation, unlike the man who depends on technology. The dog uses its fur coat as natural protection from the cold. The dog represents a voice of reason in the story, it tries to warn the man of the dangers he encounters, waiting until its own life is in peril before leaving the man for the other.

Nature is described as the dominant force in the story, but it is never shown to actively attack the man. The wilderness would have been just as cold if the man had never walked along the trail; nature made no malicious act. The man’s own mistakes lead to his conflicts with the environment behind him. The man, in his hurry to save his own life, failed to notice the implications of his actions and eventually caused his own demise.
“To Build a Fire” is a descriptive and informative tale that focuses on the powers of nature and instinct. Jack London tells a story of the common man in nature.
Mike Gutierrez.

The Martyrs (Awesome Movie)

Well guys last week i saw this movie and it seemed to me WOW! and thinking about that. i give u the synopsis of the movie and i recommend it.

THE MARTYRS

Lucie, who has been missing for over a year, is found hysterical by the side of the road. She leads police to the derelict slaughterhouse where evidence suggests she was held captive. Although there is no evidence of sexual abuse, Lucie bears the signs of repeated injury and neglect. Traumatized and uncommunicative, Lucie is unable to tell the authorities anything further about her time in captivity or the people who kept her there.

Over time, Lucie makes friends with Anna, another girl in the youth home where she lives. Anna looks after Lucie and eventually gains her trust. Lucie appears to be haunted by something or someone - a shadowy, rasping female figure who apparently mutilates Lucie. After one such episode, Lucie makes Anna promise not to tell anyone about the creature haunting Lucie.

At this point, the film moves ahead 15 years, and shifts its attention to the Belfond family. Mom is fixing a sewer line in the yard, Dad is making breakfast, and son Antoine and daughter Marie are wrestling over a love note Antoine received. As everyone sits down to breakfast, the doorbell rings - it's Lucie, who shoots the father to death with a shotgun. The mother follows in short order, and then Lucie hesitates, asking Antoine how old he is and if he knew what his parents have done. When she doesn't get an answer, she kills Antoine. Marie hides upstairs, but Lucie finds her and kills her as well. After killing the family, Lucie's creature reappears and tries to attack Lucie. Lucie explains that she's "killed them", and so the creature can leave her alone now. The creature continues to attack her.

Panicked, Lucie calls Anna to come and help her. Anna, horrified, sees what Lucie's done and asks if she's sure these are the people who kidnapped her. Lucie is sure. Anna starts working on burying the bodies when Lucie has to deal with the creature again. In the process of moving bodies, Anna discovers that the mother is still alive and attempts to smuggle her out of the house. Lucie discovers this and beats the mother to death with a hammer. This is followed by one more attempt to placate the creature, as Lucie shows the creature that the mother is dead.

The creature embraces her gently, and begins to cut into her arms. Anna sees Lucie cutting herself - the creature is something Lucie is hallucinating. Flashbacks reveal that the creature is a woman who was being tortured in the same building as Lucie. When Lucie was able to escape, she had an opportunity to take the woman with her, but did not and has been haunted by it ever since. In a fit of rage and sadness, Lucie cuts her own throat.

Anna brings Lucie's body into the house, cleans it and wraps it in cloth. In cleaning up the house, she notices a hole in the wall behind a cabinet. Anna opens the cabinet and discovers a hidden staircase leading down. Anna discovers an underground complex decorated with pictures of people in extreme suffering. Exploring further, Anna discovers another woman, naked and chained to a wall with a metal blindfold riveted to her head. She frees the woman and takes her upstairs. Anna attempts to bathe the woman and she resists, and after Anna removes the blindfold, the woman runs off, finds a knife and begins to mutilate herself, attempting to cut off her arm.

As Anna tries to stop the woman, the woman is killed by a shotgun blast. A group of people have entered the house, and they take Anna down into the hidden complex. An older woman (referred to only as "Mademoiselle") explains to Anna that they are not interested in victims, but martyrs - the act of martyrdom brings about transcendence and the possibility of seeing into the afterlife. They are, in essence, creating martyrs through systematic abuse in the hopes of learning what lies after death from their accounts as they achieve transcendence. They kidnap young women because young women seem to be especially likely to achieve a transcendent state. Anna is then rendered unconscious.

Anna wakes up chained to a chair similar to the one discovered in the building where Lucie was kept. She is fed some sort of unpleasant gruel and methodically beaten. This goes on for several days until a badly battered Anna loses the will to resist. She hears Lucie's voice in her head, telling her that it is going to be okay, that she won't suffer much longer. Anna is then brought to an operating theater, where she is strapped into a rotating rack and flayed.

A now-skinless Anna is hung by a rack under hot lights. The people attending her remark on her considerable resilience, noting that she is still alive. The woman feeding Anna notices something about her has changed, and she calls Mademoiselle to tell her that Anna is close to transcendence. Mademoiselle hurries over and arrives in time for Anna to give her an account of what she had witnessed.

The next day, a large number of wealthy older people arrive at the house, and Mademoiselle's assistant (Etienne) announces that Anna - only one of four young women to successfully achieve martyrdom - was the first to provide an account of the world beyond life, and Mademoiselle was present to hear her account and would be sharing it with the assembled people shortly.

Mademoiselle appears to be getting ready as Etienne speaks to her through the door, asking if the announcement means that Anna saw something, and Mademoiselle says that she did, and it was clear and precise. Mademoiselle asks Etienne if he could imagine life after death. Etienne says he could not. Inside, Mademoiselle is sitting on the edge of a bathtub, where she takes a gun out of her purse. She calls to Etienne and tells him to continue doubting before shooting herself in the head.

The movie ends with Anna, lying in some sort of medicated bath in the underground complex, looking at something very far away, fading to black, and a definition of "martyr" which indicates the derivation from the Greek word for "witness."