Jabatan Pendana Menteri

Putrajaya Malaysia

Lee GND 0.9

About

 

I've photographed this pole on a few occasions. The clouds that rolled in at dusk tonight were perfect for a long exposure shot. I setup my tripod on my Ute and waited for the sky to dance.

 

Enjoy.

 

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- Canon 5D MK II.

- ISO 100, f8, 360 seconds, 20mm.

- Canon 17-40 f/4 L lens.

- Tripod on car.

 

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Processing

 

- Blend of two images (star tails - night clouds and pole)

- Contrast and Saturation in Lightroom 3.0.

- Selective sharpening in Photoshop.

 

About Stars

 

A star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible from Earth during the night when they are not outshone by the Sun or blocked by atmospheric phenomena. Historically, the most prominent stars on the celestial sphere were grouped together into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.

 

For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium were created by stars, either via stellar nucleosynthesis during their lifetimes or by supernova nucleosynthesis when stars explode. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, chemical composition and many other properties of a star by observing its spectrum, luminosity and motion through space. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star are determined by its evolutionary history, including diameter, rotation, movement and temperature.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

Exposition permanente du 5 au 27 septembre 2025 - Salle Lamanon - 13300 Salon de Provence

 

Yann Rebecq

C’est avant tout un parcours artistique atypique.

Peintre depuis les années 1970, il a toujours été à la recherche de la perfection dans l’art pictural.

Après bien des étapes et des rencontres déterminantes dans ce domaine, il parvient a une diversité extraordinaire qui se ressent dans ses toiles magnifiques.

Reconnu dans le monde entier, il est expose aux États-Unis d’Amérique, en Chine et en Australie.

Il est l’invité d’honneur de la ville de Nashville. Certaines de ses toiles sont achetées par le musée de Baltimore, de Kristiansen, etc.

La Chine lui a passé commande de 25 œuvres pour ses musées. Il devient également membre d’honneur de l’académie des Arts du Sichuan à Chengdu et de l’Asian Art Association. Il est reconnu à Singapour, à Beijing, Shangahaï, Sydney et Nouméa.

En Provence et en Bretagne il expose dans des galeries renommées et tout récemment à Salon de Provence à La Salle Lamanon (L'exposition est du 5 au 27 sept. 2025), où j’ai eu le plaisir de le retrouver et d’échanger avec lui devant la quarantaine de toiles magnifiques dont je donne à admirer ici un échantillon.

J’affectionne particulièrement Yann Rebecq, tout d’abord parce qu’il a été mon voisin pendant quelques années à Salon de Provence, où il a été directeur de l’Office du Tourisme de cette même ville et par la suite directeur de l’Office du Tourisme de Saint Rémy de Provence, avant de partir dans le Var à Toulon.

Ce sont autant de lieux que je fréquente régulièrement et que l’on peut retrouver dans ma collection de photos et de video sur Flickr.

Tout au long de sa carrière, Yann a essaimé des toiles un peu partout dans les différents offices de la région et j’ai toujours plaisir à les retrouver par surprise.

------------------------------------------------

Yann Rebecq

Above all, his artistic journey is unique.

A painter since the 1970s, he has always sought perfection in pictorial art.

After many milestones and decisive encounters in this field, he has achieved an extraordinary diversity that is reflected in his magnificent paintings.

Recognized worldwide, he has exhibited in the United States, China, and Australia.

He is a guest of honor in Nashville. Some of his paintings have been purchased by the Baltimore Museum, the Kristiansen Museum, and others.

China commissioned 25 works from him for its museums. He also became an honorary member of the Sichuan Academy of Arts in Chengdu and the Asian Art Association. He is recognized in Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, and Nouméa.

In Provence and Brittany, he exhibits in renowned galleries, most recently at Salon de Provence's La Salle Lamanon (exposition est du 5 au 27 sept. 2025), where I had the pleasure of meeting him and chatting with him over the forty or so magnificent paintings, a sample of which I present here.

I'm particularly fond of Yann Rebecq, first of all because he was my neighbor for a few years in Salon-de-Provence, where he was director of the city's Tourist Office and later director of the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Tourist Office, before moving to Toulon, Var.

These are all places I visit regularly and which can be found in my photo and video collection on Flickr.

Throughout his career, Yann has scattered paintings throughout the region's various tourist offices, and I'm always pleased to find them, much to my surprise.

Balancing.

 

Mae rhithwelediadau yn pasio uchder geiriol darnau ffansi yn datgan seicedelig gwych gofodau gwybodaeth uwch dimensiynau taro awyrgylch,

μορφοποίηση συνείδησης εύθραυστα ζητήματα υπερβολικούς τόνους επεκτείνοντας εφέ εκπληκτικές περιγραφές λογαριασμοί κατάποσης ισχυρά αποτελέσματα,

curiosités intéressantes imagination bowdlerized lave chauffée déterminant les rêves perceptions exquises couleurs brisées frissons harmonieux,

śmiech maluje roztapiające się obrazy karierę kształty silnie pobudzające spacery umysłowe ożywcze informacje ciekawskie pragnienia piekło surrealista na nowo odkrywanie zmagań,

gruwelijke onwetende scheuren duidelijk dwangmatige ontwikkelingen achteraf gezien grote gevangengenomen speculaties reizen bedwelming verrassende vermoedens,

苦しみの喜びの洗練空成功した自然の架空のページ緊急の生活の相互作用は、好奇心の奇妙なナレーションの陰湿な消費のバランスをとる衝動的な操作に影響を与えますナレーションの陰湿な消費のバランス.

Steve.D.Hammond.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

"The Gasthaus Zum Roten Roß in Großhabersdorf, a municipality in the Central Franconian district of Fürth in Bavaria, was built in 1697 by Leonhard Schneider from Dietenhofen. The inn at Rothenburger Straße 3 is a protected architectural monument.

 

The two-story gable roof house with dormers is a half-timbered construction, as is the three-story elevator bay window. The ground floor is accessed on the eaves side via a round arched door with a profiled rectangular frame. The original features such as the spiral staircase, the plank beam ceilings and some doors have been preserved.

 

Großhabersdorf (Franconian: Hobeasch-doaf) is a municipality and its main town in the district of Fürth (Middle Franconia), Bavaria.

 

Großhabersdorf is located in Rangau about 21 km west of Nuremberg, 20 km northeast of Ansbach and 44 km east of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The Bibert flows through the town and flows into the Rednitz near Zirndorf.

 

The place was first mentioned as “Hadewartesdorf” in a document that was created between 1144 and 1151, and was first mentioned in 1479 with the addition of “Grossen” to distinguish it from Klehaltersdorf, nine kilometers to the southwest. The determinant of the place name is the personal name Hadewart. A person of this name can be assumed to be the founder of the settlement.

 

During the period of tribal duchies in the Middle Ages, the place was in the Duchy of Franconia. There is evidence of a court in 1316. During the Thirty Years' War the village was destroyed by Wallenstein's army in 1632.

 

Towards the end of the 18th century there were 56 properties in Großhabersdorf. The High Court exercised the Brandenburg-Ansbach Higher Authority of Cadolzburg. The Brandenburg-Ansbach judge's office in Habersdorf had the village and community rule. The landlords were the Cadolzburg caste office (four farms, two half farms, 25 estates, 16 houses, a mill, a brickworks), the Großhabersdorf church (one farm), the Zautendorf church and saints' foundation (two half farms), and the St. Klara monastery office the imperial city of Nuremberg (one farm, one little house), the Nuremberg owner von Haller (one quarter farm) and the Rügland manor (one small estate).

 

The original Bavarian cadastre shows Großhabersdorf in the 1810s as a church village with 68 properties and a church field.

 

In 1792 Großhabersdorf fell to Prussia and then in 1806 to the Kingdom of Bavaria. From 1797 to 1808 the place was under the jurisdiction of the Cadolzburg Justice and Chamber Office. As part of the municipal edict, the Großhabersdorf tax district was formed in 1808, which included Schwaighausen, Stammmühle, Weihersmühle and Ziegelhütte. In the same year, the rural community of Großhabersdorf was created, which coincided with the tax district. It was assigned to the Cadolzburg Regional Court in terms of administration and jurisdiction and to the Cadolzburg Rent Office (renamed Cadolzburg Tax Office in 1919) in terms of financial administration. From 1862, Großhabersdorf belonged to the Fürth district office (renamed Fürth district in 1939). Jurisdiction remained with the Cadolzburg Regional Court (renamed Cadolzburg District Court in 1879); the Fürth District Court has been responsible since 1931. The financial administration was taken over by the Fürth tax office on January 1, 1929. In 1961 the municipality had an area of ​​9.837 km².

 

During the Nazi era, the Unterschlauersbach airfield existed northwest of the town until the end of the Second World War.

 

Middle Franconia (German: Mittelfranken, pronounced [ˈmɪtl̩ˌfʁaŋkŋ̍]) is one of the three administrative regions of Franconia, Germany, in the west of Bavaria bordering the state of Baden-Württemberg. The administrative seat is Ansbach; the most populous city is Nuremberg.

 

After the founding of the Kingdom of Bavaria the state was totally reorganised and, in 1808, divided into 15 administrative government regions (German: Regierungsbezirke (singular Regierungsbezirk)), in Bavaria called Kreise (singular: Kreis). They were created in the fashion of the French departements, quite even in size and population, and named after their main rivers.

 

In the following years, due to territorial changes (e. g. loss of Tyrol, addition of the Palatinate), the number of Kreise was reduced to eight. One of these was the Rezatkreis (Rezat District). In 1837 king Ludwig I of Bavaria renamed the Kreise after historical territorial names and tribes of the area. This also involved some border changes or territorial swaps. Thus the district name of Rezatkreis changed to Middle Franconia.

 

Next to the major city Nuremberg, the capital Ansbach and the former residence city Erlangen, the towns of the Romantic Road Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl belong to the major tourist attractions. The Lichtenau Fortress, Rothenberg Fortress, Hohenstein and Cadolzburg belong to the most important castles of Middle Franconia. The Franconian Jura and the northern valley of the River Altmühl are among the scenic attractions.

 

Franconia (German: Franken, pronounced [ˈfʁaŋkŋ̍]; Franconian: Franggn [ˈfrɑŋɡŋ̍]; Bavarian: Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: Fränkisch).

 

Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.

 

Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony (largest city: Plauen) are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart (largest city: Aschaffenburg) do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there.

 

Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg.

 

The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia (Francia Orientalis). In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon or donate.

Photo by: A. Shamandour

Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA

 

Website | Twitter | 500px | Deviant Art

 

Cincinnati was founded in 1788 when Mathias Denman, Colonel Robert Patterson and Israel Ludlow landed at the spot on the north bank of the Ohio River opposite the mouth of the Licking River. The original surveyor, John Filson, named it "Losantiville". In 1790, Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of the settlement to "Cincinnati" in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was a member.

 

Germans were among the first settlers. General David Ziegler succeeded General St. Clair in command at Fort Washington and became the mayor of Cincinnati in 1802. Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819. The introduction of steam navigation on the Ohio River in 1811 and the completion of the Miami and Erie Canal helped the city grow to 115,000 residents by 1850.

 

Construction on the Miami and Erie Canal began on July 21, 1825, when it was called the Miami Canal, related to its origin at the Great Miami River. The canal became operational in 1827. In 1827, the canal connected Cincinnati to nearby Middletown; by 1840, it had reached Toledo. During this period of rapid expansion, residents of Cincinnati began referring to the city as the "Queen" city.

 

Cincinnati depended on trade with the slave states south of the Ohio River, at a time when growing numbers of African Americans were settling in the state. This led to tensions between anti-abolitionists and citizens in favor of lifting restrictions on blacks codified in the "Black Code" of 1804. There were riots in 1829, where many blacks lost their homes and property, further riots in 1836 in which an abolitionist press was twice destroyed, and more rioting in 1842.

 

Railroads were the first major form of commercial transportation to come to Cincinnati. In 1836, the Little Miami Railroad was chartered. Construction began soon after, to connect Cincinnati with the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, and provide access to the ports of the Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie.

 

In 1859, Cincinnati laid out six streetcar lines, using horse-drawn cars, making it easier for people to get around the city. By 1872, Cincinnatians could travel on the streetcars within the city and transfer to rail cars for travel to the hill communities. The Cincinnati Inclined Plane Company began transporting people to the top of Mount Auburn that year.

 

Cincinnati, a major city of the Ohio Valley, is situated on the north bank of the Ohio River in Hamilton County, which is the extreme southwestern county of the state of Ohio. It is midway by river between the cities of Pittsburgh and Cairo. The city lies opposite the mouth of the Licking River, which fact was apparently the determinant as to its original location.

 

Cincinnati's core metro area spans parts of southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 79.54 square miles (206.01 km2), of which 77.94 square miles (201.86 km2) is land and 1.60 square miles (4.14 km2) is water. The city spreads over a number of hills, bluffs, and low ridges overlooking the Ohio River in the Bluegrass region of the country. Cincinnati is geographically located within the Midwest and is on the far northern periphery of the Upland South. Two-thirds of the American population live within a one-day drive of the city.

 

This topography is often used for physical activity. The Steps of Cincinnati provide pedestrians a mode to traverse the many hills in the city. In addition to practical use linking hillside neighborhoods, the 400 stairways provide visitors scenic views of the Cincinnati area.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Golden Dawn.The Breaking of the Golden Dawn

They had to fight from the start against Arthur Edward Waite, who, at the head of a group of followers, wanted to modify the system of leadership, for reasons he explained in 1903: to be caliph instead of the caliph, then make The Order give up all magic, overhaul all rituals, and all for good reason: Waite claims the Third Order doesn't exist. Waite and Blackden then founded their own Order, with a temple they named Isis-Urania after the first temple of the Golden Dawn. Brodie-Inner makes his Edinburgh temple independent.Following the Golden Dawn on the Tarot track is much easier indeed: Waite in 1910 gives his drawn version of the mysteries described in "book T" of the Golden Dawn, the "Rider tarot", and accompanies it with a book where he says too much or not enough. The particularity of this game is that, unlike Book T, the Minors are small scenes illustrating the principle attached to them. But no keywords, no visible alchemy or Qabala everywhere: Waite's mysticism emanates from all magic. From the book and the game, then from Book T when it began to be distributed under the coat, many creations flourished, up to recent authors such as the game of Hanson-Roberts, Salvador Dali or the Sacred rose…while that of Crowley inspired Barbara Walker, specialist in feminine magic, the German Haindl, Gill, Clark, or the Italian Mario…in his “Tarot of the Ages”… Attempts from Book T itself gave birth to the game of Robert Wang, supervised by Israel Regardie, the game of Gareth Knight, the game of Geoffroy Dowson, the very faithful game of Sandra Tabatha Cicero...

Paul Foster Case, member of the Order, founds the BOTA (Builders of Adytum), where everyone must paint their game themselves, according to Case's book; the drawing differs slightly from Waite, and has the Minors abstracted.

 

History, technology and survival

 

What is fascinating when one approaches the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is to see how this structure so brief - from 1887 to 1903: barely sixteen years! - Has dared to touch all areas of occultism, both Western and Eastern, has carried out a gigantic synthesis of contradictory or unusual teachings, and has influenced all the schools of the 20th century throughout the English- and French-speaking world. Audacities forged by Golden Dawn seekers are considered gospel by many esoteric groups, either directly from Golden Dawn because they were founded by a former member, or indirectly through the discovery of their work and the adaptation of the said works to their own research. We are going to see first of all which are the researchers whose discoveries or affirmations have been used by the GD; then we will see the history of the Order itself, and finally the continuators of the GD and its current influence.

 

Masters of the Golden Dawn

 

We can first see a theoretician of ceremonial magic, Cornelius Agrippa, whose work was centered on the analogies between objects, elements, man, and the cosmos. Acting on one according to certain rules, one could act on the other by way of sympathy and by the union of all in all. Henri-Corneille Agrippa de Nettesheim, (1486-1535) is a man who alternately occupies multiple official functions, as theologian, philosopher, linguist, jurist and astrologer, zigzagging with the hunters of the Inquisition who want the head of this man free from any school. His books are a classic reference on talismans and other magic rituals. If the name of Paracelsus (1493-1541) is not unknown to the GD, it is Agrippa who is the "essential" base. Another important base, although much more obscure, will be the angelic system developed by John Dee, (1527-1608), Welsh scholar, following revelations seen in rock crystal by the medium Kelly, visions that Dee took notes. He explains three magics: natural (by sympathy), acting on the elemental; mathematics (numbers and figures) for the celestial world; and religious, acting on the supra-celestial world through a kabbalistic system based on angels. This system includes a true new language, with grammar, syntax, symbolism, only adapted to the angels who can come called by their true names. This carries with it enormous and illegible implications, which Dee called “the Enochian”, in reference to Enoch who was taken up to heaven without dying.

 

Enochian magick is one of the pillars of the secret teaching of the GD. Good books (in English) have been devoted to him, and a divinatory game was even developed a short time ago in order to facilitate the evocative work of the follower. Of course, the great classics of alchemy (Corpus Hermeticus, the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis) and grimoires (especially the Clavicles of Solomon and the Book of Abramelin the Wise) are also used, dissected, reworked and reorganized.

The vogue aroused by Francis Barrett's "The Magus" (1801) grew steadily, despite the blunders with which it was riddled, to the point that Barrett founded a magic association, of which Montagne Summers (1880-1948) and Frédérick Hockley were members. But France will have a great part in the elaboration of the rituals of the future Order: indeed, one of the avowed references of the GD is Papus, jointly with Eliphas Lévi and Court de Gébelin.The old methods and the slow technological revolution since the liturgical catechism. appeared as a trophy . The stigmata are an alchemical ordeal and the symbolism of the way of the cross of an initiation. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

 

The references

 

Papus (1865-1916) began to write in 1884, at the age of 19, and his written work - like his occult work as founder and unifier of various traditions - was followed with passion across the Channel.

 

Eliphas Lévi (1810-1875) is considered the Great Kabbalist of the century, and his books are scrutinized, dissected, commented on with feverishness. He made known Antoine Court de Gébelin who had revealed the secrets of the primitive world in 1775 and who had given back to the game of tarot peddled in the countryside its letters of nobility.

 

The efforts of the Parisian Rosicrucians (Stanislas de Guaita, Joséphin Péladan) resuscitate the old dream of reviving all these specifically Western forgotten heritages, in the face of the growing Orientophilia due to Madame Blavatski's Theosophy: the Templars and their rites, the Rose+ Cross and their alchemy, the druids and their Celtic secrets, the Egyptian gods and the strength of their symbols, the Enochian mysteries revealed to John Dee and still untapped, divination and communication with the Invisible as sources of esoteric knowledge... Further energized in London by the lightning advances of the Theosophical Society, revealing an invisible world to converse with, and the demonstrations of the spiritualist Douglas-Home, the project is becoming more and more 'in tune with the times'.

 

The founders

 

It was to originate in the minds of three Freemason friends who were also members of the "Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia" (SRIA): Doctor William Wynn Westcott, (friend of Mme Blavatski, reader of John Dee, and Grand- Master of the Societas from 1878); Samuel Liddel Mathers, who later styled himself MacGregor Mathers, claiming descent from the Scottish Clan MacGregor; and William Robert Woodman their friend. One will note in the same Societas Kenneth Mackenzie, admirer of Eliphas Lévi whom he had gone to meet in Paris, and Doctor Felkin. All these names will become familiar to you, because it is around them, and barely a dozen other names, that everything will be built.The foundation : One of the legends has it that the seer Frédérick Hockley, pupil of Francis Barrett and teacher of Mackenzie, died in 1885, leaving behind him a vast library, including manuscripts encrypted with probably a code of the "Polygraphy" of the Abbé Tritheme, initiator of Cornelius Agrippa.

Woodford, a friend of Mackenzie, receives these documents from him. He is not a Mason, but knows Westcott's taste for grimoires. He hands her the texts, which Westcott passes on to Mathers for decoding. In these manuscripts, which turn out to be abbreviated kabbalistic notes, Westcott finds the address of a Rosicrucian connected with the oldest and surest branch of the original true Rose+Cross, Die Goldenne Dammerung (The Dawn Doree): Anna Sprengel, in Nuremberg. He contacted her immediately and obtained the right to establish an English branch of the Order of the Rose+Croix under the name of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was done in 1887. Mathers was named Imperator. The first Temple (equivalent to a Masonic Lodge) was opened in 1888 under the name of Isis-Urania. Recruitment is rapid among the Brothers of the Societas, but the Order is also open to non-Masons, and to women. In 1891, Mathers announced the death of Anna Sprengel and the decision to continue working outside the "third Order", the German Rose+Croix. The GD then included an external order, and since 1892 two internal orders, where all the decisions concerning the rituals and the axes of work were taken. Woodman died in 1891. Westcott and Mathers remain sole leaders of the Order.

 

Secret names and ranks

 

The custom of “nomen” in Latin, the sacred language of the Rosicrucians, is established: at the rank of Neophyte, a nomen was chosen. The texts of the Order sent to the followers bore as signature the initials of the nomen of the author. For example, note that of Mathers: Frater Deo Duce and Comite Ferro (DDCF), that of Westcott: Frater Sapere Aude (SA), that of Anna Sprengel: Soror Sapiens Dominabitur Astris (SDA). One will be struck by the resemblance to the customs of the Strict Templar Observance of Germany, transformed into a Masonic rite known as the “Rectified Scottish Regime” by the Lyonnais occultist Jean-Baptiste Willermoz in 1785. The decoration of the temples and numbers of accessories or costumes were heavily inspired by ancient Egypt, apart from the symbolic creations specific to the GD. Here are the names of the ranks of the Outer Order (Golden Dawn): Neophyte, Zealator, Theoricus, Practicus, Philosophus. In the Inner Order (Ordo Rosae Rubae et Aurae Crucis) (The Red Rose and the Golden Cross), nine months after the ceremony of the Portal or the Veil of the Temple, one received the degree of Adeptus Minor which was subdivided into Zelator Adeptus and Theoricus Adeptus; then came the ranks of Adeptus Major, and finally Adeptus Exemptus. The chiefs carried, in the Third Order, the titles of Magister Templi, Magus and finally of Ipsissimus.

 

Teaching content

 

Let us now see the panorama of what the follower of the Golden Dawn must know, or experience, or deepen, aided in this by strict rituals and finicky astrological calendars: 1) To the rank of Neophyte was given a partial view of all the activities of the Order, and of the already important rituals such as the Qabalistic Sign of the Cross and the Minor Ritual of the Pentagram.

2) The other degrees correspond to the Tree of the Sephiroth, the ubiquitous key in the Golden Dawn at all levels; the Zelator corresponds to Malkuth, the Theoricus to Yesod, etc.

In the First Order magical works are not very developed; rather, we insist on self-knowledge through exercises such as "the Middle Pillar" based on kundalini and the Sephirotic tree, introspection, visions in drawings called Tattvas following a Hindu technique, the practice of Geomancy, Tarot, and learning the theoretical bases of Qabalah, astrology, etc. The first principles of the almighty imagination are explained and put into action, principles which will be at the origin of all the theories and methods of creative visualization of which the New Age is fond. 3) In the Second Order, ceremonial magic takes a prominent place, the Tarot is used in another way, and the Adept is supposed to master many rituals, know how to make and consecrate various objects, Lotus staff, Rose+croix personal and pantacles, knowing how to study the why and how of the rituals he once underwent in the first Order, and entering the Enochian world. 4) The Third Order was only in contact with the two founders; it was nicknamed "the Grand White Lodge of Adepts" and received its directives from "mahatmas" whom Mathers contacted, in the purest Theosophical style, by clairvoyance, astral projection, mysterious appointment, or unknowingly....Most theoretical texts have been published in English. The collection by Israel Regardie, a member of the Order, gives only the texts, with little commentary; the French version is well explained by active members of the Order; the publications of Waite or Crowley bear the mark of the remodeling due to their authors; and many followers, members or not, such as Gareth Knight, Robert Wang, Gerald Schueler, Dion Fortune, Moryason...use the techniques, sometimes adapting them. The researcher who would like to operate concretely should make a rigorous synthesis of these different sources... Unless he receives directly from a true Adept the oral teachings which accompany the texts.

And, of course, each follower calls himself “the sole holder of THE TRUE Golden Dawn”! But let's not anticipate. Let us only reflect on techniques as diverse as they are divergent, often based on subjective parapsychological phenomena and clearly affirmed traditions, brought together for the first time, the link being established by constants such as the Tarot, the Qabalah, the Enochian mysteries... Such a conflagration of diverse and passionate thoughts could only explode, both for human reasons due to the development of the pride inherent in all magic, and for purely eggregoric reasons, due to the reworking of rituals and structures as time went by. as the experiences of the Inner Order (RR and AC) impacted the Outer Order (GD).

 

The flaw

 

The flaw came to light with the departure of Doctor Westcott in 1897. The Golden Dawn had been open for ten years. The official reason for leaving is as follows: having forgotten in a "cab" official documents of the Order implicating him, Westcott was summoned by the English authorities to choose between his post of coroner (medical examiner) and his membership of the Order. Rumors about magic around the corpses did not allow a serene exercise of this profession to a follower... We can legitimately suppose that the autocratic character of Mathers was for a lot in the final choice of Westcott, founder of the first hour. Freed from any moderator, MacGregor Mathers had a field day, ruling and deciding everything. Who will be able to judge whether, on the esoteric plane, Mathers' decisions were good or not? Either way, the full powers of the Imperator began to unnerve the spirits - the embodied spirits of his co-followers.

With Westcott's departure begins the decline of the Order as such. One of the points which aroused the anger of the "rebels" was the initiation into the Order in 1898 of a young magician, Aleister Crowley, who, against the opposition of the Brothers and Sisters, was raised to the degree of Adeptus Minor ( the highest grade concretely practiced in the Interior Order) by Mathers himself at the "Ahathoor" Temple in Paris on January 16, 1900.

So much has been said of Crowley that he can't be as black as that. If his personal life was a succession of sexual debauchery and excess, his initiatory written work is fascinating, lucid and balanced. But in Victorian England, even in a secret society where angels, demons and entities roam, Crowley was seen as the reincarnation of Satan himself, a legend he maintained with that mocking smile that we see in certain photos, drawing on his pipe and loving to make the ladies in feathered hats shiver with fright...Mathers' revelation. But finally a satanic legend pays off, and a famous actress, Florence Farr, the leader of the Isis-Urania Temple in London since April 1897, resigns from her post to Mathers. And there, an incredible thing will happen, a clap of thunder in a serene sky: Mathers believes to see in this resignation an underground action of Westcott, and he answers to Florence Farr a letter, dated February 16, 1900 from Paris, which I translated here: "...I cannot let you mount a combination to create a schism with the idea of working secretly or openly under the orders of Sapere Aude (=Westcott) under the false impression that he has been given a power on the work of the Second Order by Soror Dominabitur Astris (=Anne Sprengel). So all of this forces me to tell you completely (and don't get me wrong, I can prove to the hilt every word I say here, and more...) and if I'm confronted with SA I'd say the same , if only for the love of the Order, and in these circumstances which would really kill the reputation of SA, I beg you to keep the secret from the Order for the moment, although in fact you are perfectly free to show him this, if you consider it appropriate after careful consideration".

 

"(Wescott) was NEVER in communication, at any time, either personally or in writing, with the Secret Heads of the (Third) Order, he had himself forged - or caused to be forged - the alleged correspondence between him and them , and my tongue having been bound all these years by an Oath of Secrecy intended for this purpose, lent to him, asked by him, to me, before showing me what he had done, or caused to be done, or both. You must understand that I say little on this subject, given the extreme gravity of the matter, and once again I ask you, both for his love and that of the Order, not to force me to go further forward on this subject. Mathers does not go so far as to deny the existence of Anna Sprengel - whom he confused for a time with an adventurer, Loleta Jackson, alias Madame Horos, alias Swami Viva Ananda - but the word was out: all the German Rosicrucian guarantee was a bluff, a huge bluff, as was the fanciful "History of the Order" by the same Westcott.

 

The fall of the Imperator

 

Florence waits a few days, asks Westcott for an explanation, who calmly denies it, regretting that the witnesses from the first hour are dead. Florence then divulges Mathers' letter to all the Adepts in London, who on March 3 elect a Committee of Seven to hold Mathers to account. Mathers proudly refuses to show any evidence, does not recognize any authority above him except the leaders of the Third Order. On March 23, he dismissed Florence Farr from her duties; on March 29, the Second Order meeting in plenary assembly dismissed Mathers and expelled him from the Golden Dawn, all orders combined. Mathers threatens them with all possible karmic punishments, affirms that one cannot impeach him without his agreement because of magic bonds. Crowley joins him in Paris, comes up against the secession of the Ahatoor temple, and organizes with Mathers a veritable "duel of sorcery" between them and the "rebels". It's tragic to see a mind as vast as Mathers sink in this war of leaders for a power that is crumbling anyway. Each Temple thinks of itself as the sole holder of the "true" rituals, since their personal experiences have been positive (and they were logically positive, given the magnificent work of the founders on the rituals). In addition, each Frater or Soror with a different experience - through the visualization of the Tattvas among other things - feels invested with the duty to "save the true Golden Dawn".

This phenomenon of fragmentation was precipitated by the existence of secret working groups within the Order itself, an existence desired by Mathers as early as 1897 for the purpose of deepening the knowledge acquired. Florence Farr had thus founded a group called “La Sphère”. Enter William Butler Yeats, (1865-1939) Irish, future Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. After having been leader of Isis-Urania, he left the Order in 1901, the same year as the trial of Théo Horos. and his wife for fraud and sexual offenses, trials where the name and practices of the Golden Dawn were called into question with the distorting amplification that you can guess, and above all the publication of pieces of Ritual of the Neophyte where the oath pronounced by the recipient was considered blasphemy. The demoralizing effect on the followers of the Outer Order accentuated the ravages of the war of leaders... In 1902, the Second Order gave itself a triumvirate to lead it: PW Bullock, quickly replaced by Doctor RW Felkin; MW Blackden, Egyptologist, and JW Brodie-Inner. The tarot forms another set of beliefs, values and processes to replace them, Magdalene translated the Ark of the Covenant into a tree where the branches became cards for a deck....As far as the Golden Dawn initiation on the TOWER is concerned; the couple is falling apart, and an inevitable fight is going to happen.Translation "You must remain in control of the situation and keep your cool. Avoid saying anything that might hurt others. As far as your life is concerned, your romantic relationship may be coming to an end.

Take this as a warning - if you really care about your relationship, it's time for you to do some damage control or open up a line of communication to clear up any misunderstandings. " iation into the system of telepathic speech and quantum science was transmitted by medieval chivalry, which brought to the West the sacred science that had survived in the East. The knight is this transmitting agent, and he inspired the language of the alchemists, which symbolises the force that enables a chemical reaction and therefore a transformation of matter. In chemistry, transmutation has not yet been mastered, but it is a common phenomenon among alchemists. Alchemists are Initiates or, better still, Adepts.

 

www.ledifice.net/7215-3.html

 

The initiatory process for accessing the coded language of the ancient knights probably came to the USA via Rosicrucians inspired by wonderful tales such as The Alchemical Wedding attributed to the name of Christian Rozenkreuz or Goethe's The Wonderful Tale and the Beautiful Lily. Both drew their inspiration from Eastern philosophers, as did Dante, Shakespeare and Hugo. The initiation process was adapted to the tarot deck by Marie Magdalena . Mary Magdalene and Jesus, two great Essene initiates, when they came to Earth, their souls split into five parts to incarnate in as many different bodies. This journey took place between the Resurrection in 33 AD and the Ascension in 73 AD. During these years, Mary Magdalene, Jesus and their children travelled through France, the Netherlands and England. Later, Mary Magdalene and Jesus travelled to Spain, where they met Mary of Bethany and her daughter Sarah. Magda left us the tarot as a tutorial for accessing pure consciousness free of the ego that came mainly from the Romans and was unfortunately taken over by. Rome and therefore by the various occupants of a high command located on the banks of the Tiber. The genesis of the Golden Dawn. is to take our spiritual history early and rediscover this primordial alignment between earthly and cosmic forces. The initiatory process, represented by the imagiers of the Middle Ages, was left dormant in Marseille by Magda. Magda, with her tarot perhaps drawn in the Baumes cave not far from Marseille, has survived to this day. The founders of Golden Dawn asked the Rider Waite Smith trio to recreate a more modern system of representation than the tarot left by Magda and already illustrated by imagiers keen on coded language. Example our knight has worked well, he's a good knight, good night...

 

The image shows the path to follow to become a magician like Magda or, from a more recent, slightly phallocratic and Western point of view, a magician like Jesus.

 

We start with the knight of the sword, and the sword is the intellect. The tower here by. Strasbourg (birth of the free masons). it's this card which sees two guys fall. in jest, it's the loss of ego and weightlessness useful for splitting the soul into thirds. The ace. de baton is the one that Hermes Trimegoiste receives but. it is also that of Moses, it became. the caduceus of. doctors. The page of pentacle brings the philosophical gold to make this transmutation made possible by the operating mode.

 

The Knight of Swords is often taken to represent a confident and articulate young man, who may act impulsively. The problem is that this Knight, though visionary, is unrealistic. He fights bravely, but foolishly. In some illustrations, he is shown to have forgotten his armor or his helmet.A young man stands alone in a field. Pretty flowers, a ploughed field and fruit trees surround him, symbols of the harvest and Abundance to come. He is holding a Denarius in his hand. He looks at it intently. He studies it. The sky is clear. This Jack is quietly building his road to material success.

 

Like all the Jacks in the Tarot, the Jack of Pence represents a beginning, the first stages of a project. The Suit of Pence is the Suit associated with the Earth Element, material possessions and everything we hold dear - our health, our values, our skills. The Jack of Pence symbolises an awareness of the importance of all the material aspects of life. Wands are associated with fire energy, and the Ace of Wands is the core representation of fire within the deck. The card shows a hand that is sticking out of a cloud while holding the wand.

 

When we look at this card, we can see that the hand is reaching out to offer the wand, which is still growing. Some of the leaves from the wand have sprouted, which is meant to represent spiritual and material balance and progress. In the distance is a castle that symbolizes opportunities available in the future.The Ace of Wands calls out to you to follow your instincts. If you think that the project that you've been dreaming of is a good idea, and then just go ahead and do it. The Tower card depicts a high spire nestled on top of the mountain. A lightning bolt strikes the tower which sets it ablaze. Flames are bursting in the windows and people are jumping out of the windows as an act of desperation. They perhaps signal the same figures we see chained in the Devil card earlier. They want to escape the turmoil and destruction within. The Tower is a symbol for the ambition that is constructed on faulty premises. The destruction of the tower must happen in order to clear out the old ways and welcome something new. Its revelations can come in a flash of truth or inspiration.

 

Symbolism of the House of God or the House of God? or Tower for Rider-Waite-Smith in Golden Dawn system: the decisive question of the determinant in the name of the card. I've just been talking about language. And when it comes to language, it's important to be aware of the name of the card. It's a curious name for a tower, alas a dungeon, a fortress used both to protect itself from enemies and to symbolise its power and mark out its territory. It's hard to make the connection between a house and a fortified tower (there are crenellations). The name on the card doesn't match the drawing: symbolism behind it. Joy! Some anti-Cathos tarot cards, generally from the 19th century, call the card the House of God. Wrong! It is not the House of God. It is the House of God. Or Maison Dieu. This also requires a few notes.

The House of God leaves no room for ambiguity: it's a church, a place of worship. The tarot card is not to be taken as such.

The medieval house of God is something else again. "Another meaning of house, "building for specialised use" (12th c.), gave rise to a large number of expressions that appeared in Old French, then again in the 19th-20th c.: the oldest are based on the assimilation between the house and the temple of God (c. 1120, maison Dieu): the hospital where the poor were housed and cared for also received the name Maison Dieu (1165), analogous to hôtel-Dieu, and convents and monasteries that of maison (1165).".

The Maison-Dieu gave rise to legions of small villages and hamlets, particularly on the route to Santiago de Compostela.

Any esoteric researcher knows that when they come across villages with this name, they can stop. The likelihood of finding something symbolic, esoteric or occult in the area is relatively high. God's house (today in US Golden Dawn) is therefore a building where the poor, the sick and pilgrims can find refuge, comfort and care. We're a long way from Babel!.....? And if I remember the meaning of the card[2] at level 2, I'd be happy to add the following: "There is nothing in this world, apart from the spirit, that should not perish from slow or sudden dissociation. Heaven is outside. It is also within. And when its fire consumes or sets ablaze, strips the skin or strikes with lightning, it is always because a fault has been committed against harmony and disorder has arisen... This is how accidents, illnesses, cancers, revolutions and wars arise. Thus perish empires, peoples and races: from false notes." As always, there are many ideological undertones with the Rosicrucians. Food for thought.

 

www.vincentbeckers-cours-de-tarot.net/maison-dieu-symboli...

 

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded by persons claiming to be in communication with the Secret Chiefs. One of these Secret Chiefs (or a person in contact with them) was supposedly the (probably fictional) Anna Sprengel, whose name and address were allegedly decoded from the Cipher Manuscripts by William Wynn Westcott. In 1892, S. MacGregor Mathers (another founder) claimed that he had contacted these Secret Chiefs independently of Sprengel, and that this confirmed his position as head of the Golden Dawn.[1] He declared this in a manifesto four years later saying that they were human and living on Earth, yet possessed terrible superhuman powers.[1] He used this status to found the Second Order within the Golden Dawn,[2] and to introduce the Adeptus Minor ritual. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Latin: Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (Aurora Aurea), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as a magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was active in Great Britain and focused its practices on theurgy and spiritual development. Many present-day concepts of ritual and magic that are at the centre of contemporary traditions, such as Wicca[1] and Thelema, were inspired by the Golden Dawn, which became one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.[ The three founders, William Robert Woodman, William Wynn Westcott and Samuel Liddell Mathers, were Freemasons. Westcott appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn system was based on hierarchy and initiation, similar to Masonic lodges; however, women were admitted on an equal basis with men. The "Golden Dawn" was the first of three Orders, although all three are often collectively referred to as the "Golden Dawn". The First Order taught esoteric philosophy based on the Hermetic Qabalah and personal development through study and awareness of the four classical elements, as well as the basics of astrology, tarot divination, and geomancy. The Second or Inner Order, the Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis, taught magic, including scrying, astral travel, and alchemy. The Third Order was that of the Secret Chiefs, who were said to be highly skilled; they supposedly directed the activities of the lower two orders by spirit communication with the Chiefs of the Second Order.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has been considered one of the most important Western magical systems for over a century. Although much of their knowledge has been published, to really enter the system required initiation within a Golden Dawn temple--until now. Regardless of your magical knowledge or background, you can learn and live the Golden Dawn tradition with the first practical guide to Golden Dawn initiation. Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero offers self-paced instruction by two senior adepts of this magical order. For the first time, the esoteric rituals of the Golden Dawn are clearly laid out in step-by-step guidance that's clear and easy-to-follow. Studying the Knowledge Lectures, practicing daily rituals, doing meditations, and taking self-graded exams will enhance your learning. Initiation rituals have been correctly reinterpreted so you can perform them yourself. Upon completion of this workbook, you can truly say that you are practicing the Golden Dawn tradition with an in-depth knowledge of qabalah, astrology, Tarot, geomancy, spiritual alchemy, and more, all of which you will learn from Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition. No need for group membership

Instructions are free of jargon and complex language

Lessons don't require familiarity with magical traditions

Grade rituals from Neophyte to Porta. Link with your Higher Self

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to learn the Golden Dawn system, Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition explains it all. The lessons follow a structured plan, adding more and more information with each section of the book. Did you really learn the material? Find out by using the written tests and checking them with the included answers. Here is a chance to find out if the Golden Dawn system is the right path for you or to add any part of their wisdom and techniques to the system you follow. Start with this book now. At the beginning of the twentieth century the esoteric order of the Golden Dawn deposited part of its magical wisdom in Tarot decks. The Golden Dawn Magical Tarot uses symbology and colours as adhered to by the Order of the Golden Dawn. The major arcana show abstract and very vibrant scenes, but the minors are overly repetitive. Little changes between the cards of a suit but the number of cups or pentacles.More than thirty years ago, U.S. Games Systems published the The Golden Dawn Tarot, revealing for the first time many truths and secrets of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and its interpretation of the tarot. The card designs follow the symbolic framework of the Inner Tradition. The foundational documents of the original Order of the Golden Dawn, known as the Cipher Manuscripts, are written in English using the Trithemius cipher. The manuscripts give the specific outlines of the Grade Rituals of the Order and prescribe a curriculum of graduated teachings that encompass the Hermetic Qabalah, astrology, occult tarot, geomancy, and alchemy. According to the records of the Order, the manuscripts passed from Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, a Masonic scholar, to the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, whom British occult writer Francis King describes as the fourth founder[2] (although Woodford died shortly after the Order was founded).[3] The documents did not excite Woodford, and in February 1886 he passed them on to Freemason William Wynn Westcott, who managed to decode them in 1887.[2] Westcott, pleased with his discovery, called on fellow Freemason Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers for a second opinion. Westcott asked for Mathers' help to turn the manuscripts into a coherent system for lodge work. Mathers, in turn, asked fellow Freemason William Robert Woodman to assist the two, and he accepted.[2] Mathers and Westcott have been credited with developing the ritual outlines in the Cipher Manuscripts into a workable format.[c] Mathers, however, is generally credited with the design of the curriculum and rituals of the Second Order, which he called the Rosae Rubae et Aureae Crucis ("Ruby Rose and Golden Cross" or the RR et AC).

 

www.loscarabeo.com/en/products/tarocchi-iniziatici-della-...

 

A. E. Waite and A. Crowley were inspired by that philosophy, as well as famous poets, intellectuals and artists. Today the Golden Dawn Tarot comes back to light in a new form that translate the secret instructions transmitted only to the initiates of the Brotherhood into extraordinary images.

In a professional draw, The Magician, also known as The Bateleur, indicates that you are highly competent in your field, and that you know how to use your skills and knowledge to achieve your professional goals. So use your natural talents to shine! This is not the time to lose self-confidence, to hide or worse to minimise the extent of your abilities. On the contrary! Show what you can do, and accept the challenges that come your way.

 

From a slightly more divinatory point of view, you can also expect to receive positive feedback from your manager or a potential employer.In esoteric decks, occultists, starting with Oswald Wirth, turned Le Bateleur from a mountebank into a magus. The curves of the magician's hat brim in the Marseilles image are similar to the esoteric deck's mathematical sign of infinity. Similarly, other symbols were added. The essentials are that the magician has set up a temporary table outdoors, to display items that represent the suits of the Minor Arcana: Cups, Coins, Swords (as knives). The fourth, the baton (Clubs) he holds in his hand. The baton was later changed to represent a literal magician's wand.

 

The illustration of the tarot card "The Magician" from the Rider–Waite tarot deck was developed by A. E. Waite for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1910. Waite's magician features the infinity symbol over his head, and an ouroboros belt, both symbolizing eternity. The figure stands among a garden of flowers, to imply the manifestation and cultivation of desires.

 

In French Le Bateleur, "the mountebank" or the "sleight of hand artist", is a practitioner of stage magic. The Italian tradition calls him Il Bagatto or Il Bagatello. The Mantegna Tarocchi image that would seem to correspond with the Magician is labeled Artixano, the Artisan; he is the second lowest in the series, outranking only the Beggar. Visually the 18th-century woodcuts reflect earlier iconic representations, and can be compared to the free artistic renditions in the 15th-century hand-painted tarots made for the Visconti and Sforza families. In the painted cards attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, the Magician appears to be playing with cups and balls. How can we put our spiritual knowledge and beliefs into practice on a daily basis? That's the question posed by Le Magicien. How do you go from thinking of spirituality as a series of intellectual concepts to actually living them? How can you apply them to embody your Authentic Being and bring to life what you really want?

 

The Magician indicates that these answers are already within you and that you have the tools - symbolised by the Tarot Suits on the table - to move towards self-fulfilment. The Magician is very 'hands-on' and advises you to test to find what gives you the greatest sense of well-being and grounding; to practise your Magic to develop yourself and reach your full potential. Intuitive practices create the link between Body, Soul and Spirit... Open your Heart to Intuition and practise!

vivre-intuitif.com/apprendre-le-tarot/signification/majeu...

The Magician - or Bateleur in the Tarot de Marseille - points his wand towards Heaven, while his other hand points towards Earth. This gesture signifies that he captures the Energy of the Universe, that it flows through him, to manifest itself in the world, in everyday life. In front of him, the attributes of the four Tarot Suits are placed on the table: a Rod, a Cup, a Sword and a Denarius. Each represents an Element: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. The magician thus has everything at his disposal to manifest his dreams and desires, to materialize them, to make them possible, tangible. In this Energy, the possibilities are infinite, as underlined by the symbol above his head and belt, a snake biting its own tail. The Magician is associated with the planet Mercury, the planet of competence, logic and intelligence. His number is 1, the number of beginnings. The Magician , also known as The Magus or The Juggler, is the first trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional tarot decks. It is used in game playing and divination; in the English-speaking world, the divination meaning is much better known. Within the card game context, the equivalent is the Pagat which is the lowest trump card, also known as the atouts or honours. In the occult context, the trump cards are recontextualized as the Major Arcana and granted complex esoteric meaning. The Magician in such context is interpreted as the first numbered and second total card of the Major Arcana, succeeding the Fool, which is unnumbered or marked 0. The Magician as an object of occult study is interpreted as symbolic of power, potential, and the unification of the physical and spiritual worlds. The Magician is one tarot card that is filled with symbolism. The central figure depicts someone with one hand pointed to the sky, while the other hand points to the ground, as if to say "as above, so below". This is a rather complicated phrase, but its summarization is that earth reflects heaven, the outer world reflects within, the microcosm reflects the macrocosm, earth reflects God. It can also be interpreted here that the magician symbolizes the ability to act as a go-between between the world above and the contemporary, human world. On his table, the magician also wields all the suits of the tarot. This symbolizes the four elements being connected by this magician - the four elements being earth, water, air, and fire. The infinity sign on his head indicates the infinite possibilities of creation with the will. Upright Magician Meaning. The Magician is the representation of pure willpower. With the power of the elements and the suits, he takes the potential innate in the fool and molds it into being with the power of desire. He is the connecting force between heaven and earth, for he understands the meaning behind the words "as above so below" - that mind and world are only reflections of one another. Remember that you are powerful, create your inner world, and the outer will follow. Remember that you are powerful, create your inner world, and the outer will follow. When you get the Magician in your reading, it might mean that it's time to tap into your full potential without hesitation. It might be in your new job, new business venture, a new love or something else. It shows that the time to take action is now and any signs of holding back would mean missing the opportunity of becoming the best version of yourself. Certain choices will have to be made and these can bring great changes to come. Harness some of the Magician's power to make the world that you desire most.

labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/the-magicia...

 

Symbolism

Rider–Waite

If The Fool - The Mate symbolises the desire to discover, The Magician is "The Alchemist" of the Major Arcana, the one who can create everything from nothing, transforming lead into gold. The Magician card is therefore the card of "manifestation" par excellence, i.e. to make possible, to concretise and to have an impact on one's environment and the world. The Magician is a card that highlights your unique talents... unique talents that serve your unique and authentic desires.

 

With the Magician, success is within reach. You're ready to use your abilities and skills to achieve your goals. The desire to do something new, to start a cycle, is very strong. In Magician's Energy, you feel optimistic and in a conquering frame of mind. You're able to use all the resources at your disposal to achieve this: your skills, those close to you and all the tools - intuitive or otherwise - that are at your disposal.

 

The Magician is a card that also evokes concentration and focus. So this is not the time to spread yourself too thin or try to do everything at once. It's all about staying focused on a single objective and putting all your energy and resources into it. The Magician warns against distractions, or even temptations, that could lead you astray and compromise the achievement of your objective.

  

The Magician is depicted with one hand pointing upwards towards the sky and the other pointing down to the earth, interpreted widely as an "as above, so below" reference to the spiritual and physical realms. On the table before him are a wand, a pentacle, a sword, and a cup, representing the four suits of the Minor Arcana. Such symbols signify the classical elements of fire, earth, air, and water, "which lie like counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills". The Magician's right hand, pointed upwards, holds a double-ended white wand; the ends are interpreted much like the hand gestures, in that they represent the Magician's status as conduit between the spiritual and the physical. His robe is similarly also white, a symbol of purity yet also of inexperience, while his red mantle is understood through the lens of red's wildly polarised colour symbolism—both a representative of willpower and passion, and one of egotism, rage, and revenge. In front of the Magician is a garden of Rose of Sharon roses and lily of the valley lillies....

 

Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily from Goethe, Johann Wolfgang was demonstrating the "culture of aspiration", or the Magician's ability to cultivate and fulfill potential of the ouroboros wo symbolized the Green Snake in this tale, the Magician is an. alchemist. The Magician is associated with the planet Mercury the Ouroboros alchemist , and hence the signs of Gemini the two will-o-wisp and Virgo Lily in astrology.

 

Marseilles

Although the Rider–Waite Tarot deck is the most often used in occult contexts, other decks such as the Tarot of Marseilles usually used for game-playing have also been read through a symbolic lens. Alejandro Jodorowsky's reading of the Magician as Le Bateleur draws attention to individual details of the Marseilles card, such as the fingers, table, and depiction of the plants, in addition to the elements shared between the Rider–Waite and Marseilles decks.[10] The Magician in the Marseilles deck is depicted with six fingers on his left hand rather than five, which Jodorowsky interprets as a symbol of manipulating and reorganizing reality. Similarly, the table he stands behind has three legs rather than four; the fourth leg is interpreted as being outside the card, a metafictional statement that "[i]t is by going beyond the stage of possibilities and moving into the reality of action and choice that The Magician gives concrete expression to his situation". Rather than flowers, the Magician of the Marseilles deck is depicted with a small plant between his feet. The plant has a yonic appearance and has been interpreted as the sex organs of either a personal mother or the abstract concept of Mother Nature.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician_(tarot_card)

  

Divination

Like the other cards of the Major Arcana, the Magician is the subject of complex and extensive analysis as to its occult interpretations. On the broad level, the Magician is interpreted with energy, potential, and the manifestation of one's desires; the card symbolizes the meetings of the physical and spiritual worlds ("as above, so below") and the conduit converting spiritual energy into real-world action.

 

Tarot experts have defined the Magician in association with the Fool, which directly precedes it in the sequence; Rachel Pollack refers to the card as "in the image of the trickster-wizard". A particularly important aspect of the card's visual symbolism in the Rider–Waite deck is the magician's hands, with one hand pointing towards the sky and the other towards the earth. Pollack and other writers understand this as a reflection of the Hermetic concept of "as above, so below", where the workings of the macrocosm (the universe as a whole, understood as a living being) and the microcosm (the human being, understood as a universe) are interpreted as inherently intertwined with one another. To Pollack, the Magician is a metaphysical lightning rod, channeling macrocosmic energy into the microcosm.

 

According to A. E. Waite's 1910 book Pictorial Key To The Tarot, the Magician card is associated with the divine motive in man. In particular, Waite interprets the Magician through a Gnostic lens, linking the card's connection with the number eight (which the infinity symbol is visually related to) and the Gnostic concept of the Ogdoad, spiritual rebirth into a hidden eighth celestial realm. Said infinity symbol above the Magician's head is also interpreted as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the prophetic and theophanic aspect of the Trinity. Like other tarot cards, the symbolism of the Magician is interpreted differently depending on whether the card is drawn in an upright or reversed position. While the upright Magician represents potential and tapping into one's talents, the reversed Magician's potential and talents are unfocused and unmanifested. The reversed Magician can also be interpreted as related to black magick and to madness or mental distress.[14] A particularly important interpretation of the reversed Magician relates to the speculated connection between the experiences recognized in archaic societies as shamanism and those recognized in technological societies as schizophrenia; the reversed Magician is perceived as symbolizing the degree to which those experiences and abilities are unrecognized and suppressed, and the goal is to turn the card 'upright', or re-focus those experiences into their positive form.

 

In art

The Surrealist (Le surréaliste), 1947, is a painting by Victor Brauner. The Juggler provided Brauner with a key prototype for his self-portrait: the Surrealist's large hat, medieval costume, and the position of his arms all derive from this figure who, like Brauner's subject, stands behind a table displaying a knife, a goblet, and coins.

 

www.amazon.fr/Self-Initiation-into-Golden-Dawn-Tradition/...

 

Founding of the First Temple

In October 1887, Westcott claimed to have written to a German countess and prominent Rosicrucian named Anna Sprengel, whose address was said to have been found in the decoded Cipher Manuscripts. According to Westcott, Sprengel claimed the ability to contact certain supernatural entities, known as the Secret Chiefs, that were considered the authorities over any magical order or esoteric organization. Westcott purportedly received a reply from Sprengel granting permission to establish a Golden Dawn temple and conferring honorary grades of Adeptus Exemptus on Westcott, Mathers, and Woodman. The temple was to consist of the five grades outlined in the manuscripts.

 

In 1888, the Isis-Urania Temple was founded in London. In contrast to the S.R.I.A. and Masonry,[6] women were allowed and welcome to participate in the Order in "perfect equality" with men. The Order was more of a philosophical and metaphysical teaching order in its early years. Other than certain rituals and meditations found in the Cipher manuscripts and developed further, "magical practices" were generally not taught at the first temple. For the first four years, the Golden Dawn was one cohesive group later known as the "First Order" or "Outer Order". A "Second Order" or "Inner Order" was established and became active in 1892. The Second Order consisted of members known as "adepts", who had completed the entire course of study for the First Order. The Second Order was formally established under the name Ordo Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (the Order of the Red Rose and the Golden Cross) Eventually, the Osiris temple in Weston-super-Mare, the Horus temple in Bradford (both in 1888), and the Amen-Ra temple in Edinburgh (1893) were founded. In 1893 Mathers founded the Ahathoor temple in Paris.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn

Secret Chiefs: in various occultist movements, Secret Chiefs are said to be transcendent cosmic authorities, a spiritual hierarchy responsible for the operation and moral calibre of the cosmos, or for overseeing the operations of an esoteric organization that manifests outwardly in the form of a magical order or lodge system. Their names and descriptions have varied through time, differing among those who have claimed experience of contact with them. They are variously held to exist on higher planes of being or to be incarnate; if incarnate, they may be described as being gathered at some special location, such as Shambhala, or scattered through the world working anonymously. One early and influential source on these entities is Karl von Eckartshausen, whose The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, published in 1795, explained in some detail their character and motivations. Several 19th and 20th century occultists claimed to belong to or to have contacted these Secret Chiefs and made these communications known to others: Aleister Crowley (who used the term to refer to members of the upper three grades of his order, A∴A∴), Dion Fortune (who called them the "esoteric order"), and Max Heindel (who called them the "Elder Brothers").

While in Algeria in 1909, Aleister Crowley, along with Victor Neuburg, recited numerous Enochian Calls or Aires. After the fifteenth Aire, he declared that he had attained the grade of Magister Templi (Master of the Temple), which meant that he was now on the level of these Secret Chiefs, although this declaration caused many occultists to stop taking him seriously if they had not done so already. He also described this attainment as a possible and in fact a necessary step for all who truly followed his path.[a] In 1947, when Aleister Crowley died, he left behind a sketch of one of the Secret Chiefs, Crowley's invisible mentor that he called LAM. The sketch looks like a grey alien. The church invisible, invisible church, mystical church or church mystical, is a Christian theological concept of an "invisible" Christian Church of the elect who are known only to God, in contrast to the "visible church"—that is, the institutional body on earth which preaches the gospel and administers the sacraments. Every member of the invisible church is "saved", while the visible church contains all individuals who are saved though also having some who are "unsaved".[1] According to this view, Bible passages such as Matthew 7:21–27, Matthew 13:24–30, and Matthew 24:29–51 speak about this distinction.

 

Views on the relation with Visible church

Distinction between two churches

The first person in church history to introduce a view of an invisible and a visible church is Clement of Alexandria. Some have also argued that Jovinian and Vigilantius held an invisible church view.

 

The concept was advocated by St Augustine of Hippo as part of his refutation of the Donatist sect, though he, as other Church Fathers before him, saw the invisible Church and visible Church as one and the same thing, unlike the later Protestant reformers who did not identify the Catholic Church as the true church.[8] He was strongly influenced by the Platonist belief that true reality is invisible and that, if the visible reflects the invisible, it does so only partially and imperfectly (see theory of forms). Others question whether Augustine really held to some form of an "invisible true Church" concept.

 

The concept was insisted upon during the Protestant reformation as a way of distinguishing between the "visible" Roman Catholic Church, which according to the Reformers was corrupt, and those within it who truly believe, as well as true believers within their own denominations. John Calvin described the church invisible as "that which is actually in God's presence, into which no persons are received but those who are children of God by grace of adoption and true members of Christ by sanctification of the Holy Spirit... [The invisible church] includes not only the saints presently living on earth, but all the elect from the beginning of the world." He continues in contrasting this church with the church scattered throughout the world. "In this church there is a very large mixture of hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance..." (Institutes 4.1.7) Richard Hooker distinguished "between the mystical Church and the visible Church", the former of which is "known only to God."[11]

 

John Wycliffe, who was a precursor to the reformation, also believed in an invisible church made of the predestinated elect. Another precursor of the reformation, Johann Ruchrat von Wesel believed in a distinction between the visible and invisible church.

 

Pietism later took this a step further, with its formulation of ecclesiolae in ecclesia ("little churches within the church").

 

Non-distinction

Roman Catholic theology, reacting against the protestant concept of an invisible Church, emphasized the visible aspect of the Church founded by Christ, but in the twentieth century placed more stress on the interior life of the Church as a supernatural organism, identifying the Church, as in the encyclical Mystici corporis Christi of Pope Pius XII, with the Mystical Body of Christ. In Catholic doctrine, the one true Church is the visible society founded by Christ, namely, the Catholic Church under the global jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome.

  

This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This encyclical rejected two extreme views of the Church:

 

A rationalistic or purely sociological understanding of the Church, according to which it is merely a human organization with structures and activities, is mistaken. The visible Church and its structures do exist but the Church is more, as it is guided by the Holy Spirit:

Although the juridical principles, on which the Church rests and is established, derive from the divine constitution given to it by Christ and contribute to the attaining of its supernatural end, nevertheless that which lifts the Society of Christians far above the whole natural order is the Spirit of our Redeemer who penetrates and fills every part of the Church.

An exclusively mystical understanding of the Church is mistaken as well, because a mystical "Christ in us" union would deify its members and mean that the acts of Christians are simultaneously the acts of Christ. The theological concept una mystica persona (one mystical person) refers not to an individual relation but to the unity of Christ with the Church and the unity of its members with him in her. This is where we can find direct contrast to Christian philosophy like the preachings of Rev.Jesse Lee Peterson, yet the personification is similar. There is another view, that contrasts these two school-of-thought, and that is from Albert Eduard Meier, as he includes Electric Theory in his teachings, similar to Creationism.

Eastern Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky too characterizes as a "Nestorian ecclesiology" that which would "divide the Church into distinct beings: on the one hand a heavenly and invisible Church, alone true and absolute; on the other, the earthly Church (or rather 'the churches'), imperfect and relative".

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_invisible

  

The fall of the Imperator

 

Florence waits a few days, asks Westcott for an explanation, who calmly denies it, regretting that the witnesses from the first hour are dead. Florence then divulges Mathers' letter to all the Adepts in London, who on March 3 elect a Committee of Seven to hold Mathers to account. Mathers proudly refuses to show any evidence, does not recognize any authority above him except the leaders of the Third Order.

 

On March 23, he dismissed Florence Farr from her duties; on March 29, the Second Order meeting in plenary assembly dismissed Mathers and expelled him from the Golden Dawn, all orders combined. Mathers threatens them with all possible karmic punishments, affirms that one cannot impeach him without his agreement because of magic bonds.

 

Crowley joins him in Paris, comes up against the secession of the Ahatoor temple, and organizes with Mathers a veritable "duel of sorcery" between them and the "rebels". It's tragic to see a mind as vast as Mathers sink in this war of leaders for a power that is crumbling anyway.

 

Each Temple thinks of itself as the sole holder of the "true" rituals, since their personal experiences have been positive (and they were logically positive, given the magnificent work of the founders on the rituals). In addition, each Frater or Soror with a different experience - through the visualization of the Tattvas among other things - feels invested with the duty to "save the true Golden Dawn".

 

This phenomenon of fragmentation was precipitated by the existence of secret working groups within the Order itself, an existence desired by Mathers as early as 1897 for the purpose of deepening the knowledge acquired.

 

Florence Farr had thus founded a group called “La Sphère”. Enter William Butler Yeats, (1865-1939) Irish, future Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. After having been leader of Isis-Urania, he left the Order in 1901, the same year as the trial of Théo Horos. and his wife for fraud and sexual offenses, trials where the name and practices of the Golden Dawn were called into question with the distorting amplification that you can guess, and above all the publication of pieces of Ritual of the Neophyte where the oath pronounced by the recipient was considered blasphemy.he demoralizing effect on the followers of the Outer Order accentuated the ravages of the war of leaders... In 1902, the Second Order gave itself a triumvirate to lead it: PW Bullock, quickly replaced by Doctor RW Felkin; MW Blackden, Egyptologist, and JW Brodie-Inner.

 

The Breaking of the Golden Dawn

 

They had to fight from the start against Arthur Edward Waite, who, at the head of a group of followers, wanted to modify the system of leadership, for reasons he explained in 1903: to be caliph instead of the caliph, then make The Order give up all magic, overhaul all rituals, and all for good reason: Waite claims the Third Order doesn't exist.

 

Waite and Blackden then founded their own Order, with a temple they named Isis-Urania after the first temple of the Golden Dawn. Brodie-Inner makes his Edinburgh temple independent.

 

Felkin reacts with a magical act: he abolishes the name "Golden Dawn" and gives it the name "Stella Matutina". It is this branch that is the legal (and spiritual?) successor to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It is under this name that Dion Fortune or Israel Regardie will know the Order. We are in 1903. The history of the Order is over: begins that of its heirs.The Continuators

 

The Golden Dawn had almost as many successors as the Martinist order of Papus, while having the original branch that survives alongside its imitators.

 

Crowley

 

One of the most famous followers of the spirit of GD is of course Crowley. After founding his Order, Astrum Argentinum, he received the patents of the Ordo Templis Orientiis during one of his many trips to the Orient - from where he also brought back yogas.

 

One of the fundamental designs of the OTO represents an oval containing an Egyptian-style eye at the top, in the middle a beaked dove at the bottom, and at the bottom a Flaming Cup stamped with the Templar cross. He had frequent contact with Rudolf Steiner, who found himself imbued with Golden Dawn for many of his afterlife theories.

  

Photographed from a Tanda Tula Safari Camp vehicle, Timbavati, South Africa - Photographed from a safari vehicle, no cover

 

=> Please click on the image to see the largest size. <=

 

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From Wikipedia: The white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is closely related to the European griffon vulture, G. fulvus. Sometimes it is called African white-backed vulture to distinguish it from the Oriental white-backed vulture — nowadays usually called white-rumped vulture — to which it was formerly believed to be closely related.

 

Description:

The white-backed vulture is a typical vulture, with only down feathers on the head and neck, very broad wings and short tail feathers. It has a white neck ruff. The adult's whitish back contrasts with the otherwise dark plumage. Juveniles are largely dark. This is a medium-sized vulture; its body mass is 4.2 to 7.2 kilograms (9.3–15.9 lb), it is 78 to 98 cm (31 to 39 in) long and has a 1.96 to 2.25 m (6 to 7 ft) wingspan.

 

Like other vultures it is a scavenger, feeding mostly from carcasses of animals which it finds by soaring over the savannah. It also takes scraps from human habitations. It often moves in flocks. It breeds in trees on the savannah of west and eastern and southern Africa, laying one egg. The population is mostly resident.

 

Diet:

White-backed vultures are an endangered species, living in a diminishing environment, which results in a decrease in the amount of food available. This increases competition for food, which affects them in two ways. First, the white-backed vulture is not a species that shares food with others of its own species. Second, the white-backs face competition for food with other animals in their habitat.

 

The main food source of the creature are the carcasses of animals in its habitat. The creature soars over the Savannah and even wooded areas in search of food. It will also follow the water streams during the wet season, an ideal place to find food, as other animals are gathered to get water. Some examples of what a white-backed vulture eat are warthogs, zebras, gazelles, or ostriches, but it will basically feast on the carcass of any animal.

 

Breeding:

White-backed vultures nest in trees. They typically choose tall trees along riparian habitats and show strong a preference for Acacia species. The nests are large, around 1m in diameter, and are made of large sticks and lined with leaves and grasses. White-backed vultures face threats from habitat degradation and poaching; as such they have been shown to avoid anthropogenically-disturbed areas when selecting nest sites and protection status is also a strong determinant of site selection. White-backed vultures have a long breeding cycle. The incubation period is around 8 weeks and the nestling period is about 4–5 months.

 

AB2A7782-1CAFlkr

FAIR

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

The Reservoir of Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) is a reservoir in the southern area of the city of São Paulo, in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

The Reservoir of Guarapiranga was constructed in 1906 by the São Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Company, also known as "Light", which was the company responsible for the region's supply of electrical energy at that time. In 1928, Guarapiranga began being used as a reservoir for potable water distribution.

The reservoir is supplied by the River Guarapiranga and other smaller rivers and brooks, traversing areas of the cities of São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra, and Embu-Guaçu. It was constructed originally to attend the necessities of the production of electrical energy in the Parnaíba Hydroelectric generating plant. It is currently utilized for the water supply for the Greater São Paulo by the Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), a Brazilian state-owned utility that provides water and sewage services. Guarapiranga is also utilized as a flood control mechanism and as a place of leisure. There are artificial beaches and marinas in the reservoir's peripheral areas.

Between the 1980s and the 1990s, the absence of clear political laws determining the use and occupation of the area contributed to the creation of clandestine and irregular neighborhoods around the reservoir. Untreated human waste and sewage-contaminated rivers and brooks that fed into the reservoir.

 

ados de traducción

A Represa de Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) é uma represa na zona sul da cidade de São Paulo, Estado de São Paulo, Brasil.

O Reservatório de Guarapiranga foi construído em 1906 pela Companhia Paulista de Bonde, Luz e Energia, também conhecida como "Light", que era a empresa responsável pelo fornecimento de energia elétrica da região na época. Em 1928, Guarapiranga passou a ser utilizada como reservatório para distribuição de água potável.

O reservatório é abastecido pelo rio Guarapiranga e outros rios e riachos menores, atravessando áreas das cidades de São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra e Embu-Guaçu. Foi construído originalmente para atender às necessidades de produção de energia elétrica da Usina Hidrelétrica Parnaíba. Atualmente, é utilizada para o abastecimento de água da Grande São Paulo pela Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), uma concessionária estatal brasileira que fornece serviços de água e esgoto. Guarapiranga também é utilizada como mecanismo de controle de enchentes e local de lazer. Existem praias artificiais e marinas nas áreas periféricas do reservatório.

Entre as décadas de 1980 e 1990, a ausência de leis políticas claras determinando o uso e ocupação da área contribuiu para a criação de bairros clandestinos e irregulares no entorno do reservatório. Dejetos humanos não tratados e rios e riachos contaminados com esgoto que alimentam o reservatório.

 

El Embalse de Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) es un embalse en la zona sur de la ciudad de São Paulo, en el Estado de São Paulo, Brasil.

El Embalse de Guarapiranga fue construido en 1906 por la Compañía de Tranvía, Luz y Energía de São Paulo, también conocida como "Luz", que era la empresa responsable del suministro de energía eléctrica de la región en ese momento. En 1928, Guarapiranga comenzó a utilizarse como reservorio para la distribución de agua potable.

El embalse es abastecido por el río Guarapiranga y otros ríos y arroyos menores, atravesando áreas de las ciudades de São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra y Embu-Guaçu. Fue construido originalmente para atender las necesidades de producción de energía eléctrica en la Central Hidroeléctrica de Parnaíba. Actualmente es utilizada para el suministro de agua para el Gran São Paulo por la Companhia de Saneamento Básico del Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), una empresa estatal brasileña que proporciona servicios de agua y alcantarillado. Guarapiranga también se utiliza como mecanismo de control de inundaciones y como lugar de esparcimiento. Hay playas artificiales y puertos deportivos en las zonas periféricas del embalse.

Entre las décadas de 1980 y 1990, la ausencia de leyes políticas claras que determinaran el uso y ocupación del área contribuyó a la creación de barrios clandestinos e irregulares alrededor del embalse. Desechos humanos no tratados y ríos y arroyos contaminados con aguas residuales que desembocan en el embalse.

 

Het stuwmeer van Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) is een stuwmeer in het zuidelijke deel van de stad São Paulo, in de staat São Paulo, Brazilië.

Het stuwmeer van Guarapiranga werd in 1906 gebouwd door de São Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Company, ook bekend als "Light", het bedrijf dat op dat moment verantwoordelijk was voor de levering van elektrische energie in de regio. In 1928 werd Guarapiranga gebruikt als reservoir voor drinkwaterdistributie.

Het stuwmeer wordt gevoed door de rivier de Guarapiranga en andere kleinere rivieren en beken, door gebieden van de steden São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra en Embu-Guaçu. Het werd oorspronkelijk gebouwd om te voorzien in de behoeften van de productie van elektrische energie in de waterkrachtcentrale van Parnaíba. Het wordt momenteel gebruikt voor de watervoorziening voor de regio van São Paulo door de Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), een Braziliaans staatsbedrijf dat water- en rioleringsdiensten levert. Guarapiranga wordt ook gebruikt als een mechanisme voor het beheersen van overstromingen en als een plaats van vrije tijd. Er zijn kunstmatige stranden en jachthavens in de randgebieden van het stuwmeer.

Tussen de jaren tachtig en de jaren negentig droeg het ontbreken van duidelijke politieke wetten die het gebruik en de bezetting van het gebied bepalen, bij tot het ontstaan ​​van clandestiene en onregelmatige buurten rond het stuwmeer. Onbehandeld menselijk afval en met riool vervuilde rivieren en beken die in het reservoir stroomden.

 

Le réservoir de Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) est un réservoir situé au sud de la ville de São Paulo, dans l'État de São Paulo, au Brésil.

Le réservoir de Guarapiranga a été construit en 1906 par la São Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Company, également connue sous le nom de « Light », qui était à l'époque la société responsable de l'approvisionnement en énergie électrique de la région. En 1928, Guarapiranga a commencé à être utilisé comme réservoir pour la distribution d'eau potable.

Le réservoir est alimenté par la rivière Guarapiranga et d'autres rivières et ruisseaux plus petits, traversant des zones des villes de São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra et Embu-Guaçu. Il a été construit à l'origine pour répondre aux besoins de la production d'énergie électrique dans la centrale hydroélectrique de Parnaíba. Il est actuellement utilisé pour l'approvisionnement en eau du Grand São Paulo par la Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), une entreprise publique brésilienne qui fournit des services d'eau et d'égouts. Guarapiranga est également utilisé comme mécanisme de contrôle des inondations et comme lieu de loisirs. Il y a des plages artificielles et des marinas dans les zones périphériques du réservoir.

Entre les années 1980 et 1990, l'absence de lois politiques claires déterminant l'utilisation et l'occupation de la zone a contribué à la création de quartiers clandestins et irréguliers autour du réservoir. Déchets humains non traités et rivières et ruisseaux contaminés par les eaux usées qui se sont déversés dans le réservoir.

 

Der Guarapiranga-Stausee (Represa de Guarapiranga) ist ein Stausee im Süden der Stadt São Paulo im brasilianischen Bundesstaat São Paulo.

Der Stausee von Guarapiranga wurde 1906 von der São Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Company, auch bekannt als "Light", gebaut, die damals für die elektrische Energieversorgung der Region verantwortlich war. Im Jahr 1928 wurde Guarapiranga als Reservoir für die Trinkwasserversorgung genutzt.

Der Stausee wird vom Fluss Guarapiranga und anderen kleineren Flüssen und Bächen gespeist, die Gebiete der Städte São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra und Embu-Guaçu durchqueren. Es wurde ursprünglich gebaut, um den Bedarf der Stromerzeugung im Wasserkraftwerk Parnaíba zu decken. Es wird derzeit für die Wasserversorgung des Großraums São Paulo von der Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), einem brasilianischen staatlichen Versorgungsunternehmen, das Wasser- und Abwasserdienstleistungen anbietet, genutzt. Guarapiranga wird auch als Hochwasserschutzmechanismus und als Ort der Freizeit genutzt. In den Randbereichen des Stausees gibt es künstliche Strände und Yachthäfen.

Zwischen den 1980er und 1990er Jahren trug das Fehlen klarer politischer Gesetze zur Bestimmung der Nutzung und Besetzung des Gebiets zur Entstehung illegaler und illegaler Viertel rund um den Stausee bei. Unbehandelte menschliche Abfälle und abwasserverseuchte Flüsse und Bäche, die in den Stausee mündeten.

 

Il bacino idrico di Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) è un bacino idrico nella zona meridionale della città di São Paulo, nello Stato di São Paulo, Brasile.

Il bacino idrico di Guarapiranga è stato costruito nel 1906 dalla Compagnia del Tram, della Luce e dell'Energia di San Paolo, nota anche come "Luce", che all'epoca era la società responsabile della fornitura di energia elettrica della regione. Nel 1928 Guarapiranga iniziò ad essere utilizzato come serbatoio per la distribuzione dell'acqua potabile.

Il bacino è alimentato dal fiume Guarapiranga e da altri fiumi e ruscelli più piccoli, che attraversano le aree delle città di São Paulo, Itapecerica da Serra e Embu-Guaçu. È stato originariamente costruito per soddisfare le necessità della produzione di energia elettrica nella centrale idroelettrica di Parnaíba. Attualmente è utilizzato per l'approvvigionamento idrico della Grande San Paolo dalla Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP), un'azienda statale brasiliana che fornisce servizi idrici e fognari. Guarapiranga è anche utilizzato come meccanismo di controllo delle inondazioni e come luogo di svago. Ci sono spiagge artificiali e porti turistici nelle aree periferiche del bacino.

Tra gli anni '80 e '90, l'assenza di leggi politiche chiare che determinassero l'uso e l'occupazione dell'area ha contribuito alla creazione di quartieri clandestini e irregolari intorno al bacino. Rifiuti umani non trattati e fiumi e ruscelli contaminati da liquami che alimentavano il bacino.

 

خزان Guarapiranga (Represa de Guarapiranga) هو خزان في المنطقة الجنوبية من مدينة ساو باولو ، في ولاية ساو باولو ، البرازيل.

تم بناء خزان Guarapiranga في عام 1906 من قبل São Paulo Tramway، Light and Power Company ، والمعروفة أيضًا باسم "Light" ، والتي كانت الشركة المسؤولة عن إمداد المنطقة بالطاقة الكهربائية في ذلك الوقت. في عام 1928 ، بدأ استخدام Guarapiranga كخزان لتوزيع مياه الشرب.

يتم توفير الخزان عن طريق نهر Guarapiranga والأنهار والجداول الأخرى الأصغر ، والتي تعبر مناطق مدن ساو باولو وإيتابيسيريكا دا سيرا وإمبو غواسو. تم تشييده في الأصل لتلبية احتياجات إنتاج الطاقة الكهربائية في محطة توليد الطاقة الكهرومائية بارنيبا. يتم استخدامه حاليًا لإمداد المياه لمنطقة ساو باولو الكبرى من قبل Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP) ، وهي شركة برازيلية مملوكة للدولة توفر خدمات المياه والصرف الصحي. يتم استخدام Guarapiranga أيضًا كآلية للتحكم في الفيضانات وكمكان للترفيه. توجد شواطئ ومراسي صناعية في المناطق الطرفية للخزان.

بين الثمانينيات والتسعينيات ، ساهم غياب القوانين السياسية الواضحة التي تحدد استخدام المنطقة واحتلالها في إنشاء أحياء سرية وغير نظامية حول الخزان. النفايات البشرية غير المعالجة والأنهار والجداول الملوثة بمياه الصرف الصحي التي تغذي الخزان.

With his latest contribution to the www.flickr.com/groups/4035126@N22/ group, Lord/Doctor Allo/Zaat inspired me to set to work making more League of Extraordinary Gentlemen minifigures. What I came up with is a sort of parallel-dimension roster.

 

Front row, left to right:

 

"Mina Murray": ... in a manner of speaking. In this reality, Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker, escaped the clutches of Dracula and his brides by fleeing well past Budapest, as the story usually goes. Driven mad by his encounter, he kept on the run, to the point where Mina tracked him all the way to Iceland. Despite her best efforts to save his soul and mind, she found herself lost in the wilderness, and she would meet her end at the hands of a native creature known as the hamrammr; a voracious shapeshifter whose form is determinant on their latest meal. The hamrammr, as legends state, retains not just the physicality but the mental attributes of its victims. Now Mina, only a shard amongst a slew of primal predators and prey alike, fights to control the collective entity and continue her mission to save Jonathan. She agreed to join the League if only to seek Jonathan in the most remote places of the world.

 

Mr. Edwin Hyde and Dr. Hank Jekyll: Jekyll was a chemist with skills beyond his time. His intellect allowed him to achieve greatness, but alas, his concentration on sciences and the atomic world twisted him into a curmudgeon, unfeeling to his fellow man. Jekyll recognized his own shortcomings as a humanitarian, and formulated a potion that could alter his personality to that of a jovial, more pleasant nature. He failed to anticipate that this new identity, "Edwin Hyde" as he preferred, was a romantic and carefree sort, and hopelessly clueless to all of Jekyll's scientific capabilities. The League, seeking Jekyll's mind, is at odds with Jekyll's own desire to let Hyde take full control, and live out a life free of toil and obligation.

 

The Inaudible Man: A man who's name, save for simply "Griffin", is lost to his greater legacy; that of a chemist (nearly Jekyll's match) who was unwillingly inducted into a military program trying to perfect the silent assassin. Griffin refused to use test subjects provided to him, bravely applying the numerous skin grafts as well genetic modifications he developed to only himself. He effectively transformed his skin, organs and even bones into entirely sound absorbent fabric-like material, but horrified, he destroyed his research before it could be archived. With he himself being the military's sole asset, he was once again forcibly implemented into their operations, trained to use his new traits for espionage and hits. It was all too easy for him to eventually slip out of his captors' grasp as well, however, and he went into business for himself, righting his wrongs by now saving lives, with the League.

 

Back row, left to right:

 

Professor Challenger: A stand-in for Allan Quatermain, Challenger is the staunch, famed explorer of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lost World". (I would've liked img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/PL/3626cpb2056.png this head for him, as his blue eyes are a prominent part of his description.)

 

"Old Scratch": A shifty character who insists on the aforementioned nickname, adopts the guise of a lumberjack, and, despite the League's efforts to loose him, shadows them on all their heroic excursions. He freely offers advice to each "gentleman", usually that which pertains to the interest of a sole member of the company and is harmful to the others. For anyone familiar with this shady customer, this particular likeness he assumes was first mentioned in the works of Washington Irving.

 

King Pest: From the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, King Pest is a self-proclaimed dictator, but in reality, nothing more than a drunken, macabre stage actor that revels in the fantastical and grotesque. His kingdom is but an abandoned funeral parlor. His subjects consist of those near to death and the feeble-minded; those who are susceptible to drink and blissfully ignorant to time and reason. He is, of course, not a friend but a foe to the League. His influences start small, but his purpose, his objective... it spreads just as fast as the Black Plague he once lived through.

 

Ker Karraje: Captain Nemo was not the only formidable tamer of the seas to be brought to life by Jules Verne. Ker Karraje, of "Facing the Flag", is a ruthless pirate active near the end of the 19th century. His crew composed of masterful engineers crafted for him the 'Ebba', an incognito sailing ship that could convert into a submersible machine capable of boring into other vessels from beneath the waves and plundering them in seconds. Karraje is a reserve member of the League, lending his help only when A) he can be contacted, and B) when there is profit to be earned.

 

***

 

Please consider contributing your own ideas to the Lego League of... you get it by now. Lord Allo is looking to hit 100 entries!

This bullfrog in one of the Frog Farm pond is enjoying man-made spa and doesn't care what is going to happen next. Be happy, enjoy and treasure every moments! ;)

  

American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus or Rana catesbeiana)

 

The American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus or Rana catesbeiana), often simply known as the bullfrog in Canada and the United States, is an aquatic frog, a member of the family Ranidae, or “true frogs”. The species was traditionally classified as Rana catesbeiana, but the classification was changed to Lithobates due to paraphyly in Ranidae. This frog has an olive green back and sides blotched with brownish markings and a whitish belly spotted with yellow or grey. The upper lip is often bright green and males have yellow throats. It inhabits large, permanent water bodies, such as swamps, ponds, and lakes, where it is usually found along the water's edge. The male bullfrog defends a territory during the breeding season. His call is reminiscent of the roar of a bull, which gives the frog its common name. This frog is native to southern and eastern parts of the United States and Canada, but has been widely introduced across other parts of North, Central and South America, Western Europe, and parts of Asia, and in some areas is regarded as an invasive species.

 

The bullfrog is harvested for use as food in North America and in several countries into which it has been introduced. It is also cultured in controlled environments, though this is a difficult and not always successful undertaking. Some international trade in frog legs occurs for human consumption. Bullfrogs are used in biology classes in schools for dissection and are sometimes kept as pets, though this is not recommended.

  

Taxonomy

 

Most authorities accept the specific name Rana catesbeiana and this is the name used in scientific papers before 2006. A recent view is that this frog should be included in the genus Lithobates as Lithobates catesbeianus.

 

Mitochondrial DNA studies of New World species put Rana catesbeiana in the Aquarana clade of ranids and suggest this is a sister group to Rana sylvatica, the wood frog. The data strongly supported the monophyly of the Aquarana grouping, which includes the green frog (Rana clamitans) and the Florida bog frog (Rana okaloosae), which appear to have recently diverged, and the closely related American bullfrog (R. catesbeiana) and river frog (R. heckscheri). This placement was disputed by Darrel Frost and the American Museum of Natural History, who placed most of the North American ranids in the genus Lithobates. His view is rejected by Bryan Stuart and Pauly et al. (2009) and it is not accepted by AmphibiaWeb.

  

Description

 

The dorsal (upper) surface of the bullfrog has an olive-green basal color, either plain or with a mottling and banding of grayish-brown. The ventral (under) surface is off-white blotched with yellow or gray. There is often a marked contrast in color between the green upper lip and the pale lower lip. The teeth are tiny and are useful only in grasping. The eyes are prominent with brown irises and horizontal almond-shaped pupils. The tympani (eardrums) are easily seen just behind the eyes and the dorsolateral folds of skin end close to them. The limbs are blotched or banded with gray. The forelegs are short and sturdy and the hind legs long. The front toes are not webbed, but the back toes have webbing between the digits with the exception of the fourth toe which is unwebbed.

 

Bullfrogs are sexually dimorphic, with males being smaller than females and having yellow throats. Males have tympani larger than their eyes, whereas the tympani in females are about the same size as the eyes. Bullfrogs measure about 3.6 to 6 in (9 to 15 cm) from snout to vent. They grow fast in the first eight months of life, typically increasing in weight from 5 to 175 g (0.18 to 6.17 oz), and large mature individuals can weigh up to 500 g (1.1 lb).[14] In some cases bullfrogs have been recorded as attaining 800 g (1.8 lb) and measuring up to 8 in (20 cm) in length.

  

Distribution

 

The bullfrog is native to eastern North America. Its natural range extends from the Atlantic Coast to as far west as Oklahoma and Kansas. It is not found on offshore islands near Cape Cod and is largely absent from Florida, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota. It has been introduced into Nantucket island, Arizona, Utah, other parts of Colorado and Nebraska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. In these states, it is considered to be an invasive species and there is concern that it may outcompete native species of amphibians and upset the ecological balance. It is very common in California, where it is believed to pose a threat to the California red-legged frog and is considered to be a factor in the decline of that vulnerable species.

 

Other countries into which the bullfrog has been introduced include Mexico, the western half of Canada, Cuba, Jamaica, Italy, the Netherlands, and France. It is also found in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, China and Japan. The reasons for introducing the bullfrog to these countries have included their intentional release, either to provide a source of food or as biological control agents, the escape of frogs from breeding establishments, and the escape or release of frogs kept as pets. Conservationists are concerned the bullfrog is relatively immune to the fungal infection chytridiomycosis and as it invades new territories, it may assist the spread of this lethal disease to more susceptible native species of frog.

  

Breeding behavior

 

The bullfrog breeding season typically lasts two to three months. A study of bullfrogs in Michigan showed the males arriving at the breeding site in late May or early June, and remaining in the area into July. The territorial males that occupy sites are usually spaced some 3 to 6 m (9.8 to 19.7 ft) apart and call loudly. At least three different types of calls have been noted in male bullfrogs under different circumstances. These distinctive calls include territorial calls made as threats to other males, advertisement calls made to attract females, and encounter calls which precede combat.

The bullfrogs have a prolonged breeding season, with the males continuously engaging in sexual activity throughout. Males are present at the breeding pond for longer periods than females during the entire season, increasing their chances of multiple matings. The sex ratio is typically skewed toward males. Conversely, females have brief periods of sexual receptivity during the season. In one study, female sexual activity typically lasted for a single night and mating did not occur unless the females initiated the physical contact. Males only clasp females after they have indicated their willingness to mate. This finding refutes previous claims that a male frog will clasp any proximate female with no regard to whether the female has consented.

 

These male and female behaviors cause male-to-male competition to be high within the bullfrog population and sexual selection for the females to be an intense process. Kentwood Wells postulated leks, territorial polygyny, and harems are the most likely classifications for the bullfrog mating system. Leks would be a valid description because males congregate to attract females, and the females arrive to the site for the purpose of copulation. In a 1980 study on bullfrogs in New Jersey, the mating system was classified as resource-defense polygyny. The males defended territories within the group and demonstrated typical physical forms of defense.

  

Choruses

 

Male bullfrogs aggregate into groups called choruses. The male chorus behavior is analogous to the lek formation of birds, mammals, and other vertebrates. Choruses are dynamic, forming and remaining associated for a few days, breaking down temporarily, and then forming again in a new area with a different group of males. Male movement has experimentally been noted to be dynamic. In the Michigan study, the choruses were described as “centers of attraction” in which their larger numbers enhanced the males’ overall acoustical displays. This is more attractive to females and also attractive to other sexually active males. Choruses in this study were dynamic, constantly forming and breaking up. New choruses were formed in other areas of the site. Males moved around and were highly mobile within the choruses.

 

A review of multiple studies on bullfrogs and other anurans noted male behavior within the groups changes according to the population density of the leks. At higher population densities, leks are favored due to the difficulty in defending individual territories among a large population of males. This variance causes differences in how females choose their mates. When the male population density is low and males maintain clearer, more distinct territories, female choice is mostly determined by territory quality. When male population density is higher, females depend on other cues to select their mates. These cues include the males’ positions within the chorus and differences in male display behaviors among other determinants. Social dominance within the choruses is established through challenges, threats, and other physical displays. Older males tend to acquire more central locations while younger males were restricted to the periphery.

Chorus tenure is the number of nights that a male participates in the breeding chorus. One study distinguishes between chorus tenure and dominant tenure. Dominant tenure is more strictly defined as the amount of time a male maintains a dominant status. Chorus tenure is restricted due to increased risk of predation, lost foraging opportunities, and higher energy consumption. Calling is postulated to be energetically costly to anurans in general. Energy is also expended through locomotion and aggressive interactions of male bullfrogs within the chorus.

  

Aggressive behavior

 

To establish social dominance within choruses, bullfrogs demonstrate various forms of aggression, especially through visual displays. Posture is a key factor in establishing social position and threatening challengers. Territorial males have inflated postures while nonterritorial males remain in the water with only their heads showing. For dominant (territorial) males, their elevated posture reveals their yellow-colored throats. When two dominant males encounter each other, they engage in a wrestling bout. The males have their venters clasped, each individual in an erect position rising to well above water level. The New Jersey study noted the males would approach each other to within a few centimeters and then tilt back their heads, displaying their brilliantly colored gular sacs. The gular is dichromatic in bullfrogs, with dominant and fitter males displaying yellow gulars. The New Jersey study also reported low posture with only the head exposed above the water surface was typical of subordinate, or nonterritorial males, and females. High posture was demonstrated by territorial males, which floated on the surface of the water with their lungs inflated, displaying their yellow gulars. Males optimize their reproductive fitness in a number of ways. Early arrival at the breeding site, prolonged breeding with continuous sexual activity throughout the season, ownership of a centrally located territory within the chorus, and successful movement between the dynamically changing choruses are all common ways for males to maintain dominant, or territorial, status within the chorus. Older males have greater success in all of these areas than younger males. Some of the males display a more inferior role, termed by many researchers as the silent male status. These silent males adopt a submissive posture, sit near resident males and make no attempt to displace them. The silent males do not attempt to intercept females but are waiting for the territories to become vacant. This has also been called the alternate or satellite male strategy.

  

Growth and development

 

After selecting a male, the female deposits eggs in his territory. During the mating grasp, or amplexus, the male rides on top of the female, grasping her just behind her fore limbs. The female chooses a site in shallow water among vegetation, and lays a batch of up to 20,000 eggs, and the male simultaneously releases sperm, resulting in external fertilization. The eggs form a thin, floating sheet which may cover an area of 0.5 to 1 m2 (5.4 to 10.8 sq ft). The embryos develop best at water temperatures between 24 and 30 °C (75 and 86 °F) and hatch in three to five days. If the water temperature rises above 32 °C (90 °F), developmental abnormalities occur, and if it falls below 15 °C (59 °F), normal development ceases. Newly hatched tadpoles show a preference for living in shallow water on fine gravel bottoms. This may reflect a lesser number of predators in these locations. As they grow, they tend to move into deeper water. The tadpoles initially have three pairs of external gills and several rows of labial teeth. They pump water through their gills by movements of the floor of their mouths, trapping bacteria, single-celled algae, protozoans, pollen grains, and other small particles on mucus in a filtration organ in their pharanges. As they grow, they begin to ingest larger particles and use their teeth for rasping. They have downward-facing mouths, deep bodies, and tails with broad dorsal and ventral fins.

 

Time to metamorphosis ranges from a few months in the southern part of the range to three years in the north where the colder water slows development. Maximum lifespan in the wild is estimated to be eight to ten years, but one frog lived for almost sixteen years in captivity.

  

Feeding

 

Bullfrogs are voracious, opportunistic, ambush predators that prey on any small animal they can overpower and stuff down their throats. Bullfrog stomachs have been found to contain rodents, small reptiles, amphibians, crayfish, birds, and bats, as well as the many invertebrates, such as insects, which are the usual food of ranid frogs. These studies revealed the bullfrog's diet to be unique among North American ranids in the inclusion of a large percentage of aquatic animals, such as fish, tadpoles, ram's horn snails, and dytiscid beetles. Bullfrogs can capture large, strong prey because of the powerful grip of their jaws after the initial ranid tongue strike. The bullfrog is able to make allowance for light refraction at the water-air interface by striking at a position posterior to the target's perceived location. The comparative ability of bullfrogs to capture submerged prey, compared to that of the green frog, leopard frog, and wood frog (R. clamitans, R. pipiens, and R. sylvatica, respectively) was also demonstrated in laboratory experiments.

 

Prey motion elicits feeding behavior. First, if necessary, the frog performs a single, orienting bodily rotation ending with the frog aimed towards the prey, followed by approaching leaps, if necessary. Once within striking distance, the bullfrog begins its feeding strike, which consists of a ballistic lunge (eyes closed as during all leaps) that ends with the mouth opening. At this stage, the fleshy, mucous-coated tongue is extended towards the prey, often engulfing it, while the jaws continue their forward travel to close (bite) just as the tongue is retracted. Large prey that do not fit entirely into the mouth are stuffed in with the hands. In laboratory observations, bullfrogs taking mice usually swam underwater with prey in mouth, apparently with the advantageous result of altering the mouse's defense from counter-attack to struggling for air. Asphyxiation is the most likely cause of death of endothermic (warm-blooded) prey.

  

Ecology

 

Bullfrogs are an important item of prey to many birds (especially large herons), North American river otters (Lontra canadensis), predatory fish, and occasionally other amphibians. Predators of American bullfrogs once in their adult stages can range from 150 g (5.3 oz) Belted Kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon) to 1,100 pound American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). The eggs and larvae are unpalatable to many salamanders and fish, but the high levels of activity of the tadpoles may make them more noticeable to a predator not deterred by their unpleasant taste. Humans hunt bullfogs as game and consume their legs. Adult frogs try to escape by splashing and leaping into deep water. A trapped individual may squawk or emit a piercing scream, which may surprise the attacker sufficiently for the frog to escape. An attack on one bullfrog is likely to alert others in the vicinity to danger and they will all retreat into the safety of deeper water. Bullfrogs may be at least partially resistant to the venom of copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) and cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) snakes, though these species are known natural predators of bullfrogs as are Northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon).

  

Human use

 

The American bullfrog provides a food source, especially in the Southern and some areas of the Midwestern United States. The traditional way of hunting them is to paddle or pole silently by canoe or flatboat in ponds or swamps at night; when the frog's call is heard, a light is shone at the frog which temporarily inhibits its movement. The frog will not jump into deeper water as long as it is approached slowly and steadily. When close enough, the frog is gigged with a multiple-tined spear and brought into the boat. Bullfrogs can also be stalked on land, by again taking great care not to startle them. In some states, breaking the skin while catching them is illegal, and either grasping gigs or hand capture are used. The only parts normally eaten are the rear legs, which resemble small chicken drumsticks and can be cooked in similar ways.

 

Commercial bullfrog culture in near-natural enclosed ponds has been attempted, but is fraught with difficulties. Although pelleted feed is available, the frogs will not willingly consume artificial diets, and providing sufficient live prey is challenging. Disease also tends to be a problem even when great care is taken to provide sanitary conditions. Other challenges to be overcome may be predation, cannibalism, and low water quality. The frogs are large, have powerful leaps, and inevitably escape after which they may wreak havoc among the native frog population. Countries that export bullfrog legs include Belgium, the Netherlands, Mexico, Bangladesh, Japan, China, Taiwan and Indonesia. Most of these frogs are caught from the wild, but some are captive-reared. The United States is a net importer of frog legs.

Although occasionally kept as pets, PetWatch, a project of EcoHealth Alliance advising on the suitability of different species as pets, has classified bullfrogs as "worst choice pets". The American bullfrog is also used as a specimen for dissection in many schools across the world. It is the state amphibian of Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

  

[Credit: en.wikipedia.org/]

 

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

 

Sonnenaufgang

Fast lens

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50 mm 1:1.8 G

 

NEF RAW

Great

 

Nikon D5100, Nikon, D5100,SLR,DSLR, Eagle1effi,Best of Nikon D5100,

 

sunrise

Ostalb und Waldhäuser-Ost

#

location

5.th December at sunrise-time

 

places/Germany/Baden-Wurttemberg/Tübingen/ Waldhausen ...

 

Exif data

 

Compare

Fog and Mist samples

Nebel-bilder

 

SX60 Versus Nikon D5100

PowerShot versus DSLR

 

Camera

Nikon D5100

 

Vari Program

warm Autumn Colors

warme Herbstfarben - Blätter icon

 

Exposure

0.006 sec (1/160)

Aperture

f/9.0

 

Focal Length

50 mm

 

Lens Type

G

 

Lens

50mm f/1.8

  

ISO Speed

400

Metering Mode

Multi-segment

-

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Effi´s helpline

The Nikon D5100 digital SLR camera offers automatic settings that enable point-and-shoot photography.

 

- scene capture types (scene modes)

www.digital-photography.com/nikon-d5100-pdf-reading-sampl...

 

ff

 

Vordefinierte Szenen-programme

 

SCENE mode

 

Recommendation:

– predefined SCENE mode

can produce better pictures if the chosen scene fits with your shooting situation.

 

specific camera settings

 

portrait large aperture for soft, unsharp background

flash: automatic

picture control: portrait

 

landscape

preferred aperture: 8-11 for good depth-of-focus

picture control: landscape

flash: off

 

child

flash: automatic

a bit like sports and portrait together

  

sports

short exposure times

higher ISO

flash: off

 

autofocus: single focus point

 

close up

flash: automatic

autofocus: single focus point

 

night portrait

flash with slow sync

picture control: portrait

 

night landscape

flash: off

 

party/indoor flash: slow sync with red-eye reduction

 

beach / snow

flash: off

picture control: landscape, sharpening slightly reduced to 3

 

sunset

flash: off

picture control: landscape, sharpening slightly reduced to 3

 

dusk / dawn

flash: off

white balance: 4550K = warm light ? color rendition is corrected towards cooler (blue) colors

picture control: landscape, sharpening slightly reduced to 3

 

pet portrait

flash: automatic

autofocus: single focus point

 

candlelight

flash: off

white balance: 4350K = warm light ? color rendition is corrected towards cooler (blue) colors

picture control: standard, sharpening slightly reduced to 2

 

blossom

flash: off

picture control: landscape, hue -1

autumn colors flash: off

picture control: vivid

 

food

flash: has to be switched on or off manually using the flash button

 

picture control: Standard, saturation +1

  

-

Quick Modes in dial

 

landscape, advanced portrait, child (pets), sports, nice close ups (flower icon) auto flash off, full auto

 

or

 

Advanced Exposure Modes for Your Nikon D5100 Digital Camera

 

www.dummies.com/how-to/content/nikon-d5100-for-dummies-ch...

 

... here's a handy reference to your camera's buttons and dials and automatic and advanced exposure modes.

P A S M modes

 

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Help tool

Favorite Lenses, Gear & Accessories for the Nikon DX Cameras - D5100, ff

 

www.cameratips.com/d5100/lenses-accessories

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D5100 Settings for Individual Configuration of Camera Controls

 

www.digital-photography.com/nikon-d5100-guide/a08-setting...

 

Deutsch

www.digitalfotografie.de/

 

Simulating a DSLR Camera -

Learning what happens, if you change settings!

e.g.

How to freeze a moving object:

 

Üben: mit einer anspruchvollen digitalen Kamera.

Beliebige Einstellungen vornehmen und ein Photo schiessen.

 

Simulation

camerasim.com/apps/original-camerasim/web/

-

DSLR sim controls:

 

Lighting

 

Lighting is the single biggest determinant of how your camera needs to be set. With only a few exceptions, you can never have too much light. Use this slider to experiment with different indoor and outdoor lighting conditions.

 

Distance

 

Use this slider to simulate how close or far you are in relation to the subject.

 

Focal length

 

Moving this slider is the same as zooming in and out with your lens. A wide, zoomed out setting creates the greatest depth of field (more things are in focus) while zooming in creates a shallower depth-of-field (typically just the subject will be in focus).

 

Mode

 

The exposure modes of an SLR let you control one setting while the camera automatically adjusts the others. In Shutter Priority mode, you to set the shutter speed while the camera sets the aperture/f-stop. In Aperture Priority mode, you set the aperture/f-stop while the camera sets the shutter speed. Manual mode is fully manual—you’re on your own! Refer to the camera’s light meter to help get the proper exposure. Although every real SLR camera has a “fully automatic” mode, there is not one here—what’s the fun in that?

 

ISO

 

ISO refers to how sensitive the “film” will be to the incoming light when the picture is snapped. High ISO settings allow for faster shutter speeds in low light but introduce grain into the image. Low ISO settings produce the cleanest image but require lots of light. Generally, you will want to use the lowest ISO setting that your lighting will allow.

 

Aperture

 

Aperture, or f-stop, refers to how big the hole will be for the light to pass through when the shutter is open and the picture is snapped. Lower f numbers correspond with larger holes. The important thing to remember is this: the higher the f number, the more things in front of and behind the subject will be in focus, but the more light you will need. The lower the f number, the more things in front of and behind the subject will be out of focus, and the less light you will need.

Shutter speed

 

Shutter speed is how long the shutter needs to be open, allowing light into the camera, to properly expose the image. Fast shutter speeds allow you to “freeze” the action in a photo, but require lots of light. Slower shutter speeds allow for shooting with less light but can cause motion blur in the image.

 

Happy simulating!

 

Fun

Germans ?

They’re punctual, polite, and they know how to get stuff done. .

 

www.geekycamel.com/17-reasons-germans-do-everything-bette...

Chile Chico es un poblado fronterizo de 4.600 habitantes ubicado en la ribera sur del Lago General Carrera en la Region de Aysen cerca de la frontera con Argentina. Su clima es del tipo mediterraneo continental mas caracteristico de la zona central de Chile, por tanto inusual para esta parte de la Patagonia, con veranos secos y escasas precipitaciones durante casi todo el año.

 

La influencia del gran lago General Carrera y la Cordillera de los Andes son determinantes importantes del clima en esta zona. La Cordillera de los Andes actua como un biombo climatico que atrapa las abundantes lluvias en su vertiente occidental dando lugar a los frondosos bosques de la zona de canales y fiordos de la Patagonia Chilena. En su vertiente oriental por el contrario predomina la vegetacion baja propia de la gran estepa de la Patagonia Argentina. La cantidad de lluvias disminuye dramaticamente conforme decendemos hacia el este ofreciendo un paisaje lleno de coironales, arbustos y formaciones de roca desnuda.

 

El mayor atractivo de esta zona se encuentra en el Parque Nacional Laguna Jeinimeni. Ubicado 60 kms al sur de Chile Chico, la reserva tiene una diversidad natural muy particular, donde contrasta la estepa patagónica con el frondoso y verde bosque magallánico de notofagos. Dentro de la reserva se distinguen dos areas de interes para visitar. La zona del Arroyo Pedregoso ideal para los amantes del trekking. Un sendero de 7,2 kms que parte en medio de la pampa para recorrer un impresionante cañon en medio de grandes farellones con curiosas formaciones de roca donde destaca la Piedra Clavada, un monolito de casi 50 metros del altura, la Cueva de las Manos con pinturas rupestres de mas de 7.000 años y el colorido Valle Lunar con portentosas vistas del Rio Jeinimeni. La otra zona corresponde al Lago Jeinimeni algo mas al sur, que adentrandose en la Cordillera de los Andes ofrece un paisaje donde reaparecen los bosques pero predominando el bosque de tipo caducifolio mejor adaptado al frio y la nieve invernal.

 

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Chile Chico is a border town of 4,600 inhabitants located on the southern shore of Lake General Carrera in the Region of Aysen near the border with Argentina. Its climate is characterized by being Continental Mediterranean type of the central zone of Chile and unusual for this part of Patagonia, with dry summers and little rainfall during most of the year.

 

The influence of the large General Carrera Lake and the Andes Mountains range are important determinants of the climate in this area. The Cordillera de los Andes acts as an atmospheric screen that traps the abundant rains in its western slope giving place to the leafy forests of the zone of channels and fjords of the Chilean Patagonia. In its eastern slope, on the other hand, the low vegetation typical of the great steppe of Patagonia Argentina predominates. The amount of rainfall decreases dramatically as we head eastwards offering a landscape full of coironal grass, shrubs and bare rock formations.

 

The biggest attraction of this area is in the National Park Laguna Jeinimeni. Located 60 kms south of Chile Chico, the reserve has a very particular natural diversity, where the Patagonian steppe contrasts with the green and lush forest of notophages. Within the reserve there are two areas of interest to visit. The area of ​​Arroyo Pedregoso ideal for lovers of trekking. A trail of 7.2 km that leaves in the middle of the pampa to cross an impressive canyon in the middle of great farellones with curious formations of rock where it emphasizes the Claved Stone, a monolith of almost 50 meters height, the Cave of the Hands with Cave paintings of more than 7,000 years and the colorful Lunar Valley with portentous views of the Jeinimeni River. The other zone corresponds to the Lake Jeinimeni, a little more to the south, that entering in the Andes Mountain range offers a landscape where the forests reappear but predominating the forest of deciduous type better adapted to the cold and the winter snow.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

I'll be honest. I sometimes wonder if the sooc nonsense I often hear is the elitist spew of digital photographers who have never placed a negative on an enlarger, chosen the type of paper they will expose in a darkroom, or screwed up a roll of film. Straight out of the camera in the film world inevitably means ruined film. Something must be done to the film, and that something is processing. The processing is a variable, not an absolute. The art of photography has always been in the darkroom as much as in the camera.

 

The group being invaded by FGR today is SOOC. I uploaded an image, STR_8531 (seen below) to flickr that meets the spirit of the group. The only thing I did to the image was change the name. This is not that image.

 

Astute Nikon users will note that I left the camera in the photograph turned off to prove this is not a photograph taken in a mirror and then reversed. However, the image was rotated ninety degrees. Then I straightened it .02 degrees. I cropped the image to an 8X10 format. I removed a dust spot on the background. I heightened the contrast slightly on the eyes, and on the lens. I decreased the specularity on the camera's Nikon logo. I might bump the overall contrast up a smidgen in the future.

 

I think this makes a better image, and to me, that is the final determinant. I will not submit this image to SOOC. It violates the group's rules. The original, seen below, is not what I would like it to be unless it is altered. I guess I suck at straight out of the camera photography. But, then, my artistic education was that of a painter/printmaker. I am uneducated in photographic theory. This image was inspired by SOOC, so maybe it will meet the criteria for FGR.

 

Flickr Group Roulette: SOOC (Straight Out of the Camera)

 

Nikkor 50mm ƒ1.8

 

View Large and on Black

 

Strobist: AlienBee 800 with HOBD-W camera left. Triggered by Cybersync.

Health and wellbeing are both determinants and consequences of economic progress. What are the challenges international companies are facing to keep their workforces healthy and engaged? What can companies do to nurture and support their science talent to develop solutions in this area?

Moderator : Eleanor Tabi Haller-Jorden

  

Speakers : Ana Margarida Setas-ferreira & Christine Schmatz

 

Au milieu du ravissant port de plaisance de Zeebruges, un bâtiment ne passe pas inaperçu : un authentique sous-marin russe, de 100 m de long !

Grâce à Seafront, vous pouvez vous infiltrer dans ses entrailles métalliques et imaginer à quoi devait ressembler la vie à bord dans les périodes les plus sinistres de la Guerre Froide. Il s'agit d'abord de faire preuve de souplesse pour se glisser dans l'orifice, comme un vrai sous-marinier. Observez ensuite les parages par le périscope, pour vous assurer que la situation est sous contrôle. Vous serez sans doute perdu devant les innombrables conduites, boutons, valves, manettes et radars. Et stupéfaits de voir comment l'équipage devait vivre entassé dans un espace aussi exigu. Examinez l'une des 10 énormes torpilles explosives – heureusement totalement inoffensives aujourd'hui. À la fin de la visite, vous pourrez même expérimenter une simulation de combat, pour évaluer l'imminence du danger. Une expérience absolument fantastique !

Les sous-marins de la classe Foxtrot sont dérivés des U-Boot allemands, dont les données et les secrets techniques sont tombés entre les mains des Soviétiques après la capitulation du Troisième Reich. Les sous-marins Foxtrot ont été développés et construits entre 1954 et 1981. Le prototype a été lancé à Saint-Pétersbourg, à l'époque Leningrad, le 28 décembre 1957.

62 exemplaires furent construits, dont 12 exportés à Cuba, en Inde, en Libye et en Pologne. Ils ont été utilisés dans de nombreuses missions de la marine russe, essentiellement durant la Guerre Froide, et ont joué un rôle déterminant dans la course à l'armement des années 60. Ils ont été progressivement retirés du service à partir de 1994, pour être remplacés par des unités plus modernes. Trois Foxtrot ont heureusement pu être sauvés de la démolition et font aujourd'hui l'orgueil d'autant de musées : à Sydney, à Londres, et bien sûr à Zeebruges !

Le sous-marin de Seafront est pratiquement dans son état originel, il donne une idée réaliste de la vie à bord.

 

In the middle of the charming marina of Zeebrugge, a building does not go unnoticed: an authentic Russian submarine, 100 m long!

Thanks to Seafront, you can get into its metallic bowels and imagine what life on board should look like during the most sinister periods of the Cold War. It is first of all to be flexible to slip into the hole, like a real submariner. Then look around the periscope to make sure the situation is under control. You will probably be lost in front of innumerable pipes, buttons, valves, controllers and radars. And stunned to see how the crew had to live crowded in such a cramped space. Examine one of 10 huge explosive torpedoes - luckily totally harmless today. At the end of the visit, you will even be able to experiment with a combat simulation to assess the impending danger. An absolutely fantastic experience!

The Foxtrot-class submarines are derived from German U-boats, whose data and technical secrets fell into the hands of the Soviets after the surrender of the Third Reich. The Foxtrot submarines were developed and built between 1954 and 1981. The prototype was launched in St. Petersburg, at the time Leningrad, December 28, 1957.

62 units were built, 12 of which were exported to Cuba, India, Libya and Poland. They were used in many Russian naval missions, mainly during the Cold War, and were instrumental in the arms race of the 1960s. They were phased out from service in 1994, to be replaced by more modern units. Three Foxtrots have fortunately been saved from demolition and are now the pride of so many museums: Sydney, London, and of course Zeebrugge!

The Seafront submarine is practically in its original state, it gives a realistic idea of ​​life on board.

Extreme Scepticisms.

 

Demostraciones maliciosos transportados desorganizaciones programas imprudentes,

cyflwyniadau ymarferion canlyniadau annisgwyl poeni erchyllterau a wnaed,

страдающие интерпретаторы гордость смертельные котлет плещущихся изобретениями колеблющихся эволюций,

mì-thlachdmhor toraidhean ceistean diofar Tones fon talamh bàs brùideil argamaidean,

notamment des excursions sentimentales de rudes anonymes termes cruels instructive activité de crise interne,

convicções século construtiva frígidas determinantes conceitos sem sentido surgem problemas subsidiários,

fysiologische bestaan antipersonalism hypercerebral denken tekort inhoud desubstantivation,

نقل التكنولوجيا وظيفية بناء علاقات الاتساق نقل أساليب متميزة,

essensielle intellects viktige situasjoner narsissistisk periode udugelige oppriktige følelser hånlig skandale,

λογοτεχνικό αριστούργημα εχθρούς κωμωδία ανταγωνιστή απόψεις αυτάρεσκη ιδανικά συγκλονιστική εκκεντρικότητες φιλοσοφία,

落ち着きの伝統的な保護された詩の人類雄弁達成不可能な夢を検討俗物人間.

Steve.D.Hammond.

Social Determinants for Access for Information

[ Website ] [ Blog ] [ Flickr ] [ Facebook ] [ Twitter ] [ Tumblr ]

 

About the Photo

This is a stack of two 30 minute exposures taken at the beautiful Lake Eucumbene. Conditions for the second of the two shots was not great, with a moon rise spoiling the apparent brightness of the stars. I really wanted to make this photo available for sale on my website, but felt the quality was just too low. I need to learn how to take better quality star trails, sans sensor noise and fog on the lens! In the meantime, enjoy this small version on your computer :)

 

Oh, and before you ask - Yes the water was that green, and yes it came out in the super long exposure looking like a pastel painting!

 

Technical

Nikon D90 | Sigma 10-20mm

1 hour | f/10 | ISO100 | 11.5mm

 

About Stars

A star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible from Earth during the night when they are not outshone by the Sun or blocked by atmospheric phenomena. Historically, the most prominent stars on the celestial sphere were grouped together into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.

 

For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium were created by stars, either via stellar nucleosynthesis during their lifetimes or by supernova nucleosynthesis when stars explode. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, chemical composition and many other properties of a star by observing its spectrum, luminosity and motion through space. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star are determined by its evolutionary history, including diameter, rotation, movement and temperature. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.

 

A star begins as a collapsing cloud of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium and trace amounts of heavier elements. Once the stellar core is sufficiently dense, some of the hydrogen is steadily converted into helium through the process of nuclear fusion.[1] The remainder of the star's interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective processes. The star's internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity. Once the hydrogen fuel at the core is exhausted, those stars having at least 0.4 times the mass of the Sun expand to become a red giant, in some cases fusing heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core. The star then evolves into a degenerate form, recycling a portion of the matter into the interstellar environment, where it will form a new generation of stars with a higher proportion of heavy elements.

La catedral de Santiago de Compostel·la (en gallec, catedral de Santiago de Compostela) està acull el que, segons la tradició, és el sepulcre de l'apòstol Sant Jaume, i això va convertir el temple en un dels principals destins de pelegrinatge d'Europa durant l'edat mitjana mitjançant l'anomenat Camí de Sant Jaume, una ruta iniciàtica en què se seguia les petjades de la Via Làctia comunicant la península Ibèrica amb la resta del continent. Això va ser determinant perquè els regnes hispànics medievals participessin en els moviments culturals de l'època. Actualment continua sent un important destí de pelegrinatge. Un privilegi concedit el 1122 pel papa Calixt II va declarar que serien «Any Sant Jubilar» a Compostel·la, tots els anys en què el dia 25 de juliol, dia de sant Jaume, coincidís amb diumenge. Va ser confirmat pel papa Alexandre III a la seva butlla "Regis aeterni" datada el 1179.

 

El nucli antic de Santiago de Compostel·la és Patrimoni de la Humanitat per la UNESCO des de 1985.

 

La façana da Acibechería es troba a la Plaça de la Immaculada. Aquí acabava el Camí de Santiago dels pelegrins procedents de França, en la porta anomenada franquígena (també Porta del Paradís), el portal romànic va ser construït el 1122 per Bernard, tresorer del temple. Aquesta portalada va ser demolida per haver patit un incendi l'any 1758. Algunes peces escultòriques que es van salvar van ser col·locades a la façana "das Praterías". La nova va ser projectada en estil barroc per Lucas Ferro Caaveiro i acabada per Domingo Lois Monteagudo i Clemente Sarela en estil neoclàssic el 1769, encara que va conservar alguns traçats del barroc.

 

A la part superior de la façana hi ha una estàtua de Santiago del segle xviii, amb dos reis als seus peus en posició de pregar: Alfons III d'Astúries(866-910) i Ordoni I de Galícia (873-924). Al centre s'hi troba l'estàtua de la Fe.

 

Pàgina a la UNESCO World Heritage List.

 

A Google Maps.

Respiratory problems Occupational and environmental exposures.The respiratory tract comes into contact with approximately 14 000 litres of air during a standard working week. The quality of the air we breathe has major implications for our respiratory health. Any part of the respiratory tract, from the nose to the alveoli, may be adversely affected by exposure to airborne contaminants.Some of the effects of exposures may be immediate, whereas others such as asbestos-related lung disease may not present for many decades. Airborne contaminants may be the primary cause of respiratory disease or can exacerbate pre-existing respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Clinicians should have a high index of suspicion and question their patients with breathing problems about occupational and environmental exposures, especially in the setting of new onset symptoms.Identification of occupational and environmental causes of respiratory disease is important because control of these exposures may lead to a cure for some people and prevention of disease in others. In Australia and other developed countries, effective occupational health and safety legislation has resulted in protection of workers from traditional causes of occupational lung disease, such as asbestos and silica. Current exposures may be subtle and require a high index of suspicion from the treating clinician.Air contaminants may be dusts, gases, vapours or fumes. Any part of the respiratory tract can be adversely affected by poor air quality, from the nose to the alveoli. The site affected within the respiratory tract depends on the integrity of defense mechanisms and the properties of the air contaminants (Figure 1). Other determinants include individual susceptibility and the intensity and duration of the exposure.. If a patient presents with new onset respiratory symptoms it is useful to ask about recent changes in their environment, such as whether they have a new pet at home or if they have commenced a new job. It is also useful to ask whether symptoms improve when away from an exposure. Symptoms of recent onset occupational asthma may improve over a weekend but are more likely to improve over a week or when on holidays. Longstanding or severe occupational asthma may not improve until many months after removal of the cause, if at all.

www.racgp.org.au/afp/2012/november/respiratory-problems/

 

Breathing Off , daylight; same people that can't breathe clean air, drink potable water.

Environmental Sensitivities, also known as Environmental Illness or Environmental Disease is a name that says it all. A person who is ill because of his environment (food, drink, air) has Environmental Sensitivities. Some people consider Multiple Chemical Sensitivities as another name for the same illness, but it is actually a subset of Environmental Illness. The body cannot deal with all the toxins it comes into contact with every day. Immune System Dysfunction happens. Auto-immune Disease is the body mistaking a part of itself as the enemy and attacking it.The things that trigger reactions can be chemicals, natural and manmade, at very low concentrations. A lot of these manmade chemicals were developed after World War II (including pesticides, cleaning products, etc.) and are petroleum based (petro-chemicals). Some of the natural substances that cause problems are grass, pollen, animal hair, or mould.TOTAL LOAD refers to the different impacts on your system. Think of your immune system as a rain barrel, all of the stresses fill it up. The total load is reached but you may not be aware of the different things making you ill.According to Drs. Rossenbaum and Susser, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (Environmental Sensitivities) is progressive in nature. Because scents are such a serious problem let's look at them more closely (over 4000 chemicals used in the fragrance industry).We usually do not smell many of the scents we and others are emitting until we become hypersensitive. These chemicals could be causing minor problems for years but we do not see the cause/effect. However, as time passes our bodies become weakened from constant exposure. Overloaded passageways in our bodies, the back up of chemicals in the blood stream, muscles, nervous system, organs, etc. leads to a variety of symptoms. Poor air quality, the length of time the chemical clings to clothes, closed in buildings, etc. hold these chemicals and our bodies absorb them.The doctor can send you for allergy tests. These are generally skin tests. Small amounts of known allergens are placed under the skin. Your skin welts up into bumps that are measurable. This tells you what you are allergic to and the seriousness of the allergy. However, there are times when the reactions are not suggestive of allergies but of Environmental Sensitivities. These tests are a starting point and can be used to give you a direction. However, they are not as reliable as other tests (i.e. RAST).There are several things you can do to treat ES depending on what affects you.Avoiding the offending substances is critical. There are steps you take to do this (a) clean the bedroom, take out clothes, books, comforters, cushions/pillows, etc.; (b) wear a mask or take oxygen in public; (c) get rid of chemical cleaners, personal care products, and synthetic clothing.Eat foods that are not harmful (avoid those you react to), clean foods thoroughly, eat organic.

www.nsnet.org/idacan/enviro.html

 

The Stimulating Breath (also called the Bellows Breath).The Stimulating Breath is adapted from yogic breathing techniques. Its aim is to raise vital energy and increase alertness.Inhale and exhale rapidly through your nose, keeping your mouth closed but relaxed. Your breaths in and out should be equal in duration, but as short as possible. This is a noisy breathing exercise.Try for three in-and-out breath cycles per second. This produces a quick movement of the diaphragm, suggesting a bellows. Breathe normally after each cycle.Do not do for more than 15 seconds on your first try. Each time you practice the Stimulating Breath, you can increase your time by five seconds or so, until you reach a full minute.If done properly, you may feel invigorated, comparable to the heightened awareness you feel after a good workout. You should feel the effort at the back of the neck, the diaphragm, the chest and the abdomen. Try this diaphragmatic breathing exercise the next time you need an energy boost and feel yourself reaching for a cup of coffee.

www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00521/three-breathing-exercises.html

COP21.Americans Rank Climate Change as Top Environmental Problem.Americans now rank climate change as the country’s most pressing environmental concern, a new survey reveals. m.livescience.com/4287-americans-rank-climate-change-top-...

The important point to remember is that natural fluctuations in the climate system will continue with global warming, but the baseline will climb higher and higher. This means that scientists can't confidently predict, for example, the first year it will be too hot to grow wheat in Kansas or the first summer the Arctic will be ice-free. But crossing both thresholds is assured unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/climate...

La catedral de Santiago de Compostel·la (en gallec, catedral de Santiago de Compostela) està acull el que, segons la tradició, és el sepulcre de l'apòstol Sant Jaume, i això va convertir el temple en un dels principals destins de pelegrinatge d'Europa durant l'edat mitjana mitjançant l'anomenat Camí de Sant Jaume, una ruta iniciàtica en què se seguia les petjades de la Via Làctia comunicant la península Ibèrica amb la resta del continent. Això va ser determinant perquè els regnes hispànics medievals participessin en els moviments culturals de l'època. Actualment continua sent un important destí de pelegrinatge. Un privilegi concedit el 1122 pel papa Calixt II va declarar que serien «Any Sant Jubilar» a Compostel·la, tots els anys en què el dia 25 de juliol, dia de sant Jaume, coincidís amb diumenge. Va ser confirmat pel papa Alexandre III a la seva butlla "Regis aeterni" datada el 1179.

 

El nucli antic de Santiago de Compostel·la és Patrimoni de la Humanitat per la UNESCO des de 1985.

 

La Torre del Rellotge, coneguda també com la Berenguela, es troba a l'angle de la plaça de "las Platerías" i la plaça de la Quintana, va ser manada construir el 1316 per Rodrigo del Padrón com a torre de defensa i davant la seva defunció va continuar amb l'obra l'arquebisbe Berenguel de Landoria. Quan va ser anomenat mestre major de la catedral Domingo de Andrade va seguir la seva construcció entre 1676 i 1680 la va elevar dues plantes més i va aconseguir, amb la utilització de diverses estructures, un conjunt molt harmoniós i ornamental amb un coronament en forma piramidal i un llanternó d'acabament final. La seva mesura és de 75 metres d'alçada.

 

Es va col·locar el rellotge de quatre esferes (una per cada cara de la torre) el 1833, realitzat per Andrés Antelo i que havia estat un encàrrec de l'arquebisbe Rafael Vélez. Posseeix com a part del seu mecanisme dues campanes, la de les hores anomenada Berenguela i una altra més petita que marca els quarts. Les dues van ser foses el 1729 per Güemes Sampedro, la de les hores té un diàmetre de 255 centímetres i una alçada de 215 centímetres amb un pes aproximat de 9.600 quilos, la dels quarts pesa 1.839 quilos amb un diàmetre de 147 centímetres i una alçada de 150 centímetres. Ambdues campanes patiren un desgast que provocà que fossin substituïdes, les rèpliques actuals es van fondre a Asten (Països Baixos) per la casa Eijsbouts el 1989 i van ser col·locades a la catedral al febrer de 1990.

 

Pàgina a la UNESCO World Heritage List.

 

A Google Maps.

La catedral de Santiago de Compostel·la (en gallec, catedral de Santiago de Compostela) està acull el que, segons la tradició, és el sepulcre de l'apòstol Sant Jaume, i això va convertir el temple en un dels principals destins de pelegrinatge d'Europa durant l'edat mitjana mitjançant l'anomenat Camí de Sant Jaume, una ruta iniciàtica en què se seguia les petjades de la Via Làctia comunicant la península Ibèrica amb la resta del continent. Això va ser determinant perquè els regnes hispànics medievals participessin en els moviments culturals de l'època. Actualment continua sent un important destí de pelegrinatge. Un privilegi concedit el 1122 pel papa Calixt II va declarar que serien «Any Sant Jubilar» a Compostel·la, tots els anys en què el dia 25 de juliol, dia de sant Jaume, coincidís amb diumenge. Va ser confirmat pel papa Alexandre III a la seva butlla "Regis aeterni" datada el 1179.

 

El nucli antic de Santiago de Compostel·la és Patrimoni de la Humanitat per la UNESCO des de 1985.

 

El botafumeiro és un immens encenser de llautó banyat en argent, que pesa 62 quilograms buit i mesura 1,60 metres d'alçada. El botafumeiro anterior pesava 60 quilograms, però el 2006 es va afegir un bany d'argent que ha augmentat la seva massa fins al pes actual de 62 quilograms. La corda que ho suspèn, lligada al creuer de la catedral, és ara d'un material sintètic, que mesura 65 metres, és de 5 centímetres de diàmetre i pesa 90 quilograms. Anteriorment les cordes estaven fetes de cànem o espart. El botafumeiro s'omple primer amb uns 40 quilograms de carbó i encens, que supera en els 100 quilograms al principi dels seus moviments. Després es lliga amb forts nusos a una llarga corda que va al sostre de l'edifici, al creuer, i es desplaça mitjançant un mecanisme de politges per la nau de l'església. Per aconseguir-ho, un grup de vuit homes, anomenats tiraboleiros, empenyen primer per posar-ho en moviment, i després tiren d'un cap de la corda, per anar aconseguint velocitat. El moviment del botafumeiro pot arribar a 68 km/h en el seu desplaçament pel creuer de la catedral, des de la porta de l'Azabachería a la porta de les Platerías, descrivint un arc de 65 metres i una altura màxima de 21 metres (un angle de 82°). Per arribar a aquesta altura màxima es necessiten 17 recorreguts complets.

 

La tradició diu que l'ús del botafumeiro o encenser a la catedral de Santiago va començar al segle XI, i va ser pensat per perfumar el temple i treure la mala olor que deixaven els pelegrins, cansats, bruts i molts d'ells malalts. L'any 1200 es va modificar el sistema inicial de politges per un sistema de rodolaments que permetia el desplaçament lateral, amb el qual el botafumeiro podia recórrer uns 150 centímetres, que era la distància que permetia la corda. El rei Lluís XI de França el 1400 va donar a la catedral una suma de diners per reemplaçar l'encenser medieval, que no va tenir lloc fins al 1554. El mecanisme del rodolament actual del botafumeiro es va instal·lar el 1604. El nou botafumeiro va ser realitzat completament en argent, robant-ho les tropes de Napoleó a l'abril del 1809. Reemplaçat per l'actual que va ser creat per l'orfebre José Losada el 1851.

 

Igual que altres encensers de les esglésies, té un origen litúrgic. No obstant això, aquest és especialment gran causa de la gran quantitat de pelegrins que arriben a Santiago. Cal pensar que la catedral de Santiago, com totes les de peregrinació, permetia als pelegrins dormir a l'interior, el que provocava una olor molt desagradable. D'aquí la necessitat de tenir un encenser tan gran.

 

Pàgina a la UNESCO World Heritage List.

 

Aquesta imatge ha jugat a En un lugar de Flickr.

 

A Google Maps.

Global inequality is growing, with half the world’s wealth now in the hands of just 1% of the population, according to a new report.Each of the remaining 383m adults – 8% of the population – has wealth of more than $100,000. This number includes about 34m US dollar millionaires. About 123,800 individuals of these have more than $50m, and nearly 45,000 have more than $100m. There is overwhelming agreement among economists that the Second World War was responsible for decisively ending the Great Depression. When asked why the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are failing to make the same impact today, they often claim that the current conflicts are simply too small to be economically significant.

 

There is, of course, much irony here. No one argues that World War II, with its genocide, tens of millions of combatant casualties, and wholesale destruction of cities and regions, was good for humanity. But the improved American economy of the late 1940s seems to illustrate the benefits of large-scale government stimulus. This conundrum may be causing some to wonder how we could capture the good without the bad.

 

If one believes that government spending can create economic growth, then the answer should be simple: let's have a huge pretend war that rivals the Second World War in size. However, this time, let's not kill anyone.

 

Most economists believe that massive federal government spending on tanks, uniforms, bullets, and battleships used in World War II, as well the jobs created to actually wage the War, finally put to an end the paralyzing "deflationary trap" that had existed since the Crash of 1929. Many further argue that war spending succeeded where the much smaller New Deal programs of the 1930s had fallen short.

 

The numbers were indeed staggering. From 1940 to 1944, federal spending shot up more than six times from just $9.5 billion to $72 billion. This increase led to a corresponding $75 billion expansion of US nominal GDP, from $101 billion in 1940 to $175 billion by 1944. In other words, the war effort caused US GDP to increase close to 75% in just four years!

 

The War also wiped out the country's chronic unemployment problems. In 1940, eleven years after the Crash, unemployment was still at a stubbornly high 8.1%. By 1944, the figure had dropped to less than 1%. The fresh influx of government spending and deployment of working-age men overseas drew women into the workforce in unprecedented numbers, thereby greatly expanding economic output. In addition, government spending on wartime technology produced a great many breakthroughs that impacted consumer goods production for decades.

 

So, why not have the United States declare a fake war on Russia (a grudge match that is, after all, long overdue)? Both countries could immediately order full employment and revitalize their respective manufacturing sectors. Instead of live munitions, we could build all varieties of paint guns, water balloons, and stink bombs.

 

Once new armies have been drafted and properly outfitted with harmless weaponry, our two countries could stage exciting war games. Perhaps the US could mount an amphibious invasion of Kamchatka (just like in Risk!). As far as the destruction goes, let's just bring in Pixar and James Cameron. With limitless funds from Washington, these Hollywood magicians could surely produce simulated mayhem more spectacular than Pearl Harbor or D-Day. The spectacle could be televised- with advertising revenue going straight to the government.

 

The competition could be extended so that the winner of the pseudo-conflict could challenge another country to an all-out fake war. I'm sure France or Italy wouldn't mind putting a few notches in the 'win' column. The stimulus could be never-ending.

 

If the US can't find any willing international partners, we could always re-create the Civil War. Missed the Monitor vs. the Merrimack the first time? No worries, we'll do it again!

 

But to repeat the impact of World War II today would require a truly massive effort. Replicating the six-fold increase in the federal budget that was seen in the early 1940s would result in a nearly $20 trillion budget today. That equates to $67,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. Surely, the tremendous GDP growth created by such spending would make short work of the so-called Great Recession. The big question is how to pay for it. To a degree that will surprise many, the US funded its World War II effort largely by raising taxes and tapping into Americans' personal savings. Both of those avenues are nowhere near as promising today as they were in 1941. Current tax burdens are now much higher than they were before the War, so raising taxes today would be much more difficult. The "Victory Tax" of 1942 sharply raised income tax rates and allowed, for the first time in our nation's history, taxes to be withheld directly from paychecks. The hikes were originally intended to be temporary but have, of course, far outlasted their purpose. It would be unlikely that Americans would accept higher taxes today to fund a real war, let alone a pretend one. That leaves savings, which was the War's primary source of funding. During the War, Americans purchased approximately $186 billion worth of war bonds, accounting for nearly three quarters of total federal spending from 1941-1945. Today, we don't have the savings to pay for our current spending, let alone any significant expansions. Even if we could convince the Chinese to loan us a large chunk of the $20 trillion (on top of the $1 trillion we already owe them), how could we ever pay them back? If all of this seems absurd, that's because it is. War is a great way to destroy things, but it's a terrible way to grow an economy. What is often overlooked is that war creates hardship, and not just for those who endure the violence. Yes, US production increased during the Second World War, but very little of that was of use to anyone but soldiers. Consumers can't use a bomber to take a family vacation. The goal of an economy is to raise living standards. During the War, as productive output was diverted to the front, consumer goods were rationed back home and living standards fell. While it's easy to see the numerical results of wartime spending, it is much harder to see the civilian cutbacks that enabled it. The truth is that we cannot spend our way out of our current crisis, no matter how great a spectacle we create. Even if we spent on infrastructure rather than war, we would still have no means to fund it, and there would still be no guarantee that the economy would grow as a result. What we need is more savings, more free enterprise, more production, and a return of American competitiveness in the global economy. Yes, we need Rosie the Riveter - but this time she has to work in the private sector making things that don't explode. To do this, we need less government spending, not more.

The existing literature identifies natural resource wealth as a major determinant of civil war. The dominant causal link is that resources provide finance and motive (the “looting rebels” model). Others see natural resources as causing “political Dutch disease,” which in turn weakens state capacity (the “state capacity” model). In the looting rebels model, resource wealth first increases, but then decreases the risk for civil war as very large wealth enables governments to constrain rebels, whereas in the state capacity model, large resource wealth is unambiguously related to higher risk of war. This research note uses a new dataset on natural resource rents that are disaggregated as mineral and energy rents for addressing the resources-conflict relationship. We find that neither a dummy variable for major oil exporters nor our resource rents variables predict civil war onset with a 1000-battle-death threshold coded by Fearon and Laitin (2003) Fearon, J. D. and Laitin, D. D. 2003. Ethnicity, insurgency, and civil war. American Political Science Review, 97(1): 1–16.

[Crossref], in the period after 1970 for which rents data are available. However, using a lower threshold of 25 battle deaths, we find that energy wealth, but not mineral wealth, increases the risk for civil war onset. We find no evidence for a nonlinear relationship between either type of resources and civil war onset. The results tentatively support theories built around state capacity models and provide evidence against the looting rebels model of civil war onset.

 

www.businessinsider.com/lets-pretend-to-have-another-seco...

 

A considerable body of poetical work has been attributed to Saint Kabir. And while two of his disciples, Bhāgodās and Dharmadās, did write much of it down, "...there is also much that must have passed, with expected changes and distortions, from mouth to mouth, as part of a well-established oral tradition."

 

In that Place There Is No Happiness or Unhappiness,

No Truth or Untruth

Neither Sin Nor Virtue.

There Is No Day or Night, No Moon or Sun,

There Is Radiance Without Light.

 

There Is No Knowledge or Meditation

No Repetition of Mantra or Austerities,

Neither Speech Coming From Vedas or Books.

Doing, Not-Doing, Holding, Leaving

All These Are All Lost Too In This Place.

 

No Home, No Homeless, Neither Outside or Inside,

Micro and Macrocosm Are Non-Existent.

Five Elemental Constituents and the Trinity Are Both Not There

Witnessing Un-struck Shabad Sound is Also Not There.

 

No Root or Flower, Neither Branch or Seed,

Without a Tree Fruits are Adorning,

Primordial Om Sound, Breath-Synchronized Soham,

This and That - All Are Absent, The Breath Too Unknown

 

Where the Beloved Is There is Utterly Nothing

Says Kabir I Have Come To Realize.

Whoever Sees My Indicative Sign

Will Accomplish the Goal of Liberation.

Kabir

What is seen is not the Truth

What is cannot be said

Trust comes not without seeing

Nor understanding without words

The wise comprehends with knowledge

To the ignorant it is but a wonder

Some worship the formless God

Some worship His various forms

In what way He is beyond these attributes

Only the Knower knows

That music cannot be written

How can then be the notes

Says Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion

Kabir

There is a common trunk that carries energy from the EARTH TO COSMOS? a kind of Milky Way, fruit of the mammary tits of a sacred cow. The link between the body of light and the physical body is a silver rope invisible from mortals. It would be necessary to die first to be reborn in a spiritual World. The attachment to material values divides us and the World War is the result of an oversized human ego. Thus, we must digest our reptilian impulses to live detached from the roots of evil and once again become a sacred fruit of the Tree of Life.In this early spring, he seems happy to be in Paris. It was there that, in 2006, his career took a truly international turn. For the Nuit blanche, Subodh Gupta had been invited to produce a work: "Very Hungry God". This monumental skull of gleaming kitchen utensils was shown at Saint-Bernard church in the Goutte-d'Or district, where the battle of the undocumented had taken place ten years earlier. Struck by this paradoxical image of prosperity and death, François Pinault immediately bought the sculpture, then installed it in front of his Venetian foundation, at the Palazzo Grassi. This skull became one of the most famous vanities of contemporary art with the one Damien Hirst made in diamonds a year later.Born in a village in northern India, marked in his childhood by the presence of a theatre company and by film screenings where his mother took him, Subodh Gupta experienced a meteoric rise. First trained in figurative painting, he put this technique aside to make videos and assemblages of objects, often kitchen utensils, which have been his signature for about ten years. This is the case of "People Tree", a giant tree created especially to be presented in one of the Mint's courses. Subodh Gupta has a sense of sharing and loves to cook. It is for him an essential reference: he compares willingly the kneading of a bread dough and the artistic gesture. His works also tell the story of travel and exile, like his boat overflowing with metal amphorae and evoking the fate of migrants.

 

He is interested in the cosmos and the philosopher's stone, a mysterious substance known to turn lead into gold.

Faced with success, we had to produce a lot. The size of his workshops kept increasing every year to accommodate more assistants - he said he sometimes made less good pieces. So, for some time now, his work has taken a more meditative turn. He is interested in the cosmos and the philosopher's stone, a mysterious substance reputed to turn lead into gold, cure diseases, prolong human life... He also returned to painting. Through works, often colossal, installed in 18th century salons, the exhibition shows how far we have come.

Subodh Gupta spent a week working in the Mint's workshops to make a medal himself. The exchanges seem to have been spontaneous with the engravers, in this place which is one of the oldest factories in Paris. It was as an alchemist that he thought about his project: the idea came to him to associate the preciousness of spices with that of metal by placing the key ingredients of a good curry, garam masala, on modelling clay. The assembly will be scanned and pressed onto a metal disc. A reminder that in Vasco da Gama's time.

 

fr.pressfrom.com/actualite/culture/-95491-subodh-gupta-un...

 

While often Gupta, an artist based in New Delhi, uses form and content emanating from an Indian milieu as initial points of reference, these works are far from nostalgic, nativist or even culturally specific. They serve instead as universally relatable ruminations on the physical, the metaphysical, and their interconnections.

, In This Vessel Lies the Philosopher’s Stone, is a citation from the writings of the Indian poet Kabīr, from the 15th century, who is one of India’s most celebrated mystics and venerated by Hindus and Muslims alike.

 

Kabīr identifies a humble vessel, a trope for the human body, to be the carrier of everything – the earth, the universe, and the divine. Subodh Gupta’s most recent works are a meditative exploration of both the literal and metaphorical implications of these verses. The quotidian pantry has long been Gupta’s artistic realm where he finds material and meaning. But rather than expressing earthly horrors and delights, he has moved into capturing the cosmic in the everyday, resulting in a body of work that is simultaneously minimalist and exaggerated. For Gupta, the steam that escapes a boiling kettle suggests a new galaxy emerging, the sparks that scatter out of a wood stove appear to represent the birth of new stars, and the metallic banging of a hammer crushing aluminum suggests the celestial big bang. As the domestic is superimposed on the cosmic, astrophysical wonders are minimized to the mundane, and mundane earthly objects out into inter-stellar awe.

 

he phrase paaras or paarasmani, mentioned in the verses by Kabir, refers to an oddly universal mythological object that is able to transmute ordinary materials into precious metals or imbue them with extraordinary powers. The western equivalent to this mystical gem is known as the philosopher’s stone. The power of the philosopher’s stone is uncannily similar to an artist’s power to elevate an ordinary object into a prized possession, simply by rendering it in an artwork. Subodh Gupta’s work is particularly analogous to this alchemical act of transmutation and this is evident throughout his works, most literally perhaps in the work titled Only One Gold, which shows a humble potato seemingly transformed into a lump of gold.

 

www.itsliquid.com/subodh-gupta-in-this-vessel-lies-the-ph...

Near the center, the bright red structure is SH2-101, an emission nebula called the Tulip Nebula. The bright star to its west is Eta Cygni, marking the middle of the celestial swan's neck as it flies across the summer sky. Since I started astrophotography I have come to think of Cygnus as the summer's Orion -- an easily recognized constellation (the Northern Cross to some) with remarkable nebular regions not so easily noted by urban observers, but ripe for "viewing" with an electronic assist. All of the red stuff in the image is ionized hydrogen glowing the distinctive H-alpha wavelength, which is enhanced here via a helpful light pollution filter. Moving northeast from the center we also pass NGC 6871 and NGC 6883, two open clusters which just barely stand out from the incredible starfield in this region. From my suburban yard it's hard to imagine how much stuff is hiding behind the light dome to be revealed by having my telescope track it all night.

 

Tech Stuff: Borg 55FL astrograph/ ZWO ASI 1600MC; IDAS LPS V4 filter; iOptron CubePro unguided 8 second exposures collected in 8 minute stacks, 3 hours total integration time. Processed in PixInsight. Imaged from my yard 10 miles north of New York City. SQM-L reading 19.04 in this Bortle 7/Red Zone. During the Covid lockdown many believe the skies are cleaner than normal but I am finding the weather to be the key determinant of sky quality, and in fact this excellent night (June 1st am) did not reach the 19.1 reading I have experienced under the best "normal" conditions in the past 2 years.

 

Carrocería/Bodywork: Noge Touring Gold HD

 

Chassis: MAN 26.420 HOCLN-SD

 

Lote/Batch info: 1/5 - 5 total (1717-1726)

 

Matricula/Plate: 7953-KPV

 

Longitud/Length: 15m

 

Servicio/Service: 2018 - En curso/Ongoing

 

Info (SP): Para las rutas aeroportuarias siempre se han realizado compras excepcionales para cubrir dichas rutas. Sin embargo el tener que equipar vehiculos discrecionales para el transporte interurbano, asi como la falta de accesibilidad y longitud fueron determinantes a la hora de renovar esta parte de la flota. Por ello la empresa aposto (por primera vez) en la carrocera Noge, a quienes encargaron diez unidades de quince metros de los cuales seis han sido permanentemente asignados a cubrir las rutas aeroportuarias (de ahi la distintiva pintura exterior).

 

Info (EN): For all airport routes exceptional purchases were made for their coverage. However the intense modifications vehicles had to undergo, the difficulty of access and length of the vehicle required a makeover. As a result, Global decided to take a chance with coach builder Noge, whom they placed a first order of ten 15m long buses from which six were permanently assigned for airport routes (as indicated by their distinctive livery)

Throughout our lives, certain archetypes shape our sense of self, the world, the road we’re on, and the goals we seek. Our idea of good and evil, male and female, leaders, parents, mentors, friends, and more are framed in the stories of the Bible. The picture’s not always pleasant, but it never fails to be instructive and is sometimes downright revelatory. Mirror, mirror on the wall: what’s the purpose of us all?

Topics of the Day:

Sunday, Day 1: “Introduction” and “Your Life as Revelatory Source. How did you get to be who you are? Your life is a sacred text read by all.

Monday, Day 2: “The Character of God” and “The Male/Female Thing” You and I meet God in sacramental and sacred encounters. But in Scripture, we meet the God who is one character among many in the remarkable story of faith. And our second topic — Gender is complicated. Adam and Eve were just the beginning of the conflict. Gender issues remain with us in secular and sacred realms.

Tuesday, Day 3: “Follow the Leader” and “The Parent Trap”

Leadership styles come and go. From biblical patriarchs and kings to modern-day presidents and celebrities, we follow the leaders we invent and choose. And our 2nd topic – The Ten Commandments bid us to honor our father and our mother. Jesus says we should hate our parents. Please explain!

Wednesday, Day 4:“The Guiding Light” & “You’ve Got a Friend” Elisha had Elijah. Timothy and Titus had Paul. Thank God for mentors: those significant folks along the way who show us how life works. Our second topic — It’s not good for us to be alone, as Genesis attests. Famous friendships help us explore the role of holy companioning.

Thursday, Day 5: “Who’s Your Devil?” and “What a Wonderful World” Everyone fears the Dark Side. Who’s the enemy, and where does it reside? And our second topic — The universe is beautiful. Earth is our home. The Bible and science agree it will come to an end one day. What’s our relationship to a fragile planet?

Friday, Day 6: “And the Purpose of It All Is” We’re born, we live, and we die. For most of us, that’s a pretty full plate of responsibilities. What should we do with this “one wild and precious life?”What qualities are we looking for in the aspirants at Saint-Sulpice? Parish Experience - Before an aspirant joins the Society, Sulpicians want to ensure that an aspirant has completed at least two years of parish work, which will have allowed him/her to develop a strong sense of belonging to the diocese and an attachment to the parish ministry. Indeed, they need priests who live and love their priesthood and who wish to assist the bishops in the service of seminarians and diocesan priests. Ability to work in a team - Sulpicians are looking for candidates who are able to work in a community environment and are able to work collegially on a mission in consultation with fellow priests as well as with lay people or religious. To know how to share one's faith through a life of prayer that nourishes a true enthusiasm for Christ and his Gospel, for the Church and the priesthood. The Apostolic Spirit who animated their founder, Jean-Jacques Olier, is the source of this sharing. Special gifts that open the way to a quality intellectual and professional preparation in several fields: spiritual accompaniment, teaching of philosophy or theology, pastoral animation. This presupposes the openness to learning of a constantly renewed Sulpician pedagogy. How can a priest become a Sulpician? Prerequisites - To be a diocesan priest incardinated in a diocese, to have completed at least two years of parish ministry in the diocese of origin and to be available for service in the Canadian Priests of St. Sulpice Province. Initial recognition - If a priest meets these prerequisites, he or she can contact the Sulpician Vocations Officer for his or her region (see list below). He will inform him about the regular meetings organized for the aspirants to the Society and he will be in charge of this first experience with Saint-Sulpice until the Provincial Council accepts him as a candidate. His participation in these meetings will give him sufficient information about the Company and the demands of Sulpician life. This priest will also be accompanied spiritually in discerning his possible Sulpician vocation. Candidature - After this time of discernment, with the support of the Sulpician Vocations Officer in his region, he asked his bishop for written authorization to make an experience in Saint-Sulpice. The aspirant then applies by contacting the provincial superior or the provincial delegate in writing. First experience in Saint-Sulpice - If formally accepted and admitted as a candidate, the Provincial Council becomes directly responsible for his experience with the Priests of Saint-Sulpice. He then took over his duties and gave him a first appointment to a team in the Canadian Province from the moment his bishop relieved him of his duties. Usually, this first experience in the Company lasts at least two years.The expression "art Saint-Sulpice" is misleading, because it encompasses very different periods and artists in the same name and in the same discredit, because it confuses art of reproduction and wide circulation with the search for an authentic sacred art which has been continuous for nearly two centuries.

 

In the proper sense, Sulpician art refers to the objects that are sold in the specialized shops that surround the church of the same name in Paris: industrial and economic art, of poor quality, where the mimicry and the fading of style reassure and somehow carry the seal of an official art, orthodox and without excess. Thus understood, Sulpician art is of all times and every effort to renew religious art naturally secretes its counterfeiting. The virgins and saints, with their white eyes and pale air, coming from Ary Scheffer and his raphaelism, the statues of the Virgin of Lourdes, poor translation of the mediocre model of the pious sculptor Cabuchet, the overly sensitive effigies of Thérèse de Lisieux or Saint Anthony of Padua, even the neo-byzantine works, pale reflection. In fact, the interest of Sulpician art is not only sociological; it is also, as in countertype, the revealing of the interest that religious art has never ceased to arouse, against all appearances. Holy Mirror! The creatures on the reverse will be merged in the reflected image but probably not in a laplacian way - just as concentric circles. If anyone has a magic mirrorWe first address the problem of simultaneous image segmentation and smoothing by approaching the paradigm from a curve evolution perspective. In particular, we let a set of deformable contours define the boundaries between regions in an image where we model the data via piecewise smooth functions

 

www.vallombrosa.org/the-holy-mirror-discovering-ourselves...

 

Origin of the Holy Mirrors!

Mirrors have been regarded as sacred at least since the Han Dynasty in China. Many of these mirrors and from the subsequent Wei dynasty have been found in Japan. They bore images of gods and sacred animals particularly the Chinese dragon (1,2) . They were very popular, and possibly later manufactured, in Japan. The bronze mirrors are found in great number in ancient (kofun period) burial mounds in Japan. In the biggest archeological find of 33 mirrors, the mirrors were placed surrounding the coffin such that their reflective surface faced the deceased. The Han mirrors were "magic" in that while they reflected they were also able to project an image usually of the deities and animals on the back and refered to as "light passing mirrors" (透明鑑） (Needham, 1965, p.xlic; Needham & Wang, 1977, pp. 96-97).This magic property is due to the their method of construction. When polishing the reflective face of the mirror, the patter on the back influences the pressure brought to bear on the reflective surface and change the extent to which it is concave. Muraoka also claims that Differences in the (slight) "inequality of curvature" (Ayrton & Perry, 1878, p 139; see also Thompson, 1897, and Needham & Wang, 1977, p96 for a diagram) of the mirror result in the mirror reflecting light bearing the pattern shown on the reverse. More recent research has elucidated the precise mathematical model describing the optics of these mirrors as a laplacian image (Berry, 2006), a type of spatial filter today used for edge detection and to blend two images together. It is not known whether the mirrors popular in ancient Japan were also able to project, but later during the Nara period mirrors were found to concel magic Buddhist images, and during the Edo period, concealed Christians (Kurishitan) concealed images of the cross or of the Holy Mary within their bronze "magic" mirrors. Mirrors in Japan contined to be made of brass, until the arrival of Western glass mirrors, and were "magic" in that they displayed the patter on their reverse when reflecting sunlight or other powerful light source (Thompson, 1897). Ayrton (Ayrton & Perry, 1878; Ayrton & Pollock, 1879) claims that in Japan mirror vendors were unaware of the "light passing" quality, and that there is no mention of this 'magical' quality known to Han Chinese in Japanese texts. Even a Japanese mirror maker was unaware of how to make magic mirrors though had inadvertently made one himself by extensive polishing a mirror with a design on its back (Ayrton & Perry, 1878, p135). Unlike the ancient Korean mirror top right (3), the ancient Han and Japanese mirrors were made to be rotated, displaying images in the four directions of the compas. The reason for the holes in the central "breast" (or nipple) is unclear but it is found to be pierced with a hole (of varying shape depending upon the manufacturer) from which the mirror was suspended by a rope. Bearing in mind that the images on the mirrors required that the mirrors be rotated, the central nodule might also have enabled the mirrors to be spun like a top. I am not sure why someone would want to spin a mirror but my son does (see the toy explained later). I would very much like to see what the reflected "magic" image becomes when spun. The creatures on the reverse will be merged in the reflected image but probably not in a laplacian way - just as concentric circles. If anyone has a magic mirror I would like them to try spinning it to see. Skipping the holy mirrors in shrines, mirror rice cakes, and the mirror held by the Japanese version of Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, King Enma, which holds a record of ones life, and, jumping to the present day... Mirrors are popular in the transformational items used by Japanese superheros. The early 1970's Mirror Man transformed using a Shinto amulet infront of any mirror or reflecting surface. Shinkenja, a group of Super Sentai or Power Rangers, that transforms thanks to their ability to write and then spin Chinese characters in the air, also transforms with the aid of an Inro Maru (4) upon which is affixed a inscribed disk. When the disk is attactched to the mirror the super hero inside the mirror is displayed. Transformation (henshin) by means of a mirror is popular too among Japanese femail super heros notably Himitsu no Akko Chan (Secret Akko), who could change into many things that were displayed in her mirror, sailor moon, and OshareMajo (6). The female super heroes mirrors usually make noises rather than contain inscriptions. The latest greatest Kamen Rider OOO sometimes transforms by means of his Taja-Spina which spins three of his totem-badge "coins" inside a mirror (video). In this ancient tradition we see recurrence of the following themes 1) Mirrors being of great benefit to the bearer enabling him to transform. 2) Mirrors containing hidden deities 3) Mirrors being associated with symbols: iconic marks, and incantations. 4) Mirrors being made to be rotated or spun. Thanks to James Ewing for the Mirror Man (Mira-man) reference and to Tomomi Noguchi for the Ojamajo Doremi reference, and to Taku Shimonuri and my son Ray for getting me interested in Japanese superheros. Addendum One of My students (A Ms. Tanaka, and a book about the cute in Japan) pointed out that the Japanese are into round things, and it seems to me that this Japanese preference for the round may originate in the mirror. Anpanman and Doraemon and many "characters" have round faces The Japanese Flag features a circle representing the sun and the mirror Japanese coats of arms (kamon) Japanese holy mirrors are round "Mirror rice cakes", and many other kinds of rice cake, are round The Sumo ring is round Pictures of the floating world (Ukiyoe) often portray the sitter in a round background Japanese groups always have to end up by standing in a round The Japanese are fond of domes and have many of the biggest The Japanese are fond of seals (inkan), which are round Japanese groups just can't help standing in a round The taiko drum is round The mitsudomoe is round Mount Fuji is round But then there are probably round things in every culture?

Cast and polished bronze mirrors, made in China and Japan for several thousand years, exhibit a curious property [1–4], long regarded as magical. A pattern embossed on the back

is visible in the patch of light projected onto a screen from the reflecting face when this is illuminated by a small source, even though no trace of the pattern can be discerned

by direct visual inspection of the reflecting face. The pattern on the screen is not the result of the focusing responsible for conventional image formation, because its sharpness is independent of distance, and also because the magic mirrors are slightly convex. It was established long ago that the effect results from the deviation of rays by weak undulations on the reflecting surface, introduced during the manufacturing process and too weak to see directly, that reproduce the much stronger relief embossed on the back. Such ‘Makyoh imaging’ (from the Japanese for ‘wonder mirror’) has been applied to detect small asperities on nominally flat semiconductor surfaces [5–8]. My aim here is to draw attention (section 2) to a simple and beautiful fact, central to

the optics of magic mirrors, that has not been emphasized—either in the qualitative accounts or in an extensive geometrical-optics analysis : in the optical regime relevant to

magic mirrors, the image intensity is given, in terms of the height function h(r) of the relief.on the reflecting surface, by the Laplacian ∇2 h(r) (here r denotes position in the mirror plane: r = {x, y}). The Laplacian image predicts striking effects for patterns, such as those on magic mirrors, that consist of steps ; these predictions are supported by experiment

The detailed study of reflection from steps throws up an unresolved problem concerning the relation between the pattern embossed on the back and the relief on the reflecting surface. The Laplacian image is an approximation to geometrical optics, which is itself an approximation to physical optics. The appendix contains a discussion of the Laplacian image starting from the wave integral representing Fresnel diffraction from the mirror surface. Geometrical optics and the Laplacian image If we measure the height h(r) from the convex surface of the mirror (figure 3), assumed to

have radius of curvature R0, then the deviation of the surface undulations from a reference plane (figure 3) is η(r) = − r22R0+ h(r. The specularly reflected rays of geometrical optics are determined by the stationary value(s) of

the optical path length L from the source (distance H from the reference plane) to the position

R on the screen (distance D from the reference plane) via the point r on the mirror. This is L = (H − η(r))2 + r2 +(D − η(r

))2 + (R − r)2≈ H + D + (r, R), (2)where in the second line we have employed the paraxial approximation (all ray angles small), with (r, R) = r2 2H+(R − r)2 2D+ r2 R0− 2h(r). In applying the stationarity condition ∇r(r, R) = 0, it is convenient to define the magnification M, the reduced distance Z, and the ;demagnified observation position r referred to the mirror surface: M ≡ 1 +D H+2D R0, Z ≡ 2D M , r ≡ R M . We note an effect of the convexity that will be important later: as the source and screen distance increase, Z approaches the finite asymptotic value R0. With these variables, the position r

(r,Z), on the mirror, of rays reaching the screen position r, is the solution of r = r − Z∇h(r). The focusing and defocusing responsible for the varying light intensity at r involves the

Jacobian determinant of the transformation from r to r, giving,after a short calculation,Igeom(r,Z) = constant × ∂x ∂x

∂y ∂y − ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂x−1 r→r (r,Z)= 1 − Z∇2 h(r) + Z2

∂h(r) ∂x2 ∂h(r) ∂y2 − ∂h(r) ∂x ∂y2−1r→r(r,Z), ().where the result has been normalized to Igeom = 1 for the convex mirror without surface relief (i.e. h(r) = 0). So far, this is standard geometrical optics. In general, more than one ray can reach r—that is, can have several solutions r—and the boundaries of regions reached by different numbers of rays are caustics. In magic mirrors, however, we are concerned with a

limiting regime satisfying Z Rmin 1, where Rmin is the smallest radius of curvature of the surface irregularities. Then there is only one ray, simplifies to r ≈ r, (9) and the intensity simplifies to ILaplacian(r,Z) = 1 + Z∇2 h(r). This is the Laplacian image. Changing Z affects only the contrast of the image and not its form, so explains why the sharpness of the image is independent of screen position, provided holds. The intensity is a linear function of the surface irregularities h, which

is not the case in general geometrical optics (i.e. when is violated), where, as has been emphasized the relation is nonlinear. And, as already noted, for a distant source and

screen Z approaches the value R0, implying that (8) holds for any distance of the screen if R0 Rmin, that is, provided the irregularities are sufficiently gentle or the mirror is sufficiently

convex. Alternatively stated, the convexity of the mirror can compensate any concavity of the irregularity h, in which case there are no caustics for any screen position.The theory based on the Laplacian image accords well with observation, at least for the mirror studied here. The key insight is that the image of a step is neither a dark line nor a bright line,

as sometimes reported , but is bright on one side and dark on the other. It is possible that there are different types of magic mirror, where for example the relief is etched directly onto

the reflecting surface and protected by a transparent film , but these do not seem to be common. Sometimes, the pattern reflected onto a screen is different from that on the back, but

this is probably a trick, achieved by attaching a second layer of bronze, differently embossed, to the back of the mirror.

Pre-focal ray concentrations leading to Laplacian images are familiar in other contexts, though they are not always recognized as such. An example based on refraction occurs in old windows, where a combination of age and poor manufacture has distorted the glass. The distortion is not evident in views seen through the window when standing close to it. However,when woken by the low morning sun shining through a gap in the curtains onto an opposite

wall, one often sees the distortions magnified as a pattern of irregular bright and dark lines. If the equivalent of is satisfied, that is if the distortions and propagation distance are not too

large, the intensity is the Laplacian image of the window surface. (When the condition is not satisfied, the distortions can generate caustics.) Only the optics of the mirror has been studied here. The manner in which the pattern embossed on the back gets reproduced on the front has not been considered. Referring to ,this involves the sign of the coefficient a in the relation between hback and h. There have been several speculations about the formation of the relief. One is that the relief is generated while the mirror is cooling, by unequal contraction of the thick and thin parts of the pattern ; it is not clear what sign of a this leads to. Another is that cooling generates stresses, and that during vigorous grinding and polishing the thin parts yield more than the thick parts, leading to the thick parts being worn down more; this leads to a 0: bright (dark) lines on the image, indicating low (high) sides of the steps on the reflecting face, are associated with the low (high) sides of the

steps on the back , not the reverse (figure 7(b)). This suggests two avenues for further research. First, the sign of a should be determined by direct measurement of the profile of the reflecting surface; I predict a > 0. Second, whatever the result, the mechanism should be investigated by which the process of manufacture reproduces onto the reflecting surface the

pattern on the back. The fact that h0 = 378 nm is smaller than the wavelengths in visible light does not imply that the Laplacian image is the small-κ limit of (A.3), namely the perturbation limit corresponding to infinitely weak relief. Indeed it is not: the perturbation limit, obtained by

expanding the exponential in (A.3) and evaluating the integral over τ , with a renormalized denominator to incorporate the known limit I = 1 for ξ = ±∞, isψpert(ξ , ζ, κ) = 1 − iκ erf(ξ/√1+iζ /κ)

√ 1 + κ2 . For the gentlest steps, this predicts low-contrast oscillatory images, very different from the Laplacian images of geometrical optics; this is illustrated in figure 8(b), calculated for k =0.05, corresponding to h0 = 5.2 nm.

  

European journal of physics, 27, 109. Retrieved from www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/Berry_mv/the_papers/berry383.pdf Spatial Filters - Laplacian/Laplacian of Gaussian. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2012, from homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/log.htm Thompson, S. P. (1897). Light Visible and Invisible: A Series of Lectures at Royal Institution of Great Britain. Macmillan. Retrieved from www.archive.org/stream/lightvisibleinvi00thomuoft#page/50...

 

In the industrial and materialist period that began in the 19th century, Catholicism, even though it had to give in to its official positions, underwent glorious revival. In the years 1830-1880, an attempt was made to revive an authentic religious art, in the image of restored faith, through examples of medieval art. The Gothic cathedral, in its 13th century purity, Fra Angelico, the painter who paints on his knees, will be the models unceasingly questioned and translated through the teaching of Ingres.

 

FAIR

Male and Female zebrafish morphological comparison

 

公斑馬魚和母斑馬魚外觀比較圖

 

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The following descriptions of zebrafish quote from wikipedia website (URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebrafish). All Rights are belonging to "Wikipedia website".

 

Zebrafish:

 

1.Introduce: The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a tropical freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family (Cyprinidae). It is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio, and is an important vertebrate model organism in scientific research.

 

2.Distribution: The zebrafish is native to the streams of the southeastern Himalayan region., including the countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. It arose in the Ganges region in Eastern India. It commonly inhabits streams, canals, ditches, ponds, and slow-moving to stagnant water bodies, including rice fields. Zebrafish have been introduced to parts of the United States, presumably by deliberate release or by escape from fish farms. They have also been sighted in Colombia.

 

3.Description: The fish is named for the five uniform, pigmented, horizontal blue stripes on the side of the body, all of which extend to the end of the caudal fin. Its shape can be described as fusiform and laterally compressed, with its mouth directed upwards. Males are torpedo shaped and have gold stripes between the blue stripes; females have a larger, whitish belly and have silver stripes instead of gold. Adult females will exhibit a small genital papilla in front of the anal fin origin. The zebrafish can grow to 6.4 centimetres (2.5 in), although it is uncommon for them to grow past 4 centimetres in captivity.

The approximate generation time for the Danio is 3–4 months. It has been observed that there must be a male present in order for ovulation and spawning of eggs to occur. Females are able to spawn as often as 2–3 days with hundreds of eggs being laid in each clutch. Upon release from the mother, developmental steps will be made, however without the presence of sperm growth will stop after the first few embryonic cleavages. Fertilized eggs will almost immediately become transparent, which is an important characteristic yielding D. rerio as a convenient research model. Development rapidly progresses, with precursors to all major organs appearing within 36 hours of fertilization. Hatching will take place anywhere from 48–72 hours post-fertilization, depending on the internal conditions of the embryo itself and the external temperature (ideally 28.5 °C). Swimming and feeding behavior are observed to occur approximately 72 hours post-fertilization. The sex of juvenile zebrafish cannot be distinguished except by dissection, and the genetic sex determinants are not clearly understood. The range of life-span for a zebrafish in captivity is around 2–3 years, although in ideal conditions, they may live up to 5 years. The zebrafish is omnivorous, and it primarily eats zooplankton, insects, and phytoplankton. It can eat a variety of foods if its main sources are not readily available.

 

4.Model organism for development and genetics: Zebrafish chromatophores, shown here mediating background adaptation, are studied by scientists D. rerio are a common and useful model organism for studies of vertebrate development and gene function. They may supplement higher vertebrate models, such as rats and mice. Pioneering work of George Streisinger at the University of Oregon established the zebrafish as a model organism; its importance was consolidated by large scale forward genetic screens (commonly referred to as the Tübingen/Boston screens). The scholarly journal Development devoted an issue to research using the fish in celebration of this landmark. An online database of zebrafish genetic, genomic, and developmental information, the Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN), has been established. D. rerio is one of the few species of fish to have been flown into space.

A Zebrafish Pigment Mutant. The mutant called bleached blond was produced by insertional mutagenesis. The embryos in the picture are four days old. At the top is a wild-type embryo, below is the mutant. The mutant lacks black pigment in the melanocytes because it fails to synthesise melanin properly.

Research with D. rerio has allowed advances in the fields of developmental biology, oncology, toxicology, reproductive studies, teratology, genetics, neurobiology, environmental sciences, stem cell and regenerative medicine, and evolutionary theory. Perhaps its greatest advantages for use in the laboratory as a model system come from its now sequenced genetic code, well understood, easily observable and testable developmental behaviors, and the availability of well-characterized mutants. Zebrafish embryonic development provides advantages over other vertebrate model organisms as well. Although the overall generation time of zebrafish is comparable to that of mice, zebrafish embryos develop rapidly, progressing from eggs to larvae in under three days. The embryos are large, robust, and transparent and develop externally to the mother, characteristics which all facilitate experimental manipulation and observation. Their nearly constant size during early development facilitates simple staining techniques, and drugs may be administered by adding directly to the tank. Unfertilized eggs can be made to divide, and the two-celled embryo fused into a single cell, creating a fully homozygous embryo.

See link for pigmentation mutants of D rerio: www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v97/n3/fig_tab/6800867f5.html#...

A common reverse genetics technique is to reduce gene expression or modify splicing in zebrafish using Morpholino antisense technology. Morpholino oligonucleotides are stable, synthetic macromolecules that contain the same bases as DNA or RNA; by binding to complementary RNA sequences, they reduce the expression of specific genes. The journal Genesis devoted an issue to research using Morpholino oligos, mostly in D. rerio. Morpholino oligonucleotides can be injected into one cell of a zebrafish embryo after the 32-cell stage, producing an organism in which gene expression is reduced in only the cells descended from the injected cell. However, cells in the early embryo (www.flickr.com/photos/chenhowen/sets/72157618669794787/

Sant Jaume dels Domenys, Baix Penedès, Tarragona (Spain).

 

Stamens and carpel of lily flower / Estambres y carpelo de azucena.

 

ENGLISH

That plants employ many different strategies to engage in sexual reproduction was used, from just a structural perspective, by Carolus Linnaeus (1735 and 1753) to propose a system of classification of flowering plants. Later this subject received attention from Christian Konrad Sprengel (1793) who described plant sexuality as the "revealed secret of nature" and, for the first time, understood the biotic and abiotic interactions of the pollination process. Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection are based on his work. Flowers, the reproductive structures of angiosperms, are more varied than the equivalent structures of any other group of organisms, and flowering plants also have an unrivalled diversity of sexual systems. But sexuality and the significance of sexual reproductive strategies is no less important in all of the other plant groups. The breeding system is the single most important determinant of the mating structure of nonclonal plant populations. The mating structure in turn controls the amount and distribution of genetic variation, a central element in the evolutionary process.

 

More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_sexuality

 

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CASTELLANO

El hecho que las plantas emplean numerosas estrategias diferentes para realizar su reproducción sexual fue utilizado desde una perspectiva puramente estructural por Carolus Linnaeus (1735 y 1753) para proponer un sistema de clasificación de las plantas con flores. Posteriormente este tema fue tratado por Christian Konrad Sprengel (1793) quien describió la sexualidad de las plantas como el "secreto develado por la naturaleza" y, por primera vez, comprendió las interacciones bióticas y abióticas del proceso de polinización. Las teorías de Charles Darwin sobre selección natural se basan en su trabajo. En el caso de las flores, las estructuras reproductivas de angiospermas, son más variadas que las estructuras equivalentes de cualquier otro grupo de organismos, y las plantas con flores también tienen una diversidad de sistemas sexuales que no tiene parangón (Barrett, 2002). Pero la sexualidad y la importancia de las estrategias de reproducción sexual no es menos importante en el resto de los grupos de plantas. El sistema reproductivo es el factor más importante que determina la estructura de apareamiento de las poblaciones de plantas nonclonal. La estructura de apareamiento a su vez controla la cantidad y la distribución de la variación genética, que constituye un elemento central en el proceso de la evolución.

 

Más info: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexualidad_plantas

671. No method of approach declares the insignificance of quality; but there are many of them that emphatically state that quantity is which really counts and which is determinant.

 

672. The quantitative approach will emerge and gain importance as soon as the capability for considering the essence of things declines and ceases in man.

 

673. Quantitative aspects have no value at all, because value is, essentially, attached to quality.

 

674. The potentia passiva pura is neither quantity, nor quality - but actuality that transfers to the pure passive potentiality by the abandonment of its actuality in quality.

 

676. Quantity is by the side of chaos.

 

677. In the cosmos - right because it is cosmos - quantity cannot gain full control.

 

678. (René Guénon) If there were absolutely no qualitative difference between two beings, there would be no quantitative difference between them either, i.e. the two beings would be one.

 

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Metaphysical aphorisms by András László

 

www.tradicio.org/english/solumipsum.htm

 

A dish consisting of fillet steak, potatoes, sour cream, herbs, and peas can be healthy, but its overall healthfulness largely depends on the preparation methods and portion sizes. Fillet steak is a lean cut of red meat, providing high-quality protein, iron, and B vitamins. Potatoes offer complex carbohydrates for energy, along with potassium and vitamin C. Peas contribute fiber, vitamins (like A and K), and minerals. Herbs, of course, add flavor without significant calories and often contain beneficial antioxidants.

 

However, the inclusion of sour cream is a key determinant. Sour cream, especially full-fat varieties, can significantly increase the saturated fat and calorie content of the dish. While some fat is necessary for nutrient absorption and satiety, excessive saturated fat intake is linked to increased cholesterol levels and heart disease risk. The method of cooking the potatoes also plays a role; baked or boiled potatoes are healthier choices than fried options like french fries. Portion control for all ingredients, especially the steak and sour cream, is crucial to maintaining a balanced and healthy meal.

 

To optimize the health benefits of this dish, consider using a reduced-fat sour cream or a healthier alternative like Greek yogurt, which offers similar creaminess with more protein and less fat. Opt for lean cooking methods for the steak, such as grilling or pan-searing with minimal oil. Prepare the potatoes by baking, boiling, or roasting them with a small amount of healthy oil. Increasing the proportion of peas and adding other non-starchy vegetables would further boost the fiber and nutrient content, making it a more well-rounded and healthier meal.

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

Jabatan Pendana Menteri

Putrajaya Malaysia

Abraxas or Abrasax (Gnostic, from Greek Αβραξας) From the Theosophical Glossary: "A mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents in the Greek alphabet. Since 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they argued that Abraxas mystically contained the total number of families of entities making up a hierarchy. Illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration that govern their existence, Abraxas is therefore the supreme cosmic soul, Brahma, the Creator or Third Logos. The Basilidian Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created noûs (mind). Abraxas was also identified with the Hebrew Adonai, the Egyptian Horus and the Hindu Prajapati. The Gnostic amulets known as the Abraxas gems described the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a rooster, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clad in armor evoking a guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a flail, emblem of authority; on his left arm, a shield decorated with a word of power. This pantheos invariably bears its proper name, IAO, and its epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and is often accompanied by invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun (The Gnostics and Their Remnants 246), whom Blavatsky equates with the "central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2: 214). Although written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably of Semitic origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hidden, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Therefore, in combination, the phrase can be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax".

 

gnosticpublishing.org/apprendre/glossaire/glossaire-a/abr...

 

C. G. Jung possessed an intense and sympathetic interest in the early alternative Christian tradition now known as Gnosticism. Both in his published writings and in his private reminiscences one finds frequent and insightful comments about Gnostic tradition, although during much of Jung’s life the subject of Gnosticism was virtually unknown to all but a few scholars of religion.

 

One of the key documents bearing early testimony to Jung’s vital Gnostic interest was his finely designed book, Septem Sermones ad Mortuos—“Seven Sermons to the Dead.” Jung had the work privately printed in 1916 and over subsequent decades gave copies of it to a select number of friends and associates. With Jung’s approval, H. G. Baynes translated the text of the Sermons into English and this edition was privately printed in 1925. Again, Jung distributed the English edition only to persons whom he felt to be properly prepared for its message.

 

What remained generally unknown was that around 1917 Jung also transcribed a much-expanded version of the Septem Sermones into the third and final portion of his draft manuscript of Liber Novus, the section entitled “Scrutinies.” There the Sermons appear as the summary revelation of Liber Novus. Jung never publicly revealed the existence of this longer form of the Sermons, and until the publication in 2009 of Liber Novus: The Red Book this version of the Sermons remained entirely inaccessible.

 

Those who were fortunate enough to become acquainted with Septem Sermones ad Mortuos usually found it intriguing, but they were often somewhat puzzled by its contents. Authorship of the book was attributed not to Jung, but to a historical Gnostic teacher named Basilides. And its place of composition was stated to be “Alexandria, the city where East and West meet.” Over ensuing years, those who had read the book sometimes referred to it as Jung’s Gnostic revelation. But of course, during Jung’s life few people knew much about Gnosticism, nor understood what really made this little book “Gnostic.” Nonetheless, following the publication of Liber Novus, it has become evident that the Sermons are indeed the revelation of C. G. Jung’s Gnostic myth. The Sermons might even be seen as the heart of his New Book—The Red Book: Liber Novus.

 

Since Jung’s death in 1961, a great deal more information regarding Gnosticism has become available, and it has become a subject of wide popular and academic interest. A major impetus to this awakened attention was the publication in 1977 of the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic scriptures, the most extensive collection of original writings of the ancient Gnostics discovered thus far. The Nag Hammadi texts have shed new light on many details of the Gnostic mythos that were previously obscure. They also help place Jung’s Gnostic tract into a broader context.

 

The Septem Sermones ad Mortuos has proved over past years to be a difficult book to categorize. Some writers have termed it a “cosmology,” but that remains an inadequate formulation. The document might perhaps more accurately be termed a “psycho-cosmology.” Since Gnostic scriptures typically approached their psycho-spiritual themes in the form of myths, one might propose that the Septem Sermones exemplify the contemporary formulation of a Gnostic myth. Though Jung's text is not identical with any pre-existing Gnostic myth, it is nonetheless related in form to many ancient Gnostic texts that have come to light over the last century.

 

The Gnostic themes in the Septem Sermones are further amplified by another document created by Jung during the period in which he recorded the Sermons. In early 1916 Jung constructed a detailed and artistically impressive image—or mandala—that diagrammatically represented many of the elements discussed subsequently in the Sermons. He titled it Systema Munditotius, “the system of the entire world.” Jung did not include this image among the many illustrations within his Red Book. Much later in life he did, however, allow it to be published—it appeared in a 1955 issue of the German periodical Du that was dedicated to the Eranos conferences (Jung did not, however, allow his name to be given explicitly as the image’s creator). The illustration was subsequently included as a full-page plate in C. G. Jung: Word and Image. The Systema Munditotius is now reproduced beautifully in The Red Book: Liber Novus, where it appears in Appendix A. The amplified text of the Sermons present in Liber Novus and the diagram of Systema Munditotius together provide a foundation for the following discussion.

 

Statements substantiating Jung’s affinity with Gnostic tradition run throughout his published writings. Jung held the view that during much of the history of Western culture the reality of the psyche and its role in the transformation of the human being had received scant recognition. In contrast, the Gnostics of old and their later covert progeny—which in Jung’s view included the alchemists and other alternative spiritual movements—affirmed the revelatory importance of the psyche. Jung plainly stated: “For the Gnostics—and this is their real secret—the psyche existed as a source of knowledge.” In response to the recurrent question of whether or not Jung was a Gnostic, one must reply: “Certainly he was, for ‘Gnostic’ means ‘knower,’ and by his own statements Jung was one who knew.” The visions, myths, and metaphors of the Gnostics confirmed Jung’s own experiences recorded in Liber Novus, and this circumstance created a bond that joined him with Gnostics of all ages and places.

Myth of the Demiurge

 

The myth of the demiurge originated with Plato. In his Timaeus, Plato postulated the existence of a creator deity or “demiurge” who fashioned the material universe. The term demiurge is derived from the Greek word meaning “craftsman.” Although a craftsman and fashioner, it must be understood that the demiurge was not identical with the monotheistic creator figure; the demiurge and the material from which the demiurge fashioned the universe were both secondary consequences of another primary factor. The demiurge is thus an intermediate architect, not a supreme source.

 

In ancient times, Plato was regarded as the paragon of all wisdom, and his model of a demiurge or cosmic fashioner was further elaborated and adapted within many subsequent schools of thought, including in the myths of the Gnostics. Gnostics envisioned the demiurge as a subordinate supernatural power that was not identical with the true, ultimate, and transcendent godhead. The presence of a myth about this demiurge became a signal characteristic of Gnostic systems. Taking note of the sometimes distasteful character and conduct of the Old Testament deity, Gnostics frequently identified the latter as the demiurge—a being that was not evil, but still of questionable moral stature and limited wisdom.

 

It has long been apparent to some students of Jung that in Answer to Job he characterized the divine tyrant who tormented Job as a classic Gnostic demiurge. This divinity, as described by Jung, was a being who lacked wisdom due to having lost or forgotten his feminine side—his Sophia (“wisdom”). Notwithstanding this and other evidence, some readers of Jung previously argued that his mythos in the Septem Sermones did not include the controversial Gnostic figure of the demiurge, and therefore it should not be properly called Gnostic. Publication of the Red Book: Liber Novus now makes it abundantly clear that the demiurge is present in Jung’s myth. Indeed, Answer to Job is unmistakably a reformulation of the Gnostic myth disclosed to Jung in Liber Novus and within the Septem Sermones.

 

Prior to the availability of the expanded version of the Sermons found in Liber Novus, the figure of Abraxas—as portrayed in the published 1916 edition of the Sermons—remained ambiguous. In my book, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, first published in 1982, I offered an initial commentary on the locus of Abraxas in Jung’s myth. With the long-sequestered text of Liber Novus finally available, I now wish to amend and expand those prior comments composed nearly four decades ago. Based on documentation in Liber Novus, the figure Jung identified as “Abraxas” has finally and indisputably been divulged as a classic Gnostic demiurge.

 

The mysterious being called “Abraxas” first appears in Septem Sermones in the latter part of the Second Sermon; passages describing him continue throughout the Third Sermon and into the Fourth Sermon. Initially, he is there characterized as “a god about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him.” This statement can certainly be taken to apply to an intermediate deity, as is ubiquitous in a large number of Gnostic scriptures.

 

For some two thousand years Western and Middle Eastern cultures have been dominated by the monotheistic god-image familiar to us today. Prior to the first several centuries of the current era, however, many Mediterranean cultures accommodated religions of a pluralistic nature wherein the image of an ultimate, impersonal divine reality coexisted with a number of lesser or intermediate deities. In such ancient pluralistic systems, the image of a materially powerful but morally and spiritually impaired demiurge often played an important role.

 

Scholars now widely affirm that the incipient Christian religion harbored various alternative forms; those movements in early Christianity that included a myth of the demiurge are usually categorized collectively as “Gnostic.” While the name Abraxas does occur in a few ancient Gnostic texts (where he is usually identified as a great archon), no evidence exists that the demiurge of classical Gnosticism was specifically called Abraxas. Jung’s assignation of the ancient name Abraxas to the demiurge was thus his own imaginative appropriation.

Abraxas and the Demiurge

 

So, was Abraxas the demiurge in Jung’s myth? Jung’s Black Book journal entry dated January 16, 1916, and reproduced as Appendix C in Liber Novus, removes all question about this issue: Abraxas was the demiurge in Jung’s myth. As Dr. Lance Owens has previously noted, this journal entry—written around the same time Jung sketched the Systema Munidtotius, and about two weeks before he scribed his initial journal version of the Septem Sermones—records the following words spoken to Jung by the Soul, who assumed the voice of the Gnostic Sophia. Her address to Jung is inarguably a rendition of the primal Gnostic myth of the demiurge, here named Abraxas:

 

You should worship only one God. The other Gods are unimportant. Abraxas is to be feared. Therefore it was a deliverance when he separated himself from me.

 

Note that the separation of the demiurge from Sophia—“when he separated himself from me”—is a key element of the classic Gnostic myth of Sophia and the Demiurge. She then exhorts,

 

You do not need to seek him. He will find you, just like Eros. He is the God of the cosmos, extremely powerful and fearful. He is the creative drive, he is form and formation, just as much as matter and force, therefore he is above all the light and dark Gods. He tears away souls and casts them into procreation. He is the creative and created. He is the God who always renews himself in days, in months, in years, in human life, in ages, in peoples, in the living, in heavenly bodies. He compels, he is unsparing. If you worship him, you increase his power over you. Thereby it becomes unbearable. You will have dreadful trouble getting clear of him. … So remember him, do not worship him, but also do not imagine that you can flee him since he is all around you. You must be in the middle of life, surrounded by death on all sides. Stretched out, like one crucified, you hang in him, the fearful, the overpowering.

 

This journal entry unambiguously identifies the figure of Abraxas, who a few weeks thereafter appeared in Jung’s initial journal version of the Sermons, as the demiurge of classical Gnostic mythology. The identification of Abraxas with the demiurge is further established in the draft manuscript of Liber Novus, where in several passages Jung substituted the term “ruler of this world” for the name “Abraxas” that was originally recorded in his Black Book journal.

 

At its beginning, Jung’s Gnostic theogony in the Sermons describes an ultimate, utterly transcendental source called the Pleroma, and then a number of intermediate deities, including God-the-Sun, the Devil, Eros, and The Tree of Life. In addition to these figures, the entire Third Sermon is devoted to introducing the demiurgic figure of Abraxas. In the Fourth Sermon Jung summarizes:

 

Immeasurable, like the host of stars, is the number of gods and devils. Every star is a god, and every space occupied by a star is a devil. And the emptiness of the whole is the Pleroma. The activity of the whole is Abraxas; only the unreal opposes him.

 

The version of the Sermons included in Liber Novus contains several crucially important additions to the original text that was printed in 1916. In this expanded 1917 manuscript version, Philemon is identified as the speaker presenting the Sermons to the dead (Basilides was the speaker of the Sermons in the printed version). The text incorporates questions that Jung asks Philemon about each sermon, along with Philemon’s answers. Philemon also adds extended homiletic commentary upon the content of his sermons. All of this additional material enriches and further explicates the meaning of the Sermons.

 

After the First Sermon, Jung’s initial question addressed to Philemon voices concern that the teachings in the Sermons might be regarded as “reprehensible heresy.” (This query bears the characteristic of a rhetorical question.) Philemon replies that the audience to whom the Sermons are addressed—“the dead”—are Christians whose now-abandoned faith long ago declared these teachings to be heresies. This commentary might be interpreted to further imply that a large number of people in our culture are now abandoning their traditional religion and are thus prepared to listen to ancient heresies, wherein they may find answers to their own portentous questions. Philemon’s statement is clear and to the point:

 

Why do I impart this teaching of the ancients? I teach in this way because their Christian faith once discarded and persecuted precisely this teaching. But they repudiated Christian belief and hence were rejected by that faith. They do not know this and therefore I must teach them…

 

Philemon’s words are eminently applicable to the problem of religion in contemporary Western culture. Religion in much of Europe has reached an unprecedented low point in its history, and allegiance to the Christian tradition in the U.S.A. appears to be diminishing. Jung frequently pointed out that the god image in a religion and culture is of crucial importance to the well-being of the collective psyche, and therefore also to the well-being of the individual. A major factor inducing the decline of the Christian religion in the West is unquestionably the disappointment people have come to feel with the traditional monotheistic god.

Prophecy of a New Age and a New God Image

 

Jung’s epochal Liber Novus is, in the consensus view of informed readers, a book of prophecy. On the initial folio of Liber Novus Jung presents an image of a complex landscape surmounted by a zodiac and showing forth the aeonial passage of the sun from the sign of Pisces into that of Aquarius. This image points forward to his title, The Way of What is to Come. The reader then encounters several prophetic quotations from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, and from the prologue to the Gospel of John. Jung’s Liber Novus thus sets the stage for disclosure of its new prophecy.

 

Throughout both Liber Primus and Liber Secundus of Liber Novus we find recurring references to the coming of the new age of Aquarius. In an impressive section that Jung titled “The Three Prophecies,” his Soul reveals to him three periods in the forthcoming age: War, Magic, and Religion. In commentary on this vision, Jung wrote,

 

These three mean the unleashing of chaos and its power, just as they also mean the binding of chaos. War is obvious and everybody sees it. Magic is dark and no one sees it. Religion is still to come, but it will become evident. … I felt the burden of the most terrible work of the times ahead. I saw where and how, but no word can grasp it, no will can conquer it. … But I saw it and my memory will not leave me alone.

 

Examining the numerous prophetic passages in Liber Novus, it becomes clear that at the heart of Jung’s experience there abides a vision of the formation of a new god image. But what indications did Jung give regarding the nature of this new god image and, moreover, how may contemporary persons facilitate the arising of a new god image in their own natures and in the new religion that is to come?

 

Liber Novus offers several statements that refer to the coming god image. The tone is set in the early part of Liber Primus; Jung there recounts several visions that he experienced which foretold of the time when “the great war broke out between the peoples of Europe.” He then declares,

 

Within us is the way, the truth, and the life. … The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you?

 

It is clear from the beginning of Jung’s mysterious prophetic book that the future god image is none other than the divine essential Selfhood indwelling in the human soul. Here, again, we must turn to the expanded version of the Sermons for a clarifying commentary. At the conclusion of the First Sermon, Philemon instructs his audience to strive for what he calls their essences. He continues,

 

At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely the striving for one's own essence. If you had this striving, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and yet you would attain the right goal by virtue of your own essence. Since, however, thought alienates us from our essence, I must teach you that knowledge with which you can bridle your thoughts.

 

Many Gnostic writings explicitly state that the essence of the human is the fragment of the ultimate reality residing at the center of its being. When it is possible for the human to gain access to this essence, all other religious or spiritual endeavors are redundant. It is largely the fault of the demiurge—or so Jung’s old friends, the Gnostics, believed—that this access is so fraught with difficulty. In the Sermons, Jung’s spirit mentor Philemon offers advice regarding the judicious way in which humans may free themselves from the yoke of the demiurge. Unlike some of the more radical Gnostics of old, Philemon advises us to neither flee from the demiurge Abraxas, nor to seek him. In one passage in the Sermons, Philemon says about Abraxas, “to resist him not is liberation.”

 

The Gnostic demiurge, by whatever name he may be called, is omnipresent in the outer world. While humans are in terrestrial embodiment they must both accept the demiurge’s presence, and equally endeavor to counterbalance his influence by contacting their own indwelling essence. This indwelling essence is described in the Seventh Sermon as the “solitary star” in the heavens. This statement is supplemented by the revelation Jung recorded in his Black Book journal on January 16, 1916, wherein his Soul admonished him:

 

You have in you the one God, the wonderfully beautiful and kind, the solitary, starlike, unmoving, he who is older and wiser than the father, he who has a safe hand, who leads you among all the darknesses and death scares of dreadful Abraxas. He gives joy and peace, since he is beyond death and beyond what is subject to change. He is no servant and no friend of Abraxas.

 

What then is the principal deficiency in the god of the old Aeon, the god who is to be overcome? Employing the nomenclature of the Sermons and other statements by Jung, we might say that the god of the monotheistic religions is a compound in which the ultimate god (called the Pleroma in the Septem Sermones) is unconsciously combined with the demiurge, named by Jung as Abraxas.

 

Based on the numerous paradoxical and even downright evil deeds and utterances of the Old Testament deity, and the fact that this deity was carried forward into orthodox Christianity, one is tempted to conclude (as Jung did in Answer to Job) that the Judeo-Christian god is at best a being who embodies both arrogance and unconsciousness. It seems quite impossible to believe that this god is both almighty and good—for his goodness would thus have to be combined with impotence, or alternatively, his omnipotence would be joined to his absence of goodness. A considerable portion of humanity has thus reached the point where it can no longer endure the unconscious tension embodied by a blind belief in an utterly enigmatic and derisory god image. This circumstance is causing an unprecedented upsurge of atheism and secularism in Western culture.

 

Throughout the twentieth century humanity has experienced a multitude of terrible events; these have undermined many people’s ability to have faith in a benevolent god. The medieval brutality of modern-day terrorists motivated by commitment to a monotheistic god has only reinforced the rejection of such traditional god images in secular society. Our age cries out for a new understanding of divinity, and a new god image. This was Jung’s prophesy in Liber Novus. As he also noted, this development may take centuries. Until a new god image constellates, we will pass through an epoch of chaos and violence.

 

When Christendom cast out the salvific myth of Gnosis in favor of an unimaginative literalism, it became spiritually impoverished. Our impoverishment has now reached its terminus. We await the formation of our new myth—a myth that rediscovers the primordial images and myth of Gnosis. As Jung declared,

 

I hope the reader will not be offended if my exposition sounds like a Gnostic myth. We are moving in those psychological regions where, as a matter of fact, Gnosis is rooted. The message of the Christian symbol is Gnosis, and the [response to it] by the unconscious is Gnosis in even higher degree. Myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythical imagery. Such processes are concerned with the primordial images, and these are best and most succinctly reproduced by figurative language.

The Self, the Demiurge, and the New God Image

 

The issue of the coming god image has captured the attention of several of Jung's students in recent decades. Edward Edinger made perhaps the most complete statement concerning Jung’s declaration in his pioneering book, The New God-Image. As Edinger noted, Jung avowed an ancient and esoteric image of a deific consciousness dwelling in the soul. This affirmation is present in Liber Novus, and is restated in various ways throughout all of Jung’s subsequent writings. In Liber Novus Jung offered a startling prophecy: the long neglected indwelling god image would eventually become the orienting god image of the future. On the first page of Liber Novus he made it plain that this prediction was coordinated with the synchronous passing of the world from the astrological age of Pisces into that of Aquarius.

 

It is now evident that the essential foundation of Jung’s science and psychological language reposed in his long-concealed Liber Novus. A key revelation present within Liber Novus that later emerged as a core affirmation in his psychology—and as a spiritual and archetypal declaration—was the assertion of the presence within the human psyche of a central archetype, around which other archetypes constellate. He called this central principle or archetype the “Self.” In Psychology and Alchemy—published in 1944, and based on lectures given in 1935—Jung stated:

 

I have found myself obliged to give [this] archetype the psychological name of the “self”—a term on the one hand definite enough to convey the essence of human wholeness and on the other hand indefinite enough to express the indescribable and indeterminable nature of this wholeness. … Hence in its scientific usage the term “self” refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self. This mode of expression is an intellectual necessity in scientific psychology and in no sense denotes a transcendental prejudice. On the contrary … this objective attitude enables one man to decide in favour of the determinant Christ, another in favour of the Buddha, and so on.

 

While the existence of a divine image internal to the psyche, termed by Jung the “Self,” is widely accepted among followers of Jung, the opposing archetype of the demiurge is far less known. Jung claimed that at the heart of early Christianity there existed the insight of Gnosis; he himself had met this Gnosis in the experiences recorded in his Black Book journals, and thence in Liber Novus and in the Septem Sermones. An essential part of the archetypal mythos of Gnosis is the presence of a duality both inwardly in the soul, and outwardly in the cosmos. This duality is composed of a divine spark within the deepest recesses of the soul, and of an outer demiurgic power. Self and Demiurge stand in opposition.

 

This symbolic opposition is illustrated clearly in Jung’s 1916 mandala, Systema Munditotius. At the lowest point of the circular mandala, seated on the exterior circle, is a being with the lower body of a large serpent, surmounted by a light-colored torso, and topped by the golden head of a lion crowned with a ten-rayed golden halo. On the opposite pole of the mandala, at the apex of the design, we find a winged egg within which stands the figure of the child-god Phanes. The serpent-lion is described as abraxas dominus mundi (Abraxas, Lord of the World). This powerful demiurge dominates the lower creation, while the child-god Phanes above is about to attain to his full stature. The undifferentiated, primitive god-image is about to be replaced by the still developing child-god of promise.

 

The Systema Munditotius is further populated by images of archetypal beings that arrange themselves in pairs of opposites on the poles of the mandala. These include deus sol (god the sun) and deus luna satanus (god the moon, Satan). We also find paired a winged rodent identified as scientia (science), and a winged worm named ars (art). Despite the abundance of these symbolic images—many of which later appear as figures in the text of the Septem Sermones—the two principal focal points of the diagram are clearly Abraxas and Phanes.

 

A picture compensates for many words and Jung’s images here illuminate the nature and role of the archetypes depicted, particularly of the primordial demiurge Abraxas, and of Phanes, the new god-image awaiting birth. Of course, in conjunction with this image, the verbal descriptions of Abraxas in the Septem Sermones are also instructive:

 

Abraxas is the god whom it is difficult to know. His power is the very greatest, because man does not perceive it at all. He is magnificent even as the lion at the very moment when he strikes his prey down. His beauty is like the beauty of a spring morn.

 

To see him means blindness; To know him is sickness; To worship him is death; To fear him is wisdom; Not to resist him means liberation … Such is the terrible Abraxas … He is both the radiance and the dark shadow of man. He is deceitful reality.

 

As Jung noted in the Second Sermon, people know nothing about the demiurge because they have forgotten him. This forgetting was aided by the self-declared architects of the early Christian centuries: the heresiologist Church Fathers of orthodoxy. The very thought of a demiurge thereafter became a heretical abomination to orthodox Christendom. Jung’s insights recorded in the Liber Novus, and particularly in the Sermons, declared that in order to move toward greater wholeness we must look to the coming new god image. But to do this, we need also recognize the forgotten demiurge, the god whom Jung declared “difficult to know.”

 

Present-day humanity is gradually becoming aware of an inner psychic reality, a centering fact Jung identified as the salvific archetype of the Self. In Liber Novus he prophetically proclaimed that a new god image is developing in humanity—and perhaps a new god image has already awakened in some individuals of our age, as it did in Jung. This incipient aeonial development demands further conscious awareness and a conscious union of the opposites. Using the language of Liber Novus and the Systema Munditotius, we might proclaim that Phanes is now stirring and is about to break out of the egg. For this to happen, however, human beings must also consciously recognize the reality of his opposite entity, the demiurge Abraxas.

 

Western culture has suffered too long from a ruinous one-sidedness. A powerful element in this one-sided perspective is a militant unwillingness to acknowledge the effective reality of the demiurge. With singular symbolic insight, the ancient Gnostics noted how the human spirit is confined on earth by a prison constructed of perplexing opposites. A demiurgic reality has placed us behind these prison bars, which alternatingly assume form in the inexorable struggle of light and dark, good and evil, or wise and unwise components. Denying the reality of this fact merely continues our confinement.

 

Our extraverted immersion in the world, both in its natural and cultural aspects, perpetuates servitude to the forgotten Abraxas. His fiery, mesmerizing, and infinitely creative powers enthrall us. We worship the terrible Abraxas in the baleful political ideologies of our epoch. Ever increasingly, he holds us captive in the magically scintillating web of modern technology. Only an increase of psychological awareness, leading to the individuation of our psyches, offers a path to liberation from the domination of the internal complexes and external fascinations that are the essence of Abraxas. It is incumbent upon us to accept the reality of this archetypal force, for in the words of the Sermons, “to worship him is death; to fear him is wisdom, not to resist him means liberation.”

 

The time has come when we must incorporate Jung’s epochal insights into our lives. The teachings of Liber Novus must be met as a form of spiritual discipline. A few months before his death in 1960, Jung wrote to an acquaintance,

 

I was unable to make the people see what I am after. I am practically alone. There are a few who understand this and that, but almost nobody sees the whole... I have failed in my foremost task: to open people’s eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state.

 

Today, after the publication of his monumental spiritual classic, Liber Novus, we may be able to finally reply to Jung that he has not failed at all; that inspired now by his visionary message, we too are ready “to give birth to the ancient in a new time.” In some mysterious archetypal locale, the sage Dr. C. G. Jung awaits such a response to his great work.

 

gnosis.org/gnostic-jung/Abraxas-Jungs-Demiurge.html

 

Abraxas by Samael Aun Weor

Abraxasor Abrasax (Gnostic, from the Greek Αβραξας) From The Theosophical Glossary: "Mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being which they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents of the Greek alphabet. Because 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they held that in Abraxas were mystically contained the full number of families of entities composing a hierarchy. These entities received from their supreme illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration governing their existence. Thus in a sense Abraxas is the cosmic Oversoul, the creative or Third Logos, Brahma. The Basilidean Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created nous (mind). Abraxas also was identified with the Hebrew 'Adonai, the Egyptian Horus, and the Hindu Prajapati. Gnostic amulets known as Abraxas gems depicted the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a cock, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clothed in armor, suggestive of guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a scourge, emblem of authority; on his left arm a shield emblazoned with a word of power. This pantheos is invariably inscribed with his proper name IAO and his epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and often accompanied with invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun ( Gnostics and Their Remains 246), which Blavatsky equates with "the central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2:214). Though written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably Semitic in origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hid, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Hence in combination the phrase may be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax." "Remember, beloved devotee, the double tail of the serpent that forms the legs of the solar rooster of Abraxas. The entire process of the Great Work consists of releasing oneself from the enchanted rings of the tempting serpent..." - Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message

 

m.facebook.com/gnosis.uk/posts/569992773125249/

These little guys born two hours before this photo was taken.

  

Some 80% of Scotland’s land mass is under agricultural production, making the industry the single biggest determinant of the landscape we see around us. Scotland’s farmers, crofters and growers produce output worth around £2.9 billion a year, and are responsible for much of Scotland’s £5 billion food and drink exports. The export target for 2017 is £7.1 billion.

 

Around 67,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 360,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

 

The agri-food sector is now the UKs largest manufacturing sector.

 

Around 85% of Scotland is classified as Less Favoured Area. This is an EU classification which recognises natural and geographic disadvantage.

 

There are large numbers of farms in north west Scotland, but these are significantly smaller in terms of the numbers of livestock/area of crops grown than farms elsewhere. Sheep farming is the predominant type of farming in the north west and there are also many sheep farms in the south of the country. Larger cereal farms are concentrated in the east. Beef farming takes place throughout Scotland, but is particularly common in the south west. This area also has the bulk of the dairy industry.

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FORTUNE Brainstorm Health 2023

Wednesday, April 26th, 2023

Los Angeles, CA, USA

 

7:30-8:45 AM

CONCURRENT BREAKFASTS SESSIONS

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS TO CANCER CARE IN UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS

Hosted by City of Hope

Cancer is the second-leading cause of death for both men and women across the U.S., but it doesn’t affect everyone equally. Many cancer patients face insurmountable barriers to the leading-edge treatments, support, and technologies most likely to save their lives. Geography, common industry interventions—such as narrow networks—and social determinants of health all play a role in obstructing access to specialized care and life-saving experts. Hear from champions of health equity on how they are democratizing cancer care by creating new systems that prioritize patient survival, quality of life, and a return to normalcy by providing vulnerable populations with better access to education, screening, and treatment.

 

Helmy Eltoukhy, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Guardant

Dr. Folasade May, Co-Leader, Stand Up To Cancer Colorectal Cancer Health Equity Dream Team, University of California, Los Angeles

Anand Parikh, Co-founder and CEO, Faeth Therapeutics

Robert Stone, Chief Executive Officer, City of Hope

Carla Tardif, Chief Executive Officer, Family Reach

Moderator: Clifton Leaf, FORTUNE

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett/Fortune

Francisco José de Goya, Fuendetodos/Aragón 1746 - Bordeaux 1828

Saturn (1820 – 1823)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

The mural paintings that decorated the house known as “la Quinta del Sordo,” where Goya lived, have come to be known as the Black Paintings, because he used so many dark pigments and blacks in them, and also because of their somber subject matter. The private and intimate character of that house allowed the artist to express himself with great liberty. He painted directly on the walls in what must have been mixed technique, as chemical analysis reveals the use of oils in these works. The Baron Émile d´Erlanger acquired “la Quinta” in 1873 and had the paintings transferred to canvas. The works suffered enormously in the process, losing a large amount of paint. Finally, the Baron donated these paintings to the State, and they were sent to the Prado Museum, where they have been on view since 1889.

 

Saturn devouring one of his sons is one of the most expressive images from his Black Paintings. This mythological god could be the personification of such a human feeling as the fear of losing one´s power. The mural paintings from “la Quinta del Sordo” (the Black Paintings), have been determinant in the modern-day consideration of this painter from Aragon. The German Expressionists and the Surrealist movement, as well as representative of other contemporary artistic movements, including literature and even cinema, have seen the origins of modern art in this series of compositions by an aged Goya, isolated in his own world and creating with absolute liberty.

 

Source: Museo del Prado

  

That's a word with three f :-)))

Yesterday, we had a spontaneous trip to Chiemsee. I thínk, water and mountains go well together.

 

"Schiffahrt" became "Schifffahrt" in 1996. The orthography reform of 1996 was reformed for another ten years, which has screwed up my spelling a bit, I think (I have a screwed up typing on the iPad anyways).

 

The German orthography reform of 1996 (Rechtschreibreform) was an attempt to simplify the spelling of the German language and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to all living users of the language.

The reform was based on an international agreement signed in Vienna in July 1996 by the governments of the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Luxembourg did not participate despite having German as one of the three official languages, having regarded itself "as a non-German-speaking country not to be a contributory determinant upon the German system of spelling". Luxembourg later unilaterally adopted the reform.

The reformed orthography became obligatory in schools and in public administration. However, there was a campaign against the reform and in the resulting public debate the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany was called upon to delineate the extent of reform. In 1998 the court stated that because there was no law governing orthography, outside the schools people could spell as they liked, including the use of traditional spelling. In March 2006, the Council for German Orthography agreed unanimously to remove the most controversial changes from the reform; this was accepted by media organizations such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that had previously opposed the reform.

Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.

 

An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical construct called the ego to explain how that is done through various ego functions. Adherents of ego psychology focus on the ego's normal and pathological development, its management of libidinal and aggressive impulses, and its adaptation to reality.[1]

  

Contents

1History

1.1Early conceptions of the ego

1.2Freud's ego psychology

1.3Systematization

1.3.1Anna Freud

1.3.2Heinz Hartmann

1.3.3David Rapaport

1.3.4Other contributors

1.4Decline

2Contemporary

2.1Modern conflict theory

3Ego functions

4Conflict, defense and resistance analysis

5Cultural influences

6Criticisms

7See also

8References

9Further reading

History[edit]

Early conceptions of the ego[edit]

Sigmund Freud initially considered the ego to be a sense organ for perception of both external and internal stimuli. He thought of the ego as synonymous with consciousness and contrasted it with the repressed unconscious. In 1910, Freud emphasized the attention to detail when referencing psychoanalytical matters, while predicting his theory to become essential in regards to everyday tasks with the Swiss psychoanalyst, Oscar Pfister.[2] By 1911, he referenced ego instincts for the first time in Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning and contrasted them with sexual instincts: ego instincts responded to the reality principle while sexual instincts obeyed the pleasure principle. He also introduced attention and memory as ego functions.

 

Freud's ego psychology[edit]

Freud began to notice that not all unconscious phenomena could be attributed to the id; it appeared as if the ego had unconscious aspects as well. This posed a significant problem for his topographic theory, which he resolved in his monograph The Ego and the Id (1923).[3]

 

In what came to be called the structural theory, the ego was now a formal component of a three-way system that also included the id and superego. The ego was still organized around conscious perceptual capacities, yet it now had unconscious features responsible for repression and other defensive operations. Freud's ego at this stage was relatively passive and weak; he described it as the helpless rider on the id's horse, more or less obliged to go where the id wished to go.[4]

 

In Freud's 1926 monograph, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety, he revised his theory of anxiety as well as delineated a more robust ego. Freud argued that instinctual drives (id), moral and value judgments (superego), and requirements of external reality all make demands upon an individual. The ego mediates among conflicting pressures and creates the best compromise. Instead of being passive and reactive to the id, the ego was now a formidable counterweight to it, responsible for regulating id impulses, as well as integrating an individual's functioning into a coherent whole. The modifications made by Freud in Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety formed the basis of a psychoanalytic psychology interested in the nature and functions of the ego. This marked the transition of psychoanalysis from being primarily an id psychology, focused on the vicissitudes of the libidinal and aggressive drives as the determinants of both normal and psychopathological functioning, to a period in which the ego was accorded equal importance and was regarded as the prime shaper and modulator of behavior.[5]

 

Systematization[edit]

Following Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalysts most responsible for the development of ego psychology, and its systematization as a formal school of psychoanalytic thought, were Anna Freud, Heinz Hartmann, and David Rapaport. Other important contributors included Ernst Kris, Rudolph Loewenstein, René Spitz, Margaret Mahler, Edith Jacobson, and Erik Erikson.

 

Anna Freud[edit]

Anna Freud focused her attention on the ego's unconscious, defensive operations and introduced many important theoretical and clinical considerations. In The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936), Anna Freud argued the ego was predisposed to supervise, regulate, and oppose the id through a variety of defenses. She described the defenses available to the ego, linked them to the stages of psychosexual development during which they originated, and identified various psychopathological compromise formations in which they were prominent. Clinically, Anna Freud emphasized that the psychoanalyst's attention should always be on the defensive functions of the ego, which could be observed in the manifest presentation of the patient's associations. The analyst needed to be attuned to the moment-by-moment process of what the patient talked about in order to identify, label, and explore defenses as they appeared. For Anna Freud, direct interpretation of repressed content was less important than understanding the ego's methods by which it kept things out of consciousness.[6] Her work provided a bridge between Freud's structural theory and ego psychology.[7]

 

Heinz Hartmann[edit]

Heinz Hartmann (1939/1958) believed the ego included innate capacities that facilitated an individual's ability to adapt to his or her environment. These included perception, attention, memory, concentration, motor coordination, and language. Under normal conditions, what Hartmann called an average expectable environment, these capacities developed into ego functions and had autonomy from the libidinal and aggressive drives; that is, they were not products of frustration and conflict, as Freud (1911) believed. Hartmann recognized, however, that conflicts were part of the human condition and certain ego functions may become conflicted by aggressive and libidinal impulses, as witnessed by conversion disorders (e.g., glove paralysis), speech impediments, eating disorders, and attention-deficit disorder.[5]

 

Through Hartmann's focus on ego functions, and how an individual adapts to his or her environment, he worked to create both a general psychology and a clinical instrument with which an analyst could evaluate an individual's functioning and formulate appropriate therapeutic interventions. Based on Hartmann's propositions, the task of the ego psychologist was to neutralize conflicted impulses and expand the conflict-free spheres of ego functions. By doing so, Hartmann believed psychoanalysis facilitated an individual's adaptation to his or her environment. Hartmann claimed, however, that his aim was to understand the mutual regulation of the ego and environment rather than to promote adjustment of the ego to the environment. Furthermore, an individual with a less-conflicted ego would be better able to actively respond to and shape, rather than passively react to, his or her environment.

 

Mitchell and Black (1995) wrote: "Hartmann powerfully affected the course of psychoanalysis, opening up a crucial investigation of the key processes and vicissitudes of normal development. Hartmann's contributions broadened the scope of psychoanalytic concerns, from psychopathology to general human development, from an isolated, self-contained treatment method to a sweeping intellectual discipline among other disciplines" (p. 35).

 

David Rapaport[edit]

David Rapaport played a prominent role in the development of ego psychology and his work likely represented its apex.[5] In Rapaport's influential monograph The Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory (1960), he organized ego psychology into an integrated, systematic, and hierarchical theory capable of generating empirically testable hypotheses. According to Rapaport, psychoanalytic theory—as expressed through the principles of ego psychology—was a biologically based general psychology that could explain the entire range of human behavior.[8] For Rapaport, this endeavor was fully consistent with Freud's attempts to do the same (e.g., Freud's studies of dreams, jokes, and the "psychopathology of everyday life".)

 

Other contributors[edit]

While Hartmann was the principal architect ego psychology, he collaborated closely with Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein.[9]

 

Subsequent psychoanalysts interested in ego psychology emphasized the importance of early-childhood experiences and socio-cultural influences on ego development. René Spitz (1965), Margaret Mahler (1968), Edith Jacobson (1964), and Erik Erikson studied infant and child behavior and their observations were integrated into ego psychology. Their observational and empirical research described and explained early attachment issues, successful and faulty ego development, and psychological development through interpersonal interactions.

 

Spitz identified the importance of mother-infant nonverbal emotional reciprocity; Mahler refined the traditional psychosexual developmental phases by adding the separation-individuation process; and Jacobson emphasized how libidinal and aggressive impulses unfolded within the context of early relationships and environmental factors. Finally, Erik Erikson provided a bold reformulation of Freud's biologic, epigenetic psychosexual theory through his explorations of socio-cultural influences on ego development.[10] For Erikson, an individual was pushed by his or her own biological urges and pulled by socio-cultural forces.

 

Decline[edit]

In the United States, ego psychology was the predominant psychoanalytic approach from the 1940s through the 1960s. Initially, this was due to the influx of European psychoanalysts, including prominent ego psychologists like Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein, during and after World War II. These European analysts settled throughout the United States and trained the next generation of American psychoanalysts.

 

By the 1970s, several challenges to the philosophical, theoretical, and clinical tenets of ego psychology emerged. The most prominent of which were: a "rebellion" led by Rapaport's protégés (George Klein, Robert Holt, Roy Schafer, and Merton Gill); object relations theory; and self psychology.

 

Contemporary[edit]

Modern conflict theory[edit]

Charles Brenner (1982) attempted to revive ego psychology with a concise and incisive articulation of the fundamental focus of psychoanalysis: intrapsychic conflict and the resulting compromise formations. Over time, Brenner (2002) tried to develop a more clinically based theory, what came to be called “modern conflict theory.” He distanced himself from the formal components of the structural theory and its metapsychological assumptions, and focused entirely on compromise formations.

 

Ego functions[edit]

 

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Reality testing: The ego's capacity to distinguish what is occurring in one's own mind from what is occurring in the external world. It is perhaps the single most important ego function because negotiating with the outside world requires accurately perceiving and understanding stimuli. Reality testing is often subject to temporary, mild distortion or deterioration under stressful conditions. Such impairment can result in temporary delusions and hallucination and is generally selective, clustering along specific, psychodynamic lines. Chronic deficiencies suggest either psychotic or organic interference.[11]

Impulse control: The ability to manage aggressive and/or libidinal wishes without immediate discharge through behavior or symptoms. Problems with impulse control are common; for example: road rage; sexual promiscuity; excessive drug and alcohol use; and binge eating.

Affect regulation: The ability to modulate feelings without being overwhelmed.

Judgment: The capacity to act responsibly. This process includes identifying possible courses of action, anticipating and evaluating likely consequences, and making decisions as to what is appropriate in certain circumstances.

Object relations: The capacity for mutually satisfying relationship. The individual can perceive himself and others as whole objects with three dimensional qualities.

Thought processes: The ability to have logical, coherent, and abstract thoughts. In stressful situations, thought processes can become disorganized. The presence of chronic or severe problems in conceptual thinking is frequently associated with schizophrenia and manic episodes.

Defensive functioning: A defense is an unconscious attempt to protect the individual from some powerful, identity-threatening feeling. Initial defenses develop in infancy and involve the boundary between the self and the outer world; they are considered primitive defenses and include projection, denial, and splitting. As the child grows up, more sophisticated defenses that deal with internal boundaries such as those between ego and super ego or the id develop; these defenses include repression, regression, displacement, and reaction formation. All adults have, and use, primitive defenses, but most people also have more mature ways of coping with reality and anxiety.

Synthesis: The synthetic function is the ego's capacity to organize and unify other functions within the personality. It enables the individual to think, feel, and act in a coherent manner. It includes the capacity to integrate potentially contradictory experiences, ideas, and feelings; for example, a child loves his or her mother yet also has angry feelings toward her at times. The ability to synthesize these feelings is a pivotal developmental achievement.

Reality testing involves the individual's capacity to understand and accept both physical and social reality as it is consensually defined within a given culture or cultural subgroup. In large measure, the function hinges on the individual's capacity to distinguish between her own wishes or fears (internal reality) and events that occur in the real world (external reality). The ability to make distinctions that are consensually validated determines the ego's capacity to distinguish and mediate between personal expectations, on the one hand, and social expectations or laws of nature on the other. Individuals vary considerably in how they manage this function. When the function is seriously compromised, individuals may withdraw from contact with reality for extended periods of time. This degree of withdrawal is most frequently seen in psychotic conditions. Most times, however, the function is mildly or moderately compromised for a limited period of time, with far less drastic consequences' (Berzoff, 2011).

 

Judgment involves the capacity to reach “reasonable” conclusions about what is and what is not “appropriate” behavior. Typically, arriving at a “reasonable” conclusion involves the following steps: (1) correlating wishes, feeling states, and memories about prior life experiences with current circumstances; (2) evaluating current circumstances in the context of social expectations and laws of nature (e.g., it is not possible to transport oneself instantly out of an embarrassing situation, no matter how much one wishes to do so); and (3) drawing realistic conclusions about the likely consequences of different possible courses of action. As the definition suggests, judgment is closely related to reality testing, and the two functions are usually evaluated in tandem (Berzoff, 2011).

 

Modulating and controlling impulses is based on the capacity to hold sexual and aggressive feelings in check with out acting on them until the ego has evaluated whether they meet the individual's own moral standards and are acceptable in terms of social norms. Adequate functioning in this area depends on the individual's capacity to tolerate frustration, to delay gratification, and to tolerate anxiety without immediately acting to ameliorate it. Impulse control also depends on the ability to exercise appropriate judgment in situations where the individual is strongly motivated to seek relief from psychological tension and/or to pursue some pleasurable activity (sex, power, fame, money, etc.). Problems in modulation may involve either too little or too much control over impulses (Berzoff, 2011).

 

Modulation of affect The ego performs this function by preventing painful or unacceptable emotional reactions from entering conscious awareness, or by managing the expression of such feelings in ways that do not disrupt either emotional equilibrium or social relationships. To adequately perform this function, the ego constantly monitors the source, intensity, and direction of feeling states, as well as the people toward whom feelings will be directed. Monitoring determines whether such states will be acknowledged or expressed and, if so, in what form. The basic principle to remember in evaluating how well the ego manages this function is that affect modulation may be problematic because of too much or too little expression. As an integral part of the monitoring process, the ego evaluates the type of expression that is most congruent with established social norms. For example, in white American culture it is assumed that individuals will contain themselves and maintain a high level of personal/vocational functioning except in extremely traumatic situations such as death of a family member, very serious illness or terrible accident. This standard is not necessarily the norm in other cultures (Berzhoff, Flanagan, & Hertz, 2011).

 

Object relations involves the ability to form and maintain coherent representations of others and of the self. The concept refers not only to the people one interacts with in the external world but also to significant others who are remembered and represented within the mind. Adequate functioning implies the ability to maintain a basically positive view of the other, even when one feels disappointed, frustrated, or angered by the other's behavior. Disturbances in object relations may manifest themselves through an inability to fall in love, emotional coldness, lack of interest in or withdrawal from interactions with others, intense dependency, and/or an excessive need to control relationships (Berzhoff, Flanagan, & Hertz, 2011).

 

Self-esteem regulation involves the capacity to maintain a steady and reasonable level of positive self-regard in the face of distressing or frustrating external events. Painful affective states, including anxiety, depression, shame, and guilt, as well as exhilarating emotions such as triumph, glee, and ecstasy may also undermine self-esteem. Generally speaking, in dominant American culture a measured expression of both pain and pleasure is expressed; excess in either direction is a cause for concern. White Western culture tends to assume that individuals will maintain a consistent and steadily level of self-esteem, regardless of external events or internally generated feeling states (Berzhoff, Flanagan, & Hertz, 2011).

 

Mastery when conceptualized as an ego function, mastery reflects the epigenetic view that individuals achieve more advanced levels of ego organization by mastering successive developmental challenges. Each stage of psychosexual development (oral, anal, phallic, genital) presents a particular challenge that must be adequately addressed before the individual can move on to the next higher stage. By mastering stage-specific challenges, the ego gains strength in relations to the other structures fothe mind and thereby becomes more effective in organizing and synthesizing mental processes. Freud expressed this principle in his statement, “Where id was, shall ego be.” An undeveloped capacity for mastery can be seen, for example, in infants who have not been adequately nourished, stimulated, and protected during the first year of life, in the oral stage of development. When they enter the anal stage, such infants are not well prepared to learn socially acceptable behavior or to control the pleasure they derive from defecating at will. As a result, some of them will experience delays in achieving bowel control and will have difficulty in controlling temper tantrums, while others will sink into a passive, joyless compliance with parental demands that compromises their ability to explore, learn, and become physically competent. Conversely, infants who have been well gratified and adequately stimulated during the oral stage enter the anal stage feeling relatively secure and confident. For the most part, they cooperate in curbing their anal desires, and are eager to win parental approval for doing so. In addition, they are physically active, free to learn and eager to explore. As they gain confidence in their increasingly autonomous physical and mental abilities, they also learn to follow the rules their parents establish and, in doing so, with parental approval. As they master the specific tasks related to the anal stage, they are well prepared to move on to the next stage of development and the next set of challenges. When adults have problems with mastery, they usually enact them in derivative or symbolic ways (Berzhoff, Flanagan, & Hertz, 2011).

 

Conflict, defense and resistance analysis[edit]

According to Freud's structural theory, an individual's libidinal and aggressive impulses are continuously in conflict with his or her own conscience as well as with the limits imposed by reality. In certain circumstances, these conflicts may lead to neurotic symptoms. Thus, the goal of psychoanalytic treatment is to establish a balance between bodily needs, psychological wants, one's own conscience, and social constraints. Ego psychologists argue that the conflict is best addressed by the psychological agency that has the closest relationship to consciousness, unconsciousness, and reality: the ego.

 

The clinical technique most commonly associated with ego psychology is defense analysis. Through clarifying, confronting, and interpreting the typical defense mechanisms a patient uses, ego psychologists hope to help the patient gain control over these mechanisms.[12]

 

Cultural influences[edit]

The classical scholar E. R. Dodds used ego psychology as the framework for his influential study The Greeks and the Irrational (1951).[13]

The Sterbas relied on Hartmann's conflict-free sphere to help explain the contradictions they found in Beethoven's character in Beethoven and His Nephew (1954).[14]

Criticisms[edit]

Many[who?] authors have criticized Hartmann's conception of a conflict-free sphere of ego functioning as both incoherent and inconsistent with Freud's vision of psychoanalysis as a science of mental conflict. Freud believed that the ego itself takes shape as a result of the conflict between the id and the external world. The ego, therefore, is inherently a conflicting formation in the mind. To state, as Hartmann did, that the ego contains a conflict-free sphere may not be consistent with key propositions of Freud's structural theory.

 

Ego psychology, and 'Anna-Freudianism', were together seen by Kleinians as maintaining a conformist, adaptative version of psychoanalysis inconsistent with Freud's own views.[15] Hartmann claimed, however, that his aim was to understand the mutual regulation of the ego and environment rather than to promote adjustment of the ego to the environment. Furthermore, an individual with a less-conflicted ego would be better able to actively respond and shape, rather than passively react to, his or her environment.

 

Jacques Lacan was if anything still more opposed to ego psychology, using his concept of the Imaginary to stress the role of identifications in building up the ego in the first place.[16] Lacan saw in the "non-conflictual sphere...a down-at-heel mirage that had already been rejected as untenable by the most academic psychology of introspection'.[17] Ego psychologists responded by doubting whether Lacan's approach is ever applied to clinical work with real patients who have real illnesses, specific ego functions mediating those illnesses, and specific histories.[18]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_psychology

El Castell de Foix és un castell al centre de la ciutat de Foix (Occitània) a una alçada de 60 metres de la mateixa, per sobre d'una roca calcària. A pesar de ser un important centre d'atracció turística per a la ciutat de Foix i el departament de l'Arieja, és més conegut per la seva relació amb Andorra i el fet d'estar associat al catarisme.

 

El castell va ser mencionat per primera vegada al principi del segle XI. L'any 1002, figura en el testament de Roger I, comte de Carcassona, que llegà la fortalesa al seu fill menor Bernard. Però també es pot emetre la hipòtesi, avui difícilment verificable, que el castell és la continuïtat d'un centre defensiu diferent i més antic. Sigui com sigui, el seu caràcter defensiu va permetre als comtes que hi varen habitar d'assentar la seva autoritat i consolidar-se com a una potència en la regió. L'any 1034 el castell passa a mans del comte de Foix que hi juga un rol determinant en la història medieval. Durant els dos segles següents, el castell acull comtes amb personalitats brillants que configuren l'ànima i la resistència occitana durant la Croada Albigesa. En casar-se amb la casa Castellbò, els Foix aconsegueixen un domini gens menyspreable cap al 1270, i amb la posterior signatura dels pariatges que funden Andorra com a país, el comtat així com el castell de Foix esdevenen un símbol i d'una importància cabdal.

 

El castell destaca, arquitectònicament, per les seves tres torres. Les dues quadrades són de les parts més antigues del castell, entre els segles XIII i XIV, tot i que sobre un basament anterior, mentre que la rodona, la més moderna, data del segle XVI. Les tres torres estan rematades per merlets i tenen una altura d'entre 25 i 30 metres. La torre quadrada descoberta rep el nom de Tour d'Arget, ja que la seva funció era la de la vigilància de la vall del riu Arget.

 

Aquesta imatge ha jugat a Quel est ce lieu?.

 

A Google Maps.

As you can see, the antenna is a reference to Apollo 11 spaceship pointing directly to the Moon, its destination. So, this photograph is about the possible arrival of man in Moon 40 years ago. I used the word “possible” because I don’t really believe in this fact. I mean: the NASA evidences don’t convince me, just that.

 

That’s why it’s not possible to observe the details of the Moon in the photograph. The purpose of over exposing the light of the Moon is to show an idea of lack of knowledge about what really exists there. So, it looks like a big white ball.

 

About the antenna, my objective was to demonstrate how much the mass media contributed to diffuse the message of the arrival of man in the Moon. The live transmission and the spread of photos and videos were a determining factor for so many people believe in this fact.

 

And you, what do you think? Have we been there or not?

 

-----

 

Como podem reparar, a antena é uma referência clara à nave espacial Apollo 11 apontando diretamente para a Lua, seu destino. Portanto, esta fotografia trata da possível chegada do homem à Lua há 40 anos. O emprego do termo “possível” se dá em função da minha descrença em relação à veracidade deste fato. Deixo claro que as provas apresentadas pela NASA não me convencem, e só.

 

Por isso, não é possível observar os detalhes da Lua na fotografia. A finalidade de sobre-expor a luz do astro é dar uma ideia de desconhecimento sobre o que realmente existe lá. Por isso, ela aparece apenas como uma grande bola branca.

 

Com relação à antena, o objetivo é mostrar o quanto os meios de comunicação contribuíram para difundir a mensagem da chegada do homem à Lua. A transmissão ao vivo e a divulgação de fotos e vídeos foram determinantes para que tantas pessoas acreditassem no fato.

 

E você, o que acha? Chegamos lá ou não?