View allAll Photos Tagged plagiarism
THANK YOU ANDY WELLS (IN FOCUS) FOR COUNTERFEITING MY WORK SO BLATANTLY!
YOUR LACK OF CREATIVITY AND INSPIRATION IS APALLING!!!
YOUR LACK OF HONESTY IS EVEN WORSE!
FLICKR COMMUNITY, if you agree with my position please tell Andy in the comments what do you think about his behaviour and the obviousness of his counterfeiting!
Here are my original pictures:
www.flickr.com/photos/stephanedelval/15010644375/
www.flickr.com/photos/stephanedelval/8550055812/
And your "wonderful" copies...
You know how some imaginary places resonate, as if they were real. Plato’s Atlantis or Mallory’s Avalon
were based on real . So when someplace fantastic hits you especially a real case of anticipatory plagiarism. “ They “ may have said it first, 150-200 years ago. If you just Blink! Thought of it now and didn’t have a name for it or if you forgot. You forgot?
Have you ever been to Shell Beach. Then how do you get there? (Dark City)
To have faith ... does not mean to dwell in the shadow of old ideas conceived by prophets and sages, to live off an inherited estate of doctrines and dogmas. In the realm of the spirit only he who is a pioneer is able to be an heir. The wages of spiritual plagiarism is the loss of integrity; self-aggrandizement is self-betrayal.
-Abraham Joshua Heschel
The authentic individual is neither an end nor a beginning but a link between ages, both memory and expectation. Every moment is a new beginning within a continuum of history. It is fallacious to segregate a moment and not to sense its involvement in both past and future. Humbly the past defers to the future, but it refuses to be discarded. Only he who is an heir is qualified to be a pioneer.
-Abraham Joshua Heschel
This was the first book my photographs were ever published in, back in September 1992, almost 30 years ago. Back then, I could not afford a Nikon 35mm film camera, so I used a Minolta. This book cost $80USD, when new. The book is 834 pages, 1.625" (41.275mm) thick, and 8.5" × 11" (215.9mm × 279.4mm). I recently bought the only copy of the First Edition on ebay. I have been looking for a long time. I got lucky.
This is a First Edition of the Standard Catalog of Cessna Single Engine Aircraft, by Jim Cavanagh and Jones Publishing. Unbelievably, I was asked by the author and Jones Publishing if I would contribute to the book. And, though there are other articles written with the titled, "Poor Man's P-51", in reference to the low wing Cessna A188B, mine was the first. In fact, it even appears on an Australian website . . . Because they simply lack imagination or an original thought.
I wrote another article, titled, "Bodie or Bust", about a California gold mining town in the Sierra Nevadas, but some female author, lacking imagination or an original thought copied my title, about a decade later.
That is life.
I have been an internationally published and paid writer, since 1983.
"Fuck intellectual Property Rights or Copyright, I'll just steal someone else's work." That is the mentality of the lazy minded. And, the fuckers who sell us cheap shit from China are masters of stealing technology and innovation. "Copy watch, Mister", was a common sales question, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, when I was there. Out would come a suitcase of exquisite replica Rolex, Tag Heuer, IWC, et cetera. Of course, if you know the originals, intimately, you can spot the fakes. Too bad there is not a way to spot plagiarism and fake authors and fake historians and fake . . .
My space gun wasn't as much fun to play with as my slingshot so I threw it out the car window. After a few days, I missed it so I ran away from home in order to find it. Once I found it, I took a photo of it with my iPhone then left it on the verge.
I'm Billy Pones.
The next four years living with Nicholas Galtry were easily the hardest years of my life. Unlike my parents, he didn't care about my well-being. All he cared about was how famous I was, and the money that came along with said fame. Since I was still so young, Galtry had access to every penny. Sure enough, he would blow it all, whether it was on gambling, booze, or girls. Anytime I tried standing up for myself, he would remind me of my place. I didn't have control of my powers yet, so the punches kept coming. I like to always think the best in every situation I'm in, but there was no bright side to this. The safest I felt was when I was Tork. A confident space warrior, that was liked by all. I only wish that same confidence translated to my life as Garfield Logan. It was all smiles, and jokes on set, hiding the cruelties that were going on behind closed doors. Honestly, I felt as though I had no value. This continued, until the fateful day, my thirteenth birthday. When Nicholas Galtry would finally be punished for his crimes, and I would meet the Doom Patrol for the first time. What I didn't realize then was how close of a family we would become.
I met Rita first. While the other three were talking amongst themselves about Galtry, she was making sure I was okay. Something about her was so comforting. It took me a while before I realized what it was. She reminded me so much of my mother. Maybe it was them both being actresses, who worked on Hello Megan, or just how caring they were. Either way, Rita was the second best mother I could've asked for. She pushed me to continue acting, even after Space Trek: 2022 was cancelled due to plagiarism. I stuck with it, because of her.
Next was Larry. The Eeyore of our merry band of misfits. Former Air Force pilot, Larry Trainor was flying high. While he was piloting a test plane, he was exposed to a field of radiation, which ended up giving him his powers. Larry saw his powers as more of a curse than a blessing, and his melancholy, self-destructive attitude, lead to him being called Negative Man. Don't look at me, I didn't give him the name. But yeah, pretty self-explanatory, I know. One of the happiest memories I remember about Larry happened on the night I arrived at the mansion. I heard this music, which was emanating from the kitchen. Walking inside, it was Larry, singing along with the radio, while cooking dinner. It was so strange, seeing this person, all wrapped up like the invisible man, singing, and dancing, while cooking. Which is why, his complete 180 change in attitude moments later, took me by complete surprise.
Then there's Cliff, who I see as an older brother of sorts. It wasn't always that way though, as he was completely against me joining the team. Couldn't resist the loveable goofball that I am forever however, and slowly but surely, I was able to chip away at his robotic exterior. Turns out even robot's can have a heart sometimes.
Finally, we have Steve Dayton, the father and leader of this merry band of misfits. He cared, but had a strange way of showing it. Training routines at odd hours of the night, and set rules that we had to follow. The mission always came first in his eyes. He didn't have time to be a real father, but I'd take him any day, over the monster that is Nicholas Galtry.
The next few years, living, and being a part of the Doom Patrol were easily the best years of my life. I finally felt like I had a purpose. We faced our fair share of supervillains, including Mister Nobody, and his Brotherhood of Dada, along with the Brotherhood of Evil before them. Both your stereotypical take over the world, and cause absolute chaos type of badguys. The cycle would go on, of us taking them down, putting them behind bars, only for them to be broken out of jail months later. One thing remained the same, in that we would always win. Until we didn't..
Polaroid 195 and IDUV expired 2005.
Roadside mailboxes, California.
There must be a fine line between inspiration and plain old plagiarism.
Either way, one of my favourite polaroid photograhers will certainly recognise this. Moominsean.. He has many great photos along these lines.
Landscape 12: The Admonishment of Matthew
How cute are thee? Let me not count the ways.
'Scapes from peddlers of wallpapers you obtained,
And presented their Capitol wares for thy Clickbait Glory!
Explored it was, but not explored well enough — only human.
And Faves you did receive from the Fair Lands.
O Canada, did you not feel thy Elder Chephren quake?
I felt that temblor, as did the patrons of Dock Street Market.
Coutard would not be amused if he still walked Breathless Paris:
"Just release the shutter," he would say, "and paint with light!"
— Alan G. Archer
With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Camera: Canon EOS 6D
Lens: Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
Alamy: "Panoramic View Of Lake By Mountain Against Sky" ("Landscape 12")
Flickr: "Dock Street Market | Bokehrama" (2012) by Vaidotas Mišeikis
The Postcard
A postally unused Mirro-Krome postcard that was published by the H. S. Crocker Co. Inc. of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on behalf of the Jefferson National Expansion Historical Association of St. Louis, Missouri.
Although the card was not posted, it bears recipients' names and an address:
To: Pete & Barbara,
(Prince Albert),
Newton Street,
Macclesfield,
Cheshire,
England.
Alas, the Prince Albert closed for good in January 2022. Plans are currently (2023) in place for the building to be converted into a 7-bedroomed house of multiple occupation.
The card also bore a message:
"Hello Pete & Barbara,
Weather is 80 degrees -
Phew!
Flight good. Been to top
of this arch - 630 feet -
lovely view.
Also been to Chicago -
smashing.
See you later,
BUGS!"
The St. Louis Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot (192 m) tall monument in St. Louis, Missouri. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch, and Missouri's tallest accessible building.
Some sources consider it the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to "the American people", the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West", is a National Historic Landmark in Gateway Arch National Park.
It has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947. Construction of the Arch began on the 12th. February 1963, and was completed on the 28th. October 1965, at an overall cost of $13 million (equivalent to $86.5 million in 2018).
The monument opened to the public on the 10th. June 1967. It is located at the 1764 site of the founding of St. Louis on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Inception and Funding (1933–1935)
Around late 1933, civic leader Luther Ely Smith looked at the St. Louis riverfront area and envisioned that building a memorial there would revive the riverfront and stimulate the economy.
He suggested this to mayor Bernard Dickmann, who on the 15th. December 1933 raised it in a meeting with city leaders. They sanctioned the proposal, and the nonprofit Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association (JNEMA -pronounced "Jenny May") was formed.
Smith was appointed chairman, and Dickmann vice chairman. The association's goal was to create:
'A suitable and permanent public memorial to the men who made possible the western territorial expansion of the United States, particularly President Jefferson, his aides Livingston and Monroe, the great explorers, Lewis and Clark, and the hardy hunters, trappers, frontiersmen and pioneers who contributed to the territorial expansion and development of these United States, and thereby to bring before the public of this and future generations the history of our development and induce familiarity with the patriotic accomplishments of these great builders of our country.'
Many locals however did not approve of depleting public funds for the cause. Smith's daughter SaLees related that:
"When people would tell him we needed
more practical things, he would respond
that 'spiritual things' were equally important."
The association expected that $30 million would be needed to undertake the construction of such a monument (about $508 million in 2021 dollars). It called upon the federal government to foot three-quarters of the bill ($22.5 million).
The suggestion to renew the riverfront was not original, as previous projects had been attempted, but lacked popularity. However the Jefferson memorial idea emerged amid the economic disarray of the Great Depression, and promised new jobs.
The project was expected to create 5,000 jobs for three to four years. Committee members began to raise public awareness by organizing fundraisers and writing pamphlets. They also engaged Congress by planning budgets and preparing bills, in addition to researching ownership of the land they had chosen:
"Approximately one-half mile in length
from Third Street east to the present
elevated railroad."
In January 1934, Senator Bennett Champ Clark and Representative John Cochran introduced to Congress an appropriation bill seeking $30 million for the memorial, but the bill failed to garner support due to the large amount of money solicited.
On the 15th. June 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill into law, instituting the United States Territorial Expansion Memorial Commission. The commission comprised 15 members. It first convened on the 19th. December 1934 in St. Louis, where members examined the project and its planned location.
Meanwhile, in December 1934, the JNEMA discussed organizing an architectural competition to determine the design of the monument, and by January 1935, local architect Louis LeBeaume had drawn up competition guidelines.
On the 13th. April 1935, the commission certified JNEMA's project proposals, including memorial perimeters, the "historical significance" of the memorial, the competition, and the $30 million budget.
Dickmann and Smith applied for funding from two New Deal agencies—the Public Works Administration (headed by Harold Ickes) and the Works Progress Administration (headed by Harry Hopkins). On the 7th. August 1935, both Ickes and Hopkins promised $10 million, and said that the National Park Service (NPS) would manage the memorial.
A local bond issue election granting $7.5 million (about $127 million in 2021 dollars) for the memorial's development was held on the 10th. September 1935 and passed.
On the 21st. December 1935 President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order approving the memorial, designating the 82-acre area as the first National Historic Site. The order also appropriated $3.3 million through the WPA, and $3.45 million through the PWA.
However some taxpayers began to file suits to block the construction of the monument, which they called a "boondoggle".
Initial Planning (1936–1939)
The NPS acquired the historic buildings within the historic site—through condemnation rather than purchase—and demolished them. By September 1938, condemnation was complete.
The condemnation was subject to many legal disputes which culminated on the 27th. January 1939, when the United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that condemnation was valid. A total of $6.2 million was distributed to land owners on the 14th. June.
Demolition commenced on the 9th. October 1939, when Dickmann extracted three bricks from a vacant warehouse.
Led by Paul Peters, adversaries of the memorial delivered to Congress a leaflet titled:
"Public Necessity
or Just Plain Pork".
In March 1936, Representative John Cochran commented during a House meeting that:
"I would not vote for any measure
providing for building the memorial
or allotting funds to it".
Peters and other opponents asked Roosevelt to rescind his Executive Order, and to redirect the money to the American Red Cross. Smith stated that:
"They are opposed to anything that
is ever advanced in behalf of the city."
Because the Mississippi River played an essential role in establishing St. Louis's identity as the gateway to the west, it was felt that a memorial commemorating it should be near the river. Railroad tracks that had been constructed in the 1930's on the levee obstructed views of the riverfront from the memorial site.
When Ickes declared that the railway must be removed before he would allocate funds for the memorial, President of the St. Louis Board of Public Service Baxter Brown suggested that:
"A new tunnel would conceal the
tracks and re-grading of the site
would elevate it over the tunnel.
These modifications would open
up the views to the river."
Although rejected by NPS architect Charles Peterson, Brown's proposal formed the basis for the ultimate settlement.
By May 1942, demolition was complete. The Old Cathedral and the Old Rock House, because of their historical significance, were the only buildings retained within the historic site.
The Old Rock House was dismantled in 1959 with the intention of reassembling it at a new location, but pieces of the building went missing. Part of the house has been reconstructed in the basement of the Old Courthouse.
Design Competition (1945–1948)
In November 1944, Smith asserted that:
"The memorial should be transcending
in spiritual and aesthetic values, best
represented by one central feature: a
single shaft, a building, an arch, or
something else that would symbolize
American culture and civilization."
In January 1945, the JNEMA announced a two-stage design competition that would cost $225,000 to organize. Smith and the JNEMA struggled to raise the funds, garnering only a third of the required total by June 1945. The passage of a year brought little success, and Smith frantically underwrote the remaining $40,000 in May 1946. In February 1947, the fund stood at $231,199.
On the 30th. May 1947, the contest officially opened. It comprised two stages—the first to narrow down the designers to five, and the second to single out one architect and his design. The design was required to include:
-- An architectural memorial or memorials to Jefferson.
-- Preservation of the site of Old St. Louis—landscaping, provision of an open-air campfire theater, re-erection or reproduction of a few typical old buildings, and provision
of a Museum interpreting the Westward movement.
-- A living memorial to Jefferson's 'vision of greater opportunities for men of all races and creeds.'
-- Recreational facilities, both sides of the river.
-- Parking facilities, access, relocation of railroads,
and placement of an interstate highway.
On the 1st. September 1947, submissions for the first stage were received by the 7-member jury. The submissions were labeled by numbers only, and the names of the designers were kept anonymous.
Upon four days of deliberation, the jury narrowed down the 172 submissions to five finalists, and announced the corresponding numbers to the media on the 27th. September 1947.
Eero Saarinen's design (No. 144) was among the finalists, and comments written on it included:
"Relevant, beautiful, perhaps inspired
would be the right word." (Roland Wank) (....Yes, really.)
"An abstract form peculiarly happy
in its symbolism." (Charles Nagel).
Eero Saarinen's father Eliel Saarinen also submitted a design; however the secretary who sent out the telegrams informing finalists of their advancement mistakenly sent one to Eliel rather than Eero.
The family celebrated with champagne, and two hours later, a competition representative called to correct the mistake. Eliel broke out a second bottle of champagne to toast his son.
Saarinen changed the height of the Arch from 580 feet to 630 feet (190 m), and wrote that:
"The Arch symbolizes the gateway
to the West, the national expansion,
and whatnot."
He wanted the landscape surrounding the Arch:
"To be so densely covered with trees
that it will be a forest-like park, a green
retreat from the tension of the downtown
city."
The deadline for the second stage arrived on the 10th. February 1948, and on the 18th. February, the jury chose Saarinen's design unanimously, praising its "profoundly evocative and truly monumental expression."
The following day, during a formal dinner at Statler Hotel that the finalists and the media attended, Saarinen was pronounced the winner of the competition, and awarded the checks—$40,000 to his team, and $50,000 to Saarinen. The competition was the first major architectural design that Saarinen had developed unaided by his father.
The design drew varied responses. Representative H. R. Gross opposed the allocation of federal funds for the Arch's development. Some local residents likened it to:
"A stupendous hairpin and a
stainless steel hitching post."
The most aggressive criticism emerged from Gilmore D. Clarke, whose February 26th. 1948, letter compared Saarinen's Arch to an arch imagined by fascist Benito Mussolini, rendering the Arch a fascist symbol.
This allegation of plagiarism ignited fierce debates among architects about its validity. Douglas Haskell from New York wrote that:
"The use of a common form is not
plagiarism. This particular accusation
amounts to the filthiest smear that
has been attempted by a man highly
placed in the architectural profession
in our generation."
The jury refuted the charges, arguing that:
"The arch form is not inherently fascist,
but is indeed part of the entire history
of architecture."
Saarinen considered the opposition absurd, asserting:
"It's just preposterous to think that a
basic form, based on a completely
natural figure, should have any
ideological connection."
By January 1951, Saarinen had created 21 drawings, including profiles of the Arch, scale drawings of the museums and restaurants, various parking proposals, the effect of the levee-tunnel railroad plan on the Arch footings, the Arch foundations, the Third Street Expressway, and the internal and external structure of the Arch. Fred Severud made calculations for the Arch's structure.
Final Preparations (1959–1968)
Moving the railroad tracks was the first stage of the project. On the 6th. May 1959, the Public Service Commission called for ventilation to accompany the tunnel's construction, which entailed placing 3,000 feet of dual tracks into a tunnel 105 feet west of the elevated railroad, along with filling, grading, and trestle work.
In August 1959, demolition of the Old Rock House was complete, with workers beginning to excavate the tunnel. In November, they began shaping the tunnel's walls with concrete. On the 17th. November 1959, trains began to use the new tracks.
Construction of the Arch
The MacDonald Construction Co. of St. Louis was awarded the contract for the construction of the Arch and the visitor center. The Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company served as the subcontractor for the shell of the Arch.
In 1959 ground was broken, and in 1961, the foundation of the structure was laid. Construction of the Arch itself began on the 12th. February 1963, as the first steel triangle on the south leg was eased into place.
These steel triangles, which narrowed as they spiraled to the top, were raised into place by a group of cranes and derricks. The Arch was assembled with 142 twelve foot-long (3.7 m) prefabricated stainless steel sections. Once in place, each section had its double-walled skin filled with concrete, prestressed with 252 tension bars.
In order to keep the partially completed legs steady, a scissors truss was placed between them at 530 feet (160 m), later removed as the derricks were taken down. The whole endeavor was expected to be completed by fall of 1964, in observance of the St. Louis bicentennial.
Contractor MacDonald Construction Co. arranged a 30-foot (9.1 m) tower for spectators, and provided recorded accounts of the undertaking. In 1963, a million people went to observe the progress, and by 1964, local radio stations began to broadcast when large slabs of steel were about to be raised into place.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer Art Witman documented the construction for the newspaper's Sunday supplement Pictures, his longest and most noted assignment. He visited the construction site frequently from 1963 to 1967, recording of every stage of progress.
With assistant Renyold Ferguson, he crawled along the catwalks with the construction workers up to 190m above the ground. He was the only news photographer on permanent assignment at the construction, with complete access. He primarily worked with slide film, but also used the only Panox camera in St. Louis to create panoramic photographs covering 140 degrees. Witman's pictures of the construction are now housed in the State Historical Society of Missouri.
The project manager of MacDonald Construction Co., Stan Wolf, said that a 62-story building was easier to build than the Arch:
"In a building, everything is straight up,
one thing on top of another. In this Arch,
everything is curved."
Delays and Lawsuits
Although an actuarial firm predicted that thirteen workers would die while building the Arch, no workers were killed during the monument's construction. However, construction of the Arch was nevertheless often delayed by safety checks, funding uncertainties, and legal disputes.
Civil rights activists regarded the construction of the Arch as a token of racial discrimination. On the 14th. July 1964, during the workers' lunchtime, civil rights protesters Percy Green and Richard Daly, both members of Congress of Racial Equality, climbed 125 feet (38 m) up the north leg of the Arch:
"To expose the fact that federal funds
are being used to build a national
monument that was racially
discriminating against black contractors
and skilled black workers."
As the pair disregarded demands to come down, protesters on the ground demanded that at least 10% of the skilled jobs should be given to African Americans. Four hours later, Green and Daly dismounted from the Arch to charges of trespassing, peace disturbance, and resisting arrest.
In 1965, NPS requested that the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel remove the prominent letters "P-D-M" (its initials) from a creeper derrick used for construction, contending that it was promotional, and violated federal law with regards to advertising on national monuments.
Although Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel initially refused to pursue what it considered a precarious venture, the company relented after discovering that leaving the initials in place would cost $225,000 and after that, $42,000 per month.
On the 26th. October 1965, the International Association of Ironworkers delayed work to ascertain that the Arch was safe. After NPS director Kenneth Chapman gave his word that conditions were "perfectly safe," construction resumed on the 27th. October.
Topping out and Dedication
President Lyndon B. Johnson and Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes decided on a date for the topping-out ceremony, but the Arch had not been completed by then. The ceremony date was reset to the 17th. October 1965; workers strained to meet the deadline, taking double shifts, but by the 17th. October, the Arch was still not complete.
The chairman of the ceremony then anticipated the ceremony to be held on the 30th. October 1965, a Saturday, to allow 1,500 schoolchildren, whose signatures were to be placed along with others in a time capsule, to attend. Ultimately, PDM set the ceremony date to the 28th. October.
The time capsule, containing the signatures of 762,000 students and others, was welded into the keystone before the final piece was set in place. On the 28th. October 1965, the Arch was topped out as Vice President Hubert Humphrey observed from a helicopter.
A Catholic priest and a rabbi prayed over the keystone, a 10-ton, eight-foot-long (2.4 m) triangular section. It was slated to be inserted at 10:00 a.m. local time, but was in fact done 30 minutes early, because thermal expansion had constricted the 8.5-foot (2.6 m) gap at the top by 5 inches (13 cm). To mitigate this, workers used fire hoses to spray water on the surface of the south leg to cool it down and make it contract.
The keystone was inserted in 13 minutes with only 6 inches (15 cm) remaining. For the next section, a hydraulic jack had to pry apart the legs six feet (1.8 m). By noon, the keystone was secured. Some filmmakers, in hope that the two legs would not meet, had chronicled every phase of construction.
The Gateway Arch was expected to open to the public by 1964, but by 1967 the public relations agency had stopped forecasting the opening date. The Arch's visitor center opened on the 10th. June 1967, and the tram began operating on the 24th. July.
The Arch was dedicated by Hubert Humphrey on the 25th. May 1968.He declared that the Arch was:
"A soaring curve in the sky that links
the rich heritage of yesterday with
the richer future of tomorrow. It brings
a new purpose and a new sense of
urgency to wipe out every slum.
Whatever is shoddy, whatever is ugly,
whatever is waste, whatever is false,
will be measured and condemned in
comparison to the Gateway Arch."
About 250,000 people were expected to attend the dedication, but rain canceled the outdoor activities, with the ceremony being transferred to the visitor center. After the dedication, Humphrey crouched beneath an exit as he waited for the rain to subside so that he could walk to his vehicle.
After Completion
The project did not provide 5,000 jobs as expected - as of June 1964, workers numbered fewer than 100. The project did, however, incite other riverfront restoration efforts, totaling $150 million. Building projects included a 50,000-seat sports stadium, a 30-story hotel, several office towers, four parking garages, and an apartment complex.
The idea of a Disneyland amusement park that included "synthetic riverboat attractions" was considered, but later abandoned. The developers hoped to use the Arch as a commercial catalyst, attracting visitors who would use their services. One estimate found that since the 1960's, the Arch has incited almost $503 million worth of construction.
Characteristics of the Arch
Both the width and height of the Arch are 630 feet (192 m). The Arch is the tallest memorial in the United States, and the tallest stainless steel monument in the world.
The cross-sections of the Arch's legs are equilateral triangles, narrowing from 54 feet (16 m) per side at the bases to 17 feet (5.2 m) per side at the top. Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak.
The Arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.
The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design. Each leg is embedded in 25,980 tons of concrete 44 feet (13 m) thick and 60 feet (18 m) deep.
Twenty feet (6.1 m) of the foundation is in bedrock. The Arch is resistant to earthquakes, and is designed to sway up to 18 inches (46 cm) in either direction, while withstanding winds of up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h).
The structure weighs 42,878 tons, of which concrete composes 25,980 tons; structural steel interior, 2,157 tons; and the 6.3mm thick grade 304 stainless steel panels that cover the exterior of the Arch, 886 tons.
This amount of stainless steel is the most used in any one project in history. The base of each leg at ground level had to have an engineering tolerance of 1⁄64 inch (0.40 mm), or the two legs would not meet at the top.
Mathematics of the Arch
The Arch is a weighted catenary - its legs are wider than its upper section. A hyperbolic cosine function describes the shape of a catenary. The catenary arch is the stablest of all arches, since the thrust passes through the legs and is absorbed in the foundations, instead of forcing the legs apart.
The Gateway Arch however is not a common catenary, but an inverted weighted catenary. Saarinen chose a weighted catenary over a normal catenary curve because it looked less pointed and less steep. In 1959, he caused some confusion about the actual shape of the Arch when he wrote:
"This Arch is not a true parabola, as is often
stated. Instead it is a catenary curve—the
curve of a hanging chain—a curve in which
the forces of thrust are continuously kept
within the center of the legs of the Arch."
Lighting the Arch
The first proposal to illuminate the Arch at night was announced on the 18th. May 1966, but the plan never came to fruition. However in July 1998, funding for an Arch lighting system was approved by St. Louis's Gateway Foundation, which agreed to take responsibility for the cost of the equipment, its installation, and its upkeep.
In January 1999, MSNBC arranged a temporary lighting system for the Arch so the monument could be used as the background for a visit by Pope John Paul II.
Since November 2001, the Arch has been bathed in white light between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. via a system of floodlights. Designed by Randy Burkett, it comprises 44 lighting fixtures situated in four pits just below ground level.
On the 5th. October 2004, the U.S. Senate approved a bill permitting the illumination in pink of the Arch in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Both Estée Lauder and May Department Store Co. had championed the cause.
One employee said that the Arch would be:
"A beacon for the importance of
prevention and finding a cure."
While the National Park Service took issue with the plan due to the precedent it would set for prospective uses of the Arch, it yielded due to a realization that it and Congress were "on the same team," and because the illumination was legally obligatory; on the 25th. October 2004, the plan was carried out.
The previous time the Arch was illuminated for promotional purposes was on the 12th. September 1995, under the management of local companies Fleishman-Hillard and Technical Productions, when a rainbow spectrum was shone on the Arch to publicize the debut of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' Wizard of Oz on Ice at the Kiel Center.
Public Access to the Arch
In April 1965, three million tourists were expected to visit the Arch annually after completion; 619,763 tourists visited the top of the Arch in its first year open. On the 15th. January 1969, a visitor from Nashville, Tennessee, became the one-millionth person to reach the observation area; the ten-millionth person ascended to the top on the 24th. August 1979.
In 1974, the Arch was ranked fourth on a list of "most-visited man-made attractions." The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world, with over four million visitors annually, of which around one million travel to the top.
The Arch was listed as a National Historic Landmark on the 2nd. June 1987, and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Visitor Center
The underground visitor center for the Arch was designed as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66 program. The 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) center is located directly below the Arch, between its legs.
Although construction of the visitor center began at the same time as construction of the Arch itself, it did not conclude until 1976 because of insufficient funding; however, the center opened with several exhibits on the 10th. June 1967. Access to the visitor center is provided through ramps adjacent to each leg of the Arch.
The center houses offices, mechanical rooms, and waiting areas for the Arch trams, as well as its main attractions: the Museum of Westward Expansion and two theaters displaying films about the Arch.
The older theater opened in May 1972; the newer theater, called the Odyssey Theatre, was constructed in the 1990's and features a four-story-tall screen. Its construction required the expansion of the underground complex, and workers had to excavate solid rock while keeping the disruption to a minimum so that the museum could remain open.
The museum houses several hundred exhibits relating to the United States' westward expansion in the 19th. century, and opened on the 10th. August 1977.
The visitor center and museum underwent a $176 million expansion and renovation that was completed in July 2018. The renovation included a 46,000-square-foot underground addition featuring interactive story galleries, video walls, a fountain and a café.
The Observation Area
Near the top of the Arch, passengers exit the tram compartment and climb a slight gradient to enter the observation area. This arched deck, which is over 65 feet (20 m) long and 7 feet (2.1 m) wide, can hold up to about 160 people, equivalent to the number of people from four trams.
Sixteen windows per side, each measuring 7 by 27 inches (180 mm × 690 mm), offer views up to 30 miles (48 km) to the east across the Mississippi River and southern Illinois with its prominent Mississippian culture mounds at Cahokia Mounds, and to the west over the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County beyond.
Modes of Ascent
There are three modes of transportation up the Arch: two sets of 1,076-step emergency stairs (one per leg), a 12-passenger elevator to the 372-foot (113 m) height, and a tram in each leg.
Each tram is a chain of eight cylindrical, five-seat compartments with a small window on the doors. As each tram has a capacity of 40 passengers and there are two trams, 80 passengers can be transported at one time, with trams departing from the ground every 10 minutes.
The cars swing like Ferris-wheel cars as they ascend and descend the Arch. This movement gave rise to the idea of the tram as "half-Ferris wheel and half-elevator."
The trip to the top takes four minutes, and the trip down takes three minutes.
The tram in the north leg entered operation in June 1967, but visitors were forced to endure three-hour-long waits until the 21st. April 1976, when a reservation system was put in place.
The south tram was completed in March 1968. Commemorative pins were awarded to the first 100,000 passengers.
As of 2007, the trams have traveled 250,000 miles (400,000 km), conveying more than 25 million passengers.
Incidents Associated With the Arch
-- July 1970
On the 8th. July 1970, a six-year-old boy, his mother, and two of her friends were trapped in a tram in the Arch's south leg after the monument closed. According to the boy's mother, the group went up the Arch around 9:30 p.m. CDT, but when the tram reached the de-boarding area, its doors did not open.
The tram then traveled up to a storage area 50 feet (15 m) above the ground, and the power was switched off. One person was able to pry open the tram door, and the four managed to reach a security guard for help after being trapped for about 45 minutes.
-- July 2007
On the 21st. July 2007, a broken cable forced the south tram to be shut down, leaving only the north tram in service until repairs were completed in March 2008. Around 200 tourists were stuck inside the Arch for about three hours because the severed cable contacted a high-voltage rail, causing a fuse to blow.
The north tram was temporarily affected by the power outage as well, but some passengers were able to exit the Arch through the emergency stairs and elevator. It was about two hours until all the tram riders safely descended, while those in the observation area at the time of the outage had to wait an additional hour before being able to travel back down.
An Arch official said the visitors, most of whom stayed calm during the ordeal, were not in any danger, and were later given refunds. The incident occurred while visitors in the Arch were watching a fireworks display, and no one was seriously injured in the event. However, two people received medical treatment: one person needed oxygen, and the other was diabetic.
-- March 2008
Almost immediately after the tram returned to service in 2008, however, it was closed again for new repairs after an electrical switch broke. The incident, which occurred on the 14th. March, was billed as a "bad coincidence."
-- February 2011
On the morning of the 9th. February 2011, a National Park Service worker was injured while performing repairs to the south tram. The 55-year-old was working on the tram's electrical system when he was trapped between it and the Arch wall for around 30 seconds, until being saved by other workers.
Emergency officials treated the injured NPS employee at the Arch's top before taking him to Saint Louis University Hospital in a serious condition.
-- March 2011
On the 24th. March 2011, around one hundred visitors were stranded in the observation area for 45 minutes after the doors of the south tram refused to close. The tourists were safely brought down the Arch in the north tram, which had been closed that week so officials could upgrade it with a new computer system.
The National Park Service later attributed the malfunction to a computer glitch associated with the new system, which had already been implemented with the south tram. No one was hurt in the occurrence.
-- June 2011
Around 2:15 p.m. local time on the 16th. June 2011, the Arch's north tram stalled due to a power outage. The tram became stuck about 200 feet (61 m) from the observation deck, and passengers eventually were told to climb the stairs to the observation area.
It took National Park Service workers about one hour to manually pull the tram to the top, and the 40 trapped passengers were able to return down on the south tram, which had previously not been operating that day because there was not an abundance of visitors.
An additional 120 people were at the observation deck at the time of the outage, and they also exited via the south tram. During the outage, visitors were stuck in the tram with neither lighting nor air conditioning. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but one visitor lost consciousness after suffering a panic attack, and a park ranger was taken away with minor injuries. The cause of the outage was not immediately known.
Stunts and Accidents Associated With the Arch
-- June 1966
On the 16th. June 1965, the Federal Aviation Administration cautioned that aviators who flew through the Arch would be fined, and their licenses revoked. At least ten pilots have disobeyed this order, beginning on the 22nd. June 1966.
-- December 1973
In 1973, Nikki Caplan was granted an FAA exception to fly a hot air balloon between the Arch's legs as part of the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. During the flight, on which the St. Louis park director was a passenger, the balloon hit the Arch and plummeted 70 feet before recovering.
-- July 1976
In 1976, a U.S. Army exhibition skydiving team was permitted to fly through the Arch as part of Fourth of July festivities, and since then, numerous skydiving exhibition teams have legally jumped onto the Arch grounds, after having flown their parachutes through the legs of the Arch.
-- June 1980
The Arch has been a target of various stunt performers, and while such feats are generally forbidden, several people have parachuted to or from the Arch regardless. In June 1980, the National Park Service declined a request by television producers to have a performer jump from the Arch.
-- November 1980
On the 22nd. November 1980, at about 8:45 a.m. CST, 33-year-old Kenneth Swyers of Overland, Missouri, parachuted onto the top of the Arch. His plan was to release his main parachute and then jump off the Arch using his reserve parachute to perform a base jump.
Unfortunately, after landing the wind blew him to the side, and he slid down the north leg to his death. The accident was witnessed by several people, including Swyers' wife, also a parachutist. She said that:
"My husband was not a hot
dog, daredevil skydiver. He
had prepared for the jump
two weeks in advance."
Swyers, who had made over 1,600 jumps before the incident, was reported by one witness as follows:
"He landed very well on the
top of the Arch, but had no
footing."
Swyers was reportedly blown to the top of the Arch by the wind and was unable to save himself when his reserve parachute failed to deploy. The Federal Aviation Administration said the jump was unauthorized, and investigated the pilot involved in the incident.
-- December 1980
On the 27th. December 1980, St. Louis television station KTVI reported receiving calls from supposed witnesses of another stunt landing. The alleged parachutist, who claimed to be a retired professional stuntman, was said to be wearing a Santa Claus costume when he jumped off an airplane around 8:00 a.m. CST.
He parachuted onto the Arch, grasped the monument's beacon, and used the same parachute to glide down unharmed. KTVI said it was told:
"The feat was done as an act of
homage to Swyers, and was a
combination of a dare, a drunk,
and a tribute."
However on the day after the alleged incident, authorities declared the jump a hoax. A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said no calls were received about the jump until after it was broadcast on the news, and the Federal Aviation Administration said the two calls it had received were very similar.
One caller also left an out-of-service phone number, while the other never followed up with investigators. Arch officials said they did not witness any such jump, and photos provided by the alleged parachutist were unclear.
-- February 1986
An appeal by stuntman Dan Koko to be allowed to jump from the Arch was turned away in February 1986. Koko, who was a stunt double for Superman, wanted to perform the leap during Fourth of July celebrations.
-- September 1992
On the 14th. September 1992, 25-year-old John C. Vincent climbed to the top of the Gateway Arch using suction cups, and proceeded to parachute back to the ground. He was later charged with two misdemeanors: climbing a national monument, and parachuting in a national park.
Federal prosecutor Stephen Higgins called the act a "great stunt" but said that:
"It is something the Park
Service doesn't take lightly."
Vincent, a construction worker and diver from Harvey, Louisiana, said:
"I did it just for the excitement,
just for the thrill."
He had previously parachuted off the World Trade Center in May 1991. He said that scaling the Arch "wasn't that hard," and that he had considered a jump off the monument for a few months.
In an interview, Vincent said he visited the Arch's observation area a month before the stunt, to see if he could use a maintenance hatch for accessing the monument's peak. Due to the heavy security, he instead decided to climb up the Arch's exterior using suction cups, which he had used before to scale shorter buildings.
Dressed in black, Vincent began crawling up the Arch around 3:30 a.m. CST on the 14th. September 1992, and arrived undetected at the top around 5:45 a.m., taking an additional 75 minutes to rest and take photos before finally jumping.
During this time, he was seen by two traffic reporters inside the One Metropolitan Square skyscraper.
Vincent was also spotted mid-air by Deryl Stone, a Chief Ranger for the National Park Service. Stone reported seeing Vincent grab his parachute after landing and run to a nearby car, which quickly drove away.
However, authorities were able to detain two men on the ground who had been videotaping the jump. Stone said 37-year-old Ronald Carroll and 27-year-old Robert Weinzetl, both St. Louis residents, were found with a wireless communication headset and a video camera, as well as a still camera with a telephoto lens.
The two were also charged with two misdemeanors: disorderly conduct, and commercial photography in a national park.
Vincent later turned himself in, and initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. However, he eventually accepted a guilty plea deal in which he testified against Carroll and Weinzetl, revealing that the two consented to record the jump during a meeting of all three on the day before his stunt occurred.
Federal magistrate judge David D. Noce ruled on the 28th. January 1993 that Carroll had been involved in a conspiracy, and was guilty of both misdemeanor charges; the charges against Weinzetl were dropped by federal prosecutors. In his decision, Noce stated:
"There are places in our country where the
sufficiently skilled can savor the exhilaration
and personal satisfaction of accomplishing
courageous and intrepid acts, of reaching
dreamed-of heights and for coursing
dangerous adventures.
However other places are designed for the
exhilaration of mere observation, and for the
appreciation of the imaginings and the works
of others. The St. Louis Arch and the grounds
of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
are in the latter category."
After his guilty plea, Vincent was sentenced to a $1,000 fine, 25 hours of community service, and a year's probation. In December 1992, Vincent was sentenced to ninety days in jail for violating his probation.
-- 2013
In 2013, Alexander Polli, a European BASE jumper, planned to fly a wingsuit under the Arch, but had his demo postponed by the FAA.
Security
Two years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, $1 million was granted to institute a counter-terrorism program for the Arch. Park officials were trained to note the activity of tourists, and inconspicuous electronic detection devices were installed.
After the September 11 attacks on the WTC in 2001, security efforts became more prominent, and security checkpoints moved to the entrance of the Arch's visitor center. At the checkpoints, visitors are screened by magnetometers and x-ray equipment, devices which have been in place since 1997.
The Arch also became one of several U.S. monuments placed under restricted airspace during 2002 Fourth of July celebrations.
In 2003, 10-foot-long (3.0 m), 32-inch-high (81 cm), 4,100-pound (1,900 kg) movable Jersey barriers were installed to impede terrorist attacks on the Arch.
Later that year, it was announced that these walls were to be replaced by concrete posts encased in metal to be more harmonious with the steel color of the Arch. The movable bollards can be manipulated from the park's dispatch center, which has also been upgraded.
In 2006, Arch officials hired a "physical security specialist," replacing a law enforcement officer. The responsibilities of the specialist include risk assessment, testing the park's security system, increasing security awareness of other employees, and working with other government agencies to improve the Arch's security procedures.
Symbolism and Culture
Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, the Arch is said to typify:
"The pioneer spirit of the men and women
who won the West, and those of a latter
day to strive on other frontiers."
On the 14th. December 2003, Robert W. Duffy wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
"The Gateway Arch packs a significant symbolic
wallop just by standing there. But the Arch has a
mission greater than being visually affecting.
Its shape and monumental size suggest movement
through time and space, and invite inquiry into the
complex, fascinating story of America's national
expansion."
The Arch has become the iconic image of St. Louis, appearing in many parts of city culture. In 1968, three years after the monument's opening, the St. Louis phone directory contained 65 corporations with "Gateway" in their title and 17 with "Arch".
Arches also appeared over gas stations and drive-in restaurants. In the 1970's, a local sports team adopted the name "Fighting Arches"; St. Louis Community College later (when consolidating all athletic programs under a single banner) named its sports teams "Archers".
Robert S. Chandler, an NPS superintendent, said:
"Most visitors are awed by the size
and scale of the Arch, but they don't
understand what it's all about ... Too
many people see it as just a symbol
of the city of St. Louis."
The Arch has also appeared as a symbol of the State of Missouri. On the 22nd. November 2002, at the Missouri State Capitol, Lori Hauser Holden, wife of then-Governor Bob Holden, uncovered the winning design for a Missouri coin design competition as part of the Fifty States Commemorative Coin Program.
Designed by water colorist Paul Jackson, the coin portrays three members of the Lewis and Clark expedition paddling a boat on the Missouri River upon returning to St. Louis with the Arch as the backdrop.
Holden said that:
"The Arch is a symbol for the entire
state ... Four million visitors each year
see the Arch. The coin will help make
it even more loved worldwide."
A special license plate designed by Arnold Worldwide featured the Arch, labeled with "Gateway to the West." Profits earned from selling the plates funded the museum and other educational components of the Arch.
Louchheim wrote that although the Arch has a simplicity which should guarantee timeliness, it is entirely modern as well, because of the innovative design and its scientific considerations.
In The Dallas Morning News, architectural critic David Dillon opined that:
"The Arch exists not as a functional edifice,
but as a symbol of boundless American
optimism". The Arch has multiple "moods" -
reflective in sunlight, soft and pewterish in
mist; crisp as a line drawing one moment,
chimerical the next.
The Arch has paid for itself many times
over in wonder".
Some have questioned whether St. Louis really was - as Saarinen said - the "Gateway to the West". Kansas City-born "deadline poet" Calvin Trillin wrote:
"I know you're thinking that there are considerable
differences between T.S. Eliot and me. Yes, it is true
that he was from St. Louis, which started calling itself
the Gateway to the West after Eero Saarinen's
Gateway Arch was erected, and I'm from Kansas City,
where people think of St. Louis not as the Gateway to
the West but as the Exit from the East."
With renovations in the 2010's of the visitor center, the message of the Arch has been more inclusive in its historic perspective, highlighting the impact of colonialism, and particularly the effect of American frontierism on the environment, land and people of the First Americans, as well as Native Mexicans.
It furthermore exhibits the urban history of the site and the struggle of its people, as well as of its construction workers for more rights, during the civil rights movement era.
The Arch's futuristic style has been seen as a symbol for the automobile age and the surrounding automobile-centric urban and interstate infrastructure, promising a technological future of a new accessible frontier.
This outlook has seen continuation, lending the Gateway Arch's iconic shape and meaning to the name and logo of the future Lunar Gateway, with its purpose as a gateway to the Moon and Mars.
On the 29th. February 1969, in an article in The New York Times, Louchheim praised the Arch's design as:
"A modern monument, fitting,
beautiful and impressive."
Cultural References to the Arch
-- Dutch composer Peter Schat wrote a 1997 work, Arch Music for St. Louis, Op. 44. for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. It premiered on the 8th. January 1999 at the Powell Symphony Hall.
Since Schat did not ascend the Arch due to his fear of heights, he used his creativity to depict in music someone riding a tram to the top of the Arch.
-- Paul Muldoon's poem, "The Stoic", is set under the Gateway Arch. The work, "An Elegy for a Miscarried Foetus", describes Muldoon's ordeal standing under the Gateway Arch after his wife telephoned and informed him that the baby they were expecting had been miscarried.
-- Percy Jackson encounters Echidna and the Chimera in the Gateway Arch in The Lightning Thief, after he, Grover Underwood, and Annabeth Chase visit the Arch during their trip to California to recover the Master Bolt. Percy faces the Chimera, jumps out of the Arch, and falls into the Mississippi River.
-- A damaged Gateway Arch is prominently featured in Defiance, a science fiction television series. The apex is used as a radio station studio, with the arch itself acting as the station's antenna.
Vandalism and Maintenance of the Arch
The first act of vandalism against the Arch was committed in June 1968: the vandals scratched their names on various parts of the Arch. In all, $10,000 was spent that year in order to repair damage from vandalism. The Arch was first targeted by graffiti artists on the 5th. March 1969.
In 2010, signs of corrosion were reported at the upper regions of the stainless steel surface. Carbon steel in the north leg has been rusting, possibly a result of water accumulation, a side effect of leaky welds in an environment that often causes rain to enter the skin of the structure.
Maintenance workers use mops and a temporary setup of water containers to ease the problem. According to NPS documents, the corrosion and rust pose no safety concerns.
A more comprehensive study of the corrosion had been suggested as early as 2006 by architectural specialists studying the Arch, and reiterated in a 2010 Historic Structure Report.
In September 2010, the NPS granted Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. a contract for a structural study that would:
"Gather data about the condition of the
Arch to enable experts to develop and
implement the right long-term solutions."
Stain samples were taken from the west face of the Arch on the 21st. October 2014 to determine the best way to clean it. The cleaning was estimated to cost about $340,000.
In 1984, structural engineer Tibor Szegezdy told the Smithsonian Magazine that:
"The Arch will stand for considerably
less than a thousand years before
collapsing in a wind storm."
Let me add to Toontown's crime wave by committing first degree plagiarism and saying, "She's not bad, she's just drawn that way!"
Which is to say that even though I've enjoyed it, I've also been somewhat frustrated drawing my little cartoon girls, trying to imitate my heroes Ward and Wenzel and DeCarlo with MS Paint and not even coming close to a distant approximation. Over the years I'd given thought to and even played around some with icon stick figures and emoticon faces, the idea of getting back to simpler, more cartoon-like figures with simple bodies, hairstyles and backgrounds, with either full frontal or side views only of both people and objects, rather than trying for 3/4 views and more than an illusion of perspective, and 3-to-4-head high figures along the lines of Andy Capp and Peanuts characters (Reg Smythe and Charles Schulz being a couple of my other heroes--in fact, even greater and more influential ones, since I was seeing their work from a much younger age and on a far more regular--i.e., daily--basis). Along with that, I realized that part of the problem is that if MS Paint has severe limitations as an artistic tool, I have my own severe limitations as an artistic talent.
So, I finally decided to recognize my own creative inability AND to quit fighting MS Paint, to quit trying to overcome its weaknesses in drawing complex shapes and using its strengths--straight lines and circles--to draw the simple ones we're both better suited for. This CADD--computer assisted deranged drafting--is the result. Not sure I'm altogether happy with it, but I do know I'm happy with the fact that while it took me six weeks or so of playing around to work out the basic proportions and come up with some figure bases and faces I liked, once I started on this cartoon itself it took me one day to do it (actually a half day or less, counting all the coffee/smoke breaks and the nap I took). Which is somewhat more fun than spending hours and hours over a period of days using the maddening Curve Tool and making pixel-by-pixel changes with the Pencil Tool trying to get the curve of one of my little bimbos's calves to look like the smooth and sweeping curve of the real thing. And never being satisfied I'd got it.
I'll leave it to you True Detectives out there to solve "The Mystery of the Secret Joke" by following "The Clue in the Number on the Door". 10-4.
Only took him 2 years to do 10,000 of these...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEsVJJy1od4
Links on Flikr photostream to
This picture of mine is plagiarism, in a certain way. I saw so many shots of 'humble' subjects, here on flickr, and I couldn't resist doing one myself, even if it meant stealing the idea from someone else.
Or, to put the matter differently, let's consider it an homage to the creators of all those beautiful images I've seen here and taught me to 'see' things in a different light or from a different point of view.
Striving for originality is fine, but to learn and get inspiration from others is not bad at all, too :)
P.S. I just found out somewhere in my kitchen some forgotten potatoes cheerfully buddying. No way to get a meal out of them. So, next time I turn my camera on, it will be potatoes! :D
Here we see a big saloon filling up, is it a Nissan Bluebird maybe? The "Stop n Buy" shop decals look amazingly like those of Burmah in the same era which is odd given it was previously a Fina site, see below, but there's no connection, just a bit of plagiarism by the looks of it!
The garage did not last sadly, it was demolished and a new building took its place before Streetview came along. See here www.google.com/maps/@52.5720972,-1.2110865,3a,75y,90h,96....
The top picture is a design by member 'jokey02' on Rebrickable. Or so he claims...
The bottom picture is my model of an Amsterdam tram from 2009.
Spiritual Unite Articles, a place to find your pleiadian, sirian, arcturian starseed, spiritual awakening and numerology predictions.Nostradamus: original portrait like a pleiadian-starseed in The Starry Night from Vincent Van Gogh an other pleiadian guy....
Born14 or 21 December 1503 (Julian calendar)
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, Kingdom of France
Michel de Nostredame (depending on the source, 14 or 21 December 1503 – 1 or 2 July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus,[a] was a French astrologer, physician and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains[b] allegedly predicting future events. The book was first published in 1555.
Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered. He first married in 1531, but his wife and two children died in 1534 during another plague outbreak. He fought alongside doctors against the plague before remarrying to Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children. He wrote an almanac for 1550 and, as a result of its success, continued writing them for future years as he began working as an astrologer for various wealthy patrons. Catherine de' Medici became one of his foremost supporters. His Les Prophéties, published in 1555, relied heavily on historical and literary precedent, and initially received mixed reception. He suffered from severe gout toward the end of his life, which eventually developed into edema. He died on 2 July 1566. Many popular authors have retold apocryphal legends about his life.
In the years since the publication of his Les Prophéties, Nostradamus has attracted many supporters, who, along with much of the popular press, credit him with having accurately predicted many major world events.[6][7] Most academic sources reject the notion that Nostradamus had any genuine supernatural prophetic abilities and maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate).[8] These academics argue that Nostradamus's predictions are characteristically vague, meaning they could be applied to virtually anything, and are useless for determining whether their author had any real prophetic powers. They also point out that English translations of his quatrains are almost always of extremely poor quality, based on later manuscripts, produced by authors with little knowledge of sixteenth-century French, and often deliberately mistranslated to make the prophecies fit whatever events the translator believed they were supposed to have predicted.
Contents
1Life
1.1Childhood
1.2Student years
1.3Marriage and healing work
1.4Occultism
1.5Final years and death
2Works
3Origins of The Prophecies
4Interpretations
4.1Content of the quatrains
4.2Popular claims
4.3Scholarly rebuttal
5In popular culture
6See also
7Notes
8References
8.1Citations
8.2Sources
9Further reading
10External links
Life[edit]
Childhood[edit]
Nostradamus's claimed birthplace before its recent renovation, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Municipal plaque on the claimed birthplace of Nostradamus in St-Rémy, France, describing him as an 'astrologer' and giving his birth-date as 14 December 1503 (Julian Calendar)
Nostradamus was born on either 14 or 21 December 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France,[9] where his claimed birthplace still exists, and baptized Michel.[9] He was one of at least nine children of notary Jaume (or Jacques) de Nostredame and Reynière, granddaughter of Pierre de Saint-Rémy who worked as a physician in Saint-Rémy.[9] Jaume's family had originally been Jewish, but his father, Cresquas, a grain and money dealer based in Avignon, had converted to Catholicism around 1459–60, taking the Christian name "Pierre" and the surname "Nostredame" (Our Lady), the saint on whose day his conversion was solemnised.[9] The earliest ancestor who can be identified on the paternal side is Astruge of Carcassonne, who died about 1420. Michel's known siblings included Delphine, Jean (c. 1507–1577), Pierre, Hector, Louis, Bertrand, Jean II (born 1522) and Antoine (born 1523).[10][11][12] Little else is known about his childhood, although there is a persistent tradition that he was educated by his maternal great-grandfather Jean de St. Rémy[13]—a tradition which is somewhat undermined by the fact that the latter disappears from the historical record after 1504 when the child was only one year old.[14]
Student years[edit]
At the age of 14[6] Nostradamus entered the University of Avignon to study for his baccalaureate. After little more than a year (when he would have studied the regular trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic rather than the later quadrivium of geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy/astrology), he was forced to leave Avignon when the university closed its doors during an outbreak of the plague. After leaving Avignon, Nostradamus, by his own account, traveled the countryside for eight years from 1521 researching herbal remedies. In 1529, after some years as an apothecary, he entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterwards by the student procurator, Guillaume Rondelet, when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, a "manual trade" expressly banned by the university statutes, and had been slandering doctors.[15] The expulsion document, BIU Montpellier, Register S 2 folio 87, still exists in the faculty library.[16] However, some of his publishers and correspondents would later call him "Doctor". After his expulsion, Nostradamus continued working, presumably still as an apothecary, and became famous for creating a "rose pill" that purportedly protected against the plague.[17]
Marriage and healing work[edit]
Nostradamus's house at Salon-de-Provence, as reconstructed after the 1909 Provence earthquake
In 1531 Nostradamus was invited by Jules-César Scaliger, a leading Renaissance scholar, to come to Agen.[18] There he married a woman of uncertain name (possibly Henriette d'Encausse), who bore him two children.[19] In 1534 his wife and children died, presumably from the plague. After their deaths, he continued to travel, passing through France and possibly Italy.[20]
On his return in 1545, he assisted the prominent physician Louis Serre in his fight against a major plague outbreak in Marseille, and then tackled further outbreaks of disease on his own in Salon-de-Provence and in the regional capital, Aix-en-Provence. Finally, in 1547, he settled in Salon-de-Provence in the house which exists today, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children—three daughters and three sons.[21] Between 1556 and 1567 he and his wife acquired a one-thirteenth share in a huge canal project, organised by Adam de Craponne, to create the Canal de Craponne to irrigate the largely waterless Salon-de-Provence and the nearby Désert de la Crau from the river Durance.[22]
Occultism[edit]
After another visit to Italy, Nostradamus began to move away from medicine and toward the "occult". Following popular trends, he wrote an almanac for 1550, for the first time in print Latinising his name to Nostradamus. He was so encouraged by the almanac's success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 prophecies,[23][24] as well as at least eleven annual calendars, all of them starting on 1 January and not, as is sometimes supposed, in March. It was mainly in response to the almanacs that the nobility and other prominent persons from far away soon started asking for horoscopes and "psychic" advice from him, though he generally expected his clients to supply the birth charts on which these would be based, rather than calculating them himself as a professional astrologer would have done. When obliged to attempt this himself on the basis of the published tables of the day, he frequently made errors and failed to adjust the figures for his clients' place or time of birth.[25][26][c][27]
He then began his project of writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, which constitute the largely undated prophecies for which he is most famous today. Feeling vulnerable to opposition on religious grounds,[28] however, he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "Virgilianised" syntax, word games and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal.[29] For technical reasons connected with their publication in three installments (the publisher of the third and last installment seems to have been unwilling to start it in the middle of a "Century," or book of 100 verses), the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh "Century" have not survived in any extant edition.
Century I, Quatrain 1 in the 1555 Lyon Bonhomme edition
The quatrains, published in a book titled Les Prophéties (The Prophecies), received a mixed reaction when they were published. Some people thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite evidently thought otherwise. Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France, was one of Nostradamus's greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs for 1555, which hinted at unnamed threats to the royal family, she summoned him to Paris to explain them and to draw up horoscopes for her children. At the time, he feared that he would be beheaded,[30] but by the time of his death in 1566, Queen Catherine had made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to her son, the young King Charles IX of France.
Some accounts of Nostradamus's life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell in this bracket, and he would have been in danger only if he had practised magic to support them. In 1538 he came into conflict with the Church in Agen after an Inquisitor visited the area looking for anti-Catholic views.[31] His brief imprisonment at Marignane in late 1561 was solely because he had violated a recent royal decree by publishing his 1562 almanac without the prior permission of a bishop.[32]
Final years and death[edit]
Nostradamus's current tomb in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent in Salon-de-Provence in the south of France, into which his scattered remains were transferred after 1789.
Nostradamus statue in Salon-de-Provence
By 1566, Nostradamus's gout, which had plagued him painfully for many years and made movement very difficult, turned into edema. In late June he summoned his lawyer to draw up an extensive will bequeathing his property plus 3,444 crowns (around US$300,000 today), minus a few debts, to his wife pending her remarriage, in trust for her sons pending their twenty-fifth birthdays and her daughters pending their marriages. This was followed by a much shorter codicil.[33] On the evening of 1 July, he is alleged to have told his secretary Jean de Chavigny, "You will not find me alive at sunrise." The next morning he was reportedly found dead, lying on the floor next to his bed and a bench (Presage 141 [originally 152] for November 1567, as posthumously edited by Chavigny to fit what happened).[34][24] He was buried in the local Franciscan chapel in Salon (part of it now incorporated into the restaurant La Brocherie) but re-interred during the French Revolution in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, where his tomb remains to this day.[35]
Works[edit]
Copy of Garencières' 1672 English translation of the Prophecies, located in The P.I. Nixon Medical History Library of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
In The Prophecies Nostradamus compiled his collection of major, long-term predictions. The first installment was published in 1555 and contained 353 quatrains. The third edition, with three hundred new quatrains, was reportedly printed in 1558, but now survives as only part of the omnibus edition that was published after his death in 1568. This version contains one unrhymed and 941 rhymed quatrains, grouped into nine sets of 100 and one of 42, called "Centuries".
Given printing practices at the time (which included type-setting from dictation), no two editions turned out to be identical, and it is relatively rare to find even two copies that are exactly the same. Certainly there is no warrant for assuming—as would-be "code-breakers" are prone to do—that either the spellings or the punctuation of any edition are Nostradamus's originals.[5]
The Almanacs, by far the most popular of his works,[36] were published annually from 1550 until his death. He often published two or three in a year, entitled either Almanachs (detailed predictions), Prognostications or Presages (more generalised predictions).
Nostradamus was not only a diviner, but a professional healer. It is known that he wrote at least two books on medical science. One was an extremely free translation (or rather a paraphrase) of The Protreptic of Galen (Paraphrase de C. GALIEN, sus l'Exhortation de Menodote aux estudes des bonnes Artz, mesmement Medicine), and in his so-called Traité des fardemens (basically a medical cookbook containing, once again, materials borrowed mainly from others), he included a description of the methods he used to treat the plague, including bloodletting, none of which apparently worked.[37] The same book also describes the preparation of cosmetics.
A manuscript normally known as the Orus Apollo also exists in the Lyon municipal library, where upwards of 2,000 original documents relating to Nostradamus are stored under the aegis of Michel Chomarat. It is a purported translation of an ancient Greek work on Egyptian hieroglyphs based on later Latin versions, all of them unfortunately ignorant of the true meanings of the ancient Egyptian script, which was not correctly deciphered until Champollion in the 19th century.[38]
Since his death, only the Prophecies have continued to be popular, but in this case they have been quite extraordinarily so. Over two hundred editions of them have appeared in that time, together with over 2,000 commentaries. Their persistence in popular culture seems to be partly because their vagueness and lack of dating make it easy to quote them selectively after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claim them as "hits".[39]
Origins of The Prophecies[edit]
Theophilus de Garencières, the first English translator of the Prophecies[40]
Nostradamus claimed to base his published predictions on judicial astrology—the astrological 'judgment', or assessment, of the 'quality' (and thus potential) of events such as births, weddings, coronations etc.—but was heavily criticised by professional astrologers of the day such as Laurens Videl[41] for incompetence and for assuming that "comparative horoscopy" (the comparison of future planetary configurations with those accompanying known past events) could actually predict what would happen in the future.[42]
Research suggests that much of his prophetic work paraphrases collections of ancient end-of-the-world prophecies (mainly Bible-based), supplemented with references to historical events and anthologies of omen reports, and then projects those into the future in part with the aid of comparative horoscopy. Hence the many predictions involving ancient figures such as Sulla, Gaius Marius, Nero, and others, as well as his descriptions of "battles in the clouds" and "frogs falling from the sky".[43] Astrology itself is mentioned only twice in Nostradamus's Preface and 41 times in the Centuries themselves, but more frequently in his dedicatory Letter to King Henry II. In the last quatrain of his sixth century he specifically attacks astrologers.
His historical sources include easily identifiable passages from Livy, Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, Plutarch and other classical historians, as well as from medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Jean Froissart. Many of his astrological references are taken almost word for word from Richard Roussat's Livre de l'estat et mutations des temps of 1549–50.
One of his major prophetic sources was evidently the Mirabilis Liber of 1522, which contained a range of prophecies by Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Joachim of Fiore, Savonarola and others (his Preface contains 24 biblical quotations, all but two in the order used by Savonarola). This book had enjoyed considerable success in the 1520s, when it went through half a dozen editions, but did not sustain its influence, perhaps owing to its mostly Latin text, Gothic script and many difficult abbreviations. Nostradamus was one of the first to re-paraphrase these prophecies in French, which may explain why they are credited to him. Modern views of plagiarism did not apply in the 16th century; authors frequently copied and paraphrased passages without acknowledgement, especially from the classics. The latest research suggests that he may in fact have used bibliomancy for this—randomly selecting a book of history or prophecy and taking his cue from whatever page it happened to fall open at.[6]
Further material was gleaned from the De honesta disciplina of 1504 by Petrus Crinitus,[44] which included extracts from Michael Psellos's De daemonibus, and the De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum (Concerning the mysteries of Egypt), a book on Chaldean and Assyrian magic by Iamblichus, a 4th-century Neo-Platonist. Latin versions of both had recently been published in Lyon, and extracts from both are paraphrased (in the second case almost literally) in his first two verses, the first of which is appended to this article. While it is true that Nostradamus claimed in 1555 to have burned all of the occult works in his library, no one can say exactly what books were destroyed in this fire.
Only in the 17th century did people start to notice his reliance on earlier, mainly classical sources.[d]
Nostradamus's reliance on historical precedent is reflected in the fact that he explicitly rejected the label "prophet" (i.e. a person having prophetic powers of his own) on several occasions:[45]
Although, my son, I have used the word prophet, I would not attribute to myself a title of such lofty sublimity.
— Preface to César, 1555[46]
Not that I would attribute to myself either the name or the role of a prophet.
— Preface to César, 1555[46]
[S]ome of [the prophets] predicted great and marvelous things to come: [though] for me, I in no way attribute to myself such a title here.
— Letter to King Henry II, 1558[47]
Not that I am foolish enough to claim to be a prophet.
— Open letter to Privy Councillor (later Chancellor) Birague, 15 June 1566[45]
Detail from title-page of the original 1555 (Albi) edition of Nostradamus's Les Prophéties
Given this reliance on literary sources, it is unlikely that Nostradamus used any particular methods for entering a trance state, other than contemplation, meditation and incubation.[48] His sole description of this process is contained in 'letter 41' of his collected Latin correspondence.[49] The popular legend that he attempted the ancient methods of flame gazing, water gazing or both simultaneously is based on a naive reading of his first two verses, which merely liken his efforts to those of the Delphic and Branchidic oracles. The first of these is reproduced at the bottom of this article and the second can be seen by visiting the relevant facsimile site (see External Links). In his dedication to King Henry II, Nostradamus describes "emptying my soul, mind and heart of all care, worry and unease through mental calm and tranquility", but his frequent references to the "bronze tripod" of the Delphic rite are usually preceded by the words "as though" (compare, once again, External References to the original texts).
Interpretations[edit]
Content of the quatrains[edit]
Most of the quatrains deal with disasters, such as plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, and battles—all undated and based on foreshadowings by the Mirabilis Liber. Some quatrains cover these disasters in overall terms; others concern a single person or small group of people. Some cover a single town, others several towns in several countries.[50] A major, underlying theme is an impending invasion of Europe by Muslim forces from farther east and south headed by the expected Antichrist, directly reflecting the then-current Ottoman invasions and the earlier Saracen equivalents, as well as the prior expectations of the Mirabilis Liber.[51] All of this is presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world—even though this is not in fact mentioned[52]—a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies at the time, including an unpublished collection by Christopher Columbus.[53] [54] Views on Nostradamus have varied widely throughout history.[55] Academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn regard Nostradamus's Prophecies as antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind.[55]
Popular claims[edit]
Nostradamus's supporters have retrospectively claimed that he predicted major world events, including the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rises of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and September 11 attacks.[55][27]
Many of Nostradamus's supporters believe his prophecies are genuine.[55] Owing to the subjective nature of these interpretations, however, no two of them completely agree on what Nostradamus predicted, whether for the past or for the future.[55] Many supporters, however, do agree, for example, that he predicted the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rises of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler,[56][e] both world wars, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[55][27] Popular authors frequently claim that he predicted whatever major event had just happened at the time of each book's publication, such as the Apollo moon landings in 1969, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.[27][57] This 'movable feast' aspect appears to be characteristic of the genre.[55]
Possibly the first of these books to become popular in English was Henry C. Roberts' The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus of 1947, reprinted at least seven times during the next forty years, which contained both transcriptions and translations, with brief commentaries. This was followed in 1961 (reprinted in 1982) by Edgar Leoni's Nostradamus and His Prophecies. After that came Erika Cheetham's The Prophecies of Nostradamus, incorporating a reprint of the posthumous 1568 edition, which was reprinted, revised and republished several times from 1973 onwards, latterly as The Final Prophecies of Nostradamus. This served as the basis for the documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow and both did indeed mention possible generalised future attacks on New York (via nuclear weapons), though not specifically on the World Trade Center or on any particular date.[58]
A two-part translation of Jean-Charles de Fontbrune's Nostradamus: historien et prophète was published in 1980, and John Hogue has published a number of books on Nostradamus from about 1987, including Nostradamus and the Millennium: Predictions of the Future, Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies (1999) and Nostradamus: A Life and Myth (2003). In 1992 one commentator who claimed to be able to contact Nostradamus under hypnosis even had him "interpreting" his own verse X.6 (a prediction specifically about floods in southern France around the city of Nîmes and people taking refuge in its collosse, or Colosseum, a Roman amphitheatre now known as the Arènes) as a prediction of an undated attack on the Pentagon, despite the historical seer's clear statement in his dedicatory letter to King Henri II that his prophecies were about Europe, North Africa and part of Asia Minor.[59]
With the exception of Roberts, these books and their many popular imitators were almost unanimous not merely about Nostradamus's powers of prophecy but also in inventing intriguing aspects of his purported biography: that he had been a descendant of the Israelite tribe of Issachar; he had been educated by his grandfathers, who had both been physicians to the court of Good King René of Provence; he had attended Montpellier University in 1525 to gain his first degree; after returning there in 1529, he had successfully taken his medical doctorate; he had gone on to lecture in the Medical Faculty there, until his views became too unpopular; he had supported the heliocentric view of the universe; he had travelled to the Habsburg Netherlands, where he had composed prophecies at the abbey of Orval; in the course of his travels, he had performed a variety of prodigies, including identifying future Pope, Sixtus V, who was then only a seminary monk. He is credited with having successfully cured the Plague at Aix-en-Provence and elsewhere; he had engaged in scrying, using either a magic mirror or a bowl of water; he had been joined by his secretary Chavigny at Easter 1554; having published the first installment of his Prophéties, he had been summoned by Queen Catherine de' Medici to Paris in 1556 to discuss with her his prophecy at quatrain I.35 that her husband King Henri II would be killed in a duel; he had examined the royal children at Blois; he had bequeathed to his son a "lost book" of his own prophetic paintings;[f] he had been buried standing up; and he had been found, when dug up at the French Revolution, to be wearing a medallion bearing the exact date of his disinterment.[60] This was first recorded by Samuel Pepys as early as 1667, long before the French Revolution. Pepys records in his celebrated diary a legend that, before his death, Nostradamus made the townsfolk swear that his grave would never be disturbed; but that 60 years later his body was exhumed, whereupon a brass plaque was found on his chest correctly stating the date and time when his grave would be opened and cursing the exhumers.[61]
In 2000, Li Hongzhi claimed that the 1999 prophecy at X.72 was a prediction of the Chinese Falun Gong persecution which began in July 1999, leading to an increased interest in Nostradamus among Falun Gong members.[62]
Scholarly rebuttal[edit]
From the 1980s onward, however, an academic reaction set in, especially in France. The publication in 1983 of Nostradamus's private correspondence[63] and, during succeeding years, of the original editions of 1555 and 1557 discovered by Chomarat and Benazra, together with the unearthing of much original archival material[35][26] revealed that much that was claimed about Nostradamus did not fit the documented facts. The academics[35][60][26][64] revealed that not one of the claims just listed was backed up by any known contemporary documentary evidence. Most of them had evidently been based on unsourced rumours relayed as fact by much later commentators, such as Jaubert (1656), Guynaud (1693) and Bareste (1840), on modern misunderstandings of the 16th-century French texts, or on pure invention. Even the often-advanced suggestion that quatrain I.35 had successfully prophesied King Henry II's death did not actually appear in print for the first time until 1614, 55 years after the event.[65][66]
Skeptics such as James Randi suggest that his reputation as a prophet is largely manufactured by modern-day supporters who fit his words to events that have either already occurred or are so imminent as to be inevitable, a process sometimes known as "retroactive clairvoyance" (postdiction). No Nostradamus quatrain is known to have been interpreted as predicting a specific event before it occurred, other than in vague, general terms that could equally apply to any number of other events.[67] This even applies to quatrains that contain specific dates, such as III.77, which predicts "in 1727, in October, the king of Persia [shall be] captured by those of Egypt"—a prophecy that has, as ever, been interpreted retrospectively in the light of later events, in this case as though it presaged the known peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Persia of that year;[68] Egypt was also an important Ottoman territory at this time.[69] Similarly, Nostradamus's notorious "1999" prophecy at X.72 (see Nostradamus in popular culture) describes no event that commentators have succeeded in identifying either before or since, other than by twisting the words to fit whichever of the many contradictory happenings they claim as "hits".[70] Moreover, no quatrain suggests, as is often claimed by books and films on the alleged Mayan Prophecy, that the world would end in December 2012.[71] In his preface to the Prophecies, Nostradamus himself stated that his prophecies extend "from now to the year 3797"[72]—an extraordinary date which, given that the preface was written in 1555, may have more than a little to do with the fact that 2242 (3797–1555) had recently been proposed by his major astrological source Richard Roussat as a possible date for the end of the world.[73][74]
Additionally, scholars have pointed out that almost all English translations of Nostradamus's quatrains are of extremely poor quality, seem to display little or no knowledge of 16th-century French, are tendentious, and are sometimes intentionally altered in order to make them fit whatever events the translator believed they were supposed to refer (or vice versa).[75][64][76] None of them were based on the original editions: Roberts had based his writings on that of 1672, Cheetham and Hogue on the posthumous edition of 1568. Even Leoni accepted on page 115 that he had never seen an original edition, and on earlier pages, he indicated that much of his biographical material was unsourced.[77]
None of this research and criticism was originally known to most of the English-language commentators, by dint of the dates when they were writing and, to some extent, the language in which it was written.[78] Hogue was in a position to take advantage of it, but it was only in 2003 that he accepted that some of his earlier biographical material had in fact been apocryphal. Meanwhile, some of the more recent sources listed (Lemesurier, Gruber, Wilson) have been particularly scathing about later attempts by some lesser-known authors and Internet enthusiasts to extract alleged hidden meanings from the texts, whether with the aid of anagrams, numerical codes, graphs or otherwise.[55]
In popular culture[edit]
Main article: Nostradamus in popular culture
The prophecies retold and expanded by Nostradamus figured largely in popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. As well as being the subject of hundreds of books (both fiction and nonfiction), Nostradamus's life has been depicted in several films and videos, and his life and writings continue to be a subject of media interest.
There have also been several well-known Internet hoaxes, where quatrains in the style of Nostradamus have been circulated by e-mail as the real thing. The best-known examples concern the collapse of the World Trade Center in the 11 September attacks.[79]
With the arrival of the year 2012, Nostradamus's prophecies started to be co-opted (especially by the History Channel) as evidence suggesting that the end of the world was imminent, notwithstanding the fact that his book never mentions the end of the world, let alone the year 2012.[80]
please support the true artists Popovy Sisters, as their work was shamelessly copied and ripped off! Disgusting act of plagiarism by modoll project.
I personally find it very rude what modollproject has done !
repost if you agree
Despite the French maintaining for years that NASA had copied the Sacre Coeur church in Paris when designing and building the Space Shuttle, NASA has always refused to accept that it got its inspiration from a building whose founding stone was laid as far back as 1870.
In a typical gesture of French superiority, a full-size mock-up of the space shuttle has been constructed at Montmartre in order to juxtapose the striking similarities between the two structures. Understandably the Americans are not very happy about what they consider to be blatant plagiarism of their intellectual property.
" Mais non!! Is not plagiarism" states Pierre Lespace, a high ranking official in the French government. "Ah these Americans you know, always they are so veery, very touchy. They steal our idea, we are simply stealing it back! If they don't like it, qu’ils mangent de la brioche !*"
*Let them eat cake - translator's note.
a few seconds after i took this, i looked back at the sun and realized that there was a strange black-looking cloud that was drifting by, and then i realized it wasn't a cloud, but irregularly large puffs of smoke. figured something must have caught fire back there behind the houses - scary. i hope no one was hurt.
on a sidenote, i'm thinking of running for an officer position in my school's National Arts Honors Society (NAHS), as the director of exhibition/projects. i haven't been doing physically painted or drawn art in awhile, and i was kind of nervous, but i think i can do this. i love art, and i don't think anyone's going to stop me.
tagged by various people
10 things i hate:
1. garlic. garlic. garlic.
(but i love italian food; i think if i don't see it, i can eat it.)
2. leek
3. green onions and anything that it resembles
4. ginger soup
5. plagiarism, and art theft
6. roller-coasters with loose seat-belts / chunky gear that you slip over your head.
7. when people fail to recognize photography as a form of art, and expect it to be effortless/ needless of any talent whatsoever.
8. when people ask 'what camera do you have?' and when i reply that i own a dslr, they assume my camera takes my pictures for me, and it's why i take 'nice pictures'.
9. the dentist
10. when i accidentally cut my nails too short.
In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge (/ˈdɛmi.ɜːrdʒ/) is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term demiurge. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else. Depending on the system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity.
The word demiurge is an English word derived from demiurgus, a Latinised form of the Greek δημιουργός or dēmiurgós. It was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually came to mean "producer", and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus, written c. 360 BC, where the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. The demiurge is also described as a creator in the Platonic (c. 310–90 BC) and Middle Platonic (c. 90 BC – AD 300) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world after the model of the Ideas, but (in most Neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil, while the non-material world is good. According to some strains of Gnosticism, the demiurge is malevolent, as it is linked to the material world. In others, including the teaching of Valentinus, the demiurge is simply ignorant or misguided.
Contents
1Platonism and neoplatonism
1.1Plato and the Timaeus
1.2Middle Platonism
1.3Neoplatonism
1.3.1Henology
1.3.2Iamblichus
2Gnosticism
2.1Mythos
2.2Angels
2.3Yaldabaoth
2.3.1Names
2.4Marcion
2.5Valentinus
2.6The devil
2.7Cathars
3Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
3.1Plotinus
4See also
5References
5.1Notes
5.2Sources
6External links
Platonism and neoplatonism[edit]
Plato and the Timaeus[edit]
Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus (28a ff.), c. 360 BC. The main character refers to the Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent, and so it desires a world as good as possible. Plato's work Timaeus is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod's cosmology in his Theogony, syncretically reconciling Hesiod to Homer.[1][2][3]
Middle Platonism[edit]
In Numenius's Neo-Pythagorean and Middle Platonist cosmogony, the Demiurge is second God as the nous or thought of intelligibles and sensibles.[4]
Neoplatonism[edit]
Plotinus and the later Platonists worked to clarify the Demiurge. To Plotinus, the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge,[5] which, as Demiurge and mind (nous), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism (also called idealism). In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy,[5] Plotinus metaphorically identified the demiurge (or nous) within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus.[6]
Henology[edit]
The first and highest aspect of God is described by Plato as the One (Τὸ Ἕν, 'To Hen'), the source, or the Monad.[7] This is the God above the Demiurge, and manifests through the actions of the Demiurge. The Monad emanated the demiurge or Nous (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself, causing self-reflection.[8] This self-reflection of the indeterminate vitality was referred to by Plotinus as the "Demiurge" or creator. The second principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dynamis, also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energeia emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous, Demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the experience called the material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in The Enneads[9] which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or nous (c.f. pantheism).
Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which orders the force (dynamis) into conscious reality.[10] In this, he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning: a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius, as well as a connection between Hebrew and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo).[11]
The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles:
Arche (Gr. 'beginning') – the source of all things,
Logos (Gr. 'reason/cause') – the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances,
Harmonia (Gr. 'harmony') – numerical ratios in mathematics.
Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the Demiurge on the works of Numenius.[citation needed]
Iamblichus[edit]
See also: Panentheism
Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the "One", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict.
The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One,” or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and Demiurge (material realm) coexist via the process of henosis.[12] Iamblichus describes the One as a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect (nous), while among "the many" that follow it there is a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul (psyche).
The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous, the intellective nous, and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle's actus and potentia (actuality and potentiality) of the unmoved mover and Plato's Demiurge.
Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad (pure intellect).
In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intellectualizing gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods.
Gnosticism[edit]
It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article titled Yaldabaoth. (Discuss) (November 2018)
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Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God or Supreme Being and the demiurgic "creator" of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in an unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to (or, at least possibly, the problem or cause that gives rise to)[citation needed] the problem of evil.
Mythos[edit]
One Gnostic mythos describes the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek: Σοφία, lit. 'wisdom'), the Demiurge's mother and partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or "Fullness," desired to create something apart from the divine totality, without the receipt of divine assent. In this act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and concluded that only he existed, ignorant of the superior levels of reality.
The Demiurge, having received a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working, however, blindly and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiurgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself.[13]
Thus Sophia's power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
Angels[edit]
Psalm 82 begins (verse 1), "God stands in the assembly of El [LXX: assembly of gods], in the midst of the gods he renders judgment", indicating a plurality of gods, although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from the expression "Let us make man" of the Book of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to his helpers in the work of creation.[14]
The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis.[15] So Irenaeus tells[16] of the system of Simon Magus,[17] of the system of Menander,[18] of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and[19] of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides,[20] we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.
The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome,[21] makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of him. Theodoret,[22] who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis[23] represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.
Yaldabaoth[edit]
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of the Demiurge.
In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with the teachings of Valentinus, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth").
In the Apocryphon of John c. AD 120–180, the demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:
Now the archon ["ruler"] who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ["fool"], and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.[24]
He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.[25]
Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, and is said to have the body of a serpent. The demiurge is also[26] described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire". Hippolytus claims that Simon used a similar description.[27]
In Pistis Sophia, Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame, and half darkness.
Under the name of Nebro (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in "The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld" as one of the twelve angels to come "into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]". He comes from heaven, and it is said his "face flashed with fire and [his] appearance was defiled with blood". Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six, in turn, create another twelve angels "with each one receiving a portion in the heavens".
Names[edit]
Drawing of the lion-headed figure found at the Mithraeum of C. Valerius Heracles and sons, dedicated 190 CE at Ostia Antica, Italy (CIMRM 312).
The most probable derivation of the name "Yaldabaoth" was that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler. Gieseler believed the name was derived from the Aramaic yaldā bahuth, ילדאבהות, meaning "Son of Chaos". However, Gilles Quispel notes:
Gershom Scholem, the third genius in this field, more specifically the genius of precision, has taught us that some of us were wrong when they believed that Jaldabaoth means "son of chaos", because the Aramaic word bahutha in the sense of chaos only existed in the imagination of the author of a well-known dictionary. This is a pity because this name would suit the demiurge risen from chaos to a nicety. And perhaps the author of the Untitled Document did not know Aramaic and also supposed as we did once, that baoth had something to do with tohuwabohu, one of the few Hebrew words that everybody knows. ... It would seem then that the Orphic view of the demiurge was integrated into Jewish Gnosticism even before the redaction of the myth contained in the original Apocryphon of John. ... Phanes is represented with the mask of a lion's head on his breast, while from his sides the heads of a ram and a buck are budding forth: his body is encircled by a snake. This type was accepted by the Mithras mysteries, to indicate Aion, the new year, and Mithras, whose numerical value is 365. Sometimes he is also identified with Jao Adonai, the creator of the Hebrews. His hieratic attitude indicates Egyptian origin. The same is true of the monstrous figure with the head of a lion, which symbolises Time, Chronos, in Mithraism; Alexandrian origin of this type is probable.[28]
"Samael" literally means "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Hebrew (סמאל). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may, in addition, be evil; its name is also found in Judaism as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This link to Judeo-Christian tradition leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the demiurge is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool".
The angelic name "Ariel" (Hebrew: 'the lion of God')[29] has also been used to refer to the Demiurge and is called his "perfect" name;[30] in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth.[31] The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth",[32][33] and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel".[34]
Marcion[edit]
According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, in reality, is the Son of the Good God. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.[25]
Valentinus[edit]
It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiurgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.
The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he kátō sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter.[25][35] And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.[25]
In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united with Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí or pneumatikoí.[25]
The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché).[25][36] In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.[25]
The devil[edit]
Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world.[37] According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.[38]
The Valentinian Heracleon[39] interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21,
The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. ... You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.
This vilification of the creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment."[40]
Cathars[edit]
Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism. Quispel writes,
There is a direct link between ancient Gnosticism and Catharism. The Cathars held that the creator of the world, Satanael, had usurped the name of God, but that he had subsequently been unmasked and told that he was not really God.[41]
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism[edit]
Main article: Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Against the Gnostics; or, Against Those that Affirm the Creator of the Cosmos and the Cosmos Itself to be Evil
Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the concept of the Demiurge or creator, though in some Gnostic traditions the creator is from a fallen, ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective, such as that of Valentinius.
Plotinus[edit]
The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato. Plotinus, along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas, was the founder of Neoplatonism.[42] In the ninth tractate of the second of his Enneads, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:
From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul—all this is taken over from the Timaeus.
— Ennead 2.9.vi; emphasis added from A. H. Armstrong's introduction to Ennead 2.9
Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth";[43] they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.
Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation: "Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against the Gnostics"). Plotinus argues of the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil.
The majority of scholars tend[44] to understand Plotinus' opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly (specifically Sethian), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus' lifetime. Plotinus specifically points to the Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge.
Though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus' opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Christos Evangeliou has contended[45] that Plotinus' opponents might be better described as simply "Christian Gnostics", arguing that several of Plotinus' criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou thought the definition of the term "Gnostics" was unclear. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity—whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as the Gnostics.
A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads. Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism.[46][47]
John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated[48] that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian Gnosticism, which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.
Emil Cioran also wrote his Le mauvais démiurge ("The Evil Demiurge"), published in 1969, influenced by Gnosticism and Schopenhauerian interpretation of Platonic ontology, as well as that of Plotinus.
See also[edit]
iconReligion portal
Albinus (philosopher)
Azazil
Emil Cioran
Devil in Christianity
Gnosticism
Mara (demon)
Mayasura
Narasimha
Problem of the creator of God
Ptah
Simulated reality
Tenth Intellect (Isma'ilism)
Urizen
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
^ Fontenrose, Joseph (1974). Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origin. Biblo & Tannen Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-8196-0285-5.
^ Sallis, John (1999). Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's Timaeus. Indiana University Press. p. 86. ISBN 0-253-21308-8.
^ Keightley, Thomas (1838). The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy. Oxford University. p. 44. theogony timaeus.
^ Kahn, Charles (2001). Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing. pp. 124. ISBN 978-0-872205758.
^ Jump up to: a b Karamanolis, George (2006). Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?: Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry. Oxford University Press. p. 240. ISBN 0-19-926456-2.
^ The ordering principle is twofold; there is a principle known as the Demiurge, and there is the Soul of the All; the appellation "Zeus" is sometimes applied to the Demiurge and sometimes to the principle conducting the universe.[citation needed]
^ Wear, Sarah; Dillon, John (2013). Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 15. ISBN 9780754603856.
^ Wallis, Richard T.; Bregman, Jay, eds. (1992). Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. International Society for Neoplatonic Studies. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1337-1.
^ "Matter is therefore a non-existent"; Plotinus, Ennead 2, Tractate 4 Section 16.
^ Schopenhauer wrote of this Neoplatonist philosopher: "With Plotinus there even appears, probably for the first time in Western philosophy, idealism that had long been current in the East even at that time, for it taught (Enneads, iii, lib. vii, c.10) that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time, with the explanation: 'For there is for this universe no other place than the soul or mind' (neque est alter hujus universi locus quam anima), indeed the ideality of time is expressed in the words: 'We should not accept time outside the soul or mind' (oportet autem nequaquam extra animam tempus accipere)." (Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume I, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy", § 7) Similarly, Professor Ludwig Noiré wrote: "For the first time in Western philosophy we find idealism proper in Plotinus (Enneads, iii, 7, 10), where he says, 'The only space or place of the world is the soul', and 'Time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul'." [5] It is worth noting, however, that like Plato but unlike Schopenhauer and other modern philosophers, Plotinus does not worry about whether or how we can get beyond our ideas in order to know external objects.
^ Numenius of Apamea was reported to have asked, "What else is Plato than Moses speaking Greek?" Fr. 8 Des Places.
^ See Theurgy, Iamblichus and henosis Archived 2010-01-09 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5, 1.
^
It is on this account that Moses says, at the creation of man alone that God said, "Let us make man," which expression shows an assumption of other beings to himself as assistants, in order that God, the governor of all things, might have all the blameless intentions and actions of man, when he does right attributed to him; and that his other assistants might bear the imputation of his contrary actions.
— "Philo: On the Creation, XXIV". www.earlyjewishwritings.com.
^ Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho. c. 67.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 23, 1.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 23, 5.
^ Irenaeus, i. 24, 1.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 25.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 24, 4.
^ Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies. vii. 33.
^ Theodoret, Haer. Fab. ii. 3.
^ Epiphanius, Panarion, 28.
^ "Apocryphon of John," translation by Frederik Wisse in The Nag Hammadi Library. Accessed online at gnosis.org
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Demiurge". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
^ Hipp. Ref. vi. 32, p. 191.
^ Hipp. Ref. vi. 9.
^ Quispel, Gilles (2008). Van Oort, Johannes (ed.). Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica: Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. p. 64. ISBN 978-90-04-13945-9.
^ Scholem, Gershom (1965). Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. Jewish Theological Seminary of America. p. 72.
^ Robert McLachlan Wilson (1976). Nag Hammadi and gnosis: Papers read at the First International Congress of Coptology. BRILL. pp. 21–23. Therefore his esoteric name is Jaldabaoth, whereas the perfect call him Ariel, because he has the appearance of a lion.
^ Gustav Davidson (1994). A dictionary of angels: including the fallen angels. Scrollhouse. p. 54.
^ David M Gwynn (2010). Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity. BRILL. p. 448.
^ Campbell Bonner (1949). "An Amulet of the Ophite Gnostics". The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Hesperia Supplements, Vol. 8: 43–46.
^ Gilles Quispel; R. van den Broek; Maarten Jozef Vermaseren (1981). Studies in gnosticism and hellenistic religions. BRILL. pp. 40–41.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 6.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 30, 8.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5, 4.
^ Heracleon, Frag. 20.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, iii. 25.
^ Quispel, Gilles and Van Oort, Johannes (2008), p. 143.
^ John D. Turner. Neoplatonism.
^ "For, in sum, a part of their doctrine comes from Plato; all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own have been picked up outside of the truth." Plotinus, "Against the Gnostics", Ennead II, 9, 6.
^ Plotinus, Arthur Hilary Armstrong (trans.) (1966). Plotinus: Enneads II (Loeb Classical Library ed.). Harvard University Press. From this point to the end of ch. 12 Plotinus is attacking a Gnostic myth known to us best at present in the form it took in the system of Valentinus. The Mother, Sophia-Achamoth, produced as a result of the complicated sequence of events which followed the fall of the higher Sophia, and her offspring the Demiurge, the inferier and ignorant maker of the material universe, are Valentinian figures; cp. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.4 and 5. Valentinius had been in Rome, and there is nothing improbable in the presence of Valentinians there in the time of Plotinus. But the evidence in the Life ch. 16 suggests that the Gnostics in Plotinus's circle belonged rather to the older group called Sethians or Archontics, related to the Ophites or Barbelognostics: they probably called themselves simply 'Gnostics'. Gnostic sects borrowed freely from each other, and it is likely that Valentinius took some of his ideas about Sophia from older Gnostic sources, and that his ideas in turn influenced other Gnostics.
^ Evangeliou, "Plotinus's Anti-Gnostic Polemic and Porphyry's Against the Christians", in Wallis & Bregman, p. 111.
^ From "Introduction to Against the Gnostics", Plotinus' Enneads as translated by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220–222: "The treatise as it stands in the Enneads is a most powerful protest on behalf of Hellenic philosophy against the un-Hellenic heresy (as it was from the Platonist as well as the orthodox Christian point of view) of Gnosticism. There were Gnostics among Plotinus's own friends, whom he had not succeeded in converting (Enneads ch. 10 of this treatise) and he and his pupils devoted considerable time and energy to anti-Gnostic controversy (Life of Plotinus ch. 16). He obviously considered Gnosticism an extremely dangerous influence, likely to pervert the minds even of members of his own circle. It is impossible to attempt to give an account of Gnosticism here. By far the best discussion of what the particular group of Gnostics Plotinus knew believed is M. Puech's admirable contribution to Entretiens Hardt V (Les Sources de Plotin). But it is important for the understanding of this treatise to be clear about the reasons why Plotinus disliked them so intensely and thought their influence so harmful."
^ Armstrong, pp. 220–22: "Short statement of the doctrine of the three hypostasis, the One, Intellect and Soul; there cannot be more or fewer than these three. Criticism of the attempts to multiply the hypostasis, and especially of the idea of two intellects, one which thinks and that other which thinks that it thinks. (ch. 1). The true doctrine of Soul (ch. 2). The law of necessary procession and the eternity of the universe (ch.3). Attack on the Gnostic doctrine of the making of the universe by a fallen soul, and on their despising of the universe and the heavenly bodies (chs. 4–5). The senseless jargon of the Gnostics, their plagiarism from and perversion of Plato, and their insolent arrogance (ch. 6). The true doctrine about Universal Soul and the goodness of the universe which it forms and rules (chs. 7–8). Refutation of objections from the inequalities and injustices of human life (ch. 9). Ridiculous arrogance of the Gnostics who refuse to acknowledge the hierarchy of created gods and spirits and say that they alone are sons of God and superior to the heavens (ch. 9). The absurdities of the Gnostic doctrine of the fall of "Wisdom" (Sophia) and of the generation and activities of the Demiurge, maker of the visible universe (chs. 10–12). False and melodramatic Gnostic teaching about the cosmic spheres and their influence (ch. 13). The blasphemous falsity of the Gnostic claim to control the higher powers by magic and the absurdity of their claim to cure diseases by casting out demons (ch. 14). The false other-worldliness of the Gnostics leads to immorality (ch. 15). The true Platonic other-worldliness, which love and venerates the material universe in all its goodness and beauty as the most perfect possible image of the intelligible, contracted at length with the false, Gnostic, other-worldliness which hates and despises the material universe and its beauties (chs. 16–18)."
^ Turner, "Gnosticism and Platonism", in Wallis & Bregman.
Sources[edit]
This article incorporates text from the entry Demiurgus in A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines by William Smith and Henry Wace (1877), a publication now in the public domain.
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Halsam Products Co. & Elgo Plastics, est. 1917
Upon encountering an old cylindrical cardboard container of “American Plastic Bricks by Elgo,” nine out of ten people are likely to make the same spontaneous assumption—that they’re looking at a cheap knockoff of LEGO.
. . . And a lazy one at that. I mean . . . ELGO? It’s a bit on-the-nose for a toy set involving rectangular interlocking plastic building-blocks, ain’t it? Did they really think they could just swap the first two letters of the name and shamelessly piggyback off the success of those ingenious Danish toy pioneers over at the LEGO Corporation—the one brand forever synonymous with this genre of children’s entertainment?
Well, as it turns out, the classic copycat narrative isn’t quite as cut-and-dried here as it first appears. For an accusation of plagiarism to stand up in court, the chronology of the two items in question is just as important as any comparison of their content. And in the case of our Chicago-made American Plastic Bricks, the timeline reveals a surprising truth that flies in the face of our pop-cultural presumptions.
That’s right, folks. It was ELGO, not LEGO, that built its bricks first!
In what has to rank as one of the more bizarre semi-coincidences in the history of registered trademarks, ELGO Plastics, Inc. was actually established as a division of Chicago’s Halsam Products Company in 1941—long before LEGO entered the American marketplace (1961). Odder still, the inter-locking toy bricks developed by Halsam / ELGO were introduced in the late 1930s, pre-dating LEGO’s foray into that same field (1949’s “Automatic Binding Bricks) by a full decade.
Everything may be awesome in Legoland, but original? Not so much.
In fairness, it seems that both the Danes and Americans came to their eerily similar identities quite independently. In Denmark, the “LEGO” name had been put into use with the company’s early wood toys as a reference to the phrase “leg godt,” meaning “play well.” Meanwhile, in Chicago, established toy makers Harold “Hal” Elliott and Samuel Goss, Jr. chose to name their new plastics business after themselves: combining the EL from Elliott with the GO from Goss (hence, EL-GO!).
This was standard operating procedure for the duo, mind you, as they’d started their original toy business back in 1917 by using the same cutesy taxonomical technique: HAL Elliot + SAM Goss = HALSAM Products
History of Halsam Products Co., Part I: Hal and Sam
Before becoming business partners, Hal Elliott (1886-1973) and Sam Goss Jr. (1896-1976) were already family; brothers-in-law to be precise. Hal, a former clothes dealer and insurance salesman, married Sam’s sister Hazel Goss in 1915, putting the two men literally under the same roof for several years at the stately Goss family home in the north suburb of New Trier.
Back then, Hal was known by his birth name, Harold Elliott Hirsch—the German surname having come over with his grandparents. After World War I broke out, however, he elected to swap the order of his middle name and last name as a safeguard against growing anti-German sentiments. He would be Harold H. Elliott from that point forward.
Sam Goss Jr., like Elliott, was a second generation American (in his case, of English stock), but he’d been raised into wealth, rather than marrying into it. His father Samuel Goss, Sr. and uncles Frederick and William Goss were the founders of Chicago’s Goss Printing Press Company—known for an innovative “Straightline” rotary press that had become the standard of the newspaper industry in the early 20th century.
As Sam Jr. came of age, the obvious progression would have been for his father to simply groom him—and his new brother-in-law Hal—for long term positions in the family business. And indeed, both young men would eventually serve on the board of the Goss Printing Press Co. Before his death in 1922, however, patriarch Samuel Goss Sr. seemed quite intent on seeing the next generation build something of their own first; a business wholly outside the printing industry. Maybe it was the uncertainty of World War I that was the motivating factor, or a nostalgia for the simpler distractions of youth. Either way, the building blocks were soon laid for Sam and Hal’s new venture, and coincidentally, it involved building blocks.
II. Chip Off the Old Blocks
By most accounts, Hal Elliott and Sam Goss Jr. officially organized the Halsam Products Company in 1917; hence the HAL-SAM name. But according to historian Herman Kogan’s 1985 book Goss: Proud of the Past, Committed to the Future—a history of the Goss Printing Press Co.—it was really Samuel Goss Senior who got the ball rolling, essentially handing his kid the keys to a factory and arranging most of the furniture therein.
“Early in 1917,” Kogan writes, “as a hedge against possible economic slowdowns, [Goss Sr.] had purchased a small toy factory in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, which specialized in hand-crafted wooden A-B-C blocks for children. His partner was his son-in-law, Harold Elliott, so the name affixed to the company was Halsam.”
Kogan acknowledges that Sam Sr. subsequently handed off the daily operations of the toy business to Elliott and young Sam Jr., and that the Michigan factory was promptly removed to Chicago at 4114 Ravenswood Avenue. But this still conflicts with the notion that Sam Jr. was the original “SAM” in the HALSAM equation. Kogan goes a step further, too, crediting the elder Goss Sr. with not only buying the toy business, but coming up with the “vital contrivance” of the new enterprise, as well.
“Using basic principles of printing presses,” he writes, “[Goss Sr.] designed a machine that stamped letters on the blocks automatically and increased their output a thousand-fold and more.”
The 1961 book Toys in America refutes this, giving credit to the prodigal son, Sam Goss Jr., for applying the technology of his dad’s industry into the toy trade:
“Since his father had been a manufacturer of rotary printing presses for newspapers,” the author states, “it was natural for [Goss Jr.] to adapt the principles of such a press to a continuous column of wooden blocks instead of a sheet of paper.”
Whichever Goss you give the credit to [patent records suggest papa], the result is the same: the Halsam Products Company thrived immediately by relying on modern automation and factory efficiency to make quality alphabet blocks and dominoes at a cheap price. By the time Sam Goss Sr. died in 1922, his son and son-in-law had already turned the upstart toy business into a major player on the national scene, gaining significant ground on the former dominant manufacturer of wooden alphabet blocks, the Embossing Company of Albany, New York.
Compared to the Embossing Company’s relatively old-fashioned methods, Halsam’s blocks were produced at a furious pace at the Ravenswood plant, with far fewer workers needed to do so.
With only two attendants, a single block press turned out 175,000 blocks a day,” according to Toys In America. “And with two such presses, the Halsam plant’s output came to 350,000 blocks daily.
“Another Halsam machine made dominoes with almost no attention from a human being; as the black hardwood blocks moved forward, the varying numbers of white spots were added, and when the dominoes reached the end of the machine, they slid into a box that held the requisite number for a complete set, already sorted. This machine turned out 8,000 complete sets of dominoes each day, and the demand was such that it never stopped working, except for occasional repair and cleaning
Advanced machinery also allowed for quick innovations. When the toy buyers at Marshall Field’s told Goss and Elliott that some parents were complaining about the sharp corners of their alphabet blocks, the company developed rounded corners and introduced “Safety Blocks” to cleverly address the concerns. In the 1920s, grooves were added with the “Hi-Lo” line of wood blocks, enabling easier stacking. Halsam was already becoming an authority on a whole new generation of “construction” toys.
III. Re-Construction
Notably, Halsam’s entire toy line was wood-based during its early years, so when a small fire broke out in the factory in March of 1928, the “large amounts of wood, sawdust, and celluloid” in the building quickly turned the blaze into a raging inferno, costing upwards of $100,000 in damages (about $1.5 million in modern dough). Had this occurred just 18 months later, it might have permanently destroyed the business, as rebuilding a factory after the stock market crash could have seemed like a fool’s errand. Instead, in these final rosy days of the Roaring ’20s, the fire was seen as the impetus for Goss and Elliott to build a whole new plant on the same location, twice the size of the original.
“The new Halsam factory is running at full blast,” read a December 1928 advertisement, suggesting that the re-built, five-story facility had opened less than nine months after the fire. “Our equipment and working conditions are as modern as will be found in any manufacturing institution. . . . Halsam has always been a quality line, and we will not contend that our new modern factory will have any bearing on a better quality . . . our policy has always been to give the best . . . but we do feel that with our increased production facilities, warehouse space and ideal working conditions, we will be better able to serve our many customers and prospective customers.”
The expectation was that Halsam’s new factory would be well equipped to handle continued exciting growth in the 1930s, but as a sobering new economic reality set in, the company soon recognized that it would require more than just slick automation to maintain its gains. Clever marketing and new product development would determine whether penny-pinching American families would still give them their business.
IV. Mouse in the House
And so, just a few years into the Depression, Halsam became one of the first of many businesses to ink a licensing deal with Kay Kamen Ltd., the new merchandising contractor for the Walt Disney Company. Disney was still an upstart animation studio at the time, but Mickey Mouse was rapidly on the rise, and the use of his image on Halsam’s Mickey Mouse Safety Blocks and Mickey Mouse Dominoes (along with Minnie, Pluto, and others) played at least a small role in establishing the character’s iconic status.
“We feel quite proud of the fact that we have secured the rights to use Mickey and his family,” Hal Elliott told Playthings magazine in 1934. Not only would the character help generate widespread interest and sales, but, as Elliott emphasized, “the Walt Disney Enterprises are very exact in their requirement for licensing and do not allow the use of their characters except on recognized quality lines of merchandise and by well established and reliable manufacturers.”
By 1939, there was even a Halsam toy set called “Disneyland Blocks,” so named nearly two decades before the actual Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim.
A similar bit of branding ingenuity in the ‘30s can be seen with Halsam’s entrance into the field of “toy building logs,” a genre invented and dominated by Chicago’s Lincoln Logs since the early 1920s.
As the story goes, JC Penney had approached Halsam about making a knockoff version of Lincoln Logs, which were being exclusively distributed through Montgomery Ward stores at the time. Goss and Elliott balked at the idea of copying the design, however, and instead recruited a talented Swedish engineer named Nils I. Paulson—a veteran of the Goss Printing Press Co.—to help them make their own, distinct style of stacking log; square-shaped rather than round.
Patented in 1936, Paulson’s square log design was eventually packaged alternately as Halsam’s “Frontier Logs,” “American Logs,” and “Walt Disney Early Settlers Logs,” among other names. Unlike the LEGO scenario described earlier, American Logs were certainly derivative of a more established product.
But Halsam’s marketing team had identified a very specific hole in the existing marketplace. Lincoln Logs, from their inception, had never sold well in the South, where the grandkids of Confederates were still dissuaded from touching anything associated with the 16th president (namesake logs included). Thus, when Halsam’s generically patriotic “American Logs” arrived on the scene, they offered no such impediments, and sold well below the Mason-Dixon Line a result.
That was just the first of many successes for Nils Paulson, who would remain a vitally important figure in the Halsam offices for roughly three decades. Besides designing the American Logs and new machines for manufacturing them, he also led the way in the company’s logical evolution from stacking logs to stacking bricks.
In 1939, Paulson’s patent application for the “toy building brick” described the concept as such: “toy building members in the form of rectangular parallelepipedons, the sides and ends of which simulate in appearance the sides and ends of a plurality of ordinary building bricks.”
Paulson’s brick, which was still made from wood in its original manifestation, also introduced “a new and improved form and arrangement of dowels and sockets . . . whereby any two members of the set may be quickly and easily secured together in the desired relative positions, and yet may be easily separated when it is desired to tear down the structure.”
There had been a handful of inter-locking, socket-style brick toys on the market in the years just prior to this—including the rubberized Bild-O-Brik (made by the Rubber Specialties Co. of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania) and Minibrix; a British version introduced by the Premo Rubber Co. in 1935. None had gained any significant traction (pun intended), however, and the race to perfect the concept was wide open.
V. Hello Elgo
The original run of Halsam’s “American Bricks”—rolled out between 1939 and 1940—were probably more akin to the company’s dominoes than its alphabet blocks or Frontier Logs. All pieces in a set were pressed from hardwood, identical in size and shape, and equipped with a peg, socket, and slot construction—intended to replicate the actual geometry of the brick mason’s trade.
From the beginning, the pieces were available in bright reds and yellows, and the full kits included decorative windows, doors, and “shingled” cardboard roofs. Compared to putting together a boring old log cabin, this would have felt like a genuinely awesome leap forward, but in fact, it was more of a hop.
The real leap came in 1941, when Nils Paulson and the Halsam team started a full-scale transition from simple hardwoods to the injected molded plastics of the nuclear age. With early successful experiments making bakelite checkers and dominoes, Goss and Elliott felt confident enough to launch a new division of the company—yup, the pioneering ELGO Plastics—with the next goal of making a plastic version of their interlocking bricks. Elgo’s first offices were located at 1801 Warner Avenue.
American Plastic Bricks were probably ready to hit the market as early as 1942, but the new priorities of wartime America shelved the project, as the Halsam plants shifted mostly into government contract work.
When Halsam and Elgo returned to full-time amusement-making after the war, Paulson and the rest of the R&D team had had plenty of time to consider exactly how a plastic brick building set ought to work. Harold Elliott, who’d lived in England during part of the 1940s while leading the UK office of the Goss Printing Press Co., also reported back on some of the popular British construction toys his son Kip (aka Harold Elliott Jr.) had enjoyed playing with while there, including the aforementioned Minibrix and a superior new entry into the genre, the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick, which was made of injection-molded plastic.
According to some sources, Kip Elliott himself was given an active role in the development of Elgo’s American Plastic Bricks, but in point of fact, he was just 16 years old when the toy first hit the market in 1947, so any real leadership would likely have come later.
Interestingly, American Plastic Bricks and Kiddicraft both debuted in ’47, but it’s usually only the latter that’s honored with the title of “predecessor to LEGO bricks,” as Wikipedia puts it. Presumably, this is because the Danish toymakers at LEGO were “influenced” by Britain’s Kiddicraft before they’d seen Chicago’s offerings. But still, if it’s not clear by now, Hal and Sam have never really gotten the credit they’re due.
VI. Sturdy and Permanent
Keeping in mind that LEGO was still a non-entity in America through the entirety of the 1950s, Elgo’s American Plastic Bricks played a far greater role than the former in introducing Baby Boomers to the concept of snapping together their own miniature plastic cities. Admittedly, Elgo promotional materials also encouraged young builders to “cement together” their creations to make them “sturdy and permanent,” suggesting these early bricks didn’t exactly lock in place reliably on their own. But still, there was plenty of fun to be had and few limitations.
“It’s simply fascinating to build modern homes, schools, stores and all sorts of other buildings with American Plastic Bricks,” piped another 1953 ad. “. . . The perfect gift for children four to twelve years and older.”
Unlike a lot of toys of the 1950s, Halsam’s bricks, blocks, and logs also catered fairly equally to boys and girls—both through traditional print advertising as well as the new medium of children’s television
commercials.
The American Plastic Bricks container in our museum collection is fine evidence of this unisex branding, as the artwork features both a cartoon boy and girl enjoying their own construction projects while barely tolerating each other.
Men and women co-existed in fairly equal numbers at the Halsam factory, as well, where 175 workers were on the books in 1953—many of them focused on packing and shipping, since the plastic toys virtually manufactured themselves.
Back in the ’20s, the company had filled its ranks largely with German-American craftsmen from around the Ravenswood neighborhood, but like the city in general, the diversity of the staff had expanded with each subsequent decade, and a lot of training was done on the job.
By the mid ‘50s, as the next generation of Gosses and Elliotts took on larger roles with the business (specifically Samuel’s sons Sam III and Bill Goss, and Hal’s son Kip Elliott), Halsam Products really reached the peak of its powers.
In a particularly symbolic move, the company purchased its original wood block rival, the Embossing Company, which became a short-lived Halsam subsidiary in 1955. Around the same time, Halsam / Elgo outgrew its longtime Ravenswood plant, moving its workforce up the road to a larger, modern, one-story complex (107,000 sq. ft.) at 3610 W. Touhy Avenue in Skokie.
While Nils Paulson was still developing exciting new construction toys like the “Skyline Series” (the first skyscraper-focused toy brick set), the ’50s really saw a lot of creative attention paid to product packaging, with vivid colors and tall, tube-style boxes, including the rectangular Club Dominoes container in our museum collection, as well as the American Plastic Bricks mega sets.
“For the first time . . . American Plastic Bricks are offered in large, durable tubes that have strong merchandising appeal,” read a 1956 sales sheet. “The spacious tubes are a display in themselves. Clearly identifying labels printed in four colors and high gloss finish easily attract the eye and demand consumer interest.”
The same 1956 sales sheet, sent out to potential Halsam Products distributors, defined the company’s mission statement fairly succinctly.
“Each product in the Halsam line must fit one definition: is it a ‘basic tool of play?’ If it is, then we have three great advantages in the highly competitive toy industry:
1. The child wants it . . . because Halsam toys fulfill children’s basic desire to build, to create.
2. The parent, who buys it, wants it . . . because the Halsam toy provides a natural, desirable outlet for children’s mental and physical energy.
3. You, the seller, want it . . . because being a basic staple toy the Halsam product maintains high volume sales year after year—all with the attractive profit structures which have made Halsam famous.”
VII. Too Cool for Playskool
During its time as a family-run business, Halsam never really altered its mission, nor did it experience a real concerning downward trend. Its old reliables—Safety Blocks, Dominoes, Checkers, and Disney tie-ins—were still going strong through the ‘50s, and the company was doing about $4 million in annual sales, with Christmas demands always turning the Skokie plant into a bustling Santa’s workshop of sorts. Harold Elliott had done well enough in life by this point that in July of 1959, his 65-foot yacht—named the Carolyn IV after his daughter—was briefly mistaken by Chicago TV crews for the Royal Barge of the visiting British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
There’s another story about a certain European visit to Chicago—at roughly this same time period—that’s been passed around through several copy/pasted Halsam histories on the internet, but doesn’t seem to have much hard evidence to substantiate it. According to this apocryphal account, there was actually a face-to-face meeting between representatives of Elgo Plastics (specifically Bill Goss) and visiting dignitaries from Denmark’s Lego Group just ahead of Lego’s entry into the U.S. market in 1961.
Lego’s new president, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen [pictured], was dead set on conquering America, and would have been very aware not only of a potential conflict with Elgo’s exisiting plastic bricks, but in the ridiculous similarity of the two company’s names. So, as legend has it, Lego agreed to pay Elgo the whopping sum of . . . $25,000 . . . to “square itself”—whatever that means—and thus storm the shores of the USA unchallenged.
Whether that meeting ever happened or not, the way things played out in the 1960s certainly opens up a yacht-load of “what if?” scenarios when it comes to Lego’s rise and Elgo’s fall.
During a hugely successful Christmas season in 1961, the Tribune was already reporting negotiations of a merger between Halsam and Playskool—another Chicago toymaking giant. And by January of 1962, the deal was done. Playskool took ownership of Halsam, Elgo, and the Embossing Company in exchange for $3 million in
Playskool stock.
Samuel Goss Jr. and Hal Elliott, both having reached retirement age, took places on the Playskool board of directors. At the time, they probably felt like they’d solidified the business they’d spent the past 45 years building, metaphorically “cementing together” its ability to meet the ever-growing demands of the toy biz in the future. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.
While Playskool continued to manufacture Halsam-branded toys out of the Touhy Avenue plant in the 1960s—including American Plastic Bricks—a series of additional buyouts complicated the arrangement. After Milton Bradley took over Playskool in 1968, Halsam manufacturing was moved under Playskool’s own roof, and holdovers like Kip Elliott and Bill Goss (who’d been working as the VP of Sales and Marketing with Playskool) eventually moved on.
By the time Playskool opened its new Chicago factory in 1973, the Halsam name was barely uttered, and “Plastic Building Bricks” were sold under the Playskool brand only. When Hasbro subsequently purchased Milton Bradley in 1984, the closure of Playskool’s Chicago facility essentially buried Hal and Sam’s legacy for good.
In 2015, in unrelated news, the Lego Group collected over $2 billion in revenue, making it the largest toy company in the world.
1912 The Year The Titanic Sunk.......The Emmanuel Church Was Complete In 1834....It Was Demolished Way Back In 1952...But Look At The Large Window On The Side Similar Design...Plagiarism?..Hahaha.....Building To The Left Still Stands!!
My son has become fascinated with bitcoins, and so I had to get him a tangible one for Xmas. The public key is imprinted visibly on the tamper-evident holographic film, and the private key lies underneath. (Casascius)
I too was fascinated by digital cash back in college, and more specifically by the asymmetric mathematical transforms underlying public-key crypto and digital blind signatures.
I remembered a technical paper I wrote, but could not find it. A desktop search revealed an essay that I completely forgot, something that I had recovered from my archives of floppy discs (while I still could).
It is an article I wrote for the school newspaper in 1994. Ironically, Microsoft Word could not open this ancient Microsoft Word file format, but the free text editors could.
What a fun time capsule, below, with some choice naivetés…
I am trying to reconstruct what I was thinking. I was arguing that a bulletproof framework for digital cash (and what better testing ground) could be used to secure a digital container for executable code on a rental basis. So the expression of an idea — the specific code, or runtime service — is locked in a secure container. The idea would be to prevent copying instead of punishing after the fact.
Micro-currency and micro-code seem like similar exercises in regulating the single use of an issued number.
Now that the Bitcoin experiment is underway, do you know of anyone writing about it as an alternative framework for intellectual property (from digital art to code to governance tokens)?
IP and Digital Cash
@NORMAL:
Digital Cash and the “Intellectual Property” Oxymoron
By Steve Jurvetson
Many of us will soon be working in the information services or technology industries which are currently tangled in a bramble patch of intellectual property law. As the law struggles to find coherency and an internally-consistent logic for intellectual property (IP) protection, digital encryption technologies may provide a better solution — from the perspective of reducing litigation, exploiting the inherent benefits of an information-based business model, and preserving a free economy of ideas.
Bullet-proof digital cash technology, which is now emerging, can provide a protected “cryptographic container” for intellectual expressions, thereby preserving traditional notions of intellectual property that protect specific instantiations of an idea rather than the idea itself. For example, it seems reasonable that Intuit should be able to protect against the widespread duplication of their Quicken software (the expression of an idea), but they should not be able to patent the underlying idea of single-entry bookkeeping. There are strong economic incentives for digital cash to develop and for those techniques to be adapted for IP protection — to create a protected container or expression of an idea. The rapid march of information technology has strained the evolution of IP law, but rather than patching the law, information technology itself may provide a more coherent solution.
Information Wants To Be Free
Currently, IP law is enigmatic because it is expanding to a domain for which it was not initially intended. In developing the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson argued that ideas should freely transverse the globe, and that ideas were fundamentally different from material goods. He concluded that “Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.” The issues surrounding IP come into sharp focus as we shift to being more of an information-based economy.
The use of e-mail and local TV footage helps disseminate information around the globe and can be a force for democracy — as seen in the TV footage from Chechen, the use of modems in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, and the e-mail and TV from Tianammen Square. Even Gorbachev used a video camera to show what was happening after he was kidnapped. What appears to be an inherent force for democracy runs into problems when it becomes the subject of property.
As higher-level programming languages become more like natural languages, it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish the idea from the code. Language precedes thought, as Jean-Louis Gassée is fond of saying, and our language is the framework for the formulation and expression of our ideas. Restricting software will increasingly be indistinguishable from restricting freedom of speech.
An economy of ideas and human attention depends on the continuous and free exchange of ideas. Because of the associative nature of memory processes, no idea is detached from others. This begs the question, is intellectual property an oxymoron?
Intellectual Property Law is a Patch
John Perry Barlow, former Grateful Dead lyricist and co-founder (with Mitch Kapor) of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that “Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted or expanded to contain digitized expression... Faith in law will not be an effective strategy for high-tech companies. Law adapts by continuous increments and at a pace second only to geology. Technology advances in lunging jerks. Real-world conditions will continue to change at a blinding pace, and the law will lag further behind, more profoundly confused. This mismatch may prove impossible to overcome.”
From its origins in the Industrial Revolution where the invention of tools took on a new importance, patent and copyright law has protected the physical conveyance of an idea, and not the idea itself. The physical expression is like a container for an idea. But with the emerging information superhighway, the “container” is becoming more ethereal, and it is disappearing altogether. Whether it’s e-mail today, or the future goods of the Information Age, the “expressions” of ideas will be voltage conditions darting around the net, very much like thoughts. The fleeting copy of an image in RAM is not very different that the fleeting image on the retina.
The digitization of all forms of information — from books to songs to images to multimedia — detaches information from the physical plane where IP law has always found definition and precedent. Patents cannot be granted for abstract ideas or algorithms, yet courts have recently upheld the patentability of software as long as it is operating a physical machine or causing a physical result. Copyright law is even more of a patch. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 requires that works be fixed in a durable medium, and where an idea and its expression are inseparable, the merger doctrine dictates that the expression cannot be copyrighted. E-mail is not currently copyrightable because it is not a reduction to tangible form. So of course, there is a proposal to amend these copyright provisions. In recent rulings, Lotus won its case that Borland’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet copied elements of Lotus 123’s look and feel, yet Apple lost a similar case versus Microsoft and HP. As Professor Bagley points out in her new text, “It is difficult to reconcile under the total concept and feel test the results in the Apple and Lotus cases.” Given the inconsistencies and economic significance of these issues, it is no surprise that swarms of lawyers are studying to practice in the IP arena.
Back in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates wrote an inflammatory “Open Letter to Hobbyists” in which he alleged that “most of you steal your software ... and should be kicked out of any club meeting you show up at.” He presented the economic argument that piracy prevents proper profit streams and “prevents good software from being written.” Now we have Windows.
But seriously, if we continue to believe that the value of information is based on scarcity, as it is with physical objects, we will continue to patch laws that are contrary to the nature of information, which in many cases increases in value with distribution. Small, fast moving companies (like Netscape and Id) protect their ideas by getting to the marketplace quicker than their larger competitors who base their protection on fear and litigation.
The patent office is woefully understaffed and unable to judge the nuances of software. Comptons was initially granted a patent that covered virtually all multimedia technology. When they tried to collect royalties, Microsoft pushed the Patent Office to overturn the patent. In 1992, Software Advertising Corp received a patent for “displaying and integrating commercial advertisements with computer software.” That’s like patenting the concept of a radio commercial. In 1993, a DEC engineer received a patent on just two lines of machine code commonly used in object-oriented programming. CompuServe announced this month that they plan to collect royalties on the widely used GIF file format for images.
The Patent Office has issued well over 12,000 software patents, and a programmer can unknowingly be in violation of any them. Microsoft had to pay $120MM to STAC in February 1994 for violating their patent on data compression. The penalties can be costly, but so can a patent search. Many of the software patents don’t have the words “computer,” “software,” “program,” or “algorithm” in their abstracts. “Software patents turn every decision you make while writing a program into a legal risk,” says Richard Stallman, founder of the League for Programming Freedom. “They make writing a large program like crossing a minefield. Each step has a small chance of stepping on a patent and blowing you up.” The very notion of seventeen years of patent protection in the fast moving software industry seems absurd. MS-DOS did not exist seventeen years ago.
IP law faces the additional wrinkle of jurisdictional issues. Where has an Internet crime taken place? In the country or state in which the computer server resides? Many nations do not have the same intellectual property laws as the U.S. Even within the U.S., the law can be tough to enforce; for example, a group of music publishers sued CompuServe for the digital distribution of copyrighted music. A complication is that CompuServe has no knowledge of the activity since it occurs in the flood of bits transferring between its subscribers
The tension seen in making digital copies revolves around the issue of property. But unlike the theft of material goods, copying does not deprive the owner of their possessions. With digital piracy, it is less a clear ethical issue of theft, and more an abstract notion that you are undermining the business model of an artist or software developer. The distinction between ethics and laws often revolves around their enforceability. Before copy machines, it was hard to make a book, and so it was obvious and visible if someone was copying your work. In the digital age, copying is lightning fast and difficult to detect. Given ethical ambiguity, convenience, and anonymity, it is no wonder we see a cultural shift with regard to digital ethics.
Piracy, Plagiarism and Pilfering
We copy music. We are seldom diligent with our footnotes. We wonder where we’ve seen Strat-man’s PIE and the four slices before. We forward e-mail that may contain text from a copyrighted news publication. The SCBA estimates that 51% of satellite dishes have illegal descramblers. John Perry Barlow estimates that 90% of personal hard drives have some pirated software on them.
Or as last month’s Red Herring editorial points out, “this atmosphere of electronic piracy seems to have in turn spawned a freer attitude than ever toward good old-fashioned plagiarism.” Articles from major publications and WSJ columns appear and circulate widely on the Internet. Computer Pictures magazine replicated a complete article on multimedia databases from New Media magazine, and then publicly apologized.
Music and voice samples are an increasingly common art form, from 2 Live Crew to Negativland to local bands like Voice Farm and Consolidated. Peter Gabriel embraces the shift to repositioned content; “Traditionally, the artist has been the final arbiter of his work. He delivered it and it stood on its own. In the interactive world, artists will also be the suppliers of information and collage material, which people can either accept as is, or manipulate to create their own art. It’s part of the shift from skill-based work to decision-making and editing work.”
But many traditionalists resist the change. Museums are hesitant to embrace digital art because it is impossible to distinguish the original from a copy; according to a curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, “The art world is scared to death of this stuff.” The Digital Audio Tape debate also illustrated the paranoia; the music industry first insisted that these DAT recorders had to purposely introduce static into the digital copies they made, and then they settled for an embedded code that limited the number of successive copies that could be made from the a master source.
For a healthier reaction, look at the phenomenally successful business models of Mosaic/Netscape and Id Software, the twisted creator of Doom. Just as McAfee built a business on shareware, Netscape and Id encourage widespread free distribution of their product. But once you want support from Netscape, or the higher levels of the Doom game, then you have to pay. For industries with strong demand-side economies of scale, such as Netscape web browsers or Safe-TCL intelligent agents, the creators have exploited the economies of information distribution. Software products are especially susceptible to increasing returns with scale, as are networking products and most of the information technology industries.
Yet, the Software Publishers Association reports that 1993 worldwide losses to piracy of business application software totaled $7.45 billion. They also estimated that 89% of software units in Korea were counterfeit. And China has 29 factories, some state-owned, that press 75 million pirated CDs per year, largely for export. GATT will impose the U.S. notions of intellectual property on a world that sees the issue very differently.
Clearly there are strong economic incentives to protect intellectual property, and reasonable arguments can be made for software patents and digital copyright, but the complexities of legal enforcement will be outrun and potentially obviated by the relatively rapid developments of another technology, digital cash and cryptography.
Digital Cash and the IP Lock
Digital cash is in some ways an extreme example of digital “property” -- since it cannot be copied, it is possessed by one entity at a time, and it is static and non-perishable. If the techniques for protecting against pilferage and piracy work in the domain of cash, then they can be used to “protect” other properties by being embedded in them. If I wanted to copy-protect an “original” work of digital art, digital cash techniques can be used as the “container” to protect intellectual property in the old style. A bullet-proof digital cash scheme would inevitably be adapted by those who stand to gain from the current system. Such as Bill Gates.
Several companies are developing technologies for electronic commerce. On January 12, several High-Tech Club members attended the Cybermania conference on electronic commerce with the CEOs of Intuit, CyberCash, Enter TV and The Lightspan Partnership. According to Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit, the motivations for digital cash are anonymity and efficient small-transaction Internet commerce. Anonymity preserves our privacy in the age of increasingly intrusive “database marketing” based on credit card purchase patterns and other personal information. Of course, it also has tax-evasion implications. For Internet commerce, cash is more efficient and easier to use than a credit card for small transactions.
“A lot of people will spend nickels on the Internet,” says Dan Lynch of CyberCash. Banks will soon exchange your current cash for cyber-tokens, or a “bag of bits” which you can spend freely on the Internet. A competitor based in the Netherlands called DigiCash has a Web page with numerous articles on electronic money and fully functional demo of their technology. You can get some free cash from them and spend it at some of their allied vendors.
Digital cash is a compelling technology. Wired magazine calls it the “killer application for electronic networks which will change the global economy.” Handling and fraud costs for the paper money system are growing as digital color copiers and ATMs proliferate. Donald Gleason, President of the Smart Card Enterprise unit of Electronic Payment Services argues that “Cash is a nightmare. It costs money handlers in the U.S. alone approximately $60 billion a year to move the stuff... Bills and coinage will increasingly be replaced by some sort of electronic equivalent.” Even a Citibank VP, Sholom Rosen, agrees that “There are going to be winners and losers, but everybody is going to play.”
The digital cash schemes use a blind digital signature and a central repository to protect against piracy and privacy violations. On the privacy issue, the techniques used have been mathematically proven to be protected against privacy violations. The bank cannot trace how the cash is being used or who is using it. Embedded in these schemes are powerful digital cryptography techniques which have recently been spread in the commercial domain (RSA Data Security is a leader in this field and will be speaking to the High Tech Club on January 19).
To protect against piracy requires some extra work. As soon as I have a digital $5 bill on my Mac hard drive, I will want to make a copy, and I can. (Many companies have busted their picks trying to copy protect files from hackers. It will never work.). The difference is that I can only spend the $5 bill once. The copy is worthless. This is possible because every bill has a unique encrypted identifier. In spending the bill, my computer checks with the centralized repository which verifies that my particular $5 bill is still unspent. Once I spend it, it cannot be spent again. As with many electronic transactions today, the safety of the system depends on the integrity of a centralized computer, or what Dan Lynch calls “the big database in the sky.”
One of the most important limitations of the digital cash techniques is that they are tethered to a transaction between at least three parties — a buyer, seller and central repository. So, to use such a scheme to protect intellectual property, would require networked computers and “live” files that have to dial up and check in with the repository to be operational. There are many compelling applications for this, including voter registration, voting tabulation, and the registration of digital artwork originals.
When I asked Dan Lynch about the use of his technology for intellectual property protection, he agreed that the bits that now represent a $5 bill could be used for any number of things, from medical records to photographs. A digital photograph could hide a digital signature in its low-order bits, and it would be imperceptible to the user. But those bits could be used with a registry of proper image owners, and could be used to prove misappropriation or sampling of the image by others.
Technology author Steven Levy has been researching cryptography for Wired magazine, and he responded to my e-mail questions with the reply “You are on the right track in thinking that crypto can preserve IP. I know of several attempts to forward plans to do so.” Digital cash may provide a “crypto-container” to preserve traditional notions of intellectual property.
The transaction tether limits the short-term applicability of these schemes for software copy protection. They won’t work on an isolated computer. This certainly would slow its adoption for mobile computers since the wireless networking infrastructure is so nascent. But with Windows ’95 bundling network connectivity, soon most computers will be network-ready — at least for the Microsoft network. And now that Bill Gates is acquiring Intuit, instead of dollar bills, we will have Bill dollars.
The transaction tether is also a logistical headache with current slow networks, which may hinder its adoption for mass-market applications. For example, if someone forwards a copyrighted e-mail, the recipient may have to have their computer do the repository check before they could see the text of the e-mail. E-mail is slow enough today, but in the near future, these techniques of verifying IP permissions and paying appropriate royalties in digital cash could be background processes on a preemptive multitasking computer (Windows ’95 or Mac OS System 8). The digital cash schemes are consistent with other trends in software distribution and development — specifically software rental and object-oriented “applets” with nested royalty payments. They are also consistent with the document-centric vision of Open Doc and OLE.
The user of the future would start working on their stationary. When it’s clear they are doing some text entry, the word processor would be downloaded and rented for its current usage. Digital pennies would trickle back to the people who wrote or inspired the various portions of the core program. As you use other software applets, such as a spell-checker, it would be downloaded as needed. By renting applets, or potentially finer-grained software objects, the licensing royalties would be automatically tabulated and exchanged, and software piracy would require heroic efforts. Intellectual property would become precisely that — property in a market economy, under lock by its “creator,” and Bill Gates’ 1975 lament over software piracy may now be addressed 20 years later.
--------end of paper-----------
2013 & 2021 update: On further reflection, I was focused on executable code (where the runtime requires a cloud connect to authenticate, given the third party element of Digicash. (The blockchain fixed this). Verification has been a pain, but perhaps it's seamless in a web-services future. Cloud apps and digital cash depend on it, so why not the code itself.
It could verify the official owner of any unique bundle of pixels, in the sense that you can "own" a sufficiently large number, but not the essence of a work of art or derivative works (what we call NFTs today). Frankly, I'm not sure about non-interactive content in general, like pure video playback. "Fixing" software IP alone would be a big enough accomplishment.
Hmmm, I saw this idea in a book so I took the same shot ta8reeban, lol obo el plagiarism :P
What I liked in this shot is the shallow depth of field, you can see the focus is only on the middle of the green apple while the red ones are out of focus.
Nikon D100
Nikkor 105mm F/2.8D Micro lens
ISO 200
1/50 seconds at F/3.3
Hope you like it :)
© Chris Elliott. All Rights Reserved - No Usage Allowed in Any Form Without My Written Consent.
"No more plagiarism, we want more security on Flickr!"
First visit to the old quarry and we found dragons and damsels aplenty, sunning themselves on the sandy pebbles and swooping over the pond.
It was as if we were in the middle of a darters' school playground, just after the bell had rung for break-time.
This wee beauty was particularly active and eager to pose on the bigger pebbles, refusing to be limited by, and totally disregarding, a torn wing - a great lesson to bring home from this unique trip to Odonata Heaven :)
Many thanks for your encouragement, comments, faves and invites, flickr friends!
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Almost mature male Common Darter - sympetrum striolatum (thanks to Derek 'claylaner' for the ID).
Canon EOS 500D. Lens: Canon EF-S60mm f/2.8 MACRO USM.
Editing: framing, copyrighting in photoshop.
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My inspiration: Words of Peace.
.
I'm going to vent for a moment.
Nothing, I repeat: nothing, is more vile and disgusting to me than people who commit plagiarism.
I spent the better half of my day communicating with Yahoo's oh so fantastic copyright department.
I say that with a very grim, bitter sarcasm.
If it not bad enough that I have to deal with people abusing my pictures, finding slithery, sneaky ways of getting prints of them to post in unauthorized ways - it just puts the icing on the cake of bullshit that I have to debate with people over the authority I have over said work.
"good faith belief" that it was used against my authority.
I had to use that terminology. And it makes my skin crawl.
Good faith belief my ass. Good fucking fact, more like.
It's enough to make me want to delete my whole damn account. I'm tired of finding my face on Myspace, Badoo, and Facebook on profiles that are *definitely* not me.
No, I do not have "21 piercings and a desire to find new swinger relationships."
I'm tired of finding my work on blogs, and web pages, anyplace that I did not give precise authority to do so.
Sites like this one should be fun, without me wondering what fucktard is out there taking my body and my face and putting it in a public folder with a bunch of nudity.
Sure, I get a bit risque from time to time. Not a soul here will see something that they shouldn't.
I don't like being classed that way. And I don't like being stolen, in any shape or form - be it exact or my concepts.
I'm sick of it.
Random Fact du jour: I am legally registered as a business as just.K photography and design.
But I hate logos on photos here on Flickr.
I'm beginning to understand why they use them, however.
Drawn in a 9 x 14cm plain Moleskine
Quotes used:
'Originality is not seen in single words or even sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.' ~ Isaac Bashevis
'Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.' ~ Dr. Laurence J. Peter
'A man of great common sense and good taste is a man without originality or moral courage.' ~ George Bernard Shaw
'The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.' ~ Thomas Carlyle
'Since there are only a few original people in the world, there is more uniformity than one might expect, in view of the large number who think they have something to say.' ~ Leo Stein
'Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.' ~ Ezra Pound
'Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.' ~ James Stephens
'What the world calls originality is only an unaccustomed method of tickling it.' ~ George Bernard Shaw
'Originality is undetected plagiarism.' ~ W.R. Inge
'Originality is merely an illusion.' ~ M.C. Escher
we went to see a Smiths cover band called 'Plagiarism beings at home' at the Kings Head Hotel on Friday night and true to the Morrissey tradition they through some Gladys into the crowd.
We were lucky enough to get one!
Srdjan Markovic, one of the 1 in 5 million organisation member, said on Saturday that the protests brought changes and that they should go since "the authorities are afraid of endurance, determination, togetherness and courage, the FoNet news agency reported.
He asked if there were no protests would Aleksandar Obradovic, the whistleblower who linked highest state officials with shady arms trade deals, ever be heard; or would it ever be proved that Finance Minister Sinisa Mali's doctorate was a plagiarism; or would the regime ever accepted a dialogue on election conditions under the European Union auspices?
Markovic said all that was unimaginable without people in the streets and that the protest was the only way to make changes.
He thanked people who came out during the holiday time to tell "this system that it is not good," and asked them to go to the "institution which started to open up, to the state RTS TV, to say what they wanted from them in 2020.
The crowd made a loud noise outside the RTS building during its main evening news.
Lucifer (/ˈljuːsɪfər/ LEW-si-fər; "light-bringer") was a Latin name for the planet Venus as the morning star in the ancient Roman era, and is often used for mythological and religious figures associated with the planet. Due to the unique movements and discontinuous appearances of Venus in the sky, mythology surrounding these figures often involved a fall from the heavens to earth or the underworld. Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as "Lucifer", led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer and its associated stories of a fall from heaven to Satan. Most modern scholarship regards these interpretations as questionable, and translate the term in the relevant Bible passage as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer".
Here is the definition that you will find on Wikipedia; Phosphorus (Greek Φωσφόρος Phōsphoros), a name meaning “Light-Bringer”, is the Morning Star, the planet Venus in its morning appearance. Another Greek name for the Morning Star is Ἑωσφόρος (Heōsphoros), which means “Dawn-Bringer”.
The Latin word corresponding to Greek Phosphorus is “Lucifer”. It is used in its astronomical sense both in prose and poetry. The Latin word lucifer, corresponding to, was used as a name for the morning star and thus appeared in the Vulgate translation of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל (helel) – meaning Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one – in Isaiah 14:12, where the Septuagint Greek version uses, not Φωσφόρος, but Ἑωσφόρος. origins of freemasonry.As a name for the devil, the more common meaning in English, "Lucifer" is the rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12) given in the King James Version of the Bible. The translators of this version took the word from the Latin Vulgate,[1] which translated הֵילֵל by the Latin word lucifer (uncapitalized), meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".In classical mythology, Lucifer ("light-bringer" in Latin) was the name of the planet Venus, though it was often personified as a male figure bearing a torch. The Greek name for this planet was variously Phosphoros (also meaning "light-bringer") or Heosphoros (meaning "dawn-bringer"). Lucifer was said to be "the fabled son of Aurora and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx". He was often presented in poetry as heralding the dawn.
The second century Roman mythographer Pseudo-Hyginus said of the planet:
"The fourth star is that of Venus, Luciferus by name. Some say it is Juno's. In many tales it is recorded that it is called Hesperus, too. It seems to be the largest of all stars. Some have said it represents the son of Aurora and Cephalus, who surpassed many in beauty, so that he even vied with Venus, and, as Eratosthenes says, for this reason it is called the star of Venus. It is visible both at dawn and sunset, and so properly has been called both Luciferus and Hesperus."
Ovid, in his first century epic Metamorphoses, describes Lucifer as ordering the heavens:
"Aurora, watchful in the reddening dawn, threw wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls; the Stellae took flight, in marshaled order set by Lucifer who left his station last."
In the classical Roman period, Lucifer was not typically regarded as a deity and had few, if any, myths,] though the planet was associated with various deities and often poetically personified. Cicero pointed out that "You say that Sol the Sun and Luna the Moon are deities, and the Greeks identify the former with Apollo and the latter with Diana. But if Luna (the Moon) is a goddess, then Lucifer (the Morning-Star) also and the rest of the Wandering Stars (Stellae Errantes) will have to be counted gods; and if so, then the Fixed Stars (Stellae Inerrantes) as well.
As a name for the morning star, "Lucifer" is a proper name and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization the morning star was often personified and considered a god[5] and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn).
Venus is the brightest morning “star” and is currently the focal point of the eastern dawn sky. This would be the reason why you will find that all Freemason Lodges face the north and south, but when you walk into the lodge room, you’re symbolically facing the East and all masonic rituals are performed while facing the East in preparation of the son of the morning via the dawn of a new day under the light of the morning star. The motif of a heavenly being striving for the highest seat of heaven only to be cast down to the underworld has its origins in the motions of the planet Venus, known as the morning star.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna (Babylonian Ishtar) is associated with the planet Venus. Inanna's actions in several of her myths, including Inanna and Shukaletuda and Inanna's Descent into the Underworld appear to parallel the motion of Venus as it progresses through its synodic cycle. For example, in Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, Inanna is able to descend into the netherworld, where she is killed, and then resurrected three days later to return to the heavens. The three-day disappearance of Inanna refers to the three-day planetary disappearance of Venus between its appearance as a morning and evening star.
A similar theme is present in the Babylonian myth of Etana. The Jewish Encyclopedia comments:
"The brilliancy of the morning star, which eclipses all other stars, but is not seen during the night, may easily have given rise to a myth such as was told of Ethana and Zu: he was led by his pride to strive for the highest seat among the star-gods on the northern mountain of the gods ... but was hurled down by the supreme ruler of the Babylonian Olympus."
The fall from heaven motif also has a parallel in Canaanite mythology. In ancient Canaanite religion, the morning star is personified as the god Attar, who attempted to occupy the throne of Ba'al and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld. The original myth may have been about a lesser god Helel trying to dethrone the Canaanite high god El who lived on a mountain to the north. Hermann Gunkel's reconstruction of the myth told of a mighty warrior called Hêlal, whose ambition was to ascend higher than all the other stellar divinities, but who had to descend to the depths; it thus portrayed as a battle the process by which the bright morning star fails to reach the highest point in the sky before being faded out by the rising sun. Our story begins with the Lucifer Rebellion and the transporting of the Tree of Life to a high mountainous region by Van the leader of the loyalists. This region would become to be named Afghanistan. So ancient is the beginning of this story that we have no written record of these events. Or do we? It took a long long time to be written but it's there. It took the coming of the Andites and the culture they created to reveal this incredible legend. The Andites are legendary in their own right being from the bloodline of Adam and Eve and the Nodite remnants of the original fallen. And it is most appropriate that part of this story starts here in the wilds of Central Asia. For the Andites have the true first human aboriginal blood from creatures that looked upon the world with the first human eyes knowing they were different from all others. These first humans were Homo erectus by which the Urantia Book names them as the Andonites. Very near this place of epical significance is the beginning of the human race, but that is another story.
However, the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible argues that no evidence has been found of any Canaanite myth or imagery of a god being forcibly thrown from heaven, as in the Book of Isaiah (see below). It argues that the closest parallels with Isaiah's description of the king of Babylon as a fallen morning star cast down from heaven are to be found not in Canaanite myths but in traditional ideas of the Jewish people, echoed in the Biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve, cast out of God's presence for wishing to be as God, and the picture in Psalm 82 of the "gods" and "sons of the Most High" destined to die and fall. This Jewish tradition has echoes also in Jewish pseudepigrapha such as Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve. The Life of Adam and Eve, in turn, shaped the idea of Iblis in the Quran. In the Book of Isaiah, chapter 14, the King of Babylon is condemned in a prophetic vision by the prophet Isaiah and is called הֵילֵל בֶּן-שָׁחַר (Helel ben Shachar, Hebrew for "shining one, son of the morning"). who is addressed as הילל בן שחר (Hêlêl ben Šāḥar),The title "Helel ben Shahar" may refer to the planet Venus as the morning star, but the text in Isaiah 14 gives no indication that Helel is the name of a star or planet. The Hebrew word transliterated as Hêlêl or Heylel (pron. as Hay-LALE),[35] occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as Ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), "bringer of dawn", the Ancient Greek name for the morning star. According to the King James Bible-based Strong's Concordance, the original Hebrew word means "shining one, light-bearer", and the translation given in the King James text is the Latin name for the planet Venus, "Lucifer".
However, the translation of הֵילֵל as "Lucifer" has been abandoned in modern English translations of Isaiah 14:12. Present-day translations render הֵילֵל as "morning star" (New International Version, New Century Version, New American Standard Bible, Good News Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Contemporary English Version, Common English Bible, Complete Jewish Bible), "daystar" (New Jerusalem Bible, The Message), "Day Star" (New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version), "shining one" (New Life Version, New World Translation, JPS Tanakh), or "shining star" (New Living Translation).
In a modern translation from the original Hebrew, the passage in which the phrase "Lucifer" or "morning star" occurs begins with the statement: "On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labour forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!"[45] After describing the death of the king, the taunt continues:
"How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: 'Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?'"
J. Carl Laney has pointed out that in the final verses here quoted, the king of Babylon is described not as a god or an angel but as a man; and that man may have been not Nebuchadnezzar II, but rather his son, Belshazzar. Nebuchadnezzar was gripped by a spiritual fervor to build a temple to the moon god Sin (possibly analogous with Hubal,[citation needed] the primary god of pre-Islamic Mecca), and his son ruled as regent. The Abrahamic scriptural texts could be interpreted as a weak usurping of true kingly power, and a taunt at the failed regency of Belshazzar.
For the unnamed "king of Babylon" a wide range of identifications have been proposed.They include a Babylonian ruler of the prophet Isaiah's own time the later Nebuchadnezzar II, under whom the Babylonian captivity of the Jews began, or Nabonidus,and the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon II and Sennacherib. Verse 20 says that this king of Babylon will not be "joined with them [all the kings of the nations] in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever", but rather be cast out of the grave, while "All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house", pointing to Nebuchadnezzar II as a possible interpretation.Herbert Wolf held that the "king of Babylon" was not a specific ruler but a generic representation of the whole line of rulers.
Isaiah 14:12 became a source for the popular conception of the fallen angel motif[56] seen later in 1 Enoch 86–90 and 2 Enoch 29:3–4. Rabbinical Judaism has rejected any belief in rebel or fallen angels. In the 11th century, the Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer illustrates the origin of the "fallen angel myth" by giving two accounts, one relates to the angel in the Garden of Eden who seduces Eve, and the other relates to the angels, the benei elohim who cohabit with the daughters of man (Genesis 6:1–4).[58] An association of Isaiah 14:12–18 with a personification of evil, called the devil developed outside of mainstream Rabbinic Judaism in pseudepigrapha and Christian writings, particularly with the apocalypses.
Manly P. Hall writes in his book, Initiates of the Flame: “It is said that in ancient times the Sphinx was the gateway of the Pyramid, and that there was an underground passage which led from the Sphinx to Cheops (Great Pyramid)” (Initiates of the Flame, p. 68).
The Sphinx symbolizes man. The Sphinx again symbolizes man, with the mind and spirit of the human rising out of the animal desires and emotions. It is the riddle of the ages, and man is once more the answer. The four fixed signs of which the Sphinx is a symbol are Taurus the Bull, Leo the Lion, Scorpio the Eagle, and Aquarius the Man, or the human head.
So, how can Lucifer be the the prince of darkness, when it has been established that Lucifer is really phosphorus, which a derived from a Greek name meaning “Light-Bringer?”
The facts are that is he is not the prince of darkness or Satan because Lucifer is really phosphorus that resides in our DNA. Once you understand this reality that is science based, you will then have one of the secret keys to the mysteries of the universe.
The light within each one of us humans is where we find Lucifer or Jesus, AKA the morning star.
sphynxeye
Hence, KNOW THYSELF and KNOW GOD. In ancient Egypt is was said; “The body is the house of God,” and one of the many proverbs is “Man, know thyself … and thou shalt know the gods,” and what Manly P. Hall called Aquarius the Man, or the human head represented by the Egyptian Sphinx.
When we KNOW THYSELF, we carry the water of Aquarius the Man and thus become Lion Kings of our own domain which the Egyptians had represented with the figure of a sphinx (Greek: Σφίγξ /sphinx, Bœotian: Φίξ /Phix) which is a mythical creature with, as a minimum, the body of a lion and the head of a human.
Unfortunately, with the advent of certain religions such as Christianity and Islam along with other government controls on the people, these ancient gnostic teachings were corrupted, modified or simply hidden from the multitudes of people because they are or were at one time very dangerous to the church and or government.
These authoritarian institutions operate primarily on the basis of having a master that is outside of you dictating your life, souls and spirit at every step, and they would rather “tell you who you are, where you come from and where you will be going,” rather than us humans being unique individuals who “know thyself … and thou shalt know the gods.”
The facts are that a person who KNOWS THYSELF and KNOWS GOD, is very hard to control by the powers that be because they loose their grip on this persons soul once they figure out “the game” which from day one has been an attempt to trick or steal us all out of our true beings, souls and spirits. Hence, the reason why there are all these lies and propaganda surrounding the name Lucifer.
Lucifer represents the angel of light with individual intellect who ‘rebels’ against the outside ‘dark authority’. This is why he is called the ‘fallen angel.’ The dark and outside authority can be attributed to our flesh and fleshly desires coupled with the outside material world that attempts to take us away from the true light within each one of us.
This darkness tries to fool us into looking without when we should have always been looking within the whole time. Hence, this is the whole illusion of the matrix in which Satan, the true prince of darkness that represents the flesh and free will is looking to control you, so you do not look within yourself for the “prince of light” or “the morning star.”
The reference to the Venus is the AS ABOVE of which Lucifer, AKA Phosphorus is the AS BELOW.
The facts are that we are made of stardust” or star debris and are therefore “one with the universe.” This is where we get the AS ABOVE, in the SO BELOW and the AS WITHIN , of the AS WITHOUT. It is that star dust hidden inside you in the form of Phosphorus, which I have already stated is essential for life. The phosphate is a component of DNA, RNA, ATP, and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. This is the ‘spark’ in our DNA that makes us human. Lucifer is in all of us in the form of Phosphorus.
This may be where our souls access our divine consciousness and thus we become divine like Saint John or a Christ like Jesus. Or is this what the church calls evil in Lucifer because a conscious soul and spirit is a dangerous one and maybe that is why Jesus was crucified?
What is the fall of Lucifer?
fall of lucifer
It is an allegory of the light that resides in us and the fall is simply the fall away from this light. With the advent of most religions, this caused the fall of mankind. A fall away from the light within us that was then exchanged or forced by a false light that that was to be found outside of ourselves within a book or church.
Hence, the fall of Lucifer is the fall that each one of us takes when we look outside for answers as opposed to looking within for the true light, that which will guide us to the promise land or own own personal heavens.
As I stated above, Lucifer and the Morning Star are references to Phosphorus which is essential for life. Without phosphorus, consciousness, energy and the creation of this article would simply not be happening. When we turn away from this light within, we too fall away from grace. Hence, we fall for lies and truth in which we then become one of Satan’s tools that is represented by the planet Saturn. However, that will be a new article in itself.
Whether you choose to believe what I AM stating here and by confirming what I have written and quoted above, is entirely up to you because this is your path where you have to decide truth from fiction or light from dark on your own. However, if you have not done your own research and you have already reached an ignorant conclusion based on heresay or lies, then you are what Mr. Pike calls intolerable blinds feeble sensual, or selfish souls, in which you are one of the billions of Satan’s weak human tools. A soul who chooses darkness rather than light and an unawakened human who worships lies over truth, where ignorance rules your actions over that of true wisdom.
Many people mistakenly think that Lucifer is Satan and vice versa, but the facts are that is simply not true. This misinformation, conspiracies and lies have been propagated to the people through many books and movies to the point today in this year 2013, that most people equate Lucifer with Satan or evil. Hopefully you have an open mind and will get past this propaganda like I did myself, in order for you to discover the truth. I AM sure this is the case or else most likely you wouldn’t be reading this website.Gnostics consider that the biblical myth of creation can be explained as follows: the creator satan of the world trapped Adam and Eve in his miserable world, and Lucifer, in the form of a serpent, offered them the forbidden fruit of saving Gnosis, and showed them that the creator was deceiving them. In other words, the creator said to man "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." On the other hand, the Serpent said "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The bible continued: "And the eyes of both of them were opened". It doesn't say "they both died", it says "the eyes of both of them were opened", like the Serpent had said. Later, the creator says "And now man has become as one of us, to know good and evil". The creator lied. He said that man would die if he ate the fruit, but man did not die. The Serpent was telling the truth. The creator himself ended up agreeing that the Serpent was right. More precisely, Gnostics called the demiurge a liar as well as a plagiarizer. For them, the entire creation is a failed attempt by the demiurge to imitate the unknowable world. In this way, they think that the bible itself is a complete plagiarism, based principally on pre-biblical Babylonian and Egyptian texts.
If you are asking the question, “Who is Lucifer?,” the answer that you will find often depends on who you ask or where you perform your search. But the facts are that if you were to research the true meaning of Lucifer that is somewhat hidden in secret societies such as Freemasonry, you would find that some of the world’s most prolific 33rd Degree Freemasons have already established the meaning of Lucifer, that they have written about in their books on the occult. Some Christian writers have applied the name "Lucifer" as used in the Book of Isaiah, and the motif of a heavenly being cast down to the earth, to Satan. Sigve K Tonstad argues that the New Testament War in Heaven theme of Revelation 12:7–9, in which the dragon "who is called the devil and Satan … was thrown down to the earth", was derived from the passage about the Babylonian king in Isaiah 14.[61] Origen (184/185 – 253/254) interpreted such Old Testament passages as being about manifestations of the Devil; but writing in Greek, not Latin, he did not identify the devil with the name "Lucifer". Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225), who wrote in Latin, also understood Isaiah 14:14 ("I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High") as spoken by the Devil,[666] but "Lucifer" is not among the numerous names and phrases he used to describe the devil.Even at the time of the Latin writer Augustine of Hippo (354–430), "Lucifer" had not yet become a common name for the Devil.
Some time later, the metaphor of the morning star that Isaiah 14:12 applied to a king of Babylon gave rise to the general use of the Latin word for "morning star", capitalized, as the original name of the devil before his fall from grace, linking Isaiah 14:12 with Luke 10:18 ("I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven") and interpreting the passage in Isaiah as an allegory of Satan's fall from heaven.
As a result, "Lucifer has become a byword for Satan or the Devil in the church and in popular literature", as in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Joost van den Vondel's Lucifer, and John Milton's Paradise Lost. However, unlike the English word, the Latin word was not used exclusively in this way and was applied to others also, including Jesus.
Adherents of the King James Only movement and others who hold that Isaiah 14:12 does indeed refer to the devil have decried the modern translations. Jealousy of humans, created in the divine image and given authority over the world is the motive that a modern writer, who denies that there is any such person as Lucifer, says that Tertullian attributed to the devil, and, while he cited Tertullian and Augustine as giving envy as the motive for the fall, an 18th-century French Capuchin preacher himself described the rebel angel as jealous of Adam's exaltation, which he saw as a diminution of his own status.
However, the understanding of the morning star in Isaiah 14:12 as a metaphor referring to a king of Babylon continued also to exist among Christians. Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393 – c. 457) wrote that Isaiah calls the king "morning star", not as being the star, but as having had the illusion of being it. The same understanding is shown in Christian translations of the passage, which in English generally use "morning star" rather than treating the word as a proper name, "Lucifer". So too in other languages, such as French,[79] German,[80] Portuguese,[81] and Spanish.[82] Even the Vulgate text in Latin is printed with lower-case lucifer (morning star), not upper-case Lucifer (proper name).
Calvin said: "The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance: for the context plainly shows these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians." Luther also considered it a gross error to refer this verse to the devil.
When Carl Sagan had famously said that “we’re made of star stuff,” he wasn’t joking because the facts are that the cosmos are hidden within all of us humans. We are the SO BELOW here on earth in which the cosmos and heavens are the AS ABOVE.
Albert Pike, 33rd Degree Freemason and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite said; “Lucifer the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendours intolerable blinds feeble sensual, or selfish souls? Doubt it not! ”
And one of Freemasonry’s greatest philosophers that has ever lived, 33rd Degree Freemason and master Rosicrucian Manly P. Hall said this about Lucifer in his book, All Seeing Eye; “Lucifer represents the individual intellect and will which rebels against the domination of Nature and attempts to maintain itself contrary to natural impulse. Lucifer, in the form of Venus, is the morning star spoken of in Revelation, which is to be given to those who overcome the world.”
Gnostic myths relate that Lucifer is the Messenger of the Unknowable God. We had said that this God, the greatest one, unreachable and unknowable, is unable to penetrate this limited universe of impure and satanic matter. But according to these myths, he can send someone, Lucifer. Only with a supreme sacrifice can an incredibly Spiritual and pure being of antimatter fire break through into the infernal world of this universe. According to Gnostic legends and myths, the great Unknowable God sent Lucifer, angel of indescribable fire and light, to show man the light and to help him wake up and see his true origin, the origin of his Spirit, which has been perversely imprisoned in this impure matter called body-soul. He is an uncreated being, who came to the created world to bring Light: Liberating Gnosis. The saving knowledge which can wake man up and help him free his imprisoned Spirit. The knowledge which allows him to know who he truly is, why he is here in this world and what he has to do to liberate himself and fulfil his Spirit, which belongs to another uncreated and unknowable plane.
We have said that Lucifer came to the world to wake man up, to help him remember his divine origin, the divine origin of his Spirit, and to help him free himself from the body-soul in which he is trapped, and from created time and matter.
Gnostics believe that this Serpent Lucifer is the liberator of man and the world. It is wisdom, the liberating Gnosis that wakes man up and saves him. Of course, this Messenger of the Unknowable God, Lucifer, is an opponent and an enemy of the creator of the world.
Gnosis states that the creator wants to keep man captive in this limited, inferior and impure sphere. He also forbade man contact with the higher world, represented in the biblical myth by the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But Lucifer, the Angel of Light, made a great sacrifice and descended into this satanic hell to give the forbidden fruit of Gnosis to man, and opened his eyes so that he would be able to remember his divine origin and his superiority in relation to the creator. Gnostics consider that before the arrival of the Serpent in paradise, man was in a state of ignorance and was blind to his true situation. They maintain that Adam and Eve were in a state of servitude until the Serpent Lucifer opened their eyes and fed them the fruit of knowledge, which made them remember their divine origin and become aware of the situation in which they found themselves.
Of course, the creator threw Adam and Eve out of this paradise in which he had placed them since he wanted them (and still does) to reflect him and be similar to him after his image and resemblance, and to carry out his precepts so as to be like him and not like the Unknowable God. He wants the Spirit to stay asleep so he can take advantage of Its energy, preventing It from manifesting Itself in man and the world.
Lucifer, liberator of man and the world, has also been called Abaddon, the Exterminator. But.exterminator of what? Exterminator of matter, because he abhors this created world of matter and time. He would behave like a hostile antimatter force, extremely aggressive, because he hates all that has been created as he also hates the body and soul of man, since he belongs to the uncreated plane of the unknowable. He is an exterminator, but an exterminator of matter, of the impure. Such is the Gnostic legend of Lucifer. In the occult, Lucifer is often referred to as the ‘morning star.’ In the Bible, you will find this same exact reference to Jesus as well who says in Revelation 22:16 – “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
You see, just as Lucifer is known as the morning star, Jesus also calls himself ‘the bright morning star’ and as I stated above, Manly P. Hall had said, “Lucifer, in the form of Venus, is the morning star spoken of in Revelation, which is to be given to those who overcome the world.” Hence, rest assured that Jesus and Lucifer are one and the same which will become clearly evident to those with an eye to see the true light amongst the darkness in which we live.
The reason that both Lucifer and Jesus can be considered one and the same is because of an often little understood chemical compound that is hidden within each of our own DNA called ‘Phosphorus.’ Phosphorus is essential for life and the phosphate is a component of DNA, RNA, ATP, and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes.Simply put, without phosphorus, we humans would simply not be human because consciousness and our spiritual energy would not exist. It is through our DNA which contains phosphorus, that we become conscious to the world and who we are in order to live in the light. Hence, Lucifer is really just an allegory to describe ‘Phosphorus’ which resides in our DNA
Now we can go on to describe what uncreated entities exist in this created world.
Firstly, the Unknowable God, who is not in this world but who can infiltrate it with a tiny particle of Himself, a Messenger. This Messenger is also uncreated, not having been created by the creator.
Secondly, the imprisoned Spirits of men, which also belong to the unknowable World of the uncreated and the eternal. According to Gnosis all living beings have an uncreated Spiritual element enchained in their souls: the Spirit. The Spirit locked within man is totally superior to that of animals, plants and other living beings. The difference between man and the other living beings is very great, as is the difference between the Spirits imprisoned inside of them. The Spirits of human beings are in an elevated Spiritual category. The word “occult” simply means hidden, which is the whole point of the misinformation that you will find on the true meaning of Lucifer. In addition, if you know where to look, the true definition of Lucifer along with corresponding information is now common knowledge on Wikipedia. However, due to countless publications of misinformation via articles, books and videos all over Youtube; the truth is still buried beneath a pile of ignorance.
Therefor, for us smart researchers, we have come to understand this simple fact: That in order to find the light, we have to uncover the truth which is buried at the bottom of these lies and hundreds of years of church, government and ignorant human propaganda. The real story of Lucifer is no different. We have to perform some fact checking of our own like you are doing right now, so that we all can get to the bottom of this disinformation in order to get to the light of the truth.
The picture of Lucifer inside the Pyramid will do just that for you, by helping clear the lies in order for you to see the light of Lucifer for what he truly represents.
Thirdly, another uncreated entity placed on this created plane is the saving and divine knowledge of Gnosis. Knowledge that has come from outside, which has not been produced inside of this world.
In Occultism
Anthroposophy
Rudolf Steiner's writings, which formed the basis for Anthroposophy, characterised Lucifer as a spiritual opposite to Ahriman, with Christ between the two forces, mediating a balanced path for humanity. Lucifer represents an intellectual, imaginative, delusional, otherworldly force which might be associated with visions, subjectivity, psychosis and fantasy. He associated Lucifer with the religious/philosophical cultures of Egypt, Rome and Greece. Steiner believed that Lucifer, as a supersensible Being, had incarnated in China about 3000 years before the birth of Christ.
Luciferianism
Luciferianism is a belief system that venerates the essential characteristics that are affixed to Lucifer. The tradition, influenced by Gnosticism, usually reveres Lucifer not as the devil, but as a liberator, a guardian or guiding spirit or even the true god as opposed to Jehovah.
In Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible, Lucifer is one of the four crown princes of hell, particularly that of the East, the 'lord of the air', and is called the bringer of light, the morning star, intellectualism, and enlightenment. The title 'lord of the air' is based upon Ephesians 2:2, which uses the phrase 'prince of the power of the air' to refer to the pagan god Zeus, but that phrase later became conflated with Satan.
Author Michael W. Ford has written on Lucifer as a "mask" of the adversary, a motivator and illuminating force of the mind and subconscious.
In Freemasonry
Léo Taxil (1854–1907) claimed that Freemasonry is associated with worshipping Lucifer. In what is known as the Taxil hoax, he alleged that leading Freemason Albert Pike had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the world" (an invention of Taxil), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god Adonai. Supporters of Freemasonry contend that, when Albert Pike and other Masonic scholars spoke about the "Luciferian path," or the "energies of Lucifer," they were referring to the Morning Star, the light bearer,[104] the search for light; the very antithesis of dark, satanic evil. Taxil promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by himself, as he later confessed publicly) that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the Palladium, which controlled the organization and had a satanic agenda. As described by Freemasonry Disclosed in 1897:
With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.
Taxil's work and Pike's address continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.
In Devil-Worship in France, Arthur Edward Waite compared Taxil's work to today's tabloid journalism, replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.
In Neopagan Witchcraft
In a collection of folklore and magical practices supposedly collected in Italy by Charles Godfrey Leland and published in his Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, the figure of Lucifer is featured prominently as both the brother and consort of the goddess Diana, and father of Aradia, at the center of an alleged Italian witch-cult. In Leland's mythology, Diana pursued her brother Lucifer across the sky as a cat pursues a mouse. According to Leland, after dividing herself into light and darkness:
"...Diana saw that the light was so beautiful, the light which was her other half, her brother Lucifer, she yearned for it with exceeding great desire. Wishing to receive the light again into her darkness, to swallow it up in rapture, in delight, she trembled with desire. This desire was the Dawn. But Lucifer, the light, fled from her, and would not yield to her wishes; he was the light which files into the most distant parts of heaven, the mouse which flies before the cat."
Here, the motions of Diana and Lucifer once again mirror the celestial motions of the moon and Venus, respectively. Though Leland's Lucifer is based on the classical personification of the planet Venus, he also incorporates elements from Christian tradition, as in the following passage:
"Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer, the god of the Sun and of the Moon, the god of Light (Splendor), who was so proud of his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise."
In the several modern Wiccan traditions based in part on Leland's work, the figure of Lucifer is usually either omitted or replaced as Diana's consort with either the Etruscan god Tagni, or Dianus (Janus, following the work of folklorist James Frazer in The Golden Bough).
the Nix Farm - Ft Collins, CO - i drive by this place daily and usually take a few shots from the other side, but after seeing one of my contacts shots (comp) of this farm i had to get my own = woody guthrie once said "plagiarism is basic to all culture" said more or less " some people complain that he/she stole from me - me - i steal from everyone.....stop by his page and check out his work - he has some stellar stuff
I have a tendency to write about and then post photographs of lesser known Scottish castles at the expense of the better known ones that I have also visited. The reason for this is laziness! There is usually less to write about a humble Border keep than the extensive fortress of some former potentate! While I sometimes quote a single source more or less verbatim, I usually try to read up and then combine the facts from my various sources - which sometimes takes a fair bit of work. As the saying goes, to copy from one source is plagiarism, to copy from several is research! Anyway, one of Scotland's more important castles is appearing today - Balgonie.
© All Rights Reserved - No Usage Allowed in Any Form Without My Written Consent.
"No more plagiarism, we want more security on Flickr!"
For Santiago, who asked me what it was like to be underneath a volcanic ash cloud.
It's hard to find words...
...the whole sky was veiled in fine ash.
As it dipped below the huge plume, the sun's rays lit up the tiny glassy particles right across the sky. The Scottish heavens were painted in shades of pale pink and orange, night after night - and at daybreak, too.
It was like being under a soft, rose-tinted blanket covering us from horizon to horizon :-))
The White House and the Quarry Hill, under the cloud of volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted in southern Iceland in 2010 and sent its plume (and magical sunsets) to Scotland.
See more images and read the local folk tale of Lucklaw Hill:
- the first rays of dawn sunlight striking the hillside at 'First Light'.
- the range of hills, from more a distant perspective, in 'Homeward Bound'.
- seen in startling sunlight, read the mystical tale of Lord Luck and his burial mound in
'The White House and the Quarry Hill'.
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My inspiration: Words of Peace.
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Flickr - STOP PLAGIARISM!
www.flickr.com/photos/stuntbear/galleries/721576235562478...
Camera model: Canon 40D
Lens: EF70-200L f/2.8 IS USM
Filter : Canon 77mm Close-up Lens 500D
Aperture: f /5,6
Shutter speed: 1/40
ISO: 1250
Copyright © Goran Kljutić
© Chris Elliott. All Rights Reserved - No Usage Allowed in Any Form Without My Written Consent.
"No more plagiarism, we want more security on Flickr!"
Miniature landscape garden growing on a stepping-stone
~ the fairy gardeners must have been out on lunch break, so I didn't manage to capture any this time ;))
More experiments with new camera and a distinct shortage of living and growing things in our cold, soggy Scottish garden - so it's moss again. Yes, I guess I'm hooked!
This is hand-held, very shakily. I must get a leprechaun-sized-tripod (and figure out the 'f-stop' thingi), right?
Many thanks for your encouragement, flickr friends - it is much appreciated :))
Editing: photoshop.
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My inspiration: Words of Peace.
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It has been said that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. See Mr. Colville's painting "To Prince Edward Island" also referenced in the film "Moonrise Kingdom".
Alexey Victorovich Shchusev (1873 – 1949) was a Russian and Soviet architect who was successful during three consecutive epochs of Russian architecture – Art Nouveau (broadly construed), Constructivism, and Stalinist architecture, being one of the few Russian architects to be celebrated under both the Romanovs and the communists, becoming the most decorated architect in terms of Stalin prizes awarded.
In the 1900s, Shchusev established himself as a church architect, and developed his proto-modernist style, which blended Art Nouveau with Russian Revival architecture. Immediately before and during World War I he designed and built railway stations for the von Meck family, notably the Kazansky Rail Terminal in Moscow. After the October Revolution, Shchusev pragmatically supported the Bolsheviks, and was rewarded with the contract for the Lenin Mausoleum. He consecutively designed and built three mausoleums, two temporary and one permanent, and supervised the latter's further expansion in the 1940s. In the 1920s and early 1930s he successfully embraced Constructivist architecture, but quickly reverted to historicism when the government deemed modernism inappropriate for the Communist state. He was one of the members of the art association ‘The Four Arts’, which existed in Moscow and Leningrad in 1924-1931.
His career proceeded smoothly until September 1937, when, after a brief public smear campaign, Shchusev lost all his executive positions and design contracts, and was effectively banished from architectural practice. Modern Russian historians of art agree that the charges of professional dishonesty, plagiarism, and exploitation raised against Shchusev were, for the most part, justified. In the following years he gradually returned to practice, and restored his public image as the patriarch of Stalinist architecture. The causes of his downfall and the forces behind his subsequent recovery remain unknown.
This time last year I posted my first photograph on Flickr. So I guess that makes me 1 in Flickr years. I thought I'd mark the occasion!
Someone asked my recently what I get out of being on Flickr. I suppose this is as good a time as any to reflect on that.
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Firstly, to say that the work of my contacts has inspired me is to state it as literally as I can. The ideas I have soaked up, the creativity I have feasted my eyes on, and the technical prowess with camera gear that I have marvelled at have all pushed me to develop, explore and experiment more. Quite literally at times, you have drawn a 'waoh' from my mouth as I have hurried to hit the fave button. I have chuckled at your humour, I have smiled at the beauty of your shots, and I have been moved by the poignancy of your work.
Some of you have helped me see the wee country I live in in a new and more interesting light. Some of you have taken me to places I'll never visit myself and introduced me to the beauty of your small part of this amazing world. Oh, and, if you have ever seen me attempt a shot similar to one of yours, I hope you'll take that as a deeply respectful homage rather than blatant plagiarism!
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I am also deeply grateful for the comments you have made on my shots. At times, you have offered constructive feedback; at other times you simply have told me you've enjoyed my work. For me, this is a delightful part of the creative process.
I have been on Flickr for one year now; but I have been a musician for most of my life. As a musician, I love to make music by myself at home; but there is a particular joy in sharing my music with others, seeing them enjoy and be moved by it. Music was made for sharing, to bring people together in a common interest and activity. And its joy is made complete in the act of sharing.
I see photography in a similar way. To me, it seems like the joy I get from finding and taking a shot, then tweaking and refining it in Photoshop, finds a kind of consummation when others seem to find some kind of joy in it too. CS Lewis put it like this:
"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in the ditch."
Or, as that great philosopher, Stevie Wonder, put it (on the birth of his child) 'Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful?' Joy is indeed made for sharing. So thank you all for all the comments. I have enjoyed your enjoyment!
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I have enjoyed immensely my first year on Flickr. I have found a new hobby and passion in photography. I have met and interacted with a wonderful variety of lovely people. And I have loved sharing our work together. Here's to many more Flickr years of happy sharing!