China (Mission in ONE)

The Chinese Empire consists of China Proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Ili, and Thibet, and covers a wide territory in Eastern Asia. The natives call their country the "Flowery Kingdom," or the Middle Kingdom," while the name Cathay came from the Persians. The name China comes from India. China proper is divided into nineteen provinces, with an area of 2,000,000 square miles, while the whole empire is more than twice as large. One of these provinces is the large island of Formosa. The population of the empire is very great, estimated at at least 400,000,000. Of twenty-two ports open to foreign trade, only five have less than 30,000. China slopes from the mountainous regions of Thibet and Nepal towards the east and south shores of the Pacific. The Nang Ling or Southern range , a spur of the Himalayas, is the most extensive mountain range, separating southeastern China from the rest of the country.. North of this long range as far as the Great Wall, lies the Great Plain covering 210,000 square miles, on which live 177,000,000 people. The soil of most of it, called loess beds, is a brownish earth, crumbling easily between the fingers. It covers the subsoil to a great depth, and is apt to split into clefts. These clefts afford homes to multitudes of the people, who live in caves dug at the bottom of the cliffs.

Sometimes whole villages are so formed, in terraces of earth which rise one above the other. These loess beds are very rich and have given to the province of Shan-hsi the name of the "Granary of the Nation." The two largest rivers are the Ho, or Yellow river, and the Yang-tze-Chiang, each over 3,000 miles long. Ho has changed its course many times, and its many floods have given it the name of "China's sorrow." It last burst its banks in 1887, destroying millions of lives. The Grand Canal built by King Kublai joins the northern and southern parts of the empire and is over 600 miles long. The Great Wall is 1,500 miles long.

China is a farming country. Each year the emperor begins the season by himself turning over a few furrows in the "sacred field," while the empress in the same way starts the work among the silkworms, the care of which is left to women. Wheat, corn, and other grains, peaches, pineapples and other fruits, sugar in Formosa, rice and opium are grown, but tea ans silk are the great export crops. Pork is the most eaten, though ducks and geese, fish, caught by tame cormorants, and dogs are also used as food. The famous bird's-nest soup is made by slicing the nest into soup, thus adding an invigorating quality. The great drink is tea, which is drunk weak and clear, and is offered to guests at all hours of the day. It is this tea-drinking habit which has made the Chinese a temperate people, a drunken man being a rare sight. The Chinese clothing is made from their stores of silk, cotton and linen. China is the home of silk; the mulberry grows everywhere grows everywhere, and the silk worm has been cared for since the 23rd century B.C. The manufacture of silk are as good as any made in Europe, while the embroidery is ahead of that of the west. Cotton is also now raised everywhere. For building the Chinese use timber, brick, and stone, but cheap houses are made of a kind of concrete called "sifted earth."

The best architecture of the country is seen in the marble bridges and altars of Peking. In the country, houses are rarely over one story high. In the cities the highest buildings are the pawnbroker's shops, and the finest finished are the guildhalls of the trades. The pavilions and pagodas are picturesque. The streets of the cities are usually not wider than lanes; they are paved with slabs, but badly drained. Matting on the floor, tables, and straight-backed chairs, sometimes a bamboo couch and stools, make up the furniture of the houses. China's coal fields are large; tin, copper, lead, silver and gold are found, but very little has been done at mining. The dress of both sexes is much the same. The most striking appearance of the men is the queue from the hair of the crown, all the rest of the head being shaved; while among the women, the most notable thing is their small feet. This is a late fashion, only being prevalent since the sixth century A.D., and is not customary among the very poor or servants. It is brought about by bandaging the feet in early years so as to prevent further growth.

The Chinese girl at ten years is shut up in th women's apartment, and is taught in the care of cocoons, silk weaving and all woman's work(Like Ants an Bees). At fifteen she wears the hairpin to show that she is now a woman. Marriage is controlled by the parents, and a class of match-makers or go-betweens has arisen, who hunt up desirable matches for parents(genetic engineering). Infanticide or the killing of girl babies, is practiced, but only among the lowest classes, and the reason is poverty. The complexion of the Chinese is yellowish, the hair coarse black, the eyes seemingly oblique, cheek bones high and face roundish. They are stout and muscular, temperate, industrious, cheerful and easily contented. The dead are buried in graves built round in the form of a horseshoe. There is no weekly day of worship and rest like our Sunday. But festivals are many. New Year's Day is one holiday for all. The noise of firecracker is everywhere; the people dress in their best; the temples are visited, and the gambling tables are surrounded by crowds. Other festivals are those of Lanterns, Tombs, Dragon Boats and All Souls.

The Chinese are a very old race, their record going back to 2637 B.C., and has lasted over 2,100 years. The present dynasty, the Manchu-Tartar, began to reign in 1643. The Chinese were not the first people in China. They made their way from the north and west, pushing before them the older inhabitants. However far back you go, you always find two persons of prominence in China - the ruler and the sage. The sage, or Man of Intelligence, advised and helped the ruler, and taught the people lessons of truth and duty. From this grew up the custom in full force since the 7th century A.D., that all officers of the government must be educated. This is now done by competitive examinations. The three religions of China are, Confucianism, representing the brains and the morality of the nation; Taoism, its superstitions, and Buddhism, its worship and idolatry, though it acknowledges no God.



The Chinese practiced Buddhism in its simple form, and worshiped an invisible God, until a few centuries B.C., after which visible objects were adorned. 600 B.C. a system was introduced similar to that of Epicurus, and its followers were called "Immortals"; while the chinese were materialists, they were nevertheless worshipers of idols. In a very short period of time the Chinese became as noted for the multiplicity of the objects of adoration as any other nation. Confucius derived the elements of his system from traditional Chinese wisdom and social conventions. For Confucius, the source of political harmony on earth is tian (t'ien), the sky or heaven, an impersonal force that stands over the affairs of human kind as the celestial vault stands over the earth. A ruler who governs justly and wisely in accordance with the principles of tian gains thereby "mandate of heaven," which will insure stability in the realm. Ideally, the ruler who gains the mandate of heaven should rule over the entire earth. Practically, such a mandated ruler should be the emperor of all China, known in Chinese as Zhong Guo (Chung Kuo) or the " Central Kingdom," which Confucius regarded as being the center of the world, surrounded by various insignificant, barbarian lands and peoples. The emperor's function was to serve as a conduit to earth of heavenly harmony. His duty was insure the prosperity of his subjects , and to pass the mandate of heaven onto one of his offspring, thus establishing a just and enduring dynasty.

Confucius(Confuse~Us) endeavored to introduce a reformation of the abuses; licentiousness however, long continued, would not submit to his system of mortifications and an austere virtue. His admonitions were not regarded; he was despised by the Mandarins for instituting a reformation in their Mysteries, which were then, as practiced, the main source of all their wealth and of their power; and an attempt was made to put him out of the way, and he was forced to flee from the society to avoid their machinations to destroy him. He then, in his retirement, organized a school of philosophy; and all who were in any manner inspired with love and virtue and science, were induced to follow him. The effects of his system were preserved for posterity. He made a prediction(he knew the plan) on his death bed that there would come in the West a GREAT PROPHET, who should deliver mankind from the bondage of error and superstition, and set an universal religion to be ultimately embraced by all the nations of the earth. His followers supposed that this was no other then Buddha or Fo himself, and he was accordingly, with solemn pomp, installed into their temples as the chief deity of the Chinese empire: -

"Other idolatrous customs were introduced , and ideal objects of worship, attended with indecent and unnatural rites, accumulated so rapidly that China soon became celebrated for the practice of of every impurity and abomination. The initiations were performed in a cavern; after which; processions were made around the Tan or altar, and sacrifices made to the celestial gods. The chief end of initiation was a fictitious immortality or absorption into the Deity; and, to secure this admirable state of supreme and never changing felicity, amulets were as usual delivered to the initiates accompanied by the magic words, O-MI-TO FO, which denoted the omnipotence of the divinity, and was considered as a most complete purification and remission of every sin. Sir William Jones says, 'Omito was derived from the Sanskrit Armida, immeasurable, and Fo was a name for Buddha.'

"Much merit was attached to the possession of a consecrated symbol representing the great triad of the Gentile world. This was an equilateral triangle, said to afford protection in all cases of personal danger and adversity. The mystical symbol Y was also much esteemed from its allusion to the same Triune God, the three distinct lines which it is composed forming one, and the one is three. This was in effect the ineffable name of the deity, the Tetractys of Pythagoras, and the Tetragrammaton of the Jews.

"A ring, supported by two serpents, was emblematic of the world protected by the wisdom and power (Jachin and Boaz)of the Creator, and referred to the diluvian patriarch and his symbolic consort, the ark; and the ark itself was represented by a boat, a mouth, and a number 8. Tao, or reason, has produced one; one hath produced two; two hath produced three; and three hath produced all things." There was superstition for odd numbers as containing divine properties. Thus, while the sum the even numbers, 2+4+6+8+10=30, the number of earth, the sum of the odd numbers, 1+3+5+7+9=25, was called the number of heaven.

This we presume gave rise to the name of "mystic" to the odd numbers. The rainbow was the universal symbol in all the systems of which we have any knowledge, and demonstrates that these Mysteries must have referred to the deluge. The aspirant represented Noah; the ark, which was called his mother, as well as his wife, was surrounded by a rainbow at the time of his deliverance or new birth; hence he was figuratively said to be the offspring of the rainbow.

The empire is governed from the capital, Peking, by the emperor through the grand cabinet, which meets daily for business between four and six A.M. Seven boards - civil office, revenue, ceremonies, war, punishment, works, and foreign affairs - prepare the matters which are to be dealt with by the grand cabinet. The provinces are governed usually by a governor general and a governor. The rank of the different provincial officers is shown by a knob or button on the top of their caps. The revenue of the empire is under $100,000,000. The imperial army is about 350,000 strong, with headquarters at Peking and scattered in garrison through the provinces as far as and in Turkestan. There are also some 700,000 militia troops, called the national army. China has never cared to have anything to do with the western nations, but has been forced to do so.

In 1516 the Portuguese, followed by the Spaniard, the Dutch and the English, appeared at Canton. In 1767 sprang up the opium traffic. Multitudes of Chinese were eager to buy and smoke it, and all the efforts of the government to keep it out were useless. This opium trade brought on the war with England in 1840, and the war with England and France -n 1855-57. By these wars China was forced to cede the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain , to open many of its ports to trade, and to let in missionaries and opium. It is at least gratifying that the good work done by the missionaries has thus far outweighed the harm done by opium(for the price of brain washing with religion).

On Feb. 24, 1844, Caleb Cushing arrived in China and negotiated the first treaty between it and the United States . The present emperor came to the throne as a child of four years old. He became king in hi own name in 1887. Of late years the Chinese have shown a tendency to seek a livelihood abroad, especially in California, British, Columbia, the Straits Settlements , the Eastern Archipelago and in Australia. More than half the population of Singapore is Chinese, and there are over 200,000 in Java. Chinese workmen or coolies began to come to the United States about the time of the discovery of gold. In 1882, 33,614 came. The low wages at which the cooly was willing to work, threatened to destroy the high wages of American laborers, and this led to action by Congress excluding them from the country for twenty-one years from 1888; though merchants and students may travel or live in the country. British Columbia and some of the Australian colonies have also passed like laws.

Dope Man (dp~69 equilibrium oe~beginning)

Poppy, a plant extensively cultivated in France, Belgium and Germany for the oil it produces. The oil expressed from the poppy sees is perfectly healthy, and is much used in France as article of food. The seed yields about forty percent of oil, and the oil cake is useful for manure and for feeding cattle. It is believed that fully one-half of the oil used for cooking in France is of this kind. Among the ancients the poppy was sacred to the goddess Ceres. Large quantities of opium are also made from the poppy.

Ceres(Ceremony) is the Roman goddess who protects agriculture and the fruits of the earth. Her first temple in Rome was built in 496 B.C., to ward off a famine with which the city was threatened. A great festival with games, called Cerealia, was set up in her honor. Among the more poetic Greeks she was worshiped under the name of Demeter, as the symbol of the prolific earth. To her is attributed the institution of the Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, the most popular of all the ancient initiations.

Opium is the dried juice of the unripe seed vessels of a kind of poppy. The poppy is cultivated in India, Persia and China, in Turkey and in Egypt. It requires a very rich soil, and irrigation is often used as a help in its cultivation. The main opium district in India is a large tract on the Ganges, about 600 miles long and 200 broad. In India the seed is own in November, the plant blossoms in January or later, and in three or four weeks after, when the poppy heads, or capsules, are about as large as a hen's egg, the field is ready for work.

The collector takes a small instrument made of four little knives tied together, looking like the teeth of a comb, and with this cuts or scratches the poppy heads. This is done in the afternoon, and the next morning a milky sap can be collected from the heads by scraping with a kind of scoop into an earthen vessel. The vessel is kept turned on its side so that any watery fluid may drain out, and as the juice dries it is turned often so that it will dry equally. It takes three of four weeks before it is thick enough to be used in the factories and kneaded, and made into balls or cakes, which are dried and packed in chests for the market. Opium has a bitter taste and a peculiar heavy odor.

It is poisonous but makes a most valuable medicine, in which form it is used to allay pain and produce sleep. The habitual use of the drug is known as opium eating or the opium habit, and usually begun to relive pain or sleeplessness, very soon becomes a habit very difficult to overcome. The amount usually taken is about three grains day, though DeQuincy says that he used sometimes 8,000 drops of laudanum (a form of opium) daily. It acts as a stimulant, followed by feelings of depression and nervousness, requiring a fresh dose to remove them. Another way in which it is used is in smoking, a practice most common in China and India. The opium prepared for smoking is called "chandu," and is watery extract about twice as strong as the drug.

A piece of opium as large as a pea is placed in a small cup at the end of a pipe and lighted, and the smoke inhaled. The opium is distilled by the process, and there is very little morphine in the smoke. There are said to be a million opium smokers in the United States. Its excessive use wrecks the constitution and seems to destroy also the moral faculties. See Opium and the Opium Appetite, by Calkin; Opium Smoking in America and China.

In the mysteries of the ancients, the poppy was the symbol of regeneration. The somniferous qualities of the plant expressed the idea of quiescence; but the seeds of a new existence which it contained were though to show that nature, though her powers were suspended, yet possessed the capability of being called into a renewal existence (i.e. genetically engineering slaves from previous DNA). Thus the poppy planted near a grave symbolized the idea of resurrection. Hence, it conveyed the same symbolism as the evergreen or sprig of acacia does in the Masonic mysteries.

POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK RELIGION vs SPIRITUALITY

Many Birdmen-fabricated "peeple" of all races are quick to spot the dumbing down process that is religion, once it is explained to them as adults. They are not as fast, however, to see the links between spiritualism and man-made intoxication.

Let's be straight about it at least once.

Contrary to what the "Witch of Endore" is reported to have told King Saul, the first king of the Hebrews, one cannot communicate with the dead by word or thought, no matter the extensive qualifications of the so-called medium.

Yet, one can still trace what happens to the dead by following the trail of the chemistry left behind by the living after they die.

Since life is made up mostly of salt crystals suspended in water (see Christ) it is reasonable to surmise that these salt crystals eventually make their way to the oceans, thereby turning what was originally fresh water into salt water.

From there, the ocean, needing to keep a balance between salt and water or it too would die, uses the pressure created by its enormous weight to force the excess salt down to the bottom of the sea, where it becomes hardened as basalt rock.

This region, above the earth's mantle and below the crust, is known as the MOHO discontinuity.

Neanderthal troglodytes first took refuge there, by carving out caves and tunnels within the Moho itself, prior to the last ice age (which lasted approx. from 24,000 BC to 8,000 BC). They chose to remain there and from there secretly control the planet. Hi.storians falsely report their extinction. Low.storians such as I know penultimate reality.

The fact that all dead "peeple" are eventually turned into salt rock, as the Bible alludes to allegorically in the story of Lot's wife, does not however mean that communications are not possible with the dead, since as long as one can access the dead person's DNA before it turns into rock, by using the science of genetic engineering, one can still learn a lot about the dead and their life before they died. Speaking orally to the "once alive now dead" through prayer, seance or mental telepathy is not part of this equation.

Spiritual and/or religious communications with the dead, outside of the already written or otherwise recorded, therefore remains reasonable only within the sphere of the charlatan, the programmed, the insane, the intoxicated and the braindead.

BRAY DON'T PRAY WHEN UNEXPECTED EVENTS HIT YOU HARD - YELLING WILL AT LEAST MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER AND IT WILL ALSO TELL THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, SANE (?), AND KICKING.

If you still feel a need to pray, use the time to BLAME ACTS OF GOD. After all, they, the Neanderthal, are probably responsible for the mess you're in.

The SculPTor

Tantalus

Noted in Greek myth for the punishment he received in the lower world. He was the son of Zeus, and for making known the counsels of his divine father, or for other reasons - the stories differ - he was in the lower world stricken with a fearful thirst, and had to stand up to the chin in a lake, the waters of which escaped him whenever he tried to drink. Clusters of fruit hung over his head, but missed his grasp whenever he reached for them; at the same time he was in terror lest a huge rock, hung over his head, and ever threatening to fall, should crush him. From Tantalus comes our word "tantalize."

"Everlasting Unending Temptation"
He kept reaching for something out of his reach, I know the feeling.

Blue ~(Linked to a Beginning) Blue Bloods

This is emphatically the color of Masonry. It is the appropriate tincture of the Ancient Craft degrees. It is to the Mason a symbol of universal friendship and benevolence, because, as it is the color of the vault of heaven, which embraces and covers the whole globe, we are thus reminded that in the breast of every brother these virtues should be equally as extensive. It is therefore the only color, except white, which should be used in a Master's Lodge. Decorations of any other colr would be highly inappropriate.




Among the religious institutions of the Jews, blue was an important color. The robes of the high priest's, ephod, the ribbon for his breastplate, and for the plate of the mitre, were to be blue. The people were directed to wear a ribbon of this color above the fringe of their garments; and it was the color of one of the veils of the tabernacle, where, Josephus says, it represented the elements of the air. The Hebrew word used on these occasions to designate the color blue is tekelet; and this word seems to have a singular reference to the symbolic character of the color, for it is derived from a root signifying perfection; now it is well known that, among the ancients, initiation into the mysteries and perfection were synonymous terms; and hence the appropriate color of the greatest of all the systems of initiation may well be designated by a word which also signifies perfection.

This color also held a prominent position in the symbolism of the Gentile nations of antiquity. Among the Druids, blue was the symbol of truth, and the candidate in the initiation into the sacred rites of Druidism, was invested with a robe composed of the three colors white, blue, and green.



The Egyptians esteemed blue as a sacred color, and the body of Amun, the principle god of their theogony, was painted light blue, to imitate, as Wilkinson remarks, "his peculiarly exalted and heavenly nature."

The Ancient Babylonians clothed their idols in blue, as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah. The Chinese, in their mystical philosophy, represented blue as the symbol of the deity, because being as they say, compounded of black and red, this color is a fir representation of the obscure and brilliant, the male and female or active and passive principles.



The Hindoos assert that their god Vishnu, was represented of a celestial blue, and thus indicating that wisdom emanating from god was to be symbolized by this color.

Among the mediaeval Christians blue was sometimes considered as an emblem of immortality, as red was of the divine love(lava). Portal says that blue was the symbol of perfection, hope and constancy. "The color of the celebrated dome, azure, "says Weale, in his treatise on Symbolic Colors, "was in divine language the symbol of eternal truth; in consecrated language, of immortality; and in profane language, of fidelity."



Besides the three degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry, of which blue is the appropriate color, this tincture is also to be found in several other degrees, especially of the Scottish Rite, where it bears various symbolic significations; all, however, more or less related to its original character, as representing universal friendship and benevolence.

In the degree of Grand Pontiff, the nineteenth of the Scottish Rite, it is the predominating color, and is there said to be symbolic of the mildness, fidelity, and gentleness which ought to be the characteristics of every true and faithful brother.

In the degree of Grand Master of all symbolic Lodges, the blue and yellow, which are its appropriate colors, are said to refer to the appearance of Jehovah to Moses on Mount Sinai in clouds of azure and gold, and hence in this degree the color is rather historical than a moral symbol.

The blue color of the tunic and apron, which constitutes a part of the investiture of a Prince of the Tabernacle, or twenty-fourth degree in the Scottish Rite, alludes to the whole symbolic charater of the degree, which teachings refer to our removal from this tabernacle of clay to "that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens." The blue in this degree is therefore, a symbol of heaven, the seat of our celestial tabernacle.


Bluebird, or BLUE WARBLE, is an American bird, coming at the opening of spring, and is known in most regions as a summer bird of passage. About the size of an English robin, its upper parts are of a rich sky-blue color; the throat and breast are reddish chestnut, and the belly white. It builds close to the houses of men, and is fond of a box box for its nest. Its note is soft and agreeable. The female, which is duller in color than the male, lays five or six pale blue eggs, and has two or three broods in the seaon. The male is noted for its courage in protecting the nest.


Water is a clear transparent liquid, formed of oxygen and hydrogen. It is almost colorless though in large masses looks blue. It freezes at 32 degrees, and boils at 212 degrees and passes off into steam. Water dissolves almost everything it comes in contact with, so that strictly pure water is never found. Rain water is the purest form, but even that has absorbed air and ammonia. Water is found very widely distributed in nature in the form of ice and snow, in watery vapor in the air, in lakes, in rivers and seas, in the soil and rocks and in the sap and juices of plants and in the blood and flesh of animals. It forms three-fourths of the surface of the earth, and three-fourths of the surface or seven-eighths of the human body. The ocean is nature's great reservoir (or cistern), and from it all other water may be said to be taken. A constant stream of vapor passes into the atmosphere, and is condensed in colder regions, returning to the earth(rego) in the form of rain, dew, frost, and snow, which fertilizes the earth, and are collected into pools, springs, lakes and rivers, and finally their way back to the ocean(rego). These waters all take up various substances, as is sen by the color of different rivers which varies as the soil through which they pass. The water of the ocean is salt, but the saline (salty) matter does not form a vapor and so is left behind when the watery vapor rises from its surface. Besides its use in watering the earth, feeding animal and vegetable life, water has been the great agent in forming the surface of the earth. A river carries with it a large amount of earthly matter of which it has robbed the hills in which it springs, and deposits it in the valley through which it flows, the great bars and deltas at the mouths of rivers being example of the amount of land sometimes formed by the sediment in a river. This double process of breaking down and dissolving the rocks, and depositing and building up the land is constantly going on, and has been going on for ages. Geology gives the results of this constant action of water in past ages as seen in the strata or layers of rocks, which form the earth. In the form of ice and glaciers it has also had a large part to play in forming the continents. Some of the many purpose it serves are its use in supplying a motive power to machinery, either mechanically, as in waterfalls, or by its expansion into steam , its uses in cleansing and cooking for domestic purposes, its use in the laboratory as a solvent or dissolver of most substances, its universal use by men, animals and plants for drinking purposes. See ICE, GLACIERS, WATER WORKS, WATERFALL, OCEAN, SEA, etc.

Sa.turn

An early Italian god who presided over farming, his name coming from the word meaning "to sow." He most resembles Demeter of the Greek dieties, but was later identified or confounded with the Greek Kronos. According to the Greek myth Kronos the son of Uranos (heaven) and Gaea (earth) is the youngest of the Titans. He married Rhea by whom he had several children, all of whom he devoured at their birth except the last, Zeus (Jupiter), whom his mother saved by a stratagem. The motive of Kronos was his hope of bringing to naught a prophecy which declared that his children would one day deprive him of his sovereignty, as he himself had done in the case of his father Uranos; but fate is stronger even than the gods, and when Zeus had grown he began ten years' war against Kronos and the Titans, ending in their being hurled down to Tartarus and there imprisoned. Other myths added to this that after his banishment from heaven Kronos went to Italy, where Janus gave him a share in his sovereignty. In this way Zeus' conquest of Kronos, a Greek myth, became the Roman myth of Jupiter's conquest of Saturn. Saturn thus became a divine king, who ruled with a fatherly mildness the Italian natives and taught them agriculture. Hence the whole land received from him the name of Saturnia, or "land of plenty," and his reign was that "golden age" of which later poets sang. Saturn's temple, in Rome, stood at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.



The planet Saturn was worshiped under the names of Moloch, Malcom, or Milcom by the Ammonites, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians, and under that of Chiun by the Israelites in the deserts. Saturn was worshiped among the Egyptians under the name of Raiphan, or, as it is called in the Septuagint, Remphan. St. Paul, quoting the passage of Amos, says, "ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan." In the classic mythology the scythe was one of the attributes of Saturn, the god of time, because the deity is said to have taught men the use of the implement in agriculture. But Saturn was also the god of time; and in modern iconography Time is allegorized under the figure of an old man, with white hair and beard, two large wings at his back, an hourglass in one hand and a scythe in the other(retrieving a hair sample i.e. dna from the woman). He is represented as attempting to disentangle the ringlets of a weeping virgin who stands before him. It is in its cutting and destructive quality that the scythe is here referred to. Time is thus the great mower who reaps his harvest of men. Masonry has adopted this symbolism, and in the third degree the scythe is described as an emblem of time, which cuts the brittle thread of life and makes havoc among the human race.

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

Benac. A significant word in Symbolic Masonry, obsolete in many of the modern systems, and whose derivation is uncertain.

Mac. Masonic writers have generally given to this word the meaning of "smitten," deriving it probably from the Hebrew verb nacha, to smite. Others, again, think it is the word mak, rottenness, and suppose that it means "he is rotten." Both derivations are, I think, incorrect.

Mac is a constituent part of the word macbenac, which is the substitue Master's word in the French Rite, and which is interpreted by the French ritualists as meaning "he lives in the son." But such a derivation can find no support in any known Hebrew root. Another interpretation must be sought. I think there is evidence, circumstantial at least, to show that the word was, if not an invention of the Ancient or Dermott Masons, at lest adopted by them in distinction from the ones used by the Moderns, and which latter is the word now in use in this country. i am disposed to to attribute the introduction of the word into Masonry to the adherents of the house of Stuart, who sought in every way to make the institution of Freemasonry a political instrument in their schemes for the restoration of their exiled monarch. Thus the old phrase, "the widow's son," was pplied by them to James the Second, who was the son of Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles the First. So, instead of the old Master's word which had hitherto been used, they invented macbenac out of the Gaelic, which to them was, on account of their Highland supporters, almost a sacred language in the place of Hebrew. Now, in Gaelic, Mac is son, beannaich, to bless. The latest dictionary published by the Highland Society gives this example: "Benach De Righ Albane, Alexander, MacAlexander," etc., i.e., Bless Alexander, etc. Therefore we find, without any of those distortions to which etymologists so often recur, that macbenac means in Gaelic "the blessed son." This word the Stuart Masons applied to their idol, the Pretender, the son of Charles I.

Macbenac. 1. A significant word in the third degree according to the French Rite and some other rituals. 2. In the Order of Beneficent Knights of the Holy City, the recipiendary, or novice, is called Macbenac.


Mark Morrison Return Of The Mack

Bell Canada

Bel, is the contracted form of Baal, and was worshiped by the Babylonians as their chief deity. The Greeks and Romans so considered and translated the word by Zeus and Jupiter. It has, with Jah and On, been introduced into the Royal Arch system as a representative of the Tetragrammeton, which it and the accompanying word have sometimes ignorantly been made to displace. At the session of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, 1871, this error was corrected; and while the Tetragrammeton was declared to be the true omnific word, the other three were permitted to be retained as merely explanatory.


Belenus, the Baal of the Scripture, was identified with Mithras and with Apollo, the god of the sun. A forest in the neighborhood of Lausanne is still known as Sauvebelin, or the forest of Belenus, and traces of his name are to be found in many parts of England. The custom of kindling fires about midnight on the eve of the festival of St. John the baptist, at the moment of the summer solstice,which was considered by the ancients a season of rejoicing and of divination, is a vestige of Druidism in honor of this deity. It is a significant coincidence that the numerical value of the letters of the word Belenus(sun the bee), like those of Abraxas and Mithras, all representatives of the sun, amounts to 365, the exact number of the days in a solar year.

Baal, the principal god of the Phoenician and Canaanitish nations, among whom Ashtoreth was the principal goddess. He was the god of the Sun, as ruling and giving life to nature, while Moloch represented the sun as a destroyer, and both these ideas were united later in the god Melkart. The oldest form of worship was on the tops of mountains; thus the Midianites and Amalekites worshiped him on Horeb and Sinai; the Moabites on Mount Peor; the Phoenicians on Carmel, and the Canaanites on Hermon. upright conical stone, either in the open air or in temples, were mark of his presence, but there were no images of him. From the earliest foundations of Tyre he seems to have been the protecting god of that city. His worship spread among all the towns of Phoenicia, including their distant colonies, such as Malta, Carthage, and Cadiz. The Greeks connected him with Hercules. The worship of Baal was very attractive to the Jews, and many years of punishment were necessary to banish it from Israel. The word Baal is often used in connection with some epithet; as Baal-Berith (the Covenant Lord), and Baal-Zebub, Beelzebub (the Fly-God), the idol of the Philistines at Ekron, where he had a temple. Such proper names as Jezebel and Hannibal are compounds of the word Baal.

Abbot

Abba - Syriac word meaning father, used to denote a religious superior

Abbe - Originally an abbot; but now an ecclesiastic devoted to teaching literature

Abbess- Governess of a nunnery

Abbey - Residence of monks or nuns. The dwelling of an abbot. A church attached to a monastery.

Abbot - Head of a society of monks

Jacob Abbot (born 1803, died 1879), a Congregational minister, and for four years professor of mathematics at Amherst college; was the author of the well known Rollo Books, Lucy Books, Marco Paul and other series. No books for children have been more popular or more widely read.

John Stevens Cabot Abbot (born 1805, died 1877), a brother of Jacob, and also a Congregational minister, was a popular historian, His best known works are History of Napoleon Bonaparte, History of Napoleon III and History of the Civil War.

Lyman Abbot, (Layman)the son of Jacob Abbot, was born in 1835, and spent all his life in the ministry, occupying pulpits in Terra Haute, Indiana; New York City, and recently that of the Plymouth church, Brooklyn, as the successor to Henry Ward Beecher. He has become widely known as the editor of the Christian Union, the author of several commentaries, and a frequent contributor to the magazines.

I Gnu it ~CroMa(gno)n~

Gnu is a kind of antelope that seems to be made up of parts of different animals. Its body resembles that of a horse; its neck and mane, a zebra, and its head and horns a buffalo. It is about the size of a small horse, yellowish in color, and a native in of South Africa.

Evolution

The theory of evolution in its simplest form is that the universe as it now exist is the result of an immense series of changes. This theory was first advanced to account for the different forms of life on the earth. Geology shows us that the Earth and its living forms have existed for millions of years. Continents and mountains are known to have been formed by natural causes, and throughout their rocky layers, formed one after the other, are found the fossils of animals and plants that lived and died ages ago. The lowest forms of life appeared first. The mollusks and like animals were followed by the fishes, higher in the scale, which gave place to reptiles, and these to amphibious (land and water) animals. Then came mammals, and lastly man. It is to be noted that the lower animals were general in character, while the higher have been more special; that is, there has been a development from uniformity to unlikeness. Also, many of the extinct animals were halfway between the different groups. For example, the early fishes bore unmistakable traits of reptiles, and the early reptiles had some of the characteristics of birds which had not yet appeared. It must be borne in mind that one period did not come to a sudden stop when another began. Fishes began to be in the age of mollusks, and reptiles in the age of fishes. The various kinds of animals passed into each other by slight and slow changes. The arm of a man, the paw of a dog, the wing of a bird and the fin of a fish, have the same necessary parts, modified and changed, according to the uses to which they were put, and the animal's surroundings. There are many cases of useless organs which are called rudimentary organs and which show the growth of one kind of animal into another. In the growth before birth these rudimentary organs develop up to a certain point and usually are kept through life. Some snakes have rudimentary hind legs hidden under the skin, and rudimentary teeth have been found in some birds. The study of rocks shows further that every species has come into being at the place where a preexisting species flourished and before the former species had died out. These facts seem to point to the working a great natural law of descent by which the present life of the earth has been got from preexisting life. The great majority of naturalists believe in some form of evolution as a great fact of nature. But to find out how these immense changes have been brought about is a harder problem. It was the wok of Darwin to account for these changes by what he calls "natural selection." Darwinism is not the same as evolution, but only a small part of it. Evolution seeks to account not only for animal and plant life, but for the whole universe. The nebular hypothesis explained the beginning and motion of the sun and planets by slow condensation from a nebulous mist scattered throughout space. Geology shows that the earth was first a globe of fire, then had its oceans and dry land, and in course of time received its rivers and mountains. Animal sand plants, as we have seen, developed into greater unlikeness and perfection. The mind grows with body and so human thought is the outcome of progressive change. Society is made up of individuals that change , and so civilization is an evolution. In all these cases change has brought about by a great general law to which the whole universe conforms - from the uniform to the unlike, and from the indefinite to the definite. Spencer has shown that these world changes have been brought about by three agencies, force, matter and motion - force as the cause of change, matter as that which is changed, and motion as the result of change. See Herbert Spencer, System of Philosophy; Darwin, Origin of Species and Descent of Man; Huxley, Man's Place in Nature and Critiques and Addresses.

Charles Robert Darwin, the naturalist, was born at Shrewsbury, England, Feb 12, 1809. He studied at Edinburgh University and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Both Darwin's father and grandfather were naturalists, and he early became interested in the same line of study. At the close of 1831, he sailed as naturalist on the steamer Beagle. On his voyage which lasted five years, he gained a knowledge of the animals, plants and rocks of many countries, which equipped for his future studies. His Journal, giving his observations while on the Beagle, was published in 1839. In the same year, Darwin married and settled down on his country estate to his life work - the problem of the origin of species. This work he carried on in spite of distressing sickness. After five years' of work, "he allowed himself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes. He was a cautious student, and his discoveries were kept to himself for years. It was not till 1859, that his famous book, The Origin of Species, came out. The book is an attempt to prove that species of animal or plant life are evolved from other species, and that the cause of this evolution is natural selection, or the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. The doctrine of evolution has been argued before, but Darwin was the first to find a sufficient cause, and so to change what had been a mere guess into a theory that could be proved or disproved. The book was received with great interest throughout the world, was violently attacked and defended, but at length was accepted in the main by all scientists. Darwin published a number of other books further carrying his ideas. His kindliness of character, honesty of purpose, devotion to truth and attachment to his friends made him liked wherever known. He died April 19, 1882. See his Life and Letters, by his son Francis Darwin.

Herbert Spencer an English philosopher, was born at Derby England, April 27, 1820. His father was a teacher, and the son received from him a taste for natural science, keeping collections of insects and making drawings of them as a boy. His first work was that of a civil engineer, in which was engaged for about eight years, publishing during the time several articles in the Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal. From 1848 to 1853 he was an editor of the Economists. His first important publication was Social Statics in 1850. His great plan was the working out of a system of philosophy which is based on the doctrine of evolution, that is, the theory that the world is a result of a long series of changes, produced by force acting on matter, and resulting in motion. In applying evolution to the study of man in society, Spencer employed assistants to collect and arrange all sorts of facts, in regard to customs, worship, government, etc., of savage tribes, ancient and modern races. His philosophical writings are very numerous, Principles of Psychology, First Principles, Principles of Biology, Data of Ethics and several volumes of essays being among the best known. His brilliant power of drawing conclusions from a vast array of facts, his great knowledge of science, and his wealth of illustration make him popular as well as give him a high position among philosophers. His most popular works are a small book on Education and The Study of Sociology, intended for the ordinary reader.

Encyclopedia

Rational And Irrational Propaganda

That propaganda has a irrational character is a still well established and well recognized truth. The distinction between propaganda and information is often made: information is addressed to reason and experience - it furnishes facts; propaganda is addressed to feeling and passion - it is irrational. There is, of course, some truth in this, but the reality is not so simple. For there is such a thing as rational propaganda, just as there is rational advertising. Advertisements for automobiles or electrical appliances are generally based on technical descriptions or proved performance - rational elements used for advertising purposes. Similarly, there is a propaganda based exclusively on facts, statistics, economic ideas. Soviet propaganda, especially since 1950, has been based on the undeniable scientific progress and economic development of the Soviet Union; but it is still propaganda, for it uses these facts to demonstrate, rationally, the superiority of its system and to demand everybody's support.

It has often been noted that in wartime the successful propaganda is that based directly on obvious facts: when an enemy army has just suffered defeat, an appeal to enemy soldiers to surrender will seem rational. When the superiority of one of the combatants becomes apparent, his appeal for surrender is an appeal to reason.

Similarly, the propaganda of French grandeur since 1958 is a rational and factual propaganda; French films in particular are almost all centered around French technological successes. The film Algerie francaise is an economic film, overloaded with economic geography and statistics. But it is still propaganda. Such rational propaganda is practiced by various regimes. The education provided by Mao in China is based on pseudo rational proofs, but they are effective for those who pay attention to them and accept them. American propaganda, out of concern for honesty and democratic conviction, also attempts to be rational and factual. The news bulletins of the American services are a typical example of rational propaganda based on "knowledge" and information. And nothing resembles these American publications more than the Review of the German Democratic Republic, which has taken over exactly the same propaganda style. We can say that the more progress we make, the more propaganda becomes rational and the more it is based on serious arguments, on dissemination of knowledge, on factual information, figures, and statistics.

Purely impassioned and emotional propaganda is disappearing. Even such propaganda contained elements of fact: Hitler's most inflammatory speeches always contained some facts which served as base or pretext. It is unusual nowadays to find a frenzied propaganda composed solely of claims without relation to reality. It is still found in Egyptian propaganda, and it appeared in July 1960 in Lumumba's propaganda in the Belgian Congo. Such propaganda is now discredited, but it still convinces and always excites.

Modern man needs a relation to facts, a self justification to convince himself that by acting in a certain way he is obeying reason and proved existence. We must therefore study the close relationship between information and propaganda. Propaganda's content increasingly resembles information. It has even been clearly been proved that a violent, excessive, shock provoking, propaganda text leads ultimately to less conviction and participation than does a more "informative" and reasonable text on the same subject. A large dose of fear precipitates immediate action; critical powers decrease if the propaganda message is more rational and less violent.

Propaganda's content therefore tends to be rational and factual. But is it enough to show that propaganda is rational? Besides content, there is a receiver of the content, the individual who undergoes the barrage of propaganda or information. When an individual has read a technical and factual advertisement of a television set or a new automobile engine, and if he is not an electrician or a mechanic, what does he remember? Can he describe a transistor or a new type of wheel suspension? Of course not. All those technical descriptions and exact details will form a general picture in his head, rather vague but highly colored - and when he speaks of the engine, he will say: "It's terrific!"

It is exactly the same with all rational, logical, factual propaganda. After having read an article on wheat in the United States or on steel in the Soviet Union, does the reader remember the figures and statistics, has he understood the economic mechanisms, has he absorbed the line of reasoning? If he is not an economist by profession, he will retain an overall impression, a general conviction that "these Americans (or Russians) are amazing . . . They have methods . . . .Progress is important after all," and so on. Similarly, emerging from the showing of a film such as Algeri francaise, he forgets all the figures and logical proofs and retains only a feeling of rightful pride in the accomplishments of France and Algeria. Thereafter, what remains with the individual affected by this propaganda is a perfectly irrational picture, a purely emotional feeling a myth. The facts, the data, the reasoning - all are forgotten, and only the impression remains. And this is indeed what the propagandist ultimately seeks, for the individual will never begin to act on the basis of the facts, or engage in purely rational behavior. What makes him act is the emotional pressure, the vision of the future, the myth. The problem is to create an irrational response on the basis of rational and factual elements. That response must be fed with facts, those frenzies must be provoked by rigorously logical proofs. The propaganda in itself becomes honest, strict, exact, but its effect remains irrational because the spontaneous transformation of all its contents by the individual.

We emphasize that this is true not just for propaganda but also for information. Except for the specialist, information, even when it is very well presented, gives people only a broad image of the world. And much of the information disseminated nowadays - research findings, facts, statistics, explanations, analysis - eliminate personal judgment, and the capacity to form one's own opinion even more surely than the most extravagant propaganda. This claim may seem shocking; but it is a fact that excessive data do not enlighten the reader or the listener; they drown him. He cannot remember them all, or coordinate them, or understand them, if he does not want risk losing his mind, he will merely draw a general picture from them. And the more facts supplied the more simplistic the image. If a man is given one item of information, he will retain it; if he is given a hundred data in one field, on one question, he will have only a general idea of that question. But if he is given a hundred items of information on all the political and economic aspects of a nation, he will arrive at a summary judgment - "The Russians are terrific!" and so on.

A surfeit of data, far from permitting people to make judgments and form opinions, prevents them from doing so and actually paralyzes them. They are caught in a web of facts must remain at the level of the facts they have been given. They cannot even form a choice or judgment in other areas or on other subjects. The the mechanisms of modern information induce a sort of hypnosis in the individual, who cannot get out of the field that has been laid for him by the information. His opinion will ultimately be formed solely on the basis of the facts transmitted to him, and not on the basis of his choice and his personal experience. The more the techniques of distributing information develop, the more the individual is shaped by such information. It is not true that he can choose freely with regard with what is presented to him as the truth. And because rational propaganda thus creates an irrational situation, it remains, above all, propaganda - that is, an inner control over the individual by a social force, which means that it deprives him of himself.


To form is to Shape. People are shaped by IN-Forming.

My Bike: Persia's Zurvan Ruse

In the period following Zoroaster, for which little evidence remains, Zoroastrianism consolidated its position and spread throughout Iran. The rise of the southern Persians and Medes seems to have been accompanied by the reinstatement of many of the ahuras, although Ahura Mazda is still recognized as supreme god. Among the most important figures to revive at this time were Mithra (see Mithraism), usually associated with the Sun, and Anahita, associated with the waters and fertility.

Ahura Mazda (who becomes Ormazd) becomes identified with Spenta Mainyu, and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) remains his antagonist.

Ahura Mazda has relinquished some of his absolute supremacy and appears to need the assistance of the lesser ahuras, particularly Mithra, who appears as mediator and protector of the created world.

This dualist view eventually became the orthodox position. Its development may have owed much to the magi, a hereditary priestly caste, although their role is unclear. Nevertheless, from them the Greco-Roman world learned much of what it knew of the religion. An important reform
movement, however, arose within ZoroastrianismÑthe movement around Zurvan.

The Zurvanites posited a supreme god, Zurvan (Infinite Time), who had sacrificed for 1,000 years in order to gain offspring. At the end of that time he experienced momentary doubt, and from that doubt arose Ahriman; at the same time, Ormazd came into being because of the efficacy of the sacrifices. At the end of 3,000 years Ahriman crossed the void that separated them and attacked Ormazd. The two made a pact to limit the struggle, and Ahriman fell back into the abyss, where he lay for 3,000 years. During that period Ormazd created the material and spiritual world; in retaliation, Ahriman called into being six demons and an opposing material world. In the next 3,000-year period Ahriman attempted to corrupt the creation of Ormazd; he was successful but was trapped in the world of light.

The final period of 3,000 years was ushered in by the birth of Zoroaster, who revealed this struggle to humanity; the prophet is to be followed by three saviors, appearing at intervals of 1,000 years. At the appearance of the last, a day of judgment will occur, the drink of immortality will be offered to those who have fought against Ahriman, and a new creation will be established.

The sacred literature of Zoroastrianism is found in the Avesta, which was compiled sometime during the Sassanian period (AD 224-640) from much earlier materials. Only a portion of the Avesta remains, but the language of its earliest sections is extremely ancient, closely related
to that of the Indian Vedas. These sections, the Gathas, are thought to be by Zoroaster himself.

The Sculptor

The Dilemma of the Modern State

The rule of public opinion is regarded as a simple and natural fact. The government is regarded as a product of this opinion, from which it draws its strength. It expresses public opinion. To quote Napoleon's famous words: "Power is based on public opinion. What is a government not supported by opinion? Nothing?" Theoretically, democracy is political expression of mass opinion. Most people consider it simple to translate this opinion into action, and consider it legitimate that the government should bend to the popular will. Unfortunately, in reality all this is much less clear and not so simple. More and more we know, for example, that public opinion does not express itself at the polls and is a long way from expressing itself in political trends. We know, too, that public opinion is very unstable, fluctuating, never settled. Furthermore, this opinion is irrational and develops in unforeseeable fashion. It is by no means composed of a majority of rational decisions in the face of political problems, as some simplistic vision would have it. The majority vote is by no means the real public opinion. Its basically irrational character greatly reduces its power to rule in a democracy. Democracy is based on the concept that man is rational and capable of seeing clearly what is in his own interest; but the study of public opinion suggests that this a highly doubtful proposition. And the bearer of public opinion is generally a mass man, psychologically speaking, which makes him quite unsuited to properly exercise his right of citizenship.

This leads us to the following consideration: On the hand the government can no longer operate outside the pressure of the masses and public opinion; on the other hand, public opinion does not express itself in the democratic form of government. To be sure, the government must know and constantly probe public opinion. The modern State must constantly undertake press and opinion surveys and sound out public opinion in a variety of other ways. But the fundamental question is: Does the State then obey and express and follow that opinion? Our unequivocal answer is that even in a democratic State it does not. Such obeisance by the State to public opinion is impossible - first, because of the very nature of public opinion, and second, because of the nature of modern political activities.

Public opinion is so variable and fluctuating that government could never base a course of action on it; no sooner would government begin to pursue certain aims favored in an opinion poll, that opinion would turn against it. To the degree that opinion changes are rapid, policy changes would have to be equally rapid; to the extent that opinion is irrational, political action would have to be equally irrational. And as public opinion, ultimately, is always "the opinion of incompetents," political decisions would therefore be surrendered to them.

Aside from the near impossibility of simply following public opinion, the government has certain functions - particular those of a technical nature - entirely outside such opinion. With regard to an enterprise that involves billions and last for years, it is not a question of following opinion - either at its inception, when opinion has not yet crystallized, or later, when the enterprise has gone too far to turn back. In such matters as French oil policy in the Sahara or electrification in the Soviet Union, public opinion can play no role whatever. The same holds true even where enterprises are being nationalized, regardless of an apparent socialist opinion. In many instances, political decisions must be made to suit new problems emerging precisely from the new political configurations in our age, and such problems do not fit the stereotype and patterns of established public opinion. Nor can public opinion crystallize overnight - and the government cannot postpone actions and decisions until vague images and myths eventually coalesce into opinion. In the present world of politics, action must at all times be the forerunner of opinion. Even when public opinion is already formed, it can be disastrous to follow it. Recent studies have shown the catastrophic role of public opinion in matters of foreign policy. The masses are incapable of resolving conflict between morality and State policy, or of conceiving a long term foreign policy. They push the government towards a disastrous foreign policy, as in Franklin Roosevelt's policy towards the Soviet Union, or Johnson's push button policy. The greatest danger in connection with foreign policy is that of public opinion manifesting itself in the shape of crisis, in an explosion. Obviously, public opinion knows little about foreign affairs and cares less; torn by contradictory desires, divided on principal questions, it permits the government to conduct whatever policy it deems best. (polarized) But all at once, for a variety of reasons, opinion converges at one point, temperatures rise, men become excited and assert themselves (for example, on the question of German rearmament). And should this opinion be followed? To the same extent that opinion expresses itself sporadically, that it wells up in fits and starts, it runs counter to the necessary continuity of foreign policy and tends to overturn previous agreements and existing alliances. Because such opinion is intermitent and fragmentary, the government could not follow even if it wanted to.

Ergo: even in a democracy, a government that is honest, serious benevolent, and respects the voter cannot follow public opinion. But it cannot escape it either. The masses are there, they are interested in politics. The government cannot act without them. So, what can it do?

Only one solution is possible: as the government cannot follow opinion, opinion must follow the government. One must convince this present, ponderous, impassioned mass that the government's decisions are legitimate and good and that its foreign policy is correct. The democratic State, precisely because it believes in the expression of public opinion and does not gag it, must channel and shape that opinion if it wants to be realistic and not follow an ideological dream. The Gordian knot cannot be cut any other way. Of course, the political parties already have the role of adjusting public opinion to that of the government. Numerous studies have shown that often political parties do not agree that opinion, that the voters - and even party members - frequently do not know their parties doctrines, and that peopl belong to parties for reasons other than ideological ones. But the parties channel free-floating opinion into existing formulas, polarizing it on the opposites that do not necessarily correspond to the original tenets of such an opinion. Because parties are so rigid, because they deal with only a part of any question, and because they are purely politically motivated, they distort public opinion and prevent it from forming naturally. But even beyond party influence, which is already propaganda influence, government action exists in and by itself.

The most benevolent State will inform the people of what it does. For the government to explain how it acts, why it acts, and what the problems are, makes sense; but when dispensing such information, the government cannot remain coldly objective; it must plead its case, inevitably, if only to counteract opposing propaganda. Because information alone is ineffective, it dissemination leads necessarily to propaganda, particularly when the government is obliged to defend its own actions or life of the nation against private enterprise. The giant corporations and pressure groups, pushing their special interests, are resorting increasingly to psychological manipulation. Must the government permit this without reacting? And just because pure and simple information cannot prevail against modern propaganda techniques, the government, too, must act through propaganda. In France this situation arose in 1954, when the army used films and pamphlets to challenge the government's E.D.C. (European Defense Community) propaganda. But from the moment the soldier can vote, he is subjected to propaganda from outside groups and is himself a member of a pressure group - and what a group! The army itself is potentially a formidable pressure group, and the famous political malaise in France is partly owing to the efforts of successive governments to influence that group by psychological means, and to break it up. How can one deny to the government the right to do what all the other groups do? How can one demand of a modern State that it tolerate an independent group? Pleven's demand of 1954, to the effect that "there must be no propaganda in one direction or the other," is morally most satisfying, but purely theoretical and unrealistic. Moreover, he went on claim that what has been called propaganda was government dispensed information, pure and simple. In fact the two realities -information and propaganda are so little distinct from one another that what the enemy says is nothing but propaganda whereas what our side says is nothing but information.

But there is more: in a democracy, the citizens must be tied to the decisions of the government. This is the great role propaganda must perform. It must give the people the feeling - which they crave and which satisfies them - "to have wanted what the government is doing, to be responsible for its actions, to be involved in defending them and making them succeed, to be 'with it.'" The writer Leo Hamon is of the opinion that this is the main task of political parties, unions, and associations. But it is not the whole answer. More direct and evocative action is needed to tie opinion, not just into anything, but to acts of political power. The American writer Bradford Westerfield has said: "In the United States, the government almost always conducts its foreign policies on its own initiative, but where the public is interested in a particular question, it can only proceed with apparent support of a substantial majority of the people." Westerfield stresses that time concessions must be made to the people, but "if the President really directs opinion, and if the public accepts the foreign policy of the government as a whole, no great concessions will have to be made to elicit the necessary support." Here we find confimation that any modern State, even a democratic one, is burdened with the task of acting through propaganda. It cannot act otherwise.

But the same analysis must be made from another point of departure. We have traced the dilemma of the modern State. Since the eighteenth century, the democratic movement has pronounced, and eventually impregnated the masses with, the idea of the legitimacy of power; and after a series of theories on that legitimacy of power we have now reached the famous theory of the sovereignty of the people. Power is regarded as legitimate when it derives from the sovereignty of the people, rests on the popular will, expresses and follows this popular will. The validity of this concept can be debated ad infinitum from theoretical point of view; one an examine it throughout history and ask it is what Rousseau had in mind. In any event, this rather abstract philosophic theory has become a well developed and irrefutable idea in the mind of the average man. For the average Westerner, the will of the people is sacred, and a government that fails to represent that will is an abdominal dictatorship. Each time the people speak their minds the government must go along; no other source of legitimacy exists. This is the fundamental image, the collective prejudice which has become a self evident belief and is no longer merely a doctrine or a rational theory. This belief has spread very rapidly in the past thirty years. We now find the unshakable and absolute belief in all Communist countries, and begin to see it even in Islamic countries, where it should be rather remote. The contagious force of such a formula seems to be inexhaustible.

Conversely, a government does not feel legitimate and cannot claim to be so unless it rests on the sovereignty of the people. Because of this mystical belief in the people's sovereignty, all dictators try to demonstrate that they are they expression of that sovereignty. For a long time the theory of the people's sovereignty was believed to be tied to the concept of democracy. But it should be remembered that when the doctrine was applied for the first time, it led to the emergence of the most stringent dictatorship - that of the Jacobins. Therefore, we can hardly complain when modern dictators talk about the sovereignty of the people.

Such is the force of this belief that no government can exist without satisfying or giving the appearance of sharing it. From this belief springs the necessity for dictators to have themselves elected by plebiscite. Hitler, Stalin, Tito, Mussolini were all able to claim they obtained their power from the people. This is even true of a Gomulka or a Rakosi: every plebiscite shows the famous result, which fluctuates between 99.1 and 99.9 percent of the votes. It is obvious to everybody, including those elected, that this is just for the sake of appearance, a "consultation" of the people without any significance - but it is equally obvious one cannot do without it. And ceremony must be repeated periodically to demonstrate that the legitimacy is still there, that the people are still in full accord with their representatives. The people lend themselves to all this; after all, it cannot be denied that the voters really vote, and that they vote in the desired way - the results are not faked. There is compliance.

Could it be that the people's sovereignty is actually something other than compliance? Might it be hoped that without any prior attempts at influencing the people, a true constitutional form could emerge from the people? Such a supposition is absurd. The only reality is to propose to the people something with which they agree. Up to now we have not seen a single example of people's not eventually complying with what was proposed to them. In a plebiscite or referendum the "ayes" always exceed the "nays." We see here once again the instrument used to influence the masses, the propaganda by which the government provides itself with legitimacy through public compliance.

This leads to two further considerations: First, compliance must be obtained, not just with the form of government but with all its important actions. As Drouin has aptly said, "nothing is more irritating to a people than to have the feeling of being directed by Mandarins who let their decisions fall from the height of their power." Thus the need to "inform" the people better. "That the decisions should be wise does not suffice; the reasons for them must be given. For an enterprise. . .to function well, it is best to take it apart in public without concealing its weaknesses, without hiding its cost. . .and to make clear the meaning of the sacrifices demanded of the people." But such information really aims at compliance and participation; it is, in other words, propaganda in the deepest sense. But we have become used to seeing our governments act this way.

In 1957, when the Soviet people were called upon to study and discuss Krushchev's Theses on Economic Reorganization we witnessed a truly remarkable operation. The underlying theme of it all was, of course, that everything is being decided by the people. How can the people then not be in agreement afterwards? How can they fail to comply completely with what they have decided in the first place? The Theses were submitted to the people first. Naturally, they were then explained in all the Party organizations, in the Komsomols, in the unions, in the local soviets, in the factories, and so on, by agitprop specialists. Then the discussions took place. Next, Pravda opened its columns to the public, and numerous citizens sent in comments, expressed their views, suggested amendments. After that, what happened? The entire government program, without the slightest modification, was passed by the Supreme Soviet. Even amendments presented and supported by individual deputies were rejected, and all the more these presented by individual citizens; for they were only individual (minority) opinions, and from the democratic (majority) point of view insignificant. But the people were given the immense satisfaction of having been consulted, of having been given a chance to debate, of having - so it seemed to them - their opinions solicited and weighed. This is the democratic appearance that no authoritarian government can do without.

Beyond that, such practices lead the government to embrace a method which derives logically from the principle of popular democracy, but which could develop only as a result of modern propaganda: the government is now in the habit of acting through the masses as intermediary in two ways. First, it goes to the people more and more frequently for the support of its policies. When a decision seems to meet with resistance or is not fully accepted, propaganda is addressed to the masses to set them in motion; the simple motion of the mass is enough to invest the decisions with validity: it is only an extension of the plebiscite. When the People's Democracy installed itself in Czechoslovakia after the police coup d'etat, gigantic meetings of the working population were held - well staged, well organized, and kindled - to demonstrate that the people were in full agreement. When Fidel Castro wanted to show that his power was based on democratic sentiment, he organized the Day of Justice, during which the whole population was called upon to sit in judgment of the past regime, , and to express its sentiments upon massive demonstrations. These demonstrations were meant to "legalize" the death sentences handed down by the State courts and thus give a "democratic sanction" to the judgments. In doing this, Castro won the people's profound allegiance by satisfying the need for revenge against the former regime and the thirst for blood. He tied the people to the government by the strongest bonds: the ritual crime. That Day of Justice (January 21, 1959) was undoubtedly a great propagandistic discovery. If it caused Castro some embarrassment abroad, it certainly was a great success at home. It should be noted that such provocation of popular action always serves to support governmental action. It is in no way spontaneous, and in no way expresses an intrinsic desire of the people: it merely expresses through a million throats of the crowd, the cry of governmental propaganda.

Second - and this is a subtler process - governmental propaganda suggests that public opinion demand this or that decision; it provokes the will of the people, who spontaneously would say nothing. But, once evoked, formed, and crystallized on a point, the will becomes the people's will; and whereas the government really acts on its own, it gives the impression of obeying public opinion - after first having built the public opinion. The point is to make the masses demand of the government what the government has already decided to do. If it follows this procedure, the government can no longer be called authoritarian, because the will of the people demands what is being done. In this fashion, when the German public opinion unanimously demanded the liberation of Czechoslovakia, the German government had no choice but to invade that country in obedience to the people. It yielded to opinion as soon as opinion - through propaganda - had become strong enough to appear to influence the government. Castro's Day of Justice was cut from the same cloth: it was prepared by an excellent propaganda campaign, and the people who had been aroused with great care then demand that their government carry out the acts of "justice." Thus the government did not merely obtain agreement for its acts, the people actually demanded from the government incisive punitive measures, and the popular government merely fulfilled that demand, which, of course, had been manufactured by government propaganda. This constant propaganda action, which makes the people demand what was decided beforehand and makes it appear as though the spontaneous, innermost desires of the people were being carried out by a democratic and benevolent government, best characterizes the presnt day "Mass Government" relationship. This system has been put to use in the U.S.S.R. particularly, and in this respect Nikita Khrushchev liberalized nothing - on the contrary. However, the emergence of this particular phenomena was predictable from the day when the principle of popular sovereignty began to take hold. From that point on, the development of propaganda cannot be regarded as a deviation or an accident.

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul