As I remember once in FB social media, there was a discussion about old lectures and I’d stated a many; among them the masterpiece by Dante’s Divine Comedy. There, a friend began to muck about this book as a liar book which leads the people in the wrong way! Sure, I must mention here again that I’m not a religious one at all and definitely never believe in such a paradise or hell as coming in the holy religious books but for me, the great old lectures have nothing to do with such Superstitions, as I’d call them. they are the imaginations by the great genius in their life that they share with us in a wonderful way.
now here is an amazing article about a meeting between two great Artists who made a Masterpiece much greater 🙂
Many artists have attempted to illustrate Dante Alighieri’s epic poem the Divine Comedy, but none have made such an indelible stamp on our collective imagination as the Frenchman Gustave Doré.
Doré was 23 years old in 1855 when he first decided to create a series of engravings for a deluxe edition of Dante’s classic. He was already the highest-paid illustrator in France, with popular editions of Rabelais and Balzac under his belt, but Doré was unable to convince his publisher, Louis Hachette, to finance such an ambitious and expensive project. The young artist decided to pay the publishing costs for the first book himself. When the illustrated Inferno came out in 1861, it sold out fast. Hachette summoned Doré back to his office with a telegram: “Success! Come quickly! I am an ass!”
Hachette published Purgatorio and Paradiso as a single volume in 1868. Since then, Doré’s Divine Comedy has appeared in hundreds of editions. Although he went on to illustrate a great many other literary works, from the Bible to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Doré is perhaps best remembered for his depictions of Dante. At The World of Dante, art historian Aida Audeh writes:
Characterized by an eclectic mix of Michelangelesque nudes, northern traditions of sublime landscape, and elements of popular culture, Doré’s Dante illustrations were considered among his crowning achievements — a perfect match of the artist’s skill and the poet’s vivid visual imagination. As one critic wrote in 1861 upon publication of the illustrated Inferno: “we are inclined to believe that the conception and the interpretation come from the same source, that Dante and Gustave Doré are communicating by occult and solemn conversations the secret of this Hell ploughed by their souls, travelled, explored by them in every sense.”
The scene above is from Canto X of the Inferno. Dante and his guide, Virgil, are passing through the Sixth Circle of Hell, in a place reserved for the souls of heretics, when they look down and see the imposing figure of Farinata Degli Uberti, a Tuscan nobleman who had agreed with Epicurus that the soul dies with the body, rising up from an open grave. In the translation by John Ciardi, Dante writes:
My eyes were fixed on him already. Erect, he rose above the flame, great chest, great brow; he seemed to hold all Hell in disrespect
Inferno, Canto XVI:
As Dante and Virgil prepare to leave Circle Seven, they are met by the fearsome figure of Geryon, Monster of Fraud. Virgil arranges for Geryon to fly them down to Circle Eight. He climbs onto the monster’s back and instructs Dante to do the same.
Then he called out: “Now, Geryon, we are ready: bear well in mind that he is living weight and make your circles wide and your flight steady.”
As a small ship slides from beaching or its pier, backward, backward — so that monster slipped back from the rim. And when he had drawn clear
he swung about, and stretching out his tail he worked it like an eel, and with his paws he gathered in the air, while I turned pale.
Inferno, Canto XXXIV:
In the Ninth Circle of Hell, at the very centre of the Earth, Dante and Virgil encounter the gigantic figure of Satan. As Ciardi writes in his commentary:
He is fixed into the ice at the centre to which flow all the rivers of guilt; and as he beats his great wings as if to escape, their icy wind only freezes him more surely into the polluted ice. In a grotesque parody of the Trinity, he has three faces, each a different colour, and in each mouth, he clamps a sinner whom he rips eternally with his teeth. Judas Iscariot is in the central mouth: Brutus and Cassius in the mouths on either side.
Purgatorio, Canto II:
At dawn on Easter Sunday, Dante and Virgil have just emerged from Hell when they witness The Angel Boatman speeding a new group of souls to the shore of Purgatory.
Then as that bird of heaven closed the distance between us, he grew brighter and yet brighter until I could no longer bear the radiance,
and bowed my head. He steered straight for the shore, his ship so light and swift it drew no water; it did not seem to sail so much as soar.
Astern stood the great pilot of the Lord, so fair his blessedness seemed written on him; and more than a hundred souls were seated forward,
singing as if they raised a single voice in exitu Israel de Aegypto. Verse after verse they made the air rejoice.
The angel made the sign of the cross, and they cast themselves, at his signal, to the shore. Then, swiftly as he had come, he went away.
Purgatorio, Canto IV:
The poets begin their laborious climb up the Mount of Purgatory. Partway up the steep path, Dante cries out to Virgil that he needs to rest.
The climb had sapped my last strength when I cried: “Sweet Father, turn to me: unless you pause I shall be left here on the mountainside!”
He pointed to a ledge a little ahead that wound around the whole face of the slope. “Pull yourself that much higher, my son,” he said.
His words so spurred me that I forced myself to push on after him on hands and knees until at last, my feet were on that shelf.
Purgatorio, Canto XXXI:
Having ascended at last to the Garden of Eden, Dante is immersed in the waters of the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and helped across by the maiden Matilda. He drinks from the water, which wipes away all memory of sin.
She had drawn me into the stream up to my throat, and pulling me behind her, she sped on over the water, light as any boat.
Nearing the sacred bank, I heard her say in tones so sweet I cannot call them back, much less describe them here: “Asperges me.”
Then the sweet lady took my head between her open arms, and embracing me, she dipped me and made me drink the waters that make clean.
Paradiso, Canto V:
In the Second Heaven, the Sphere of Mercury, Dante sees a multitude of glowing souls. In the translation by Allen Mandelbaum, he writes:
As in a fish pool that is calm and clear, the fish draw close to anything that nears from outside, it seems to be their fare, such were the far more than a thousand splendors I saw approaching us, and each declared: “Here now is one who will increase our loves.” And even as each shade approached, one saw, because of the bright radiance, it set forth, the joyousness with which that shade was filled.
Paradiso, Canto XXVIII:
Upon reaching the Ninth Heaven, the Primum Mobile, Dante and his guide Beatrice look upon the sparkling circles of the heavenly host. (The Christian Beatrice, who personifies Divine Love, took over for the pagan Virgil, who personifies Reason, as Dante’s guide when he reached the summit of Purgatory.)
And when I turned and my own eyes were met By what appears within that sphere whenever one looks intently at its revolution, I saw a point that sent forth so acute a light, that anyone who faced the force with which it blazed would have to shut his eyes, and any star that, seen from the earth, would seem to be the smallest, set beside that point, as star conjoined with star, would seem a moon. Around that point a ring of fire wheeled, a ring perhaps as far from that point as a halo from the star that colours it when mist that forms the halo is most thick. It wheeled so quickly that it would outstrip the motion that most swiftly girds the world.
Paradiso, Canto XXXI:
In the Empyrean, the highest heaven, Dante is shown the dwelling place of God. It appears in the form of an enormous rose, the petals of which house the souls of the faithful. Around the centre, angels fly like bees carrying the nectar of divine love.
So, in the shape of that white Rose, the holy legion has shown to me — the host that Christ, with His own blood, had taken as His bride. The other host, which, flying, sees and sings the glory of the One who draws its love, and that goodness which granted it such glory, just like a swarm of bees that, at one moment, enters the flowers and, at another, turns back to that labour which yields such sweet savour, descended into that vast flower graced with many petals, then again rose up to the eternal dwelling of its love.
You can access a free edition of The Divine Comedy featuring Doré’s illustrations at Project Gutenberg. A Yale course on reading Dante in translation appears in the Literature section of our collection of 750 Free Online Courses.
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Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in October 2013.
And then I confess that I tortured the dress that you wore for the world to look through.
To be honest; I must thank MIKE STEEDEN for his wonderful works which mostly have a touch of Leonard Cohen, to learn me, learn me to remember one of my favourite songwriters and poet of my youth. He came to us; my brother and me, in the early seventies when we were in our most melancholic time in Tehran, Iran those days and were trying to separate us from the society, the society in which you’ve got the feeling that you’ve never belonged and it’s sad! and the only way to escape was the help with drugs. one friend, a professional bassist, came in an evening of a cold winter day and showed us his new discovery which was “the songs of love and hate” by L. Cohen.
I’ve put the vinyl record on the gramophone and it began with the song; Avalanche
Well, I stepped into an avalanche, It covered up my soul; When I am not this hunchback that you see, I sleep beneath the golden hill. You who wish to conquer pain, You must learn, learn to serve me well.
Anyway, it was the beginning of a long friendship. But now I wanted to tell about a song by him which is not so current by some people who know Cohen but not aware of this of: “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong”
it is the last song of the album; New Skin for the Old Ceremony if I do not mistake 😉 and when one listens to it, can find a universe inside of it! I mean that’s Poem, you can fly in throughout the whole universe with never-ending. { oh please let me come into the storm }
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes and I guess he just never got warm. But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.
It is a fascinating art to write a poem, and make a song; I hope you’d enjoy it. just lets your soul fly with. ❤
I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me. But the room just filled up with mosquitos, they heard that my body was free. Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night and I put it in your little shoe. And then I confess that I tortured the dress that you wore for the world to look through. I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit. Then he wrote himself a prescription, and your name was mentioned in it! Then he locked himself in a library shelf with the details of our honeymoon, and I hear from the nurse that he’s gotten much worse and his practice is all in a ruin. I heard of a saint who had loved you, so I studied all night in his school. He taught that the duty of lovers is to tarnish the golden rule. And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure he drowned himself in the pool. His body is gone but back here on the lawn his spirit continues to drool. An Eskimo showed me a movie he’d recently taken of you: the poor man could hardly stop shivering, his lips and his fingers were blue. I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes and I guess he just never got warm. But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.
And here is the Avalanche;
Well, I stepped into an avalanche, It covered up my soul; When I am not this hunchback that you see, I sleep beneath the golden hill. You who wish to conquer pain, You must learn, learn to serve me well. You strike my side by accident As you go down for your gold. The cripple here that you clothe and feed Is neither starved nor cold; He does not ask for your company, Not at the centre, the centre of the world.When I am on a pedestal, You did not raise me there. Your laws do not compel me To kneel grotesque and bare. I myself am the pedestal For this ugly hump at which you stare. You who wish to conquer pain, You must learn what makes me kind; The crumbs of love that you offer me, They’re the crumbs I’ve left behind. Your pain is no credential here, It’s just the shadow, shadow of my wound. I have begun to long for you, I who have no greed I have begun to ask for you, I who have no need. You say you’ve gone away from me, But I can feel you when you breathe. Do not dress in those rags for me, I know you are not poor You don’t love me quite so fiercely now When you know that you are not sure, It is your turn, beloved, It is your flesh that I wear.
PS: You, the dear friends and followers who might look at my posting, may wonder why I post mostly in the weekend, it is because of my hard working all through the week, it is a kind of working in which you’d not have to use your brain, the job itself does not need any, but I can not without, therefore, I must suffer, but at the weekend I’m alive again!!
If you really want to know my kind of job, you might watch Woody Allen’s Radio Days, then you can find the solution 🤣🤣
It is a true word by Dr Jung which we know it through history and unfortunately, nowadays it gets stronger and popular between the public to how easily open the mouth and show off the opinion basic on unknowing, but man must tell something, otherwise, the others think one knows nothing!
Here I share a wonderful post by Searching The Meaning Of Life! (STMOL) with many wise words as I know him as a Wiseman 🙂 with many Thanks ❤
The German writer of the “Steppe Wolf” delivers life lessons …
“Every man’s life is a way to himself, the model of a road, the draft of a path. No man has come to be completely himself, however, everyone aspires to succeed, others to the blind, others to more light, everyone as he can “
One forgets to judge and criticize others when it is full of doubts about themselves: “Making the judge alive is the perfect excuse to not analyze your own. If we observe the people who are turning here and thereby making a verdict about what they are doing well and what the others are bad about, we will find a great lack of self-criticism. They are not conscious of their actions and their reasons because they focus their attention on the lives of others.
And they behave that way because they are afraid to radiograph themselves and be disappointed. “
When we hate someone, we hate the image of something inside us: “When we think we are hurt with someone, it is because it possesses something that touches us deeply and causes us discomfort. This one becomes a mirror of something inside us and we do not want to admit it. Otherwise, it would not bother us so much. Thus, the stingy man endures the stinging of the others with more intensity than anyone, and the indiscretion is overpowered when there is indiscretion. The person we hate is our mirror and, therefore, a spiritual master we should not underestimate. “
When we are afraid of someone is why we have given him power over us. “Often others or who have an opinion about us. We ourselves are blinded by the fury to learn what they will think … “
The tender is stronger than the hard, the water stronger than the rock, the love stronger than the violence. “The power of love, like water, lies in its adaptability to the medium where it lives. If this is transposed into everyday life, the ability to love – not just another person but a design – is confronted with the difficulties to get the best out of every situation. “
Some that are perfect are perfect because they have fewer demands than themselves: “A simple yet very effective exercise: it has been a goal of improvement for each week, and in one year your quality of life will be upgraded in a way that you can not even imagine “.
The bird breaks the shell. The egg is the world. The one who wants to be born has to break a world: “The child must abandon his childhood, his innocence in this way transform into an adult. These transition rituals always lead to the elimination of his earlier ego to allow the new ego to be born. “
Sometimes enemies are more useful than friends since windless winds do not turn: “The enemy forces us to act and get out of the comfort that made us soft. It forces us to make the best, as well as our worst self. If we can see our reactions from a distance and with a little humour, in every conflict, there is a great lesson about our own and our weaknesses. “
The school does not teach the skills and abilities that are necessary for life: “As Esse writes in his tale” Under the Wheel “:” The school teacher prefers to have a few strands in his class rather than a single genius student. And deep down he is right because it is not his duty to form extremely brains but good philologists, mathematicians, and useful people. “
Again and again, one is thrown into the things he has loved and he thinks it is a faith while it is just laziness: “Children scare the dark because they think that there is a monster hidden among the shadows, something unknown that can attack them. In the same way, adults frighten the unknown because it involves change, risk, uncertainty. We are afraid of the new one because if we fail we know that we will hear the phrase: “I told you”.
Without personality there is no love, there is no real love deeply: “Many people are trying to show something they are not, either because they think that this is what others want or why they do not like what they are like. They are dependent on the opinion of others and desperately need their approval. However, true love is not born out of deprivation by waiting for the other to fill our inner voids or to tell us what to do. We really love something only by accepting what it is. “
I think I am! Therefore I am!! though, it wasn’t so easy for me; I have a hard struggling life behind, of course, everything is relative but as I can remember, I had or still can have, a lot of complexes, though, I’m lucky that I got knowing it! it might depend on my bringing up by my mam or the gene of my dad’s, I don’t know. anyway, I could work on it and recognize my dark side. Yes! I think unknown complexes strengthen the dark side of humanity. To tell about it clearly; it is the Unconsciousness.
I did fight a much with my inner devil as I really kept in my mind to recall it when I got angry about my destiny, (although, I had to do it often!) because of my hard time of growing up. There were many reasons to force me into my unknown but thanks goodness that I could rescue myself and found love instead of hate. ( As I can also say; Thanks to Fyodor Dostoevsky who learned me a lot about my inner unknown, especially in the novel: Demons in which, we can see ourselves and our soul absolutely naked!
Anyway, here again, I’ve found a great read by http://jungcurrents.com/ the words of C. G. Jung as a wonderful teacher, with a help of my dear friend and sister Elaine Mansfield to share with you because; We hu-wo-man, are a complex of two sides of the existence, nature, life, being! And therefore, we must find out the balance in between. there, we can survive and find the inner freedom and that’s the point.
From The Symbolic Life, Vol. 18 of the Collected Works, (Princeton, 1976 ), Paragraphs 1374-1378
For about half a century now science has been examining under the microscope something that is more invisible than the atom—the human psyche—and what it discovered at first was very far from enjoyable. If one had the necessary imagination one would actually be shattered by these discoveries. But the psychologist today is in the same position as the physicist, who has discovered the elements of a future atomic bomb capable of turning the earth into a nova. He sees it merely as an interesting scientific problem, without realizing that the end of the world has come tangibly closer. In the case of psychology things are not quite as bad as that, but all the same it has discovered where those demons, which in earlier ages dominated nature and man’s destiny, are actually domiciled, and, what is more, that they are none the worse for enlightenment. On the contrary, they are as sprightly as ever, and their activity has even extended its scope so much that they can now get their own back on all the achievements of the human mind. We know today that in the unconscious of every individual there are instinctive propensities or psychic systems charged with considerable tension. When they are helped in one way or another to break through into consciousness, and the latter has no opportunity to intercept them in higher forms, they sweep everything before them like a torrent and turn men into creatures for whom the word “beast” is still too good a name. They can then only be called “devils.” To evoke such phenomena in the masses all that is needed is a few possessed persons, or only one. Possession, though old-fashioned, has by no means become obsolete; only the name has changed. Formerly they spoke of “evil spirits,” now we call them “neuroses” or “unconscious complexes.” Here as everywhere, the name makes no difference. The fact remains that a small unconscious cause is enough to wreck a man’s fate, to shatter a family, and to continue working down the generations like the curse of the Atrides.
If this unconscious disposition should happen to be one which is common to the great majority of the nation, then a single one of these complex-ridden individuals, who at the same time setting himself up as a megaphone, is enough to precipitate a catastrophe. The good people, in their innocence and unconsciousness, do not know what is happening to them when they are changed overnight into a “master race” (a work of the devil, who has so often changed horse-apples into gold), and an amazed Europe is hard to put to accommodate itself to the “new order” where anything so monstrous (one thinks of Maidenek in relation to Eckhart, Luther, Goethe, and Kant!) is not merely a possibility but a fait accompli.
Countless people have asked themselves how it was possible for a civilized nation like Germany to fall into this hellish morass. I once wrote that Germany is the land of spiritual catastrophes.6 If the neo-German madness proclaims that the Germans are the chosen people, and if they then, out of envious rivalry, persecute the Jews with whom they have certain psychological peculiarities in common (behind every persecution there lurks a secret love, as doubt behind every fanaticism), we are indeed confronted with something quite apart, a state of being “elect.” For nobody can fall so low unless he has a great depth. If such a thing can happen to a man, it challenges his best and highest on the other side; that is to say, this depth corresponds to a potential height and the blackest darkness to a hidden light. This light is certainly invisible today because it is blocked up in the depths of the psyche. Indeed everything has gone so desperately awry in Germany, and what has happened is an infernal caricature of the answer the German spirit should have given to the question put to Europe by a new age. Instead of reflecting on this question, it was taken in by that fake figure of the Superman, which the neurotically degenerate mind of Nietzsche invented as a compensation for his own weakness. (Not without some excuse, however, since the Faust that made the pact with the devil was his godfather.) Germany has soiled her name and her honour with the blood of the innocent and brought upon her own head the curse of the election. She has aroused such hatred in the world that it is difficult to make the scales of justice balance. And yet the first to enter with the Saviour into paradise was the thief. And what does Meister Eckhart say? “For this reason God is willing to bear the brunt of sins and often winks at them, mostly sending them to people for whom he has prepared some high destiny. See! Who was dearer to our Lord or more intimate with him than his apostles? Not one of them but fell into mortal sin, and all were mortal sinners.” The psychiatrist knows that certain dangerous unconscious forces can be rendered harmless, or at least held in check if they are made conscious, that is. if the patient can assimilate them and integrate them with his personality. In so far as psychiatrists are concerned with the psychic treatment of such complexes, they have to do every day with “demons,” i.e., with psychic factors that display demonic features when they appear as a mass phenomenon. To be sure, a bloodless operation of this kind is successful only when a single individual is involved. If it is a whole family, the chances are ten to one against, and only a miracle can provide the remedy. But when it is a whole nation the artillery speaks the final word. If this is to be avoided one must begin with the individual—and lamentably long-drawn-out and hopeless labour of Sisyphus this may seem. At any rate, people are so impressed by the suggestive power of megaphone oratory that they are inclined to believe that this bad means—mass hypnotism—could be put to a good purpose by “inflammatory” speeches.
as in my experience, they’re among the best time in my life 😉 I can only remember of one of my friends, an excellent musician gave up smoking cigarets, he’d just smoked cannabis. In any case, exaggeration in any matter and in any direction is a wrong way! 😀
“If you use a lot of cannabis, it generally makes their mood or anxiety worse,” says Tishler, bluntly. “But on the other hand, if people use very small amounts of cannabis, we find it can actually benefit their mood and anxiety. So, my approach with patients is very low dose in the evening, which effectively creates a period of intoxication that dissipates over the course of the night, but the benefits to mood persist throughout the next day.”
Even the world’s most seasoned tokers have experienced the overwhelming and frightening feeling of THC-induced anxiety. We’ve all taken a hit (or consumed an edible) too many, inadvertently thrusting our stoned minds into a vortex of bleak thoughts, or even raising unsubstantiated questions like why is everyone looking at me right now?
Thus, while cannabis has been proven to be beneficial for a wide range of medical conditions, one might assume that it doesn’t offer much relief for mood-related disorders like depression and anxiety.
In fact, most past research suggests that ganja has an adverse effect on these conditions. And, besides the veteran-backed emergence of treatment for PTSD, most states don’t allow physicians to recommend cannabis for these other types of mood disorders.
Regardless of those anecdotal inklings some cannabis users have about the terrifying effect pot can have on anxiety and depression, new research suggests that more patients may be seeking treatment for mood-related disorders than any other medical classification, including pain-related conditions.
In a recent study conducted by CB2 Insights, researchers found that over 34 per cent of patients seeking medical cannabis were aiming to alleviate mood-related disorders like anxiety, depression, PTSD, and others. Pain-related conditions were a close second, encompassing 33 per cent of the patients that took part in the evaluation.
“We went into this study with a clear mind, and we actually believed that pain would be at the top,” says Dan Thompson, the chief marketing officer of CB2 Insights. “We wanted to look at what the second, third, and fourth most prominent primary conditions were, and how big of a discrepancy there was between them. The fact that mood-related disorders bubbled to the top was a surprise to us, so the report kind of came just from that.”
In the report, CB2 Insights assessed nearly 500 patients across multiple states over a four-week period. The findings were essentially published to highlight the fact that, outside of PTSD, most states with medical legalization don’t list mood-related disorders as a qualifying condition.
Currently, only seven states and Washington DC allow certified healthcare practitioners to provide a medical recommendation for patients to treat any condition with cannabis, so long as the doc deems it an appropriate remedy.
In Massachusetts, one of the few states that actually allow physicians to endorse Mary Jane-use at their own discretion, Dr Jordan Tishler believes he’s had substantial success in treating depression and anxiety with small doses of medical-grade greens.
A Doctor Who Knows How to Get Patients in the Right Mood
Dr Tishler runs the New England-based medical cannabis clinic InhaleMD, and also founded the Association of Cannabis Specialists, an organization that promotes education and advocacy in regard to medical cannabis care. He’s also a firm believer that, in a small and controlled dose, THC-heavy flower can be extremely beneficial for patients suffering from depression and anxiety.
“If you use a lot of cannabis, it generally makes their mood or anxiety worse,” says Tishler, bluntly. “But on the other hand, if people use very small amounts of cannabis, we find it can actually benefit their mood and anxiety. So, my approach with patients is very low dose in the evening, which effectively creates a period of intoxication that dissipates over the course of the night, but the benefits to mood persist throughout the next day.”
To ensure that those suffering from anxiety and depression obtain proper treatment, Tishler gets extraordinarily specific with each patient. Although dispensaries are technically not obliged to follow a doctor’s orders when it comes to dosages, the Massachusetts-based cannabis specialist tells each patient exactly what to get, when to use it, and how to use it.
Courtesy of Dr.Tishler
For mood-related disorders like anxiety and depression, he’ll often recommend a small dose of THC-laden bud right before bedtime.
“There are Benzos, which we try not give people too often because they can be highly dangerous,” Tishler told us. In that case, generally speaking, the low dose of cannabis in the evening is enough to replace the Benzos. And I’ve seen this. I’ve also seen people come in on Klonopin, and over time, we’re able to win them right off of that.”
While he doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the idea that cannabis can fully replace antidepressant medication in every case, Tishler sees remarkable benefits to using medical-grade ganja as a supplement to reduce opioid dependencies and help deal with the negative side effects of SSRIs.
“The side effects to SSRIs include weight gain, the feeling of not having any joy, and there’s also a whole bunch of sexual side effects for both men and women. Interestingly, cannabis can help offset those side effects so that if you need to be on an SSRI… using cannabis as a supplement can make the whole thing work better,” he explains.
The Future of Research on Mood-Related Disorders and Medical Cannabis
One of the main issues with past studies on how cannabis impacts these two particular mood-related conditions is that doses were not typically controlled or administered properly. In turn, this created a stigma that cannabis has an adverse effect on anxiety and depression.
But to Tishler, all this means is that we need to conduct better research, and that starts with implementing more controlled dosing regimens.
“Particularly with regard to the mood disorders, the amount of cannabis is so critical,” he says. “I think that when we look at this older literature and see that the results are totally mixed, if we could go back and actually control what people are getting, then we would really be able to demonstrate that low doses are beneficial and higher doses are nonbeneficial. We’d be able to find that breakpoint.”
Unfortunately, as long as cannabis remains illegal on the federal level, it will be difficult to conduct this research in a proper manner. But according to Thompson of CB2 Insights, he believes that will likely change once Big Pharma – for better or for worse – finally situates itself in the budding cannabis space.
“They’ll either do so to protect themselves or as an understanding that it’s time to collaborate with it,” says Thompson. “Whatever the motivation, Big Pharma will absolutely enter the cannabis space.”
Although Thompson doesn’t necessarily believe cannabis will be a replacement for opioids, he does believe it can be used in tandem to reduce opioid usage. And the same goes for with antidepressants. “Trying to find that balance of how traditional Pharma can work with cannabis in an integrated treatment plan,” he says, “is certainly the future.”
Welcome to another part «Women in History». Today we deal with Sabina Spielrein, a woman who likes to forget the great psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. (I’d just hope that it isn’t a (made of feminist portrait!)
As I, Aladin Fazel, once decided to translate this, I did! but surely not agree with all. Though, very laborious research which I appreciated.
«Miss Sabina Spielrein, b. Rostov-on-Don, Russia, 1885, shows signs of extreme hysteria. She laughs and cries alternately, cries out […] A shot in a lunatic asylum is absolutely necessary because it could possibly lead to self-harm. Paranoia not excluded. Anyway, there is a psychosis. »
With this medical certificate, the 18-year-old Sabina Spielrein is taken to the Burghölzli.
Progress has not made people happier, capitalist modernity challenges them much, and their unwavering belief in the technical mastery of the world makes them dream their wildest dreams. The railroad, which had brought an unprecedented speed into the bound, leisurely lives of people, supplanted the fashion sickness of previous centuries – the melancholy. The modern, sensitive age has given birth to hysteria, a world of nervous souls and nerve-wracked women.
The madness of a hysterical patient, circa 1880. Photo: wikimedia
The hysteria was from the beginning as a female disease. She emerged from the unfathomable depths of the woman and she was closely linked to insanity. It even went so far that some doctors demanded impunity for crimes committed during menstruation.
The doctors fell into a veritable zeal for collecting, all sorts of symptoms they brought together, from a sudden paralysis of the arm, about a headache, blurred vision to hypersensitivity of the soles of the feet. What was real, what was a simulation in order to avoid the hardships of life? And what could one dismiss as insidious, validated acting? The tenor of the researching men was:
“None of us sees through the female heart to its depth. For the woman is strong in appearance. »
Director of the Psychiatric University Hospital Berlin, Karl Wilhelm Ideler, 1840
But the disease raised a very different question: is it possible that mental factors affect the body? That not all suffering is of physical origin?
When Sabina is taken to the Bürghölzli, Professor Eugen Bleuler is the director of the asylum. The cause of his sister’s disease: “schizophrenia” made him become doctor and psychiatrist. He studied with the French neurologist Charcot, who hypnotized the hysterical symptoms of his patients. In Bleuler lives the Enlightenment spirit from which the Burghölzli was born in 1870: He wants to bring light into the twisted heads of mentally ill people. He listens to them and finds out that many of his patients’ delusions are veiled dreams. Bleuler is the first university professor to engage with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic approach. He experiments with the dream analysis of the Vienna Dependoctor, encouraging his students to read Freud’s writings. The so-called Viennese psychoanalysis, which is so passionately hostile for the first time, becomes clinically and scientifically capable for the first time – in Zurich.
Sabina Spielrein graduated high school in her hometown Rostov with the highest distinction. She is a well-educated girl, but she is not feeling well. She dreams of being flogged in front of a large crowd. She suffers from obsessions and threatens suicide. Her mother, Eva, hoped the girl would recover in the land of good air. The lakes, forests and glaciers would have an invigorating and invigorating effect, a stay in the spa town of Interlaken would bring the most beautiful healing results for ill nervous systems – the brochure promises.
But the therapy does not help Sabina. Her diary is silent about her presence in the sanatorium of the Bernese doctor Moritz Heller, this is supported by the receipt of her stay, which she has scribbled with gloomy drawings:
«Wasseranstalt» (left): The patient is doused with cold water. “Electrify” (right): Patient lies on a cot while the doctor stands on or beside her and gives her electric shocks. “Dr. Heller »,« Dr. Hisselbaum »(middle): To her doctors Sabina writes« chort », russ. For devil. picture: sabine Richebächer: sabina Spielrein
For nine and a half months, Sabina will stay in Burghölzli. And she will prove to be a stroke of luck for a man who wants to try the Freudian method on her: Carl Gustav Jung. He is strong and tall, born in Thurgau and the son of a poor Protestant pastor who came to Basel with his parents when he was four. After completing his medical studies, he devoted himself to psychiatry, to the amazement of his environment, for Jung was ambitious and suddenly switched to this dull, ridiculed branch. He works as Bleuler’s assistant in Burgholzli and now wants to take care of the hysterical Russian.
C.G. Jung next to the Burghölzli main portal, 1901. Photo: wikimedia
Strict bed rest is prescribed to the patient, nobody is allowed to visit her and every five minutes a nurse comes to look for Sabina. The young woman defies and threatens, hides, plays pranks on the nursing staff, runs through the corridors, and then falls back into hysterical twilight states. Jung asks about her father, Sabina keeps silent. She only makes faces, fights with her hands, her legs start to twitch – or she sticks out her tongue. She does not want to be healed at all. Sabina grows up with her siblings in Rostov. The Spielreins are among the few of the approximately five million Jews who do not live in the Russian tsarist empire within the settlement area. Most of them live in confined areas in Jewish neighbourhoods or the Jewish streets of the cities, many are poor, they are called “airmen”.
Between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 20th century, the residential and employment rights of the Jewish population in the Russian Empire were limited to the settlement area. The area had previously been largely a part of Poland-Lithuania and came under Russian rule at the end of the 18th century with the partition of Poland. The settlement area extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. picture: wikimedia / editing watson
In Rostov, the conditions are a bit cheaper. The Jews live scattered throughout the city, Sabina’s father Nikolai Spielrein is a wealthy merchant, he earns his money by trading in grain, feed and fertilizer.
Sabina’s mother Eva is the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi. She is one of the first women in the Russian Empire to visit the university and study dentistry during the short liberal period. The games are among the most educated families in the city.
Sabina’s childlike spirit is full of imagination and scientific curiosity. In her diary she remembers the things that occupied her four-year-old self:
“Especially Americans caught my curiosity because the earth is like as a ball, they had to move with their heads downwards and their feet upwards”
Sabina Spielrein in her diary
The little girl digs holes in the ground again and again and asks the mother how long it takes until she can pull an American by the legs. She knows that children come from her mother’s stomach and wants to know if she can get one too. Eva Spielrein explains to her daughter that she is still too young for that. But maybe a kitten could have her. And while Sabina happily awaits the creature, she wonders if with good upbringing she can develop into a being as intelligent as a human.
Family Spielrein around 1896: Sitting on the ground in front v. l. No. the siblings Sabina, Emilia and Jascha, behind her is Isaac, the man with a mustache on the back left is the father Nikolai Spielmann, in front of him on the left is the mother Eva Spielrein. picture: sabine richebächer: sabina spielrein
The gentle girl is fragile and often sick. She feels lonely and creates a protective spirit with which she speaks German. Sabina argues a lot with her brothers, she plays the boys pranks – and is punished for it by the father. Until she is eleven years old, he beats her hand on her bare bottom, even in the presence of the brothers.
“It always seems to me that Daddy is coming and I drive with him .” Sabina Spielrein in her diary
She loves her father in pain, finally betrays her Jung, who drilled deeper and deeper into her injured soul. He should not force her, she asks her doctor. But he does not listen.
Undeterred, he continues to poke, digging out the repressed memories of the young Russian woman, whom she now has to relive once again.
“The special psychic existences are shattered by the fact that they are pulled out with a volitional effort to the daylight.” C. G. Jung
In the end, she gives up her resistance and tells the doctor that she has been sexually aroused since the age of four after her father’s beatings. She masturbated when she heard that one of her brothers was beaten. And even if a patient is brought back into the room by force, she feels like touching herself. Sabina feels guilty. She was a bad person.
Sabina Spielrein, ca. 1920. Photo: sabine richebächer: sabina spielrein
Again and again she asks Jung to treat her badly, to ask her nothing, only to give her orders. She wants to be humiliated by him.
«Ich will eben Schmerzen haben. Ich möchte, dass Sie mir etwas recht Böses tun, dass Sie mich zu etwas zwingen, das ich aus ganzer Kraft nicht will.» Sabina Spielrein
Jung does not fulfil her wish, and so the pain moves in Sabina’s soles, which he is now forced to investigate. The relationship between doctor and patient is sadomasochistic, what else should emerge from Jung’s treatment method. Sabina begins to fall in love with her doctor, the better father who takes care of her. Jung also feels attracted by the young Russian woman, who is so different from his wife Emma; dangerous, irritating, educated and exotic.
C.G. Jung with Mrs. Emma and four of his five children, 1917. picture: pinterest
Much later, he will write to her that he loves her “great, proud character,” but never marries her because he is a “great philistine” who needs “the narrow, specifically Swiss.”
Jung’s wife does not miss her husband’s interest in his patient. And when she gives birth to the first child, Sabina falls back into the old frenzy. She hides, threatens suicide, scratches the floor, and thinks a black cat is crouching in her room, maybe the animal she was a child to give birth to.
Director Bleuler distracts the patient, affirms her in her scientific interest and allows her to participate in his case presentations. Sabina soon has enough self-confidence to believe in her old wish and enrols at the University of Zurich. She wants to become a doctor.
Burghölzli’s director, Eugen Bleuler, who introduced psychoanalysis to psychiatry. picture: wikimedia
On January 22, 1905, tens of thousands of workers marched in their home country to the Winter Palace, the residence of the Czar. They demonstrate peacefully for decent conditions in the enterprises, for agrarian reforms and the creation of a representative body. But they do not invade Nicholas II. The soldiers shoot into the crowd first. The prelude to the revolution, which will soon overtake the whole country.
Sabina is released from Burgholzli five months later.
Jung considers the socialists, nothing more than thieves, in a letter Sabina accuses him of covetousness, which would lead him to such a limited view:
“Socialism, in the sense that all people are the same […], would, of course, be a utopia. But socialism has a high value as an anti-capitalist movement. They say the acquisition of wealth requires some intelligence and energy, so the rich are the most efficient. This could only apply in exceptional cases. It seems so funny to me that I have to show you how unfairly the goods are distributed as if you did not know it much better than me. “ Sabina Spielrein in a letter to Jung.
Jung met in 1907 in Vienna for the first time the Grand Master of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. The two men spend 13 hours in Freud’s office on Berggasse 19, talking about Sabina, about the future of psychoanalysis, as the room fills up with the smoke of Freud’s cigar: “I can not think of myself to wish a better continuer and finisher of my work as you, »he finally says.
At a time when sexuality had to hide under buttoned blouses, locked away, tabooed and declared sinful, Sigmund Freud stepped onto the stage. He realized that the suppression of sexuality can lead to serious mental health problems and he climbed into the dreams of his patients because he described them as the royal way to the soul. picture: ap sigmund freud museum
But the two have different views, Freud’s one-sided restriction to the sex drive as the cause of any neurosis does not want to divide Jung, Freud, in turn, holds Jung’s parapsychological interests for humbug and fears the scientific death of his young subject, mix it with elements of superstition.
For quite a while, Freud Jung defended himself as the crown prince and heir of his legacy to his Viennese colleagues, because all of them do not want the Swiss to be presidents of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
“You are for the most part Jews, and therefore not suited to acquire friends of the new doctrine. Jews must be satisfied with being a culture fertilizer. » Sigmund Freud to his Viennese colleagues
He was old, Freud placated the gentlemen, he no longer wanted to be attacked. “The Swiss will save us. Me and you all. »
In 1909, Freud (bottom left) was awarded an honorary doctorate from Clark University, Massachusetts. Jung (bottom right) travelled with him. Between them is G. Stanley Hall, with Abraham Brill, Ernest Jones and Sándor Ferenczi in the back row. picture: Wikimedia
Freud should be wrong. Jung endangered the reputation of psychoanalysis. The illegitimate sexual desire, which he believed he recognized in one of his dreams, has come true. Sabina is no longer just his patient.
In Vienna, people start to talk. They tell themselves that Jung wants to leave his wife to marry his patient. “Sabina has betrayed me!” Thinks the aspiring physician, who now fears for his reputation, his social position. He writes Freud. He pathologizes Sabina, sacrifices her, the aspiring physician. He always remained “within the bounds of a gentleman” in the letter to his spiritual father:
“In the most damaging manner, she [Sabina] disappointed my trust and my friendship and made a despicable scandal solely because I renounced the pleasure of giving birth to her. C.G. Jung in a letter to Freud
He moves with his family to Küsnacht and opens a private practice there. Sabina is hurt, but she still hopes for a loving farewell to the man she must love as much as he loved her. For, as Jung writes in his essay “On the Role of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual”, the choice of the future life partner of a human being always depends on his first childlike relationship. From those to the parents.
Jung loved his nervous mother, Sabina her father, whom she had never considered normal: “Now he has fallen in love with me, a hysteric, and I have fallen in love with a psychopath.”
When the two finally pronounce, Jung apologizes for the false suspicions. She makes him tell the truth to Freud too.
“In general, my love brought me almost pain, it was only a few moments, as I rested against his chest, in which I could forget everything.” Sabina Spielrein about her love for Jung
Sabina graduated in 1911. “About the psychological content of a case of schizophrenia” is the title of her dissertation, she is the first woman ever, who receives the doctor of medicine with a psychoanalytic topic.
The father of Swiss psychiatry, representative of the abstinence movement and predecessor Bleulers am Burghölzli: Auguste Forel (1848-1931). picture: wikimedia
In her work, she writes of the case person as an “inferior psychopath”. She uses the usual jargon of her studies, which is based on racist, demographic theories. In Switzerland, especially in Zurich, eugenics and racial doctrine are taught by Auguste Forel and his successor Eugen Bleuler.
Practically, these ideas are implemented with institutionalization, child support, marriage bans, forced sterilization and castration. Everything is already there, the National Socialists will use this instrument in a consequence, which can not be surpassed in cruelty.
Sabina still thinks a lot of Jung, this man who is everything to her at the same time, mentor, role model, parental substitute – and in her mind still lover and father of her imaginary son, who baptizes Siegfried after Wagner’s opera Ring des Nibelungen.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) created music dramas that fundamentally changed the expressiveness of operas. His “Tristan und Isolde” is considered by many to be the starting point of modern music. He was early convinced that he was a genius: “In 50 years, I will be the master of the musical world,” he predicted. picture: wikimedia
The idea that love only becomes fully fulfilled in death inspires her to write “The destruction as the cause of becoming” (1912). In it, she describes the desire for death as part of the libido, the reproductive instinct as something that always triggers fear and disgust, which must first be overcome. From Sabina’s idea, Freud will develop his most controversial and speculative theory – that of the death instinct.
She is now a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association. Another woman sits in this select circle: the paediatrician Margarete Hilferding, who was the first to realize that there is no innate maternal love, as many mothers had hostile feelings towards their children.
The Viennese Margarete Hilferding (1871-1942) graduated in 1903 as the first woman from medical school at the University of Vienna. She dealt above all with questions about birth control, education and education. picture: wikimedia
Sabina’s diary reveals no more than this cryptic sentence about her marriage to the Rostov doctor Pawel Scheftel:
“Dr Paul Scheftel married. The sequel follows.” Sabina in her diary
And even when her daughter Irma-Renata is born, her thoughts sneak to the former lover and the fantasy fruit Siegfried. In the meantime, Freud and Jung have completely disagreed, “my personal relationship with your Germanic hero has definitely broken down,” writes Freud Sabina.
Pawel receives his mobilization order and returns to Russia. His 29-year-old wife wants to stay with the child in the west.
In the First World War, four million Russian soldiers fall, the general strike in the Tsarist empire becomes a revolution, the civil war devastates the country, the economy collapses, typhus, cholera and the Ruhr tear countless people to their deaths. In 1921, five million people starve to death. The Red Army wins the following year – the Soviet Union is founded.
Käthe Kollwitz’s poster “Help Russia”, 1921. The famine in Soviet Russia was so bad that there were cases of cannibalism.
Meanwhile, Sabina lives in Lausanne, then in Geneva, where she works as a psychoanalyst and gives courses at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute. There she also meets the young Jean Piaget, whose works incorporate some of Sabina’s thoughts, and with which he will revolutionize child psychology.
She earns her own money for the first time, but it is not enough, she has to keep herself and her dying child afloat with sewing. Her father Nikolai tries to send his daughter money to Switzerland. Lenin, with his New Economic Policy (NEP), has decided on a partial return to the capitalist system so that the country can recover. So the game ranks were able to save some of their fortunes. But Sabina, who lives in war-torn Switzerland, gnawing at the hunger-wipe.
In 1923 she returns to her homeland, to her family and to her husband; to where she really did not want to be. Three years later, Sabina is now 41 years old, she gives birth to her second child, which she named after her deceased mother Eva.
Sabina’s father is full of pride in helping to build the new Russia, her brothers are making a career. Sabina is the psychoanalyst with the best education in the country, providing courses for doctors, educators, psychologists and students.
Under the patronage of Leon Trotsky, psychoanalysis flourishes in the Soviet Union – he has come to know “Freudism” during his exile in Vienna. The subject has power policy goals; it should contribute to the creation of the new human being, promote the collective education and re-educate all the stray, robbing orphans by means of new pedagogy to valuable state members.
But when Lenin dies in 1924, “Judas Trotsky” falls out of favour, and the ice axe that splits his skull in Mexican exile immediately kills Soviet psychoanalysis.
On August 20, 1940, a secret service agent Trotsky hit an ice axe in the head. The photo shows Trotsky in the hospital of Mexico City, where he died a day later. picture: ap
She shares a destiny with many other sciences. Stalin buried them all. He wants «workers sciences», «working technologies», born of «proletarian intelligence».
And while Freudism in the Soviet Union is denounced as a reactionary theory, in Berlin Goebbels’s fire spell accompanies Freud’s writings into the flames.
«What progress we make! In the Middle Ages, they burned me, and nowadays they are content to burn my books. “ Sigmund Freud
Now Jung enters the orphaned stage of psychoanalysis. Finally, as the Swiss hateful in Vienna must have thought, my theories are officially recognized. Jung can be celebrated as the man who opposes Freud’s “decomposing” psychoanalysis with his uplifting psychology. He takes over the editorship of the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie, in which he announces in 1934:
“The Jew as a relative nomad never has and will probably never create his own cultural form, since all his instincts and gifts require a more or less civilized host nation to develop. The Aryan unconscious has a higher potential than the Jewish […]» ???????????????? C.G. Jung in the “Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie”, 1934 (I, Aladin Fazel, am not sure about this one!)
In 1937, the heart of Sabina’s husband Pawel stops beating. It is the year in which Stalin’s purges reach their peak. The officers of the NKVD drive their black limousines through the streets and take “suspicious” people out of their beds during the night. Sabina’s brother Isaak, formerly head of psycho-technology, is executed and buried in the mass grave on Moscow’s territory. Her brother Jascha, professor of energetics, is murdered a year later. The youngest brother Emil, who taught experimental biology at the University of Rostov, will be executed in June. Her father Nikolai dies a month later – out of grief.
When German planes began attacking Russian airfields and cities in June 1941, Sabina still lives with her daughters in Rostov. The city is called “the gate to the east”, with its four major railway lines it is an important strategic goal of Hitler, whose “enterprise Barbarossa” from the beginning was planned as a war of extermination. Habitat in the east is to be created.
On November 22, the capture of Rostov is reported to Berlin. But still is shot, soon the NKVD keeps the administration of the city in hands again. 800 people are suspected of collaborating with the Germans and executed. The inhabitants are used for forced labour, many freezes to death or die from exhaustion while trying to build fortifications.
Sabina stays in town. Maybe she did not believe what is being said about the fascists. She, who spent half her life in Germany and Switzerland.
In the summer offensive 1942, the Germans gain the upper hand in Rostow. Sabina’s house is bombed, she waits eleven days with Renata and Eva in a cellar. The SS Sonderkommando 10a roughly estimates 200,000 to 300,000 remaining inhabitants.
Soon posters are posted, signed to deception by the Jewish Elders. All Jews should register for their protection. Then they should arrive at the respective collection points.
bild: sabine richebächer: sabina spielrein
The 56-year-old Sabina is ready at the appointed time, supported by her daughters. You will be picked up by car. If you get in too slowly you will be beaten. They drive to Schlangenschlucht, where they have to hand over all valuables in a vacant house. Naked, they have removed behind the house again.
Five kilometres northwest of Rostov, the Red Army prisoners have already cleared thirteen pits in a grove. The residents of “2-yy Smijovka” were ordered to leave the village for shooting practice. An eyewitness reports:
“On the 14th of August, I went to that grove where I had heard the shooting, and saw that the pits were crammed with corpses that were only lightly covered with earth, over which you could see rivulets of blood.” Beloded Ignat Stepanovich, eyewitness
The Holocaust Archive of the Yad Vashem memorial sites in Jerusalem bears the name Sabina Spielrein: «1942, died with all Jews, Rostov-on-Don.»
The book used for the article Sabine Richebächer: Sabina Spielrein – an almost cruel love of science, 2005. Richebächer supervised for many years the category “Psychological New Publications” in the NZZ, she lives as an author and psychoanalyst in Zurich. The latest film version of the Spielrein material is also worth seeing: “A Dark Desire” (original: “A Dangerous Method”, 2011) by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
Socrates: “For him, therefore, I said, the worthy people do not seek authority for either the money or the glory; for neither they nor the willed want to be characterized, receiving an obvious salary for their office or thieves, profit from it. Nor again for glory; for they are not ambitious. So we need to have a compulsion for them and some punishment to want to exercise power – thus almost be considered a shame to take one voluntarily government office before they forced to do so – and the greatest punishment here is the dominates one of his worst since he will not be willing to rule.
Fearing for her just punishment receive in my opinion to exert power worthy people when sometimes happen to take power in their hands, and take it to rule not with the idea that awaits them there anything good or that would wellbeing but as if they are going to something they need to do, and they do not have some of their better ones, or even theirs, to give it to them. “
Yes! I might get old and my style too but if we look in the history of humans, the way of making arts (I mention art because I think it’s the power of God given to us to be a creator, a part of God.) has been lost and so our power of imaginations. What a pity that we laze our abilities through using the technics and making ourselves as an idle!
If anyone tries to claim that modern day movies have too many special effects remind them of this. Films have always used special effects to trick the audience, and we’re just using new variations of tools from a century ago. In fact, right from the beginning, creators like Georges Méliès were pushing the boundaries of celluloid and 24 frames per second like the showmen and magicians they were.
By the time we get to the silent comedians as seen in our above video, technology had advanced along with the pure physical comedy of the stars. Yes, they were amazing and nimble athletes, but they weren’t stupid. Camera trickery helped them look superhuman.
The first example shows Harold Lloyd’s iconic stunt from 1923’s Safety Last!, where he hung over the streets of Los Angeles from a clock face. Only he wasn’t really. Using forced perspective, a constructed building edifice, and a safe mattress a few feet below shows how Lloyd faced no danger at all. Editing, too, creates so much of the effect, as we have seen how high the clock is compared to the ground in previous shots. The angle on the streets below and in the distance really sell the scene compared to just shooting the sky.
In fact, this forced perspective is still used in modern films: Peter Jackson used it a lot in The Lord of the Rings to give the impression that Gandalf was twice as tall as Hobbit Frodo simply by constructing the sets smaller.
And when backgrounds are basic like sand dunes, even the low budget filmmaker can achieve some amazing effects with no money, just a bunch of cool miniatures:
Then again, Jackie Chan one-upped Lloyd for real in his 1983 film Project A, when he dangles from a three-story clock hand only to crash through two canopies onto the ground below. It’s a stunt so nice, they show you it twice!
The other favourite trick of the silent films was a matte painting. As long as the camera doesn’t move, a piece of glass with a photo-realistic painting on it can seamlessly fit into the action.
In Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 Modern Times, that allows the comedian to skate very close to a three-floor drop without even being in danger. (Technically, the camera *does* move in this shot, but it’s a short pan which wouldn’t affect the illusion.)
This old-school method has gone away, though up through the ‘80s great matte painting artists were working on films like the Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now a digital matte artist works in three dimensions, not two, with endless finesse and tweaking at their disposal, like in Game of Thrones:
The matte is the basis, really, of all modern digital effects. Wherever there is a green screen, you’re seeing the evolution of the matte. You probably have an app on your phone that does something similar, and can magically transport you to where you really want to be…just like film.
Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast and is the producer of KCRW’s Curious Coast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
“..not fidelity to the law but love and kindness are the antithesis of evil. The wings of the dove temper the malignity of the air..” C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis
The Scottish celebration of Hogmanay is close at hand. Hogmanay is the Gaelic word for the last day of the year, celebrated on New Year’s eve.
This is the time of year when Celtic folks in Scotland gather together to welcome in the New Year and say Farewell or in Scot’s Gaelic, Soraidh, to the old year.
Several sources cite that Gaelic origins grew from French or Norse language or an older version of gaelic. New year ceremonies and mid-winter observance were natural in both Gaelic and Norse traditions. Hogmanay is a larger celebration in Scotland and predates the Christian Christmas. According to Scotland’s own website Scotland.org The Word Hogmany originated from the Norman French from hoguinan (a New Year’s gift). They also mention it’s a modification of the Gaelic og maidne (new morning), the Flemish hoog min dag
lampmagician 
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