Michael Jackson & Pink Floyd on This Day in History

Pink Floyd: Behind the Wall (FULL DOCUMENTARY)

This Day In History: Pink Floyd's album "The Wall" was released on this day in 1979. Michael Jackson's Thriller was released on this day in 1982. Both would be included on the list of top 10 best-selling albums of all time. According to Wikipedia Thriller is the best-selling album, but according to Business Insider it is The Eagles Greatest Hits. In fact, Business Insider includes two Eagles albums in the top 10: the Greatest Hits and Hotel California. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon also sold well, spending over 900 weeks in total in the Billboard 200. Three Canadians are featured prominently in the best-selling charts: Shania Twain, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. I can really only find two artists from the past 20 years on the top 50: Adele and Linkin Park.

Thriller

The Jackson's - Motown 25

C.S. Lewis on This Day in History

This Day In History: C.S. Lewis was born on this day in 1898. Best known for writing The Chronicles of Narnia he was involved in other areas as well, particularly theology. My favorite quote from him is often used to describe government: “Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Or as Reagan put it, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

He is also known for what came to be called "Lewis's trilemma," an apologetic argument used to argue for the deity of Christ by arguing that the only alternatives were that he was evil or deluded, best known as the: "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord", or "Mad, Bad, or God" argument. Methinks he was simply limiting his options. After all, Jesus could simply be a divine agent with a unique relationship to God. 

Listen to Mere Christianity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwq09sIpLQ

Listen to Surprised by Joy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRWg-GBzNE

Listen to The Pilgrim Regress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftkAJP97Tfw

Listen to Screwtape Letters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9hNfQ9kg2Q&t

Listen to the Chronicles of Narnia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc8387H7oYc

Listen to his short story collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0btcA_etbmQ&list=PLBsdQVyQoDTGJS-bkFHPEq4htvuV36mGk

Was C.S. Lewis a Libertarian?

The C.S. Lewis Archives

Jeffrey Dahmer on This Day in History

Watch: Jeffrey Dahmer - Serial Killer - Documentary

This Day In History: Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison on this day in 1994. Known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, Dahmer was serial killer and sex offender who committed the rape, murder, and dismemberment of 17 men and boys. When interviewed, he said something very interesting. He wanted to set the record straight that he was "not a racist." We live in interesting times when being called a RACIST carries greater stigma than being called a cannibal serial killer.

Listen to: The Serial  Killer Files

Also Sprach Zarathustra on This Day in History

Elvis and Also Sprach Zarathustra/See See Rider

This Day In History: The classical music piece, Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, was first performed on this day in 1896. Most know this piece from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is named after Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel of the same name, and as such, this is labelled a tone poem (or Symphonic poem), which is a piece of orchestral music that is based on a poem, story, novel etc. On the list of the 100 Greatest Classical Music Works of all time it is ranked number 66
(https://classicalmusiconly.com/list/100-greatest-classical-music-works-f164de5b)

See also Great Quotes by Nietzsche

Nietzsche, Darwinism and Morality by William Jennings Bryan 1922

The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - 100 Books on CDrom

Alice in Wonderland on This Day in History

This Day In History: Alice in Wonderland was published on this day in 1865. Its enduring success was probably due to Lewis Carroll's savvy marketing. Like Disney would later do, Carroll allowed for brand licensing and product tie-ins. Alice in Wonderland tins, lunch pails and shirts are still available online. As a result, the book has never been out of print. Lewis Carroll was also a noted mathematician, so much so that math made its way into the book. In fact, pop math guru Martin Gardner published an Annotated Alice.

Lewis Carroll also wrote: A Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry (1860)

The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically (1858 and 1868)

An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations

Euclid and his Modern Rivals (1879), both literary and mathematical in style

Symbolic Logic Part I

Symbolic Logic Part II (published posthumously)

The Alphabet Cipher (1868)

The Game of Logic (1887)

Curiosa Mathematica I (1888)

Curiosa Mathematica II (1892)

The Theory of Committees and Elections, collected, edited, analysed, and published in 1958, by Duncan Black

See also Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved

Algebra in Wonderland

The Hidden Math Behind Alice In Wonderland

The Best Victorian Literature, Over 100 Books on DVDrom

Tesla on this Day in History

This day in history: Tesla started a tour to promote their Model S Electric Car on this day in 2011. I believe this went better than the recent rollout of the hideously ugly Cybertruck. (This vehicle looks like a John DeLorean rejected concept design. I can see Robocop driving this though). #Cybertruck has been trending online since this rollout mainly because the "unbeakable" windows on the vehicle actually broke. Most Tesla vehicles look great though, but I have a hard time respecting them because they get millions (perhaps billions) in taxpayer money and subsidies, only to produce cars that only rich people can afford.

Of course, there have been many bad product rollouts: Google Glass, the Apple Newton, Windows Vista, Harley Davidson perfume, Microsoft's Zune and the Edsel come to mind.

The Origin of the Species on This Day in History

This day in history: Charles Darwin's controversial classic On the Origin of the Species was published, after much hesitation, on this day in 1859. This book, and many others on the topic are freely available online.

See: 300 Books on Darwinism, Eugenics, Creation & Evolution on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/300-books-on-darwinism-eugenics.html

Listen to The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa4q9d-lbkQ

Download/read Michael Behe's Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
https://archive.org/details/MichaelBeheDarwinsBlackBox

Download/read: Michael Dowd's Thank God For Evolution! How The Marriage Of Science And Religion Will Transform Your Life And Our World
https://tinyurl.com/u8pdagg

Listen to: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin ready by Richard Dawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ECKFbHPsQ

Download/read: Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson
http://maxddl.org/Creation/Darwin%20On%20Trial.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ozxKMbHAQ

Download/read: Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth - How Much of What we Teach about Evolution is Wrong
https://archive.org/details/Jonathan.Wells.Icons.of.Evolution

Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer
https://alta3b.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/doubt.pdf

INTELLIGENT DESIGN: A THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS by Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/135937/intellig.pdf

The Areopagitica on this Day in History

This day in history: John Milton published his Areopagitica on this day in 1644. The Areopagitica is perhaps the earliest and one of the greatest manifestos in defense of free speech ever introduced. He wrote: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

The US Supreme Court cited it as an authority on the inherent value of false statements in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan:

"Even a false statement may be deemed to make a valuable contribution to public debate, since it brings about 'the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.'” Mill, On Liberty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947), p. 15; see also Milton, Areopagitica, in Prose Works (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1959), vol. 2, p. 561.

See also: Free Speech Leads to Tolerance and Prosperity
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/free-speech-leads-to-tolerance-and.html

Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/04/free-speech-is-speech-you-hate.html

Your Free Speech Is More Important Than My Feelings
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/your-free-speech-is-more-important-than.html

Read the Areopagitica
http://files.libertyfund.org/files/103/1224_Bk.pdf
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/608

Listen to the Areopagitica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgTiHr-bXhI

North Carolina Pirates on this Day in History

This Day In History: One of the best-known pirates in history, Blackbeard (Edward Teach) was killed (5 bullets and 20 sword wounds) off the coast of North Carolina on this day in 1718. His head was put on display for years as a warning to other pirates. North Carolina was a popular stopping point in the golden age of pirates. It was also visited by Stede Bonnet "The Gentleman Pirate" and even two famous female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. There is a legend that Capt. William Kidd has buried treasure near Wrightsville Beach (Money Island). Anne Blyth, another female pirate supposedly buried treasure near Fort Caswell, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, just south of Southport.

Watch: 5 Most Ruthless & Feared Pirates To Ever Set Sail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cIE0nxFeVA

See also: Pirates and Buccaneers of the High Seas, 50 Books on CDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/pirates-and-buccaneers-of-high-seas-50.html

World Philosophy Day on this Day in History

This day in history: Today is World Philosophy Day. Philosophy is dead. If you were asked to name a present-day philosopher you probably couldn't. I could probably name about 50 philosophers, but only a handful of those were from the past century. I would say that Ayn Rand was the last philosopher. Perhaps it is today's politically correct "woke" atmosphere that prevents people from talking freely and honestly, which is a prerequisite for philosophy. Rand died in 1982 and she is still reviled and hated because "words." Stefan Molyneux, who styles himself a philosopher, was recently demonetized by Paypal because he says things that are uncomfortable to hear. Philosophy has always been a middle finger to previous philosophies and the status quo...if we don't have that, we are left with bike-lock wielding leftist professors.

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.” Thomas Paine

“Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.” ~ George Carlin

Political Correctness and the Suicide of the Intellect
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/political-correctness-and-the-suicide-the-intellect

The Unreasonable Destructiveness of Political Correctness in Philosophy
https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/3/17/htm

See also: 600 Books on Philosophy on Two DVDroms (Kant, Descartes,
Hume, Aquinas etc)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/600-books-on-philosophy-on-two-dvdroms.html

Suicide and Philosophy - 50 Books on CDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/suicide-and-philosophy-50-books-on-cdrom.html

350 Books on German Philosophy on DVDrom (Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Hegel,)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/350-books-on-german-philosophy-on.html

Descartes, Spinoza & Philosophy - 230 Books on DVDrom (Rationalism, Hume, Kant)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/descartes-spinoza-philosophy-230-books.html

The Philosophy of Hume, Voltaire and Priestley - Over 170 Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-philosophy-of-hume-voltaire-and.html

Does God Exist? - 300 Books on DVDrom (Philosophy, Apologetics)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/does-god-exist-300-books-on-dvdrom.html

The Philosophy of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle -200 Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-philosophy-of-plato-socrates-and.html

The Philosophy & Study of EVIL, 100 Books on DVDrom [Theodicy]
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-philosophy-study-of-evil-100-books.html

Chinese Philosophy and Thought, 170 Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/chinese-philosophy-and-thought-170.html

Over 320 Books on DVDrom on Thinkers and Philosophy (Logic etc)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/over-320-books-on-dvdrom-on-thinkers.html

The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - 100 Books on CDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-philosophy-of-friedrich-nietzsche.html

Leo Tolstoy on this Day in History

This day in history: Count Leo Tolstoy died on this day in 1910. He is best known for the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He was influential in his time, and he had a religiously devoted following (some who even made pilgrimages to his estate). He also worked on the New Testament by simply rewriting it, and he was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church for rejecting religious rituals. He could also be described as somewhat of a Libertarian...he was very critical of government: "Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society."

Read: The Gospel In Brief by Tolstoy at
https://archive.org/details/GospelInBrief_LevTolstoy
Read: War and Peace at
https://archive.org/details/leotolstoyswarpe01bloo/page/n6
Read: Anna Karenina at https://archive.org/details/anna_k/page/n8

Watch the War and Peace miniseries for free at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2goaLxExw&list=PL1AA_AedTJX9dVrn9eeYMU_gcZ28XMqj3

Listen to the War and Peace audiobook at

Watch Anna Karenina at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMrCMYcyS44 and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM2t7YSgAC4
Listen to the Anna Karenina audiobook at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kjWJjtMwuQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5o2nH027rc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJJSuwiej4Q

Also: 12 Quotes from Leo Tolstoy on Truth, Violence, and Government
https://fee.org/articles/12-quotes-from-leo-tolstoy-on-truth-violence-and-government/

Also: Tolstoyan movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolstoyan_movement

Calvin Klein on this Day in History

This day in history: Fashion designer Calvin Klein was born on this day in 1942. His "Obsession for Men" cologne was released in 1986 and is quite popular in the animal kingdom. You see, Tigers are obsessed with "Obsession." It is used by wildlife photographers to lure the big cats to a certain location. They will roll onto the ground, rub their cheeks all over it, and rub their faces with it. There is an ingredient in the scent called Civetone, a pheromone used in many musky colognes, and it resembles a type of "territorial marking"

Christopher Hitchens on Free Speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY&t

There is a video online of Christopher Hitchens defending free speech, wherein he says some interesting things about the freedom to say anything you want. What the video here and I have included some samples below: 

As John Stuart Mill said, if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important in fact it would become even more important that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.

In more modern times this has been put I think best by a personal heroine of mine Rosa Luxemburg, who said that "the freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently."

He says of the holocaust denier: "That person doesn't just have a right to speak, that person's right to speak must be given extra protection because what he has to say must have taken him some effort to come up with." He follows this with: "One of the proudest moments of my life, that's to say in the recent past, has been defending the British historian David Irving who is now in prison in Austria for nothing more than the potential of uttering an unwelcomed thought on Austrian soil."

See also: Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression

John Stuart Mill's quote is, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

The Telephone on this Day in History

This day in history: The first push-button telephone went into service on this day in 1963. Phones have certainly changed over the decades. There are 100,000 pay phones left in America, but you would be hard-pressed to find one. They were certainly useful in The Matrix, Get Smart and Superman, and let's not forget the Colin Farrell 2002 thriller "Phone Booth." Another great movie was "Cellular" with Kim Basinger and Jason Statham which is now dated because it was released shortly before the advent of the SmartPhone. There are also still people using rotary dial phones, though they stopped making them long ago. There is a Telephone Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts. Perhaps they have the red bat-phone.

H. H. Holmes on this Day in History

This day in history: H.H. Holmes was arrested on this day in 1894. Perhaps one of America's first serial killers, Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett) confessed to 27 murders. He is said to have killed as many as 200. During the 1890's world fair in Chicago, he built what came to be known as a murder castle, a building that had rooms with hinged walls, false partitions, secret passageways, and even airtight rooms that were connected to pipelines filled with gas which Holmes used as gas chambers. Chutes were used to deliver bodies to the basement where they were dissected. His story is featured in the excellent book by Erik Larson "The Devil in the White City" which will soon be released as a mini-series starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Download "The Devil in the White City" here
https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1460/01/1460014686260.pdf

Read The Master of the Murder Castle: A classic of Chicago crime
https://harpers.org/archive/1943/12/the-master-of-the-murder-castle/

Watch Holmes' great great grandson Jeff Mudgett talk about Holmes being Jack the Ripper

See also Paranormal History with Jeff Mudgett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcOxmctjd54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBtAztfTWA

Milli Vanilli on this Day in History

This day in history: Pop group Milli Vanilli were forced to give back their Grammy Awards on this day in 1990 because the duo did not sing on the "Girl You Know It's True" album. I never knew why this was such a scandal, as I knew this happened quite a bit in the music industry. Lawrence Welk, Sheb Wooley, Jackie Gleason all lent their names to albums they had nothing to do with, and the Monkees started out as a fake band. The Beach Boys Pet Sounds album was mostly the work of studio musicians, Eric Clapton played the guitar on the Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and no one thinks that the Archies or the Muppets' Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem play their own music. Lending your name to books (Ghostwriting) that others have written happens even more often, especially when it comes to political memoirs (there are actually ghostwriting firms [https://www.ka-writing.com/] who charge a lot of money for this).

Death is the Supreme Event of Life by Camille Flammarion

This Kindle book (The Companion Guide to Death) is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only $1.99
See my blog listing for this here.

From: Death and Its Mystery 1922

In my childhood, during lessons in philosophy and religious instruction in school, I often heard a discourse, given periodically, which took as text the four words: "Porro unum est necessarium," or in English, "one single thing is necessary." This single thing was the salvation of our souls. The lecturer spoke to us of the wars of Alexander, of Caesar, of Napoleon, and arrived at this conclusion: "What does a man profit, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" They described to us also the flames of hell, and they terrified us with frightful pictures representing the damned, tortured by devils in an inextinguishable fire which burned them without consuming them, for all eternity. The subject of the text retains its value, whatever may be one's beliefs. It cannot be disputed that the one all-important point for us is to know what fate is reserved for us after our last breath. "To be or not to be!" That scene in "Hamlet" is repeated every day. The life of a thinking man is a meditation upon death.

If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about?

Whether we face it boldly, or whether we avoid the image of it, Death is the supreme event of Life. To be unwilling to consider it is a bit of childish silliness, as the precipice is before us and as we shall inevitably fall into it some day. To imagine that the problem is insoluble, that we can know nothing about it and shall only be wasting our time if, with daring curiosity, we try to see clearly,—that is an excuse dictated by a careless laziness and an unjustified timidity.

The funereal aspect of death is due, above all, to what surrounds it, to the mourning that accompanies it, to the religious ceremonies that envelop it, to the Dies Irae, to the De Profundis. Who knows if the despair of those who are left behind would not give place to hope if we had the courage to examine this last phase of our earthly life with the same pains that we bring to an astronomical or a psychological observation? Who knows if the prayers of the dying would not give place to the serenity of the rainbow after the storm?

It is hard not to desire an answer to the formidable question that presents itself when we think of our destiny, or when a cruel death has taken from us some one we love. How is it possible not to ask whether or not we shall find each other again, or if the separation is for eternity? Does a Deity or Goodness exist? Do injustice and evil rule over the progress of humanity, with no regard for the feelings that nature has placed in our hearts? And what is this nature itself? Has it a will, an end? Could there be more intelligence, more justice, more goodness, and more inspiration in our infinitesimally small minds than in the great universe? How many questions are associated with the same enigma!

We shall die; nothing is more certain. When the earth on which we live shall have turned only a hundred times more around the sun, not one of us, dear readers, will still be of this world.

Ought we to fear death for ourselves, or for those whom we love?

"Horror of death" is a senseless expression. One of two things is true: either we shall die wholly, or we shall continue to exist beyond the grave. If we die wholly we shall never know anything about it; consequently we shall not feel it. If we continue to exist, the subject is worth examining.

Some day our bodies will cease to live: there is not the least doubt on this point. They will resolve themselves into millions of molecules, which will later be reincorporated in other organisms of plants, animals, and men; the resurrection of the body is an outworn dogma that can no longer be accepted by any one. If our thought, our psychic entity survives the dissolution of the material organism, we shall have the joy of continuing to live, because our conscious life will continue under another mode of existence that is superior to this. It must be superior, for progress is a law of nature that manifests itself throughout the whole history of the earth, the only planet that we are able to study directly.

As concerns this great problem, we can say with Marcus Aurelius: "What is death? If we consider it in itself, if we separate it from the images with which we have surrounded it, we see that it is only a work of nature. But whoever fears a work of nature is still a child."

Francis Bacon merely repeated the same thought when he said: "The ceremonies of death are more terrifying than death itself."

"True philosophy," wrote the wise Roman emperor, "is to await death with a tranquil heart and to see in it only the dissolution of those elements of which each being is composed. That is according to nature, and nothing is evil which conforms to nature."

But the stoicism of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius, of the Arabs, the Mussulmans, the Buddhists does not satisfy us: we wish to know.

And besides, whether or not nature ever does anything wrong is a debatable question.

No thinking man can avoid being troubled in his hours of personal reflection by this question: "What will become of me? Shall I die wholly?"

It has been said, not without apparent reason, that this is on our part a matter of naive vanity. We attribute a certain importance to ourselves; we imagine it would be a pity for us to cease to exist; we suppose that God occupies Himself with us, and that we are not a negligible quantity in creation. Assuredly, especially when we speak astronomically, we are no great matter; and even the whole of humanity itself is likewise of little importance. We can no longer reason to-day as in the time of Pascal; the geocentric and anthropocentric system no longer exists. Lost atoms on another atom, itself lost in the infinite! But at any rate we exist, we think, and ever since men have thought they have asked themselves the same questions to which the most varied religions have attempted to reply, without any of them, however, having succeeded.

The mystery before which we have raised so many altars and so many statutes of the gods, is still there, as formidable as in the times of the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Christians of the Middle Ages. The anthropomorphic and the anthropophagic gods have crumbled away. Their religions have vanished, but the religion remains — the research into the conditions of immortality. Are we blotted out by death, or shall we continue to exist?

Francis Bacon, more popular and celebrated than Roger Bacon, but without his genius, had, in laying down the foundations of scientific experiment, foreseen the progressive victory of observation and experience, the triumph of fact, judiciously established according to theories, in all the domains of human study except one, that of "divine matters," of the "supernatural," which he abandoned to religious authority and to Faith. This was an error in which a certain number of learned men still actually persist. There is no valid reason for not studying everything, for not submitting everything
to the test of positive analysis, and we shall never know anything that we have not learned. If Theology has been mistaken in pretending that these subjects were reserved for her. Science has been equally mistaken in disdaining them as unworthy or foreign to her mission.

The problem of the immortality of the soul has not yet been solved in the affirmative, but neither has it yet been solved in the negative, as has sometimes been pretended.

It is the general tendency to believe that the solution of the sphinx's riddle of what lies beyond the grave is out of our reach, and that the human mind has not the power to pierce this mystery. Nevertheless, what subject concerns us more closely, and how can we fail to be interested in our own lot?

The persistent study of this great problem leads us to believe, to-day, that the mystery of death is less obscure and impenetrable than has been admitted hitherto, and that it may become clear to the mind's eye by the light of certain actual experiments that were unknown half a century ago.

It ought not to surprise us to find psychical research associated with astronomical research. It is the same problem. The physical and moral world are one. Astronomy has always been associated with religion. The errors of that ancient science, which was founded on deceptive appearances, had their inevitable consequences in the erroneous beliefs of former days; the theological heaven must accord with
the astronomical heaven under pain of collapse. The duty of all honest men is to seek loyally after truth.

In our epoch of free discussion, science can study tranquilly, with complete independence, the gravest of problems. We can remember, however, — not without some bitterness — that during the intolerant centuries of the Inquisition, inquiries of free thought brought their disciples to the scaffold. Thousands of men have been burned alive for their opinions: the statue of Giordano Bruno reminds us of this, even in Rome. Can we pass before it or before that of Savonarola in Florence or that of Etienne Dolet in Paris, without feeling a shiver of horror at religious intolerance? And Vanini, burned at Toulouse! And Michael Servetus, burned at Geneva by Calvin!

We once affirmed things of which we were ignorant; we imposed silence upon all seekers. This is what has above all retarded the psychic sciences. Undoubtedly this study is not indispensable to a practical life. Men in general are stupid. Not one out of a hundred of them thinks. They live on the earth without knowing where they are and without having the curiosity even to wonder. They are brutes that eat, drink, enjoy themselves, reproduce their kind, sleep, and are occupied above everything in acquiring money. I have had, during an already long life, the joy of spreading among the different classes of all humanity, in all countries and all languages, the basic ideas of astronomical knowledge, and I am in a position to know the proportion of those who are interested in understanding the world which they inhabit and of forming a rudimentary idea of the marvels of creation. Out of the sixteen hundred million human beings who inhabit our planet there are about a million interested in such things, that is to say, who read astronomical books, out of curiosity or otherwise. As for those who study and make themselves personally familiar with the science, who keep up with the new discoveries by reading special and yearly publications, their number can be placed at about fifty thousand for the entire world, of which six thousand are in France.

We can therefore conclude that out of every sixteen hundred human beings there is one who knows vaguely what world he inhabits, and out of a hundred and sixty thousand there is one really well informed.

As for the instruction in astronomy in primary and secondary schools, in colleges and lyceums, either civil or ecclesiastical, it virtually amounts to nothing. In the matter of positive psychology the results are equally negligible. Universal ignorance is the law of our mundane humanity, from the days of its simian birth.

The deplorable conditions of life on our planet, the obligation to eat, the necessities of material existence, explain the indifference to philosophy on the part of the earth's inhabitants, without entirely excusing them; for millions of men and women find the time to indulge in futile amusements, to read newspapers and novels, to play cards, to occupy themselves with the affairs of others, to pass along the old story of the mote and the beam, to criticize and spy upon those about them, to dabble in politics, to fill the churches and the theirs, to support luxurious shops, to overwork the dressmakers and hatmakers, etc.

Universal ignorance is the result of that miserable human individualism that is so self-sufficient. The need of living by the spirit is felt by no one, or almost no one. Men who think are the exception. If these researches lead us to employ our minds better, to find what we are here to do, on this earth, we may be satisfied with this work; for, truly, our life as human beings seems very obscure.

The inhabitant of the earth is still so unintelligent and so bestial that everywhere, even up to the present day, it is still might that makes right and upholds it; the leading statesman of each nation is still the Minister of War, and nine tenths of the financial wealth of the peoples is consecrated to periodic international butcheries.

And Death continues to reign over the destinies of humanity!

She is indeed the sovereign. Her scepter has never exercised its controlling power with such ferocious and savage violence as in these last years. By mowing down millions of men on the battle-field she has raised millions of questions to be addressed to Destiny. Let us study it, this final end. It is a subject well worthy of our attention.

The plan of this work is outlined by its aim: to establish the positive proofs of survival. It will contain neither literary dissertations nor fine poetic phrases, nor more or less captivating theories, nor hypotheses, but only the facts of observation, with their logical deductions.

Are we to die wholly? That is the question. What will remain of us? To say, to believe that our immortality rests with our descendants, depends on our works, on the way in which we have helped humanity, is a mere jest. If we die wholly, we shall know nothing of these services we have rendered, and our planet will come to an end and humanity will perish. Thus everything will be utterly destroyed.

In order to discover if the soul survives the body we must first find out if it exists in itself, independently of the physical organism. We must therefore establish this existence on the scientific basis of definite observation and not on the fine phrases and the ontological arguments with which, up to the present, the theologians of all times have been satisfied. And first of all we must take into account the insufficiency of the theories of physiology, as they are generally accepted and conventionally taught.

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See also The Mysteries of Death - 250 Books on DVDrom

The Clutter Family Murders on this Day in History

This day in history: Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Clutter family murders. The killers drove more than 400 miles across the state of Kansas in the belief that Herb Clutter kept large amounts of cash in a safe (he didn't). The killers left the crime scene with only a small portable radio, a pair of binoculars, and less than $50 in cash. This crime led to the Truman Capote bestseller "In Cold Blood," the first true crime book written in a novelistic style  (which gave birth to the True Crime genre), and the second best-selling true crime book ever, behind Vincent Bugliosi's book "Helter Skelter" about the Charles Manson murders.

You can download In Cold Blood at https://www.chinhnghia.com/1836.pdf

Listen to “IN COLD BLOOD: THE CLUTTER MURDERS” and 4 More True Creepy
Horror Stories!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaTzN1atvXc

Listen to: Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter - The True Story of the Manson Murders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDssmCJjPCY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03-xQPtlhWY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNS-yfWJ_a4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YonHkG56mI

THE MURDERS THAT MADE TRUE CRIME A GENRE - The Clutter Family Case
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXJrJDGnHdo

The Justinian Plague on this Day in History

The Justinian Plague // Procopius (541-542) on Youtube

This day in history: Justinian I (or Justinian the Great) died on this day in 565. Whatever his triumphs and failures may be, I really only know him for the plague that was named after him. The Justinian Plague, though mostly forgotten now, decimated about 25% of the world’s population. It killed up to 100 million people. It was considered the first pandemic in recorded history and it swept across three continents. Greek historian Procopius wrote that many believed the disease was caused by a demon, a malevolent spirit that was said to either appear to people in a dream or materialize just as they were waking up. As a result, priests began performing exorcisms on the infected. This mass tragedy led to the destruction of the economy, farming and skills, consequences that lasted for hundreds of years and plunged the world deeper into the dark ages. 

Buy my published Kindle book on Amazon on the Strange History of Medicine for only 99 cents
See a local listing for it here

Jekyll & Hyde on this Day in History

"There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last." ~Robert Louis Stevenson

This day in history: Novelist Robert Louis Stevenson was born on this day in 1850. His best known work was the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a story that inspired Stan Lee to create the Incredible Hulk.

Jekyll & Hyde remains one of the top three Gothic novels of the 19th century, alongside Dracula and Frankenstein. Not bad for a book that took only days to write. Stevenson also had tuberculosis and was under the influence of cocaine at the same time. The term "Jekyll & Hyde" has entered our modern lexicon to describe the dual nature in man. Type in _Jekyll & Hyde psychology_ in Google and you will get over 3 million returns.

Interestingly, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was being performed theatrically at the same time as the Ripper murders started, making the actor, Richard Mansfield, a suspect in the murders because he played the role of Jekyll & Hyde too well.

Watch the movie for free on youtube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mQt5FreIiQ&t=359s

The Silent Movie is also available to watch at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjQaAK5Vof4

See also Many Penny Dreadfuls, Dime Novels and Gothic Novels on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/many-penny-dreadfuls-dime-novels-and.html

Also: During his college years, Robert Louis Stevenson briefly identified himself as a "red-hot socialist". He later wrote: "I look back to the time when I was a Socialist with something like regret…. Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with years, I am going through the normal cycle of change and travelling in the common orbit of men's opinions."[https://tinyurl.com/uzhk4p4]

Jekyll was also a really good TV show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDQ_WwbTRg0

Ellis Island and Stan Lee on this Day in History

This day in history: Ellis Island ceased operations on this day in 1954. Ellis Island was where millions of immigrants were processed, but by the 1940's and 1950's immigration was greatly reduced. America has a long history of restricting immigration. The first naturalization act in 1790 restricted immigration to "free white person[s] ... of good character." (That's right, not all white people were free at the time.) The Immigration Act of 1924 slowed down immigration for 40 years which allowed for the present immigrants to be assimilated.

This day also marks the passing of the Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee in 2018. Youtube is showing "With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story" (yes, Youtube has free movies with ads) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct9VTQnPa5c

See other free movies at https://tinyurl.com/freewithads

Read an old Amazing Fantasy Spiderman comic at
https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Fantasy_vol1_15_201607

Watch Spider-Man Cartoons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXWbFeqIi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFqry9QbUxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW14y7xNsXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBD1dbo775o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvltBYKtIuA

Kurt Vonnegut on this Day in History

This day in history: Writer Kurt Vonnegut was born on this day in 1922. My favorite work of his is Harrison Bergeron, a dystopian and prophetic short story about a society where everyone is fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General enforces the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

This is similar to another novel released a year earlier in 1960 called “Facial Justice” by L.P. Hartley about a society that has banished privilege and envy, to the extent that people will have their faces surgically altered in order to appear neither too beautiful nor too ugly.

Jordan Peterson reads Harrison Bergeron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvDYuj1Bs6Y

Read Harrison Bergeron
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

The Unfairness of Equal Outcomes

https://fee.org/articles/the-unfairness-of-equal-outcomes/

Rene Descartes on this Day in History

This day in history: On this day in 1619 René Descartes starts writing his "Meditations on First Philosophy." He is best known for his axiom "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). This leads to the joke: Rene Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender asks "May I help you?" and Rene Descartes replies "I think not", then disappears. On a weird sidenote, Descrates had a fetish for cross-eyed women.

“Descartes was a philosopher and mathematician. In his Discourse on Method and his Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1628) he laid emphasis on deduction rather than on induction. In the subordination of particulars to general principles he experienced a satisfaction akin to the sense of beauty or the joy of artistic production. He speaks enthusiastically of that pleasure which one feels in truth, and which in this world is about the only pure and unmixed happiness.

At the same time he shared Bacon's distrust of the Aristotelian logic and maintained that ordinary dialectic is valueless for those who desire to investigate the truth of things. There is need of a method for finding out the truth. He compares himself to a smith forced to begin at the beginning by fashioning tools with which to work.

In his method of discovery he determined to accept nothing as true that he did not clearly recognize to be so. He stood against assumptions, and insisted on rigid proof. Trust only what is completely known. Attain a certitude equal to that of arithmetic and geometry. This attitude of strict criticism is characteristic of the scientific mind.

Again, Descartes was bent on analyzing each difficulty in order to solve it; to neglect no intermediate steps in the deduction, but to make the enumeration of details adequate and methodical. Preserve a certain order; do not attempt to jump from the ground to the gable, but rise gradually from what is simple and easily understood.

Descartes' interest was not in the several branches of mathematics; rather he wished to establish a universal mathematics, a general science relating to order and measurement. He considered all physical nature, including the human body, as a mechanism, capable of explanation on mathematical principles. But his immediate interest lay in numerical relationships and geometrical proportions.

Recognizing that the understanding was dependent on the other powers of the mind, Descartes resorted in his mathematical demonstrations to the use of lines, because he could find no method, as he says, more simple or more capable of appealing to the imagination and senses. He considered, however, that in order to bear the relationships in memory or to embrace several at once, it was essential to explain them by certain formulæ, the shorter the better. And for this purpose it was requisite to borrow all that was best in geometrical analysis and algebra, and to correct the errors of one by the other.

Descartes was above all a mathematician, and as such he may be regarded as a forerunner of Newton and other scientists; at the same time he developed an exact scientific method, which he believed applicable to all departments of human thought. ‘Those long chains of reasoning,’ he says, ‘quite simple and easy, which geometers are wont to employ in the accomplishment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think that everything which might fall under the cognizance of the human mind might be connected together in the same manner, and that, provided only one should take care not to receive anything as true which was not so, and if one were always careful to preserve the order necessary for deducing one truth from another, there would be none so remote at which he might not at last arrive, or so concealed which he might not discover.’"~Walter Libby

See also Norman Smith's Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy 1903
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/03/norman-smiths-studies-in-cartesian.html

Descartes, Spinoza & Philosophy - 230 Books on DVDrom (Rationalism, Hume, Kant)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/descartes-spinoza-philosophy-230-books.html

Rene Descartes and the Soul by John Pancoast Gordy 1890
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/02/rene-descartes-and-soul-by-john.html

Descartes and the Pineal Gland By HP Blavatsky
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/01/descartes-and-pineal-gland-by-hp.html

Descartes quotes:

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

Download: Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio
https://ahandfulofleaves.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/descartes-error_antonio-damasio.pdf

...................................................

This is the House that Descartes built.

Two distinct substances, mind and matter, lay in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Locke, who by his experience guarded the substances, mind and matter, that lay in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Berkeley, who tried the Locke, and said that no matter could be in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Hume, who knew only ideas, who doubted all matter and doubted all mind, and thought to demolish entirely the House that Descartes built.

This is the Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who denied mind to Berkeley, who tried the Locke, who by his experience guarded the House that Descartes built.

Hegel this is, who abstraction denies, who succeeded to Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew only ideas, who denied mind to Berkeley, who said "no matter," who attacked the Locke, who guarded the substances, mind and matter, distinct in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Royce, with his high surmise, who interpreted Hegel's obscure disguise, who looked beyond Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew only ideas, who denied mind to Berkeley, who said "no matter," while trying the Locke, whose daily experience guarded the House that Descartes built.

This is the James, who the "many" descries, who with purpose pragmatic does pluralize, who opposes the Royce, with his high surmise, who can diverse, devious thoughts devise, which in ultimate oneness he unifies, who interpreted Hegel's obscure disguise, who in three-fold thought-forms did theorize, who succeeded to Kant, transcendentally wise, who by categories did characterize, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew not his own mind, who cared not for Berkeley, who tried the Locke, whose daily experience guarded the substances, mind and matter, that lay in the House that Descartes built.

This day in history: Émile Gaboriau was born on this day in 1832.

Download the above Works of Emile Gaboriau for a limited time at http://tinyurl.com/EmileGaboriau

This day in history: Émile Gaboriau was born on this day in 1832. Gaboriau was a pioneer in detective fiction with his famous sleuth, Monsieur Lecoq. In fact, France seems to be the birthplace of the Detective genre. Voltaire's story of Zadig had powers of marvelous deductions, and Edgar Allan Poe based his three detective stories in France with his detective Auguste Dupin. These french detectives laid the groundwork for Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes."

When Sherlock Holmes was big in England, Arsene Lupin was huge in France.

Adventures of Arsene Lupin (2004) eng subtitles

See also The 19th Century Detective Novel by H. L. Williams 1900
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-19th-century-detective-novel-by-h-l.html

The Germ of the Detective Novel by H. L. Williams 1900
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-germ-of-detective-novel-by-h-l.html

Forerunners of Sherlock Holmes 1906
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/01/forerunners-of-sherlock-holmes-1906.html

Online editions of his works
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gaboriau/emile/

Those who came before Sherlock Holmes (1906 Strand Magazine Article)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/08/those-who-came-before-sherlock-holmes.html

Foibles of Literary Men

Foibles of Literary Men (1906 Article)

MANY qualities which would be regarded as censurable if possessed by ordinary men and women are often regarded with a respect that is tinctured with admiration when they are possessed by persons of genius.

There is scarcely an author or musician of note who has not been distinguished by some foible that has excited the amusement of his friends. In many instances these foibles afford an index to the character of their victim. Some are natural, while others would seem to be the result of some inexplicable affectation. Viewed in any light, however, all are interesting.

Keats liked red pepper on his toast.

Sardou imagines he has a perpetual cold.

Dickens was fond of wearing flashy jewelry.

Joaquin Miller nailed all his chairs to the wall.

Ernest Renan wore his finger nails abnormally long.

Walter Savage Landor threw the dishes around to relieve his mind.

Edgar Allan Poe slept with his cat. He was inordinately proud of his feet.

Daudet wore his eye-glasses when asleep. He did his best work when hungry.

Victor Hugo spoke little; his remarks usually were made in the form of questions.

Thackeray used to lift his hat whenever he passed the house in which he wrote Vanity Fair.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson possesses a singular power over wild birds, and can easily tame them.

Alexandre Dumas, the younger, bought a new painting every time he had a new book published.

Edmund Clarence Stedman has his favorite cat sit in a high chair at the table every day at dinner.

Robert Louis Stevenson's favorite recreation was playing the flute, in order, as he said, to tune up his ideas.

Robert Browning could not sit still. With the constant shuffling of his feet holes were worn in the carpet.

Longfellow enjoyed walking only at sunrise or sunset, and he said his sublimest moods came upon him at these times.

Washington Irving never mentioned the name of his fiancee after her death, and If anybody else did so, he immediately left the room.

Hawthorne always washed his hands before reading a letter from his wife. He delighted in poring over old advertisements in the newspaper files.

Thomas Babington Macaulay kept his closets crammed with elaborately embroidered waistcoats, and the more gaudy they were, the better he liked them.

Disraeli wore corsets. The older he grew, the greater became his desire to dress like a young man. He had a pen stuck behind each ear when writing.

F. Marion Crawford carries his own stationery, pen and ink, and never writes with any other. He has written every word of every novel with the same penholder.

Bjornson kept his pockets full of the seeds of trees, scattering handfuls broadcast in his daily walks. He even tried to persuade his associates to do the same.

Darwin had no respect for books as books, and would cut a big volume in two, for convenience in handling, or he would tear out the leaves he required for reference.

Zola would pass whole weeks in the belief that he was an idiot. While in this state he wrote more than at any other time. He would never accept an invitation to dinner.

Oliver Wendell Holmes used to carry a horse-chestnut in one pocket and a potato in another to ward off rheumatism. He had a great fondness for trees, and always sat under one when he could.

Voltaire, as a preliminary to his day's work, would sharpen an even dozen lead pencils. He would untie and retie his stock whenever an idea concerning his work particularly pleased him.

Count Tolstoi goes barefoot and hatless the year round. He is fond of French perfumes, and keeps his linen scented with sachet powder. There is always a flower on his desk as he writes. Although very rich, he wears the cheapest clothes he can buy.

A. Conan Doyle, even in the coldest weather, never wears an overcoat. When he gives an afternoon lecture he removes his vest, and buttons his Prince Albert coat close to his body. He is a golf enthusiast and spends all the time possible on the links.

Bret Harte, when the inspiration was on him, would hire a cab for the night, and drive without stopping through the darkness until the struggle for ideas was over, and he grew calm enough to write. Nothing pleased him more than to be taken for an Englishman.

See also See also The Best Victorian Literature, Over 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here