Wordsmith.org
Posted By: belligerentyouth The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 07:34 PM
I not sure if it's really the opposite, but what is the proper word to describe the type of poetic, hypothetical abstraction that follows?

"If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear"

Posted By: wwh Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 07:48 PM
Dear BY: the closest I can come is transmutation, and that's not very good.

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:01 PM
the proper word to describe the type of poetic, hypothetical abstraction that follows?

I'd like to offer incomprehensible.

Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:07 PM
Thanks Vlad!
Are you talking about my (confessedly) weird description of the technique used in the line, or Shelley's line itself?

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:10 PM
the original Shelley

Posted By: AnnaStrophic Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:15 PM
Is this anastrophe? (parsing...)

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:17 PM
Personification would be ascribing human characteristics to the leaf. This is ascribing leaf characteristics to the human. That what you're looking for, by?

Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:23 PM
Pour Bill: Cheers. Transmutation is pretty much on par with 'transformation' too. I actually think there is a word for a human turning into or described as an inanimate or abstract object though. Any ideas

Posted By: milum Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 08:56 PM
I actually think there is a word for a human turning into an inanimate or abstract object though. Any ideas? - bellyouth

the secret word is TRANSFIGURATION is the secret word

Posted By: Anonymous Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 09:00 PM
Not to sound flippant, but it seems "depersonification" would fit fairly well. i suppose an argument could be made for "objectification", but that carries different undertones.

i'd tend to agree with it being some form of prosopopeia ~ can someone break "prosopopeia" down and exchange the part that means "human" to something meaning "inanimate"?

EDIT: i wouldn't agree with transfiguration, milo, based on the fact that it suggests a necessary component of glorification/exaltation, whereas in the passage BY cites the speaker is clearly attempting to remove himself from the glory of being human.
Posted By: maverick Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 09:01 PM
I’m not 100% sure of your question, BY, let alone the answer! This line seems fairly straightforward to me (though wrapped in Percy’s vile syntax, which is like straining porridge through an old sock) – it surely can be rendered as
“If I were a dead leaf [the West Wind] could carry….”

Is there something more complicated going on that I have not caught?

http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/poets/poems/odewest.htm

Edit: Surely objectification would accurately describe attributing the state of inanimate material to a living human?
Posted By: Alex Williams Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 09:13 PM
Would abstractification apply? Then again, a leaf is not an abstract thing, but rather a tangible object. hmm...

Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 09:37 PM
> ... like straining porridge through an old sock

Hah!! Nice one - too true!
I understand the meaning of the line just as you do, Mav.
'Objectification' is so simple, I guess that's right.

Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 09:44 PM
I think, perhaps, two terms are required here, since there is a great difference between, say, a stone, an inanimate object, and a leaf, a living organism.

The Only WO'N!
Posted By: Anonymous Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 10:04 PM
Surely objectification would accurately describe
'Objectification' is so simple, I guess that's right.

My Life as Chopped Liver (coming soon to a theatre near you!)

Posted By: maverick Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 10:07 PM
chopped liver

bring on the onions, baby :)

hey, I was so surprised at seeing your name in lights just above mine, what can I say? You get the prize - a week in Noo Joisey second prize...

hahhahah, David, I know, gettoffdahturnpike!!

Posted By: AnnaStrophic Re: The opposite of personification - 05/06/02 10:53 PM
My Life as Chopped Liver ®

The royalty check in in the mail, right?

Posted By: maverick Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 12:23 AM
My Life as Chopped Liver ®

The royalty check in in the mail, right?


As caramia's agent, I should perhaps explain that this may be a confusion of accents (it being a well-none fact® that the angels of CA have elevated and superior diction to the rest of the world), since it would be unfortunate to raise expectations in the lovely A$P’s mind of substantial participation in the inevitable spin-off merchandising from the forthcoming smash-hit Oscara® winner…

What caramia's script (developed by a talented team of scriptwriters, at least one of whom has a name reminiscent of someone you think you may have heard of ~ or was that the cameraman's second assistant’s dog in the last Julia Roberts vehicle?) actually is can be more accurately rendered as My Life As Chopped Lover, a searing and passionate future-world indictment of the failures of Western Capitalism in the face of personal growth and an exploration of the tender workings of the human soul: think Terminator meets Love Story!


Posted By: alexis Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 07:16 AM
Is there a leaf- or tree-version of anthropomorphise? That would fit... arbomorphise??

alex

Posted By: johnjohn Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 08:33 AM
reification?

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 10:22 AM
reification

I love it. A word composed of nothing but affixes.

Posted By: Jackie Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 11:01 AM
From M-W's Collegiate:
Main Entry: ob·jec·ti·fy
Pronunciation: &b-'jek-t&-"fI
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -fied; -fy·ing
Date: circa 1837
1 : to treat as an object or cause to have objective reality
2 : to give expression to (as an abstract notion, feeling, or ideal) in a form that can be experienced by others <it is the essence of the fairy tale to objectify differing facets of the child's emotional experience -- John Updike>
- ob·jec·ti·fi·ca·tion /-"jek-t&-f&-'kA-sh&n/ noun


Posted By: emanuela Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 03:06 PM
here I would say...
leafification.
ok, ok, I am joking

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 03:25 PM
That's funny, emanuela. And it sounds good in English.

Posted By: Hyla Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 03:55 PM
Inanimation?

Posted By: of troy Re: The opposite of personification - 05/07/02 04:15 PM
I think i like Poster: i like belligerentyouth's --'Objectification' is so simple, I guess that's right.

i think that is the psycological term for it.. psychotics tend to do it.. they are unable to see others as human, they objectify them..

societies do it too, if you make the other in your society an object-- not quite a real human, then, you don't feel guilty making them into slaves, or killing them, or starving them.. (pick a country-- US, Germany, England (viz Irish)) and with 10 seconds more time, i could think of a dozen other countries that have done it.

Posted By: Capital Kiwi Re: The opposite of personification - 05/09/02 12:49 PM
Sorry, and I may be thick, but what about antipersonification? If you want the exact and diametric opposite, that is.

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/09/02 01:45 PM
what about antipersonification? If you want the exact and diametric opposite, that is.

Well, I spose if all you want is the exact and diametric opposite, and don't give a fetid dingo's kidney about what it means...

Posted By: Capital Kiwi Re: The opposite of personification - 05/09/02 05:09 PM
He said he wanted to opposite of personification. I gave it to him. Complaints? Bleedin' pedants. Never there when you want them, always around when you don't. What's wrong with alt-usage-English anyway? Any fool can pick a nit or zero nits or even a damned bushel of them if they want. Honestly, I mean, I just give up.

Oh, and what, precisely, is a pair of foetid (note the spelling you Yank nekulturny basket) dingo's kidneys worth on the market today, anyway, hmmm?

Posted By: Faldage Re: The opposite of personification - 05/09/02 05:26 PM
Any fool can pick a nit or zero nits or even a damned bushel of them if they want

Well, Harrumph®! and double Harrumph®! Used to was nit picking was the glue that held society together. Now it's thrown around like any common insult. And I, sirrah, am not just any fool; I am a very particular Fool!

Posted By: milum Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 02:28 AM
but what is the proper word to describe the type of poetic, hypothetical abstraction that follows? - Bellyouth

"If I were a [dead leaf] thou mightest bear" - [Shelley]

It seems Mr. Bellyouth, there was no such narrow word. so let us objectively examine the words suggested in context...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The soul of Shelley inanimated into a dead leaf.

The soul of Shelley reificated into a dead leaf.

The soul of Shelley objectificated into a dead leaf.

The soul of Shelley deantipersonificated into a dead leaf.

The soul of Shelley deleafified into a dead leaf.

The [soul] of [Shelley] transfigurated into a [dead leaf].



I don't know about you folks, but I vote for green. - -

...or, uh. maybe blue.

Or maybe transmuted, or metamorphised, or maybe...


Posted By: Wordwind Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 08:30 AM
For the record, Shelley doesn't appear on the following list of one hundred influential people of the millennium, but Mary beat him out:

http://www.falls.igs.net/~dphillips/biography3.htm

So did Elvis, Princess Diana, and a few other surprising winners.

Just goes to show you, if you want to influence civilization, you're better off pouring your creative genius into a monster than into a leaf.

Boris regards,
WordWollstonecraft

Posted By: slithy toves Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 12:49 PM
Reminds me of the time Nancy Reagan was named the most admired woman in the world. I think it was Jay Leno who responded: "Aren't you relieved she beat out that pushy Mother Teresa?" .

Posted By: TEd Remington one hundred influential people - 05/10/02 01:16 PM
I was chagrined not to know all of the people on the list. But I did get 99 out of a hundred. I am curious. Had any of you heard of number 94 before?

Posted By: boronia Re: one hundred influential people - 05/10/02 02:19 PM
I had heard of him only by that 'name', and would not have recognized his real name.

Posted By: Hyla Re: one hundred influential people - 05/10/02 02:45 PM
Bless us and save us! Ronald Reagan appearing on a list with the likes of Gutenberg, Lincoln, Marco Polo, Einstein? - eeeehhhhyyyaaa - yet another day ruined.

Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/10/02 04:46 PM
Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/10/02 06:18 PM
Posted By: AnnaStrophic Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 07:12 PM
"If I were a rich man".("deega deega deega dum....")

LLOL!!

Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 08:13 PM
Shelley doesn't appear on the following list of one hundred influential people of the millennium, but Mary beat him out:

Really now, all she did was write one book about the dangers of playing God. How much influence did she actually have? The industrial revolution still took over. What about Mark Twain or Charles Dickens?

And, though I'm not defending Reagan's politics or nuclear defense plan, he did play a significant role in ending the Cold War. Even though he's a recent president, politics shouldn't enter into something like this. Gorbachev is on the list too.

And what about King George III? He certainly had a lot to do with provoking the American revolution.

Elvis?!?

Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/10/02 08:27 PM
Posted By: belligerentyouth Re: The opposite of personification - 05/10/02 10:23 PM
> With all due respect to Charles Dickens, whose work I adore, you don't see Bela Lugosi sequels to "Oliver Twist" called "Bride of Twist", "Son of Twist", Mel Brooks' "Young Twist" etc. Please cut old "scary Mary" a little slack.

Indeed, and the greatest tragedy with M. Shelley and her infamous novel is that the creature she conceived of, Frankenstein's horrible creation, has lived on far more vividly in popular memory than she herself ever has, poor lady.

Posted By: of troy the royal we.... - 05/10/02 10:56 PM
relate to Mary Shelly are you? Ha, i've just been told you are related to Charlemagne--as am I.

a mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, and that everyone of European ancestry is descended from Muhammad and Charlemagne-- or so Steve Olson says in the May issue of Atlantic Monthly!
My ex traced his family back to french Hugonots, who lived (and survived) the siege of Rochelle. my mother's family has data going back to 1450's( this was a real impetus for my ex to trace his family tree back to its pre- mayflower days.)the story is not available on line (or at least not for free)

Posted By: Bingley Re: the royal we.... - 05/11/02 04:32 AM
In reply to:

a mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, and that everyone of European ancestry is descended from Muhammad and Charlemagne-- or so Steve Olson says in the May issue of Atlantic Monthly!


Everyone in the world? Including pure-blooded Australian Aborigines? Members of Amazon tribes that have only recently been contacted?

Bingley

Posted By: Bingley Re: The opposite of personification - 05/11/02 04:35 AM
I'd heard of 95 out of a hundred. I didn't get nos. 50, 56, 67, 71, and 75. Am I woefully undereducated?

Bingley
Posted By: Capital Kiwi Re: The opposite of personification - 05/11/02 05:17 AM
I hadn't heard of No. 75 either. I knew about all the others in general terms, but I would seriously question the order they're presented in. If it was just a list of the 100 most influential people, fair enough, that's a matter of perspective. However it claims to be a ranking. But no criteria are given ...

Posted By: milum Re: The opposite of personification - 05/11/02 03:11 PM
Thank you O'Worthy Wind, good wordwitch of Awad, who, with a twitch of a hip and the stomp of a pretty foot, can change, like Mary Tyler Moore, the whole world with her wiles, thank you wordwind for the conjure of...

A & E's Ranking of the Top 100 Most Influential People of the Past Millennium

A careful look at the listings reveals much, such as can be found in the temporal plotting below...

- * = influentials rated 1-50
- * = influentials rated 51-100

- Century:

11th : *
12th : *
13rd : **
14th : ~
15th : *******
16th : ******
17th : ******
18th : ***************
19th : *******************
20th : ***************************


You see in the twentieth century there were a lot more people, so it kinda makes you wonder why we had to pad our influentials with the likes of Elvis, Princess Di, The Beatles, Patient Zero, etc.

And another thing, what about Marilyn Monroe and Gina Lollobrigida? And how about Brigitte...uh... what's her last name...you know, the french girl... uh... Her? I thought they were pretty influential.

- -





Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/11/02 04:24 PM
Posted By: AphonicRants Re: The Influentials - 05/11/02 04:25 PM
Damn you, milum, I was trying to do up that table!

Of course, don't forget that the list was created by a TV company called Arts & Entertainment.
Posted By: of troy Re: the royal we.... - 05/11/02 11:37 PM
i sorry the article isn't available on line, but yes, My dear Mr. Bingley, even your pure blood aborigine came from somewhere. Life did not spring up, in spontanious generation (or may it did, and the author is wrong.)

humans migrated, and moved and yes, any human that was alive at the time austrailia was being settled was releated to nepheritie..

i had 2 parents, 4 grandparents. 8 great grandparents. 16 by 4 generation back, 32 by 5 (a hundred years) 64, 128, 256, 512, in the next hundred years.. go back a thousand plus years, throw in some kids from the wrong side of the blanket, some rapes in time of war, some revolutions, where old gentry became the new poor, and the old poor became the nuevo rich, who wanted to have some old blood in the family, and pretty soon, every one is related to Charlemagne!

go back 4000 years-- and every one on earth today is related to almost (if not everybody) who was alive at that time..
and no, silk muse, i have no doubts about your geniology, and yes, i have my mother family tree as far back, published in a three volume set, the Kavanagh's of Dublin out of print, but available in Dublin's libraries, in the last chapter, the auther notes, my mother has immigrated, lives in NY, and has two daughters (i am my mother's second daughter). my younger siblings didn't make the book

Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/12/02 12:49 AM
Posted By: AphonicRants Re: the royal we.... - 05/12/02 01:10 AM
Agreed, max. To provide an obvious counter-example, one need only select any pure-blooded maori.

By the way, I feel very uncomfortable using the term "pure-blooded", but cannot bring a better term to mind. Can anyone provide a more comfortable alternative that is specific, rather than a vague euphemism?

Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: the royal we.... - 05/12/02 04:12 AM
From a map diagram in Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, origin of humans in Africa: 7 million BC, migration to southern Eurasia: 1 million BC, Europe, 500,000 BC, Australia: 40,000 BC, New Guinea: 33,000 BC, northern Asia: 20,000 BC, northern North America: 12,000 BC, the rest of North America: 11,000 BC, South America: 10,000 BC, Greenland: 2000 BC, Polynesian islands: 1200 BC, Hawaii: AD 500, New Zealand: AD 1000.

Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/12/02 08:20 AM
Posted By: AphonicRants Unsettling data - 05/12/02 11:16 AM
Australia: 40,000 BC,
New Guinea: 33,000 BC


What? Australia before New Guinea? How did man get to Australia, if not via New Guinea?

Looking at the map, "via New Guinea" seems the only likely route. It there any evidence of what portion of Australia was the first-inhabited?

Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/12/02 04:47 PM
Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/12/02 08:55 PM
Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: Unsettling data - 05/13/02 01:10 AM
What? Australia before New Guinea? How did man get to Australia, if not via New Guinea?

Looking at the map, "via New Guinea" seems the only likely route. It there any evidence of what portion of Australia was the first-inhabited?


On reinspection of the little map, the arrow from southeast Asia goes through Borneo and then splits off to Australia and New Guinea. I suppose it could be saying that they were both populated by 40,000 BC. It says 33,000 next to a little arrow that goes from New Guinea into Polynesia and then 1200 next to an arrow going further.

The arrow to Oz goes about right through Darwin, but that's probably not exact. It's just a convenient place to put the arrow.

Posted By: Faldage Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/13/02 02:36 PM
Certainly I am related to but not descended from my sister as I am related to but not descended from my mother's sister.

If we limit the meaning of the phrase descended from to refer only to direct male lineage, then, of course, to say we are all descended from Charlemagne or Muhamed is ludicrous, but if we allow all branches of both matrilineal and partilineal descent then (except for the cases of, e.g., pure-blood Australian aborigines, if there are any) it seems to me almost self-evident.

Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/13/02 06:57 PM
Posted By: of troy Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/13/02 07:42 PM
well, let me add a bit more... 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 greatgrand, 32, 64, --5 genrations..about 100 years.for 5 generation, 1000, 50- and 2 to the 50th? the total is more people than have ever lived! so go back an othe 500 to 1000 years... and we are at 2 to the 100! (and i think 20 years to a generation is reasonable.)It way to many people! so what is the answer?

one answer is cousins often in the past married cousins (even Darwin who knew better married a first cousin...) and not every one left decendants.. some lines have died out.. but still...

and as the slippered feet were going down to the servant quarters, the hob nailed boots where going up to m' ladies chambers.. and there was war, and crusades, and pilgramages, there were shipwrecks, abductions, rapes, and run aways, traveling sales men, and bride (especially royal brides) from far away countries... the gene pools did mix up!

it is a well documented fact that every US president can trace his liniage to english royal family.. (reagan went back to Edward 1st.) even daniel boone, a frontiers man (ie, one of the wild scotch irish) found himself with a bit of the royal family tree..

huge chunks of Appalichia go back to the Stewarts, (radcliffe is the family name, in many varients, ratcliff, redcleff, radceft,etc.,) all going back to Jenny Radcliffe, daughter to the last earl of Derwentwater, James (also the last man beheaded in the tower of London)--who had almost a dozen kids.. and 40 grandchildren when she died.. go to the library.. read the article!



Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/13/02 11:24 PM
Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/14/02 04:15 AM
Yeahbut®, the Mongols and Chinese were arch enemies for centuries (see the Great wall of China) and rarely mixed it up amicably, so there goes your Confucious theory. Not to mention the Slavic peoples (who always seemed to get overlooked) who are hardly descended from Charlemagne or Muhammed. There is a touch of Asian there (mostly in the Russian Slavs) from the ancient Mongol hordes (mostly courtesy of Attila), which also brings us to the Hungarian Magyars who were their own unique blend of Slav and Mongol (and some say Arab-Persian) for several centuries.

And as far as the Top 100 omissions, I have to put Carl Jung there in lieu of many. This man empirically connected the emotional and physical with the spiritual; connected the collective psyche and the great myths of humanity with the individual consciousness; took Freud's work as the distant seed for his own work in exploring human consciousness, opening doors to perception never before realized. I believe it will take centuries before the magnitude and consequence of this man's work is fully realized and appreciated. Look to his work with mandalas; dreams; he introduced Anima/Animus and Introvert/Extrovert, the Archetype, the Collective Unconscious; and his Theory of Synchronicity is credited with empirically proving the existence of miracles, for god's sake! Does Carl Jung not belong on this list in lieu of at least a dozen others that are there! My humble apologies to Dr. Jung for this gross oversight! If you haven't read Jung, do it!

Be in the world, but not of it.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

"...sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closer together as both of them, independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory..."

--all quotes C.J.Jung


Many believe the third quote was where he was heading as the culmination of all his work, and had he lived just ten more years (he lived to a vigorous 90) he would have made that ultimate connection!
Posted By: Max Quordlepleen . - 05/14/02 04:27 AM
Posted By: AphonicRants Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/14/02 04:56 AM
Yours resignedly,
Max Canutepleen


The Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. One admires, Max.



Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/14/02 05:02 AM
No, Max..."your" in the general sense of the word, not the specific...I was agreeing with your post. Might be a regionalism, but I've always used "your" interchangeably with "the" for emphasis as in "so there goes your winner" or "there goes your theory", usually in association with a discrediting. In this context the 'winner' in the expression doesn't make it but was supposed to.

Posted By: SilkMuse Post deleted by SilkMuse - 05/14/02 02:06 PM
Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: The Fabled Fab Four - 05/14/02 02:43 PM
I'd gladly subscribe to the theory that all of mankind can be traced back to the survivors of the deluge, it's pretty widely acknowledged that civilization began in this area.

The Lost Continent Of Mu

In 1868, Colonel James Churchward, who was then a serving officer in the British Army in India, befriended the high priest of an Indian temple, who showed him several sets of ancient, inscribed clay tablets which had lain concealed in the temple vaults for many centuries, unread and neglected by most of the temple priests down the ages.

With the aid of his new-found friend, Churchward learned how to decipher the ancient Naacal tablet inscriptions. As Churchward translated them, and grasped vast fund of information they contained, he realized that he had stumbled upon the amazing history of a long-lost continent which had been the first great civilization on the Earth. They told of a huge civilization that had arisen, flourished and decayed long before any of those known to modern scholars! It was the great continent of Mu, the Motherland of all the races of the Earth!

For long years, Churchward followed the trail of this mysterious new civilization to the far ends of the earth, piecing together the many parts of a vast jigsaw. Then, as he steadily acquired more and more pieces of information and carefully fitted them into place,.a marvellous picture began to form. A stunning picture of a vast, lost Pacific continent and its original inhabitants gradually came together. The final result of Churward’s immense labour was his amazing book: “The Lost Continent of Mu”.

Sadly, after its first publication in 1926, Churchward’s book attracted a lot of ridicule and criticism from the archaeological scholars of his day, and very few of them took his findings and theories seriously. It was regarded more as wild fiction than a serious scientific study. But today fortunately, we live in a less narrow-minded society, and many such monumental works as Churchward’s are being taken considerably more seriously, as outmoded old dogmas are being overturned by the new findings of more enlightened scientific researchers. Of course, that isn’t to say that we need necessarily subscribe entirely to his idea of Mu being one huge mid-Pacific continent, since, like the idea of Atlantis being a huge mid-Atlantic continent, it can’t be supported by the findings of modern submarine exploration and geological investigation.

However, from my own study of bathymetric maps and charts of the Pacific ocean floor, there does seem to be reasonable geological support for there having once been a number of large and long islands forming a series of ridges across the Pacific, which could have become submerged through tectonic activity into the ocean floor of the Pacific. It is known to be a highly unstable region, surrounded by the so-called “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes, and earthquake-prone regions where tectonic plates rub against each other, and the Pacific ocean-bed is dotted with chains of sea-mounts, many of which are volcanic, as well as deep cracks and rifts known as “trenches”. Also, churchward’s concept of underground “Gas-Chambers” collapsing or imploding in upon themselves after losing their supporting internal gas pressure sounds entirely feasible to me.

It’s not unreasonable, therefore, to place a certain degree of credence in Churchward’s assertion that there has been a great amount of rising and sinking in such an unstable sea-bed, and that, in the fairly recent geological past, many of the current island-chains could have stood much higher above sea-level, to form continuous mountainous ridges stretching across a good deal of the western half, if not two-thirds, of the Pacific. As mentioned, I’ve taken the trouble (as any reader should) to closely study the latest depictions of the Pacific Ocean bed as it would appear without water, and I find that there is certainly an entirely plausible case to made for the various island-chains having once actually been continuous, above-water ridges of dry land stretching for anything between a thousand miles to two thousand miles in length! The Midway and Hawaiian Island group in the North Pacific, that form the undersea Hawaiian Ridge, is a typical example of what I mean. They would have formed a connection to the Line Island Ridge via the Mid-Pacific Ridge, and thus down to other ridges of contiguous island-chains in the South Pacific.

Following this line of thought, one can easily see how there could very well have been an interconnected or easily-reached group of land-ridges extending all the way from Japan and the East Indies, right across to Pitcairn Island, or even Easter Island, in the south, the Marquesas nearer the equator, and Hawaii itself in the north. Nor should we ignore the submerged South Eastern Pacific Plateau in this consideration, which runs almost north-north-east, toward the west coast of Central America, in the midst of which we find Easter Island. From there, it’s only a distance of under two thousand miles or so to the Peruvian coastline. This would have been a comfortable sail for such an empire of seafarers as the people of Mu must surely have been, according to Churchward’s theory!

However, apart from this leaning of Churchward toward the need for a huge super-continent to occupy a good half the Pacific Ocean area, I personally find his general basic theory quite intriguing, especially since it fits in well with so many other strange anomalies regarding the origins and movements of various ancient peoples - including both the Atlanteans and the Naacal Ramans, besides the three principal races of humanity. Perhaps if Churchward had only had access to the knowledge we now possess of the geology and topography of the ocean floors, his “continent”-proposition would have been appropriately modified, and might have met with a far better reception than it did from the scholars of his day. However, having hopefully helped his premise become a little more realistic and feasible, I should now define some of the points of interest in his “Mu” concept.

Why Did Churchward Search for Mu?

As we saw previously, the whole thing was triggered off by the old high priest of the Indian college temple, which was obviously a remnant off-shoot of the Holy Brotherhood of the ancient Naacals. Had he not spoken about this amazing 50,000 years old civilization with its 64 million inhabitants to Churchward, Mu might well have completely disappeared from human memory long ago. Instead, having befriended Churchward, and found him to be a seeker after esoteric knowledge, the old high priest eventually allowed Churchward access to the precious tablets which had been loving preserved mostly intact for nearly fifty millennia.
If it hadn’t been a time of great famine in India in 1868, and had Churchward not been assisting in famine relief (courtesy of the British Army), the two would never have met, and the story would never have come to light. Such are the curious twists of fortune and circumstance which direct our destinies! As I said at the outset, once Churchward saw the ancient tablets, he was well and truly hooked, and “Mu” became the driving obsession of his life thereafter. He felt totally compelled to unearth the proof of this amazing story, or die in the attempt!

For two full years, he studied with the old priest, learning how to decipher the bass-relief characters upon the clay tablets, that had been written either in Burma or actually in Mu itself by ancient Naacal priestly scholars. The tablets he studied were, in fact, only a few fragments of what had once been a vast collection, and these had been rescued from one of the old seven Rishi cities which were the centres of learning in the old Rama Empire in ancient India! After many months of intense study of the tablets (including having to repair many that had been broken in packing or transit) Churchward eventually began to crack the code. His efforts were justified when he discovered that they described in detail the creation of the Earth and of the appearance of Man - in the land of Mu! When he realized the enormous significance of his discovery “In the elucidation of that eternal problem” (the origin of mankind and his races), Churchward set off to Burma, armed with introductory letters from the Indian priests, in the fond hope of finding more of the tablets. Sadly, he was rebuffed by the Buddhist priests there, who told him to go back to India and “Ask those thieves who stole them to show them to you!”

Undaunted however, he decided to make a study of the writings of all the ancient civilizations of the old world, to compare them with the legends he had discovered about Mu from the clay tablets. And this he did, only to discover that they were all preceded by the Civilization of Mu.

During his studies, he learned that the “Lost Continent” had extended from north of Hawaii southward as far as Fiji and Easter Island, “and was undoubtedly the original (earthly) habitat of man”. He learned that “this beautiful land of smiling plenty” had produced “the people that colonized the Earth”, and that it had been “obliterated by terrific earthquakes and submersion 12,000 years ago, and had vanished in a vortex of fire and water”! Subsequently, he traced the same story to India, where colonists from Mu had settled: “from India into Egypt; from Egypt to the temple of Sanai (Sinai?), where Moses copied it; and from Moses to the faulty translations of Ezra, 800 years later. The plausibility of this will be apparent even to those who have not studied the subject carefully, when they see the close resemblance between the story of the creation as we know it and the tradition that originated in Mu”.



Fpr the complete text of this article, From Mu to Thule, by Jerry Forster click here (it's a WordPad attachment):

http://www.onelight.com/forster/mutothule.doc.



Posted By: Faldage Re: The Fabled Fab Four - 05/14/02 02:44 PM
A) Rape is not normally considered "amicable relations". It still produces children, so the lack of amicable relations between Chinese and Mongols is no barrier to cross pollination.

2) Regarding the "arbitrary." selection of these four individuals. I believe they were more likely chosen for their fame than for any other reason. They could as well have chosen Ifituti the slave girl, Wing Fat the rice farmer, Pierre the swine herd and Daoud ibn as-Sakkhrah the waterwheel operator but nobody ever heard of them. They also didn't say that Nefertiti was an ancestor of Confucius (although at just under 1000 years it's not impossible*) any more than they would be saying that your maternal grandmother is a descendant of your father's paternal grandmother, merely that you are a descendant of both.

*With the more conservative figure of four generations per century we have 10 to the 12th slots for ancestors a thousand years ago. Obviously many of these are going to be filled by the same person but it leaves us a lot of room for outsiders.

Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: The Fabled Fab Four - 05/14/02 02:53 PM
Ok: The Human Diasporas by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza:

This has a somewhat different and less specific account of the separation of people. Africa split with the rest of the world 100,000 years ago, Southeast Asia and Australia split 55-60,000 years ago, Asia and Europe split 35-40,000 years ago and Northeast Asia and America split 15-35,000 years ago. The closest genetically are the last two, because mutations over time cause genetic difference. (Africans are more genetically diverse than the rest of the world combined because they've been there much longer.) Mutations are an ongoing process, 3-4 letters in the DNA structure change during every cell division. Most of them don't have any effect, though.

This book also talks about an African "Eve". This isn't the woman from the Biblical account, but simply the term for an ambiguously common ancestor. This is based on the study of mitochondrial DNA (mitochondria is passed down from the mother's side), which shows that at some point in history there was a genetic bottleneck, when a small group of people (the first group of genetically modern humans homo sapiens sapiens), all with the same mitochondria as that one "Eve", become the direct ancestors of all people. This event is generally dated at about 190,000 years ago.

Also, the only geologic evidence of any type of great flood is the forming of the Black Sea by receding glacial ice. This happened about 7000 years ago and is clearly the source of the all of the flood stories. Baucis and Philemon is the Greek mythological flood story. This, though, has nothing to do with a genetic bottleneck because it only effected people in the area of the Black Sea (the Fertile Crescent), which just so happened to contain the most influential people in history, pillaging and passing on their stories to every other culture.

Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/14/02 02:56 PM
Not my theory, W'ON!

Yours resignedly,
Max Canutepleen


The Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. One admires, Max.

Thanks for answering a post addressed personally to me, AR...I didn't know my name was Keiva.



Posted By: Wordwind Re: Mu Tablets - 05/14/02 03:00 PM
Dear W'ON,

Where are these fabled tablets today? I hope this isn't another case of historical tablets disappearing, such as the ones that held the Ten Commandments and Joseph Smith's angel tablets...

Broken regards,
WW

Posted By: AphonicRants Re: DEscended from v. Related to - 05/14/02 03:10 PM
'twas a compliment to you, max. Please take it as such.

Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: Mu Tablets - 05/14/02 03:18 PM

Where are these fabled tablets today?


Good question, WW...while I'm perusing the web and my collection of Churchward's work (The Sacred Symbols of Mu is especially intriguing, he does cite other references to Mu. This from the same Forster article:

Secondly, he points out that there is ample confirmation of Mu in other ancient manuscripts, like the Hindu Ramanyana epic mentioned earlier, as told by Narraté, the high priest of the Rishi Temple at Ayhodya. At one point, mention is made of the Naacals ”coming to Burma from the land of their birth in the East” - which is the direction of the Pacific. Mention is also made of Mu in the Troano Manuscript, an ancient Mayan book, written in Yucatan, and now in the British Museum. It refers to The Land of Mu using the same symbols as were found in Egypt, India and Burma. Yet another Mayan book as old as the Troano Manuscript - The Codex Cortesianus also mentions Mu as does a Tibetan book in Lhasa, and as also do scores of other ancient records from Egypt, Greece, Central America, Mexico and even the Anasazi cliff-inscriptions in the southern USA!
Thirdly, there are many existing ruins on the South Sea islands, such as Easter Island, Mangiaia, Tonga, Ponape and the Marianas Islands, which seem to hark back to the time of Mu. Whilst at Uxmal, in Yucatan, there is an inscription upon an ancient ruined temple which commemorates “The Lands of The West, whence we came” - and a pyramid south west of Mexico city was built, according to its inscriptions, in memory of the destruction of these “Lands of The West”.

Fourthly, Churchward found that there was a universality of certain ancient symbols and customs which were to be found in various ancient lands such as Egypt, Burma, India, Japan, China, the South Sea Islands, Central and South America, as well as among the aboriginal tribes of North America. They were so identical that it seemed certain that they all came from only one source - Mu!


Mongol and Chinese cross-fertilization

Good point, Faldage. The widespread practice of rape as a tool of warfare and conquest in antiquity is well-known. In fact, the generals and rulers would select harems from defeated and pillaged towns and villages. So while there was certainly no amicable "intercourse" (in every sense of the word) between the two peoples, the mixing of genes most definitely took place.



Posted By: Faldage Re: African Eve - 05/14/02 03:28 PM
The Eve JazzO is referring to would be the UrMother of all the humans on earth in strict matrilineal lineage. That is your mother and her mother and her mother and...and her mother was the African Eve. Her children spread and intermingled.

Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: Nacaal Tablets - 05/14/02 04:17 PM
As search of the web turns up 58 hits for the Nacaal Tablets and 222 hits for Nacaal. Some say the tablets were lost in the 1920's after Churchward died, some say their are still supposed Nacaal language tablets extant in Tibetan Monasteries. I haven't referenced the books yet.

Another gentleman, Harold Handley Copeland, a respected Cambridge University archaeologist known for his Pacific Studies also cites a study of tablets in the Nacaal language he calls the Zanthu Tablets (after the name of the scribe who wrote them):
http://www.disorganization.com/Library/ZanthuTablets.html

These examinations of the Lemuria (Mu) are, of course, theoretical archaeology with, like Atlantis, just enough credible evidence to keep the books open.

As a paleontogy buff I am well-enamored of the work of the Leaky clan in Africa, and support the fossil record of that evolutionary theory, which probably points to the "Eve" link on that continent in the evolutionary process several million years ago. But I'm not so sure, from arcaheological and historical evidence I have see (including the writings of Plato) that there weren't some lost civilization(s) circa 50-100,000 B.C. before the dawn of 'recorded' history. (Oh, if only that damn Roman general didn't burn the Library of Alexandria just to piss-off Cleopatra!) Many common myths, symbols, artwork, ceremonies, and practices by disparate peoples of antiquity across all continents (Asia, South and Central America, Europe) who could not possibly have communicated in that far dawn of history point to a common source. The myth or story of the "Great Flood or Deluge" being one of the most obvious. The Jungian theory of mutual myth arising from the Collective Unconscious can account for some of it, I believe, but not all of it.

Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: African Eve - 05/14/02 06:27 PM
The Eve JazzO is referring to would be the UrMother of all the humans on earth in strict matrilineal lineage.

Yes, somewhat, but it's not saying that there at one point existed only one woman on earth who begat everyone, just that the genetic bottleneck resulted in only her mitochondrial DNA passing on. There's also evidence of a common male ancestor based on the y chromosome, but he's not dated to the same time period as "Eve". It would have been a different bottleneck at some other time.

Posted By: Faldage Re: African Eve - 05/14/02 06:40 PM
it's not saying that there at one point existed only one woman on earth who begat everyone

Right. What I was saying. She wasn't the only person ancestral to everyone or even the only female ancestral to everyone. But, as I understand it, she was the one whose daughters were the mothers of the daughters who were the mothers of the daughters... who were the mothers of everyone. Anyone else in there had males in their progeny who were part of the ancestry of everyone.

Posted By: Faldage So ther you have it, by - 05/14/02 06:42 PM
The opposite of personification is the Mother of All.