ET's -- or Angels?

All other informal historical discussion, ancient or modern, falls here. This includes the topics of Islam, Buddhism, and other religious traditions.
andrewcriddle
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by andrewcriddle »

lpetrich wrote:I still have no success in finding Democritus fragments in the original Greek. I once found them for Xenophanes, but I forget where I found them.
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Democritus according to Hippolytus is here https://archive.org/stream/philosophume ... 7/mode/2up

Andrew Criddle
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DCHindley
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by DCHindley »

andrewcriddle wrote:
lpetrich wrote:I still have no success in finding Democritus fragments in the original Greek. I once found them for Xenophanes, but I forget where I found them.
......................
Democritus according to Hippolytus is here https://archive.org/stream/philosophume ... 7/mode/2up

Andrew Criddle
The 1851 edition by Emanuel Miller, who still attributed the Philosophumena to Origen (as the all the mss) is here:
https://archive.org/stream/origenisphil ... 5/mode/2up
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

DCHindley wrote:Like Truman Bethurum's "Aura Rhanes", the captivatingly beautiful almost midget-like captain of an inter-celestial "scow" (spaceship).
There are lots of oddities in Truman Bethurum's account. Like the captain being dressed in an atypical outfit. I would expect her to be dressed much like her crew, in the same sort of clothes, though maybe more fancy. She also seemed to have a mostly male crew instead of a mixed-sex one. That makes George Adamski seem sensible -- mixed-sex crews with both sexes dressing in jumpsuits for their work.
DCH (I don't suppose it is any coincidence that Gene Roddenberry's fictional Lt Ahura is a short captivatingly beautiful space traveler, although not the captain of a scow, who would likely be at home in a super-celestial diner far from home)
Nichelle Nichols actually has a rather average height: 5'5" (165 cm).
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

Back to Democritus, I've found an English translation: CHURCH FATHERS: Refutation of All Heresies, Book I (Hippolytus)
Chapter 11. Democritus; His Duality of Principles; His Cosmogony.

And Democritus was an acquaintance of Leucippus. Democritus, son of Damasippus, a native of Abdera, conferring with many gymnosophists among the Indians, and with priests in Egypt, and with astrologers and magi in Babylon, (propounded his system). Now he makes statements similarly with Leucippus concerning elements, viz. plenitude and vacuum, denominating plenitude entity, and vacuum nonentity; and this he asserted, since existing things are continually moved in the vacuum. And he maintained worlds to be infinite, and varying in bulk; and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, while in others that they are larger than with us, and with others more numerous. And that intervals between worlds are unequal; and that in one quarter of space (worlds) are more numerous, and in another less so; and that some of them increase in bulk, but that others attain their full size, while others dwindle away and that in one quarter they are coming into existence, while in another they are failing; and that they are destroyed by clashing one with another. And that some worlds are destitute of animals and plants, and every species of moisture. And that the earth of our world was created before that of the stars, and that the moon is underneath; next (to it) the sun; then the fixed stars. And that (neither) the planets nor these (fixed stars) possess an equal elevation. And that the world flourishes, until no longer it can receive anything from without. This (philosopher) turned all things into ridicule, as if all the concerns of humanity were deserving of laughter.
Gymnosophist = naked philosopher = Indian ascetic
Agnosticus
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by Agnosticus »

George Adamski was a fraud and a nutcase. Angels ? Solar eclipses. Beings with wings dates from the renaissance artists impressions
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

Agnosticus wrote:George Adamski was a fraud and a nutcase. Angels ? Solar eclipses. Beings with wings dates from the renaissance artists impressions
Total solar eclipses don't happen very often, so they are unlikely to be much of an artistic inspiration.

Winged angels go back to the early Middle Ages, so it's not just the Renaissance. I think that many people have imagined that all that you need to fly is wings comparable to the size of one's body. In fact, in premodern art and mythology, we find not only winged human-looking entities, but also winged horses like Pegasus and Buraq. The latter horse was the horse that Mohammed rode to visit Heaven, or so we are told.

History of aviation
The origin of mankind's desire to fly is lost in the distant past. From the earliest legends there have been stories of men strapping birdlike wings, stiffened cloaks or other devices to themselves and attempting to fly, typically by jumping off a tower. The Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus is one of the earliest known, others originated from India, China and the European Dark Ages. During this early period the issues of lift, stability and control were not understood, and most attempts ended in serious injury or death.

In medieval Europe, the earliest recorded tower jump dates from 852 AD, when Armen Firman made a jump in Cordoba, Spain, reportedly covering his body with vulture feathers and attaching two wings to his arms.[5][6] Eilmer of Malmesbury soon followed and many others have continued to do so over the centuries. As late as 1811, Albrecht Berblinger constructed an ornithopter and jumped into the Danube at Ulm.[7]
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

Agnosticus wrote:George Adamski was a fraud and a nutcase.
I've seen him called a pathological liar.

In the late 1920's, he started developing his philosophical ideas, a mishmash of somewhat-Xianity and sort-of-Theosophy. He even founded an organization for pushing his teachings, the Royal Order of Tibet, in 1934. It never got very members and it did not last for very long, and some years later, he and some of his followers moved to Mt. Palomar, home of the famous observatory. He and his followers first tried farming, then ran a diner, the Palomar Gardens Cafe. I don't know if any Palomar astronomers ever visited that diner, let alone offered to start a professional collaboration with GA's alleged ET friends.

A certain Ray Stanford visited him in the 1950's, and GA bragged to him that he had a big bootlegging operation going on under the cover of his ROoT, and that he hated FDR for shutting down Prohibition. Except that his ROoT was founded after Prohibition, it never got very big, and if GA was a big bootlegger, it would have been big news.

GA also claimed official endorsement for his actions, and some FBI agents visited him and told him in no uncertain terms to stop making such claims. But he kept doing so. A Critical Appraisal Of George Adamski The Man Who Spoke To The Space Brothers : Marc Hallet : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive has scans of some FBI documents on him.
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

As to anyone similar in earlier centuries, an obvious one is Joseph Smith, treasure hunter, con artist, and founder of Mormonism. JS claimed that the angel Moroni visited him in 1823 in upstate New York, complete with showing him a copy of the Book of Mormon on golden plates. After he transcribed that book, Moroni took it back to Heaven. That book is an imitation of the King James translation of the Bible, describing the adventures of settlers from ancient Israel in the New World. Mark Twain called it "chloroform in print", evidently finding it very soporific.

He eventually got a lot of followers, and they moved westward to escape hostile neighbors. JS himself was killed by a lynch mob in a jail in Illinois, and his followers kept moving west until they found a nice place to stop in Utah.

I remember a Mormon leader offering the argument that JS could not have made up his book because he got great consolation from it in the last moments of his life.


Going back to around 150 CE in what is now Turkey, we find a certain Alexander of Abonutichus. Our only source on him is Lucian of Samosata, and LoS considered AoA a total fraud. AoA claimed to have revealed to the world the god Glycon in the form of a snake with a human head, and he got into the prophecy business. He became famous enough for Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to ask his advice on fighting some Germanic tribes, the Marcomanni and Quadi. Throw two lions into the Danube and a great victory would result, AoA responded. Which MA did. But it was the Marcomanni and the Quadi who had the great victory. When MA asked about it, AoA responded that he never said who'd have the great victory.
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