”See also:” Taoism

The Yogic, Tantric and other systems of India, the Buddhist psychology of Tibet, as well as Chinese (Taoist alchemy) and Japanese (Shingon) esoterism are examples of doctrines that describe a subtle physiology having a number of focal points (chakras, acupuncture points) connected by a series of channels (nadis, Acupuncture meridians) that convey life-force (prana, vayu, ch’i, ki, lung).

These invisible channels and points are understood to determine the characteristics of the visible physical form. By understanding and mastering the subtlest levels of reality one gains mastery over the physical realm. Through practice of various breathing and visualisation exercises one is able to manipulate and direct the flow of vital force, to achieve superhuman (e.g. in martial arts) or miraculous powers (“siddhis”) and attain higher states of consciousness, immortality, or liberation.

Hinduism

”See also:”

* Vedanta (the five ”Koshas”)

* Samkhya

* Tantra

* Kundalini

The subtle body (”Sukshma sarira” or ”Sukshma sharira”) in Vedantic philosophy is composed of five Kosas or “sheaths”. The subtle body is the vehicle of consciousness with which one passes from life to life. The is the vehicle of consciousness in later Samkhya, Vedanta, and Yoga , and is propelled by past-life tendencies, or ”bhavas”. . Linga can be translated as “characteristic mark” or “impermanence” and the term Sarira as “for

: ””The subtle body (”linga”), previously arisen, unconfined, constant, inclusive of the great one (”mahat”) etc , through the subtle elements, not having enjoyment, transmigrates, (because of) being endowed with ”bhavas” (“conditions” or “dispositions”)

: ”As a picture (does) not (exist) without a support, or as a shadow (does) not (exist) without a post and so forth; so too the instrument (”linga” or ”karana”) does not exist without that which is specific (i.e. a subtle body).””

The idea was adopted by Vedanta and Yoga philosophy, and from there, in the 19th century, the terminology was adopted by the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky.

Subtility-The State Of Being Subtile To Will

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Subtle body, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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In classical thought, the four elements Earth, Water, Air, and Fire frequently occur; sometimes including a fifth element or ”quintessence” (after “quint” meaning “fifth”) called Aether in ancient Greece.

In Greek thought, the philosopher Aristotle added aether as the quintessence, reasoning that whereas fire, earth, air, and water were earthly and corruptible, since no changes had been perceived in the heavenly regions, the stars cannot be made out of any of the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance.

The concept of essentially the same five elements was similarly found in ancient India, where they formed a basis of analysis in both Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, particularly in an esoteric context, the four states-of-matter describe matter, and a fifth element describes that which was beyond the material world (non-matter). Similar lists existed in ancient China and Japan. In Buddhism the four great elements, to which two others are sometimes added, are not viewed as substances, but as categories of sensory experience.

Classical elements in Babylonia

The concept of the four classical elements in the Western tradition originates from Babylonian mythology. The ”Enûma Eliš”, a text written between the 18th and 16th centuries BC, describes four cosmic elements: the sea, earth, sky, and wind.

Classical elements in Greece

The Greek classical elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the M

Plato characterizes the elements as being pre-Socratic in origin from a list created by the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles (ca. 450 BC). Empedocles called these the four “roots” (ῥιζὤματα, rhizōmata). Plato seems to have been the first to use the term “element (στοιχεῖον, ”stoicheion”)” in reference to air, fire, earth, and water. The ancient Greek word for element, ”stoicheion” (from ”stoicheo”, “to line up”) meant “smallest division (of a sun-dial), a syllable”, as the composing unit of an alphabet it could denote a letter and the smallest unit from which a word is formed.

According to Aristotle in his ”On Generation and Corruption”:

* Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot.

* Fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry.

* Earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold.

* Water is primarily cold and secondarily wet.

One classic diagram (above) has one square inscribed in the other, with the corners of one being the classical elements, and the corners of the other being the properties. The opposite corner is the opposite of the these properties, “hot – cold” and “dry – wet”.

According to Galen, these elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the four humours: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water).

Classical elements in Hinduism

The ”pancha mahabhuta,” or “five great elements”, of Hinduism are ”kshiti” or ”bhūmi” (earth), ”ap” or ”jala” (water), ”tejas” or ”agni” (fire), ”marut” or ”pavan” (air or wind), ”byom” or ”shunya (or akash?)” (aether or void). Hindus believe that the Creator used akasha, the most “subtle” element, to create the other four traditional elements; each element created is in turn used to create the next, each less subtle than the last. Hindus believe that all of creation, including the human body, is made up of these five essential elements and that upon death, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature, thereby balancing the cycle of nature set in motion by the Creator. Each of the five elements is associated with one of the five senses, and acts as the gross medium for the experience of sensations. According to Hindu thought, the basest element, Earth, was created using all the other elements and thus can be perceived by all five senses – hearing, touch, taste, smell, and sight. The next higher element, water, has no odor but can be seen, tasted, heard, and felt. Next comes fire, which can be seen, heard and felt. Air can be heard and felt. “Akasha” (ether)is the medium of sound but is inaccessible to all other senses.

Buddhist elements

In the Pali literature, the ”mahabhuta” (“great elements”) or ”catudhatu” (“four elements”) are earth, water, fire and air. In early Buddhism, the four elements are a basis for understanding suffering and for liberating oneself from suffering. The earliest Buddhist texts explain that the four primary material elements are the sensory qualities solidity, fluidity, temperature, and mobility; their characterization as earth, water, fire, and air, respectively, is declared an abstraction—instead of concentrating on the fact of material existence, one observes how a physical thing is sensed, felt, perceived.

The Buddha’s teaching regarding the four elements is to be understood as the base of all observation of real sensations rather than as a philosophy. The four properties are cohesion (water), solidity or inertia (earth), expansion or vibration (air) and heat or calorific content (fire). He promulgated a categorization of mind and matter as composed of eight types of “kalapas” of which the four elements are primary and a secondary group of four are color, smell, taste, and nutriment which are derivative from the four primaries.

The Buddha’s teaching of the four elements does predate Greek teaching of the same four elements. This is possibly explained by the fact that he sent out 60 arahants to the known world to spread his teaching; however it differs in the fact that the Buddha taught that the four elements are false and that form is in fact made up of much smaller particles which are constantly changing.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1997) renders an extract of Shakyamuni Buddha’s from Pali into English thus:

Seven chakras

In the philosophy of the seven chakras there are correspondences to the five elements as shared by both Hinduism and Buddhism as well as two other elements:

*Sahasrara (Crown): Thought/Space

*Ajña (Third Eye): Light/Dark

*Vishuddhi (Throat): Ether/Sound

*Anahata (Heart): Air

*Manipura (Navel): Fire

*Svadhisthana (Sacral): Water

*Muladhara (Root): Earth

Bön elements

In Bön or ancient Tibetan philosophy, the five elemental processes of earth, water, fire, air and space are the essential materials of all existent phenomena or aggregates. The elemental processes form the basis of the calendar, astrology, medicine, psychology and are the foundation of the spiritual traditions of shamanism, tantra and Dzogchen.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche states that

The names of the elements are analogous to categorised experiential sensations of the natural world. The names are symbolic and key to their inherent qualities and/or modes of action by analogy. In Bön the elemental processes are fundamental metaphors for working with external, internal and secret energetic forces. All five elemental processes in their essential purity are inherent in the mindstream and link the trikaya and are aspects of primordial energy. As Herbert V. Günther states:

In the above block quote the trikaya is encoded as: dharmakaya “god”; sambhogakaya “temple” and nirmanakaya “house”.

Chinese elements

The Chinese had a somewhat different series of elements, namely Fire, Earth, Water, Metal and Wood, which were understood as different types of energy in a state of constant interaction and flux with one another, rather than the Western notion of different kinds of material.

Although it is usually translated as “element”, the Chinese word ”xing” literally means something like “changing states of being”, “permutations” or “metamorphoses of being”. In fact Sinologists cannot agree on one single translation. The Chinese conception of “element” is therefore quite different from the Western one. The Western elements were seen as the basic building blocks of matter. The Chinese, by contrast, were seen as ever changing and moving forces or energies—one translation of ”wu xing” is simply “the five changes”.

The Wu Xing are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device for systems with five stages; hence the preferred translation of “movements”, “phases” or “steps” over “elements”.

In Taoism there is a similar system of elements, which includes metal and wood, but excludes air, which is replaced with ”qi”, which is a force or energy rather than an element. In Chinese philosophy the universe consists of heaven and earth, heaven being made of ”qi” and earth being made of the five elements (in the Chinese view, the attributes and properties of the Western and Indian Air element are equivalent to that of Wood, where the element of Ether is often seen as a correspondent to Metal). The five major planets are associated with and named after the elements: Venus 金星 is Metal (金), Jupiter 木星 is Wood (木), Mercury 水星 is Water (水), Mars 火星 is Fire (火), and Saturn 土星 is Earth (土). Additionally, the Moon represents Yin (陰), and the Sun 太陽 represents Yang (陽). Yin, Yang, and the five elements are recurring themes in the I Ching, the oldest of Chinese classical texts which describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy. The five elements also play an important part in Chinese astrology and the Chinese form of geomancy known as Feng shui

The doctrine of five phases describes two cycles of balance, a generating or creation (生, shēng) cycle and an overcoming or destruction (克/剋, kè) cycle of interactions between the phases.

”Generating”

* Wood feeds fire;

* Fire creates earth (ash);

* Earth bears metal;

* Metal collects water;

* Water nourishes wood.

”Overcoming”

* Wood parts earth;

* Earth absorbs water;

* Water quenches fire;

* Fire melts metal;

* Metal chops wood.

There are also two cycles of imbalance, an overacting cycle (cheng) and an insulting cycle (wu).

Japanese elements

Japanese traditions use a set of elements called the (”go dai”, literally “five great”). These five are earth, water, fire, wind/air, and void. These came from Buddhist beliefs; the classical Chinese elements (, ”go gyô”) are also prominent in Japanese culture, especially to the influential Neo-Confucianists during the Edo period.

*Earth represented things that were solid.

*Water represented things that were liquid.

*Fire represented things that destroyed.

*Air represented things that moved.

*Void represented things not of our everyday life.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Classical element, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Early life and family

The poet’s paternal family had arrived in Wallachia during the early 19th century. Of South Slav (Serb or Bulgarian) or Aromanian origin, they claimed to have descended from Serb insurgents in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia. Alexandru’s grandfather Dimitrie and Dimitrie’s brother Pavel participated in the 1821 uprising against the Phanariote administration, and in alliance with the Filiki Eteria; Dimitrie made the object of controversy when, during the final stage of the revolt, he sided with the Eteria in its confrontation with Wallachian leader Tudor Vladimirescu, taking an active part in the latter’s killing. Both Macedonski brothers had careers in the Wallachian military forces, at a time when the country was governed by Imperial Russian envoys, when the ”Regulamentul Organic” regime recognized the family as belonging to Wallachia’s nobility. Dimitrie married Zoe, the daughter an ethnic Russian or Polish officer; their son, the Russian-educated Alexandru, climbed in the military and political hierarchy, joining the unified Land Forces after his political ally, Alexander John Cuza, was elected ”Domnitor” and the two Danubian Principalities became united Romania. Both the officer’s uncle Pavel and brother Mihail were amateur poets.

Macedonski’s mother, Maria Fisenţa (also ”Vicenţ” or ”Vicenţa”), was from an aristocratic environment, being the scion of Oltenian boyars. Through her father, she may have descended from Russian immigrants who had been absorbed i

Both the poet and his father were dissatisfied with accounts of their lineage, contradicting them with an account that researchers have come to consider spurious. Although adherents of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Macedonskis traced their origin to Rogala-bearing Lithuanian nobility from the defunct Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. While the writer perpetuated his father’s claim, it is possible that he also took pride in investigating his Balkan roots: according to literary historian Tudor Vianu, who, as a youth, was a member of his circle, this tendency is attested by two of Macedonski’s poems from the 1880s, where the South Slavs appear as icons of freedom. Vianu’s contemporary, literary historian George Călinescu, postulated that, although the family had been absorbed into the ethnic and cultural majority, the poet’s origin served to enrich local culture by linking it to a “Thracian” tradition and the spirit of “adventurers”.

The family moved often, following General Macedonski’s postings. Born in Bucharest, Macedonski-son was the third of four siblings, the oldest of whom was a daughter, Caterina. Before the age of six, he was a sickly and nervous child, who is reported to have had regular tantrums. In 1862, his father sent him to school in Oltenia, and he spent most time in the Amaradia region. The nostalgia he felt for the landscape later made him consider writing an ”Amărăzene” (“Amaradians”) cycle, of which only one poem was ever completed. He was attending the Carol I High School in Craiova and, according to his official record, graduated in 1867.

Macedonski’s father had by then become known as an authoritarian commander, and, during his time in Târgu Ocna, faced a mutiny which only his wife could stop by pleading with the soldiers (an episode which made an impression on the future poet). A stern parent, he took an active part in educating his children. Having briefly served as Defense Minister, the general was mysteriously dismissed by Cuza in 1863, and his pension became the topic of a political scandal. It ended only under the rule of Carol I, Cuza’s Hohenzollern successor, when Parliament voted against increasing the sum to the level demanded by its recipient. Having preserved a negative impression of the 1866 plebiscite, during which Cuza’s dethronement had been confirmed, Macedonski remained a committed opponent of the new ruler. As a youth and adult, he sought to revive his father’s cause, and included allusions to the perceived injustice in at least one poem. After spending the last months of his life protesting against the authorities, Macedonski-father fell ill and died in September 1869, leaving his family to speculate that he had been murdered by political rivals.

Debut years

Macedonski left Romania in 1870, traveling through Austria-Hungary and spending time in Vienna, before visiting Switzerland and possibly other countries. His visit was meant to be preparation for entering the University of Bucharest, but he spent much of his time in the bohemian environment, seeking entertainment and engaging in romantic escapades. He was however opposed to the lifestyle choices of people his age, claiming that they were engaged in “orgy after orgy”. At around that date, the young author had begun to perfect a style heavily influenced by Romanticism, and in particular by his Wallachian predecessors Dimitrie Bolintineanu and Ion Heliade Rădulescu. He was for a while in Styria, at Bad Gleichenberg, a stay which, George Călinescu believes, may have been the result of a medical recommendation to help him counter excessive nervousness. The landscape there inspired him to write an ode. Also in 1870, he published his first lyrics in George Bariţ’s Transylvanian-based journal ”Telegraful Român”.

The following year, he left for Italy, where he visited Pisa, Florence, Venice, and possibly other cities. His records of the journey indicate that he was faced with financial difficulties and plagued by disease. Macedonski also claimed to have attended college lectures in these cities, and to have spent significant time studying at Pisa University, but this remains uncertain. He eventually returned to Bucharest, where he entered the Faculty of Letters (which he never attended regularly). According to Călinescu, Macedonski “did not feel the need” to attend classes, because “such a young man will expect society to render upon him its homages.” He was again in Italy during spring 1872, soon after publishing his debut volume ”Prima verba” (Latin for “First Word”). Having also written an anti-Carol piece, published in ”Telegraful Român” during 1873, Macedonski reportedly feared political reprisals, and decided to make another visit to Styria and Italy while his case was being assessed. It was in Italy that he met French musicologist Jules Combarieu, with whom he corresponded sporadically over the following decades.

During that period, Macedonski became interested in the political scene and political journalism, first as a sympathizer of the liberal-radical current—which, in 1875, organized itself around the National Liberal Party. In 1874, back in Craiova, Macedonski founded a short-lived literary society known as ”Junimea”, a title which purposefully or unwittingly copied that of the influential conservative association with whom he would later quarrel. It was then that he met journalist and pedagogue Ştefan Velescu, a meeting witnessed by Velescu’s pupil, the future liberal journalist Constantin Bacalbaşa, who recorded it in his memoirs. ”Oltul” magazine, which he had helped establish and which displayed a liberal agenda, continued to be published until July 1875, and featured Macedonski’s translations from Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Hector de Charlieu and Alphonse de Lamartine, as well as his debut in travel writing and short story. At age 22, he worked on his first play, a comedy titled ”Gemenii” (“The Twins”). In 1874 that he came to the attention of young journalist future dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, who satirized him in articles for the magazine ”Ghimpele”, ridiculing his claim to Lithuanian descent, and eventually turning him into the character ”Aamsky”, whose fictional career ends with his death from exhaustion caused by contributing to “for the country’s political development”. This was the first episode in a consuming polemic between the two figures. Reflecting back on this period in 1892, Macedonski described Caragiale as a “noisy young man” of “sophistic reasoning”, whose target audience was to be found in “beer gardens”.

1875 trial and office as prefect

In March 1875, Macedonski was arrested on charges of defamation or sedition. For almost a year before, he and ”Oltul” had taken an active part in the campaign against Conservative Party and its leader, Premier Lascăr Catargiu. In this context, he had demanded that the common man “rise up with weapons in their hands and break both the government agents and the government”, following up with similar messages aimed at the ”Domnitor”. He was taken to Bucharest’s Văcăreşti prison and confined there for almost three months. Supported by the liberal press and defended by the most prestigious pro-liberal attorneys, Macedonski faced a jury trial on June 7, being eventually cleared of the charges. Reportedly, the Bucharest populace organized a spontaneous celebration of the verdict.

In 1875, after the National Liberal Ion Emanuel Florescu was assigned the post of Premier by Carol, Macedonski embarked on an administrative career. The poet was upset by not being included on the National Liberal list for the 1875 suffrage. This disenchantment led him into a brief conflict with the young liberal figure Bonifaciu Florescu, only to join him soon afterward in editing ”Stindardul” journal, alongside Pantazi Ghica and George Fălcoianu. The publication followed the line of Nicolae Moret Blaremberg, made notorious for his radical and republican agenda. Ghica and Macedonski remained close friends until Ghica’s 1882 death.

The new cabinet eventually appointed him Prefect of the Bolgrad region in the Budjak (at the time part of Romania). In parallel, he published his first translation, a version of ”Parisina”, an 1816 epic poem by Lord Byron, and completed the original works ”Ithalo” and ”Calul arabului” (“The Arab’s Horse”). He also spoke at the Romanian Atheneum, presenting his views on the state of Romanian literature (1878). His time in office ended upon the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War. At the time, Russian volunteers were amassed on the Budjak border, requesting from the Romanian authorities the right of free passage into the Principality of Serbia. The National Liberal Premier Ion Brătianu, who was negotiating an anti-Ottoman alliance, sent Macedonski signals to let them pass, but the prefect, obeying the official recommendation of Internal Affairs Minister George D. Vernescu, decided against it, and was consequently stripped of his office.

Still determined to pursue a career in the press, Macedonski founded a string of unsuccessful magazines with patriotic content and titles such as ”Vestea” (“The Announcement”), ”Dunărea” (“The Danube”), ”Fulgerul” (“The Lightning”) and, after 1880, ”Tarara” (an onomatopoeia equivalent to “Toodoodoo”). Their history is connected with that of the Russo-Turkish War, at the end of which Romanian participation on the Russian side resulted in her independence. Macedonski remained committed to the anti-Ottoman cause, and, some thirty years later, stated: “We want no Turkey in Europe!”

By 1879, the poet, who continued to voice criticism of Carol, had several times switched sides between the National Liberals and the opposition Conservatives. That year, while the Budjak was ceded to Russia and Northern Dobruja was integrated into Romania, the Brătianu cabinet appointed him administrator of the Sulina ”plasă” and the Danube Delta. He had previously refused to be made comptroller in Putna County, believing such an appointment to be beneath his capacity, and had lost a National Liberal appointment in Silistra when Southern Dobruja was granted to the Principality of Bulgaria. During this short interval in office, he traveled to the Snake Island in the Black Sea—his appreciation for the place later motivated him to write the fantasy novel ”Thalassa, Le Calvaire de feu” and the poem ”Lewki”.

Early ”Literatorul” years

With the 1880s came a turning point in Alexandru Macedonski’s career. Vianu notes that changes took place in the poet’s relationship with his public: “Society recognizes in him the nonconformist. [...] The man becomes singular; people start talking about his oddities.” Macedonski’s presumed frustration at being perceived in this way, Vianu notes, may have led him closer to the idea of ”poète maudit”, theorized earlier by Paul Verlaine. In this context, he had set his sight on promoting “social poetry”, the merger between lyricism and political militantism. Meanwhile, according to Călinescu, his attacks on the liberals and the “daft insults he aimed at [Romania's] throne” had effectively ruined his own chance of political advancement.

In January 1880, he launched his most influential and long-lived publication, ”Literatorul”, which was also the focal point of his eclectic cultural circle, and, in later years, of the local Symbolist school. In its first version, the magazine was co-edited by Macedonski, Bonifaciu Florescu and poet Th. M. Stoenescu. Florescu parted with the group soon after, due to a disagreement with Macedonski, and was later attacked by the latter for allegedly accumulating academic posts. ”Literatorul” aimed to irritate ”Junimist” sensibilities from its first issue, when it stated its dislike for “political prejudice in literature.” This was most likely an allusion to the views of ”Junimist” figure Titu Maiorescu, being later accompanied by explicit attacks on him and his followers. An early success for the new journal was the warm reception it received from Vasile Alecsandri, a Romantic poet and occasional ”Junimist” whom Macedonski idolized at the time, and the collaboration of popular memoirist Gheorghe Sion. Another such figure was the intellectual V. A. Urechia, whom Macedonski made president of the ”Literatorul” Society. In 1881, Education Minister Urechia granted Macedonski the ”Bene-Merenti” medal 1st class, although, Călinescu stresses, the poet had only totaled 18 months of public service. At around that time, Macedonski had allegedly begun courting actress Aristizza Romanescu, who rejected his advances, leaving him unenthusiastic about love matters and unwilling to seek female company.

In parallel, he used the magazine to publicize his disagreement with the main ”Junimist” voice, ”Convorbiri Literare”. Among the group of contributors, several had already been victims of Maiorescu’s irony: Sion, Urechia, Pantazi Ghica and Petru Grădişteanu. While welcoming the debut of its contributor, Parnassian-Neoclassicist novelist and poet Duiliu Zamfirescu, Macedonski repeatedly attacked its main exponent, the conservative poet Eminescu, claiming not to understand his poetry. However, ”Literatorul” was also open to contributions from some ”Convorbiri Literare” affiliates (Zamfirescu, Matilda Cugler-Poni and Veronica Micle).

In November 1880, Macedonski’s plays ”Iadeş!” (“Wishbone!”, a comedy first printed in 1882) and ”Unchiaşul Sărăcie” (“Old Man Poverty”) premiered at the National Theater Bucharest. A sign of government approval, this was followed by Macedonski’s appointment to a minor administrative office, as Historical Monuments Inspector. Nevertheless, both plays failed to impose themselves on public perception, and were withdrawn from the program by 1888. Călinescu asserts that, although Macedonski later claimed to have always been facing poverty, his job in the administration, coupled with other sources of revenue, ensured him a comfortable existence.

In 1881, Macedonski published a new collection of poetry. Titled ”Poezii”, it carries the year “1882″ on its original cover. Again moving away from liberalism, Macedonski sought to make himself accepted by ”Junimea” and Maiorescu. He consequently attended the ”Junimea” sessions, and gave a public reading of ”Noaptea de noiembrie” (“November Night”), the first publicized piece in his lifelong ”Nights” cycle. It reportedly earned him the praise of historian and poet Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, who, although an anti-”Junimist”, happened to be in the audience. Despite rumors according to which he had applauded Macedonski, Maiorescu himself was not impressed, and left an unenthusiastic account of the event in his private diary.

Against Alecsandri and Eminescu

Macedonski’s open conflict with ”Junimea” began in 1882, when he engaged in a publicized polemic with Alecsandri. It was ignited when, through Macedonski’s articles, ”Literatorul” criticized Alecsandri for accepting Romanian Academy prizes despite being its member, and later involved Sion (whose replies on behalf of the Academy were derided by Macedonski). Macedonski also took distance from Alecsandri’s style, publishing a “critical analysis” of his poetry in one issue of ”Literatorul”. In turn, Alecsandri humiliated his young rival by portraying him as Zoilus, the prototype of slanderers, and himself as the model poet Horace in the 1883 play ”Fântâna Blanduziei”. The two were eventually reconciled, and Macedonski again spoke of Alecsandri as his ideological and stylistic predecessor.

In April 1882, Eminescu had also replied to Macedonski in ”Timpul” journal, referring to an unnamed poet who “barely finishes high-school, comes over to Bucharest selling nick-nacks and makeup [and goes into] literary dealership”. Reproaching Macedonski’s attacks on Alecsandri, Eminescu makes a nationalist comment about the young poet bearing “the bastard instincts of those foreigners who were Romanianized only yesterday”, and attributes him “the physiognomy of a hairdresser”. Through the articles of Petru Th. Missir, ”Convorbiri Literare” gave ”Poezii” a negative review, deemed “malevolent” by literary historian Mircea Anghelescu. At the other end of the political and cultural spectrum, Macedonski faced opposition from the intellectuals attracted to socialism, in particular ”Contemporanul” editors Constantin Mille and Ioan Nădejde, with whom he was engaged in an extended polemic.

In the meantime, Macedonski published his own play, which had Cuza for its main character and was eponymously titled ”Cuza-Vodă”, and completed translations for ”Literatorul”—from Maurice Rollinat, whom he helped impose as a main cultural reference in Romanian Symbolism, and from the Greek poet Akhillefs Paraskhos. In 1883, he also contributed his first sketch story, ”Casa cu nr. 10” (“The House at Number 10″). In early 1883, he married Ana Rallet-Slătineanu. Wealthy and supposedly related to Romanian aristocrats, she would bear him five children in all: the painter Alexis was the eldest, followed by Nikita; the three youngest were two sons (Panel and Constantin Macedonski) and a daughter, Anna (also known as Nina).

In July 1883, Macedonski undertook one of his most controversial anti-”Junimist” actions. That month, ”Literatorul” published an epigram signed with the pseudonym ”Duna”, deriding an unnamed author who had lost his mind. Mihai Eminescu—whom many had already come to see as Romania’s national poet—had by then developed a mental disorder which had become known to the general public. Ever since that moment, Macedonski has generally been believed to be ”Duna”, and as a result, was faced with much criticism from both readers and commentators. The intense anti-”Literatorul” press campaign was initiated in August, when writer Grigore Ventura issued an article condemning Macedonski’s attitude (published in the Bucharest-based newspaper ”L’Indépendance Roumaine”), with Macedonski responding in the National Liberal organ ”Românul”. During one evening, Macedonski is reported to have been assaulted by anonymous supporters of Eminescu. His previous conflict with Nădejde was also affected by this renewed controversy: while opposed to ”Junimist” policies, the socialists at ”Contemporanul” voiced their admiration for Eminescu’s art.

Late in 1883, Macedonski and his friends unveiled Ion Georgescu’s statue of their mentor Bolintineanu in the National Theater lobby. The circumstances in which this took place rose suspicion of foul play; on this grounds, Macedonski was ridiculed by his former friend Zamfirescu in the journal ”România Liberă”, which left him embittered. Călinescu proposes that, although such negative reactions were invoked by Macedonski’s supporters as a sign of their mentor having been marginalized, Macedonski had expressed his dissatisfaction with the cultural environment long before that moment, and was still a respected figure even after the incidents took place.

First Paris sojourn and ”Poezia viitorului”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Alexandru Macedonski, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The word optimize is normally used in relation to an existing algorithm/computer program (i.e. to improve upon completed code). In this section it is used both in the context of existing programs and also in the design and implementation of new algorithms, thereby avoiding the most common performance pitfalls. It is clearly wasteful to produce a working program – at first using an algorithm that ignores all efficiency issues – only to then have to redesign or rewrite sections of it if found to offer poor performance. Optimization can be broadly categorized into two domains:-

* Environment specific – that are essentially worthwhile only on certain platforms or particular computer languages

* General techniques – that apply irrespective of platform

Environment specific

Optimization of algorithms frequently depends on the properties of the machine the algorithm will be executed on as well as the language the algorithm is written in and chosen data types. For example, a programmer might optimize code for time efficiency in an application for home computers (with sizable amounts of memory), but for code destined to be embedded in small, “memory-tight” devices, the programmer may have to accept that it will run more slowly, simply because of the restricted memory available for any potential software optimization.

For a discussion of hardware performance, see article on Computer performance which covers such things as CPU clock speed, cycles per instruction and other relevant metrics. For a discussion on how the choice of part

General techniques

* Linear search such as unsorted table look-ups in particular can be very expensive in terms of execution time but can be reduced significantly through use of efficient techniques such as indexed arrays and binary searches. Using a simple linear search on first occurrence and using a cached result thereafter is an obvious compromise.

* Use of indexed program branching, utilizing branch tables or “threaded code” to control program flow, (rather than using multiple conditional IF statements or unoptimized CASE/SWITCH) can drastically reduce instruction path length, simultaneously reduce program size and even also make a program easier to read and more easily maintainable (in effect it becomes a ‘decision table’ rather than repetitive spaghetti code).

* Loop unrolling performed manually, or more usually by an optimizing compiler, can provide significant savings in some instances. By processing ‘blocks’ of several array elements at a time, individually addressed, (for example, within a While loop), much pointer arithmetic and end of loop testing can be eliminated, resulting in decreased instruction path lengths. Other Loop optimizations are also possible.

Tunnel vision

There are many techniques for improving algorithms, but focusing on a single favorite technique can lead to a “tunnel vision” mentality. For example, in this X86 assembly example, the author offers loop unrolling as a reasonable technique that provides some 40% improvements to his chosen example. However, the same example would benefit significantly from both inlining and use of a trivial hash function. If they were implemented, either as alternative or complementary techniques, an even greater percentage gain might be expected. A combination of optimizations may provide ever increasing speed, but selection of the most easily implemented and most effective technique, from a large repertoire of such techniques, is desirable as a starting point.

Dependency trees and spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are a ‘special case’ of algorithms that self-optimize by virtue of their dependency trees that are inherent in the design of spreadsheets to reduce re-calculations when a cell changes. The results of earlier calculations are effectively cached within the workbook and only updated if another cells changed value effects it directly.

Table lookup

Table lookups can make many algorithms more efficient, particularly when used to bypass computations with a high time complexity. However, if a wide input range is required, they can consume significant storage resources. In cases with a sparse valid input set, hash functions can be used to provide more efficient lookup access than a full table.

Hash function algorithms

A hash function is any well-defined procedure or mathematical function which converts a large, possibly variable-sized amount of data into a small datum, usually a single integer that may serve as an index to an array. The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, hash sums, or simply hashes.

Hash functions are frequently used to speed up table lookups. The choice of a hashing function (to avoid a linear or brute force search) depends critically on the nature of the input data, and their probability distribution in the intended application.

Trivial hash function

Sometimes if the datum is small enough, a “trivial hash function” can be used to effectively provide constant time searches at almost zero cost. This is particularly relevant for single byte lookups (e.g. ASCII or EBCDIC characters)

Searching strings

Searching for particular text strings (for instance “tags” or keywords) in long sequences of characters potentially generates lengthy instruction paths. This includes searching for delimiters in comma separated files or similar processing which can be very simply and effectively eliminated (using declarative notation for instance).

Several methods of reducing the cost for general searching have been examined and the “Boyer–Moore string search algorithm” (or Boyer–Moore–Horspool algorithm, a similar but modified version) is one solution that has been proven to give superior results to repetitive comparisons of the entire search string along the sequence.

Hot spot analyzers

Special system software products known as “performance analyzers” are often available from suppliers to help diagnose “hot spots” – during actual execution of computer programs – using real or test data – they perform a Performance analysis under generally repeatable conditions. They can pinpoint sections of the program that might benefit from specifically targeted programmer optimization without necessarily spending time optimizing the rest of the code. Using program re-runs, a measure of relative improvement can then be determined to decide if the optimization was successful and by what amount. Instruction Set Simulators can be used as an alternative to measure the instruction path length at the machine code level between selected execution paths, or on the entire execution.

Regardless of the type of tool used, the quantitative values obtained can be used in combination with anticipated reductions (for the targeted code) to estimate a relative or absolute overall saving. For example if 50% of the total execution time (or path length) is absorbed in a subroutine whose speed can be doubled by programmer optimization, an overall saving of around 25% might be expected (Amdahl law).

Efforts have been made at the University of California, Irvine to produce dynamic executable code using a combination of hot spot analysis and run-time program trace tree. A JIT like dynamic compiler was built by Andreas Gal and others, “in which relevant (i.e., frequently executed) control flows are …discovered lazily during execution”

Benchmarking & competitive algorithms

For new versions of software or to provide comparisons with competitive systems, benchmarks are sometimes used which assist with gauging an algorithms relative performance. If a new sort algorithm is produced for example it can be compared with its predecessors to ensure that at least it is efficient as before with known data – taking into consideration any functional improvements.

Benchmarks can be used by customers when comparing various products from alternative suppliers to estimate which product will best suit their specific requirements in terms of functionality and performance. For example in the mainframe world certain proprietary sort products from independent software companies such as Syncsort compete with products from the major suppliers such as IBM for speed.

Some benchmarks provide opportunities for producing an analysis comparing the relative speed of various compiled and interpreted languages for example

and ”The Computer Language Benchmarks Game” compares the performance of implementations of typical programming problems in several programming languages.

(Even creating “do it yourself” benchmarks to get at least some appreciation of the relative performance of different programming languages, using a variety of user specified criteria, is quite simple to produce as this “Nine language Performance roundup” by Christopher W. Cowell-Shah demonstrates by example)

Compiled versus interpreted languages

A compiled algorithm will, in general, execute faster than the equivalent interpreted algorithm simply because some processing is required even at run time to ‘understand’ (i.e. interpret) the instructions to effect an execution. A compiled program will normally output an object or machine code equivalent of the algorithm that has already been processed by the compiler into a form more readily executed by microcode or the hardware directly. The popular Perl language is an example of an interpreted language and benchmarks indicate that it executes approximately 24 times more slowly than compiled C.

Optimizing compilers

Many compilers have features that attempt to optimize the code they generate, utilizing some of the techniques outlined in this article and others specific to the compilation itself. Loop optimization is often the focus of optimizing compilers because significant time is spent in program loops and parallel processing opportunities can often be facilitated by automatic code re-structuring such as loop unrolling. Optimizing compilers are by no means perfect. There is no way that a compiler can guarantee that, for all program source code, the fastest (or smallest) possible equivalent compiled program is output; such a compiler is fundamentally impossible because it would solve the halting problem. Additionally, even optimizing compilers generally have no access to runtime metrics to enable them to improve optimization through ‘learning’.

Just-in-time compilers

‘On-the-fly’ processors known today as just-in-time or ‘JIT’ compilers combine features of interpreted languages with compiled languages and may also incorporate elements of optimization to a greater or lesser extent. Essentially the JIT compiler can compile small sections of source code statements (or bytecode) as they are newly encountered and (usually) retain the result for the next time the same source is processed. In addition, pre-compiled segments of code can be in-lined or called as dynamic functions that themselves perform equally fast as the equivalent ‘custom’ compiled function. Because the JIT processor also has access to run-time information (that a normal compiler can’t have) it is also possible for it to optimize further executions depending upon the input and also perform other run-time introspective optimization as execution proceeds. A JIT processor may, or may not, incorporate self modifying code or its equivalent by creating ‘fast path’ routes through an algorithm. It may also use such techniques as dynamic Fractional cascading or any other similar runtime device based on collected actual runtime metrics.

It is therefore entirely possible that a JIT compiler might (counter intuitively) execute even faster than an optimally ‘optimized’ compiled program.

Self-modifying code

As mentioned above, just-in-time compilers often make extensive use of self-modifying code to generate the actual machine instructions required to be executed. The technique can also be used to reduce instruction path lengths in application programs where otherwise repetitive conditional tests might otherwise be required within the main program flow. This can be particularly useful where a sub routine may have embedded debugging code that is either active (testing mode) or inactive (production mode) depending upon some input parameter. A simple solution using a form of dynamic dispatching is where the sub routine entry point is dynamically ‘swapped’ at initialization, depending upon the input parameter. Entry point A) includes the debugging code prologue and entry point B) excludes the prologue; thus eliminating all overhead except the initial ‘test and swap’ (even when test/debugging is selected, when the overhead is simply the test/debugging code itself).

Genetic algorithm

In the world of performance related algorithms it is worth mentioning the role of genetic algorithms which compete using similar methods to the natural world in eliminating inferior algorithms in favour of more efficient versions.

Object code optimizers

Some proprietary program optimizers such as the “COBOL Optimizer” developed by Capex Corporation in the mid 1970′s for COBOL, actually took the unusual step of optimizing the Object code (or binary file) after normal compilation. This type of optimizer, recently sometimes referred to as a “post pass” optimizer or peephole optimizer, depended, in this case, upon knowledge of ‘weaknesses’ in the standard IBM COBOL compiler and actually replaced (or patched) sections of the object code with more efficient code.

A number of other suppliers have recently adopted the same approach. See main article for list of these products

Alignment of data

Most processors execute faster if certain data values are aligned on word, doubleword or page boundaries. If possible design/specify structures to satisfy appropriate alignments. This avoids exceptions.

Locality of reference

To reduce Cache miss exceptions by providing good spatial locality of reference, specify ‘high frequency’/volative working storage data within defined structure(s) so that they are also allocated from contiguous sections of memory (rather than possibly scattered over many pages). Group closely related data values also ‘physically’ close together within these structures. Consider the possibility of creating an ‘artificial’ structure to group some otherwise unrelated, but nevertheless frequently referenced, items together.

Choice of instruction or data type

Particularly in an Assembly language (although also applicable to HLL statements), the choice of a particular ‘instruction’ or data type, can have a large impact on execution efficiency. In general, instructions that process variables such as signed or unsigned 16-bit or 32-bit integers are faster than those that process floating point or packed decimal. Modern processors are even capable of executing multiple ‘fixed point’ instructions in parallel with the simultaneous execution of a floating point instruction. If the largest integer to be encountered can be accommodated by the ‘faster’ data type, defining the variables as that type will result in faster execution – since even a non-optimizing compiler will, in-effect, be ‘forced’ to choose appropriate instructions that will execute faster than would have been the case with data types associated with ‘slower’ instructions. Assembler programmers (and optimizing compiler writers) can then also benefit from the ability to perform certain common types of arithmetic for instance – division by 2, 4, 8 etc. by performing the very much faster binary shift right operations (in this case by 1, 2 or 3 bits).

If the choice of input data type is not under the control of the programmer, although prior conversion (outside of a loop for instance) to a faster data type carries some overhead, it can often be worthwhile if the variable is then to be used as a loop counter, especially if the count could be quite a high value or there are many input values to process. As mentioned above, choice of individual assembler instructions (or even sometimes just their order of execution) on particular machines can effect the efficiency of an algorithm. See [http://mark.masmcode.com/ Assembly Optimization Tips] for one quite numerous arcane list of various technical (and sometimes non-intuitive) considerations for choice of assembly instructions on different processors that also discusses the merits of each case. Sometimes microcode or hardware quirks can result in unexpected performance differences between processors that assembler programmers can actively code for – or else specifically avoid if penalties result – something even the best optimizing compiler may not be designed to handle.

Data granularity

The greater the granularity of data definitions (such as splitting a geographic address into separate street/city/postal code fields) can have performance overhead implications during processing. Higher granularity in this example implies more procedure calls in Object-oriented programming and parallel computing environments since the additional objects are accessed via multiple method calls rather than perhaps one.

Subroutine granularity

For structured programming and procedural programming in general, great emphasis is placed on designing programs as a hierarchy of (or at least a set of) subroutines. For object oriented programming, the method call (a subroutine call) is the standard method of testing and setting all values in objects and so increasing data granularity consequently causes increased use of subroutines.

The greater the granularity of subroutine usage, the larger the proportion of processing time devoted to the mechanism of the subroutine linkages themselves.The presence of a (called) subroutine in a program contributes nothing extra to the functionality of the program. The extent to which subroutines (and their consequent memory requirements) influences the overall performance of the complete algorithm depends to a large extent on the actual implementation.

In assembly language programs, the invocation of a subroutine need not involve much overhead, typically adding just a couple of machine instructions to the normal instruction path length, each one altering the control flow either ”to” the subroutine or returning ”from” it (saving the state on a stack being optional, depending on the complexity of the subroutine and its requirement to reuse general purpose registers). In many cases, small subroutines that perform frequently used data transformations using ‘general purpose’ work areas can be accomplished without the need to save or restore any registers, including the return register.

By contrast, HLL programs typically always invoke a ‘standard’ procedure call (the ”calling convention”), which involves saving the program state by default and usually allocating additional memory on the stack to save all registers and other relevant state data (the prologue and epilogue code). Recursion in a HLL program can consequently consume significant overhead in both memory and execution time managing the stack to the required depth.

Guy Steele pointed out in a 1977 paper that a ”well-designed” programming language implementation ”can” have very low overheads for procedural abstraction (but laments, in most implementations, that they seldom achieve this in practice – being “rather thoughtless or careless in this regard”). Steele concludes that “we should have a healthy respect for procedure calls” (because they are powerful) but he also cautioned “use them sparingly”

See section Avoiding costs for discussion of how inlining

subroutines can be used to improve performance. For the Java language, use of the “final” keyword can be used to force method inlining (resulting in elimination of the method call, no dynamic dispatch and the possibility to constant-fold the value – with no code executed at runtime)

Choice of language / mixed languages

Some computer languages can execute algorithms more efficiently than others. As stated already, interpreted languages often perform less efficiently than compiled languages. In addition, where possible, ‘high-use’ , and time-dependent sections of code may be written in a language such as assembler that can usually execute faster and make better use of resources on a particular platform than the equivalent HLL code on the same platform. This section of code can either be statically called or dynamically invoked (external function) or embedded within the higher level code (e.g. Assembler instructions embedded in a ‘C’ language program).

The effect of higher levels of abstraction when using a HLL has been described as the ”Abstraction penalty”

Programmers who are familiar with assembler language (in addition to their chosen HLL) and are also familiar with the code that will be generated by the HLL, under known conditions, can sometimes use HLL language primitives of that language to generate code almost identical to assembler language. This is most likely to be possible only in languages that support pointers such as PL/1 or C. This is facilitated if the chosen HLL compiler provides an optional assembler listing as part of its printout so that various alternatives can be explored without also needing specialist knowledge of the compiler internals.

Software validation versus hardware validation

An optimization technique that was frequently taken advantage of on ‘legacy’ platforms was that of allowing the hardware (or microcode) to perform validation on numeric data fields such as those coded in (or converted to) packed decimal (or packed BCD).

The choice was to either spend processing time checking each field for a valid numeric content in the particular internal representation chosen or simply assume the data was correct and let the hardware detect the error upon execution. The choice was highly significant because to check for validity on multiple fields (for sometimes many millions of input records), it could occupy valuable computer resources. Since input data fields were in any case frequently built from the output of earlier computer processing, the actual probability of a field containing invalid data was exceedingly low and usually the result of some ‘corruption’.

The solution was to incorporate an ‘event handler’ for the hardware detected condition (‘data exception)’ that would intercept the occasional errant data field and either ‘report, correct and continue’ or, more usually, abort the run with a core dump to try to determine the reason for the bad data.

Similar event handlers are frequently utilized in today’s web based applications to handle other exceptional conditions but repeatedly parsing data input, to ensure its validity before execution, has nevertheless become much more commonplace – partly because processors have become faster (and the perceived need for efficiency in this area less significant) but, predominantly – because data structures have become less ‘formalized’ (e.g. .csv and .tsv files) or uniquely identifiable (e.g. packed decimal). The potential savings using this type of technique may have therefore fallen into general dis-use as a consequence and therefore repeated data validations and repeated data conversions have become an accepted overhead. Ironically, one consequence of this move to less formalized data structures is that a corruption of say, a numeric binary integer value, will not be detected at all by the hardware upon execution (for instance: is an ASCII hexadecimal value ’20202020′ a valid signed or unsigned binary value – or simply a string of blanks that has corrupted it?)

Algorithms for vector & superscalar processors

Algorithms for vector processors are usually different than those for scalar processors since they can process multiple instructions and/or multiple data elements in parallel (for examples of these differences see ‘description’ in the main article). The process of converting an algorithm from a scalar to a vector process is known as vectorization and methods for automatically performing this transformation as efficiently as possible are constantly sought.

There are intrinsic limitations for implementing instruction level parallelism in Superscalar processors (which are discussed in the ‘limitations’ section in the main article) but, in essence, the overhead in deciding for certain if particular instruction sequences can be processed in parallel can sometimes exceed the efficiency gain in so doing. The achievable reduction is governed primarily by the (somewhat obvious) law known as Amdahl’s law, that essentially states that the improvement from parallel processing is determined by its slowest sequential component. Algorithms designed for this class of processor therefore require more care if they are not to unwittingly disrupt the potential gains.

Avoiding costs

* Defining variables as integers for indexed arrays instead of floating point will result in faster execution (see above).

* Defining structures whose structure length is a multiple of a power of 2 (2,4,8,16 etc.), will allow the compiler to calculate array indexes by shifting a binary index by 1, 2 or more bits to the left, instead of using a multiply instruction will result in faster execution. Adding an otherwise redundant short filler variable to ‘pad out’ the length of a structure element to say 8 bytes when otherwise it would have been 6 or 7 bytes may reduce overall processing time by a worthwhile amount for very large arrays. See for generated code differences for C as for example.

* Storage defined in terms of bits, when bytes would suffice, may inadvertently involve extremely long path lengths involving bitwise operations instead of more efficient single instruction ‘multiple byte’ copy instructions. (This does not apply to ‘genuine’ intentional bitwise operations – used for example instead of multiplication or division by powers of 2 or for TRUE/FALSE flags.)

* Unnecessary use of allocated dynamic storage when static storage would suffice, can increase the processing overhead substantially – both increasing memory requirements and the associated allocation/deallocation path length overheads for each function call.

* Excessive use of function calls for very simple functions, rather than in-line statements, can also add substantially to instruction path lengths and stack/unstack overheads. For particularly time critical systems that are not also code size sensitive, automatic or manual inline expansion can reduce path length by eliminating all the instructions that call the function and return from it. (A conceptually similar method, loop unrolling, eliminates the instructions required to set up and terminate a loop by, instead; repeating the instructions inside the loop multiple times. This of course eliminates the branch back instruction but may also increase the size of the binary file or, in the case of JIT built code, dynamic memory. Also, care must be taken with this method, that re-calculating addresses for each statement within an unwound indexed loop is not more expensive than incrementing pointers within the former loop would have been. If absolute indexes are used in the generated (or manually created) unwound code, rather than variables, the code created may actually be able to avoid generated pointer arithmetic instructions altogether, using offsets instead).

:Memory management

:Whenever memory is ”automatically” allocated (for example in HLL programs, when calling a procedure or when issuing a system call), it is normally released (or ‘freed’/ ‘deallocated’/ ‘deleted’ ) automatically when it is no longer required – thus allowing it to be re-used for another purpose ”immediately”. Some memory management can easily be accomplished by the compiler, as in this example. However, when memory is ”explicitly” allocated (for example in OOP when “new” is specified for an object), releasing the memory is often left to an asynchronous ‘garbage collector’ which does not necessarily release the memory at the earliest opportunity (as well as consuming some additional CPU resources deciding if it can be). The current trend nevertheless appears to be towards taking full advantage of this fully automated method, despite the tradeoff in efficiency – because it is claimed that it makes programming easier. Some functional languages are known as ‘lazy functional languages’ because of the significant use of garbage collection and can consume much more memory as a result.

* Array processing may simplify programming but use of separate statements to sum different elements of the same array(s) may produce code that is not easily optimized and that requires multiple passes of the arrays that might otherwise have been processed in a single pass. It may also duplicate data if array slicing is used, leading to increased memory usage and copying overhead.

* In OOP, if an object is known to be immutable, it can be copied simply by making a copy of a reference to it instead of copying the entire object. Because a reference (typically only the size of a pointer) is usually much smaller than the object itself, this results in memory savings and a boost in execution speed.

Readability, trade offs and trends

One must be careful, in the pursuit of good coding style, not to over-emphasize efficiency. Frequently, a clean, readable and ‘usable’ design is much more important than a fast, efficient design that is hard to understand. There are exceptions to this ‘rule’ (such as embedded systems, where space is tight, and processing power minimal) but these are rarer than one might expect.

However, increasingly, for many ‘time critical’ applications such as air line reservation systems, point-of-sale applications, ATMs (cash-point machines), Airline Guidance systems, Collision avoidance systems and numerous modern web based applications – operating in a real-time environment where speed of response is fundamental – there is little alternative.

Determining if optimization is worthwhile

The essential criteria for using optimized code are of course dependent upon the expected use of the algorithm. If it is a new algorithm and is going to be in use for many years and speed is relevant, it is worth spending some time designing the code to be as efficient as possible from the outset. If an existing algorithm is proving to be too slow or memory is becoming an issue, clearly something must be done to improve it.

For the average application, or for one-off applications, avoiding inefficient coding techniques and encouraging the compiler to optimize where possible may be sufficient.

One simple way (at least for mathematicians) to determine whether an optimization is worthwhile is as follows: Let the original time and space requirements (generally in Big-O notation) of the algorithm be O_1 and O_2. Let the new code require N_1 and N_2 time and space respectively. If N_1 N_2 < O_1 O_2 , the optimization should be carried out. However, as mentioned above, this may not always be true.

Implications for algorithmic efficiency

A recent report, published in December 2007, from Global Action Plan, a UK-based environmental organisation found that computer servers are “at least as great a threat to the climate as SUVs or the global aviation industry” drawing attention to the carbon footprint of the IT industry in the UK.

According to an Environmental Research Letters report published in September 2008, “Total power used by information technology equipment in data centers represented about 0.5% of world electricity consumption in 2005. When cooling and auxiliary infrastructure are included, that figure is about 1%. The total data center power demand in 2005 is equivalent (in capacity terms) to about seventeen 1000 MW power plants for the world.”

Some media reports claim that performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research; however, the factual accuracy of this comparison is disputed, and the author of the study in question asserts that the two-searches-tea-kettle statistic is a misreading of his work.

Greentouch, a recently established consortium of leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, academic and non-governmental research experts, has set itself the mission of reducing reduce energy consumption per user by a factor of 1000 from current levels. “A thousand-fold reduction is roughly equivalent to being able to power the world’s communications networks, including the Internet, for three years using the same amount of energy that it currently takes to run them for a single day”. The first meeting in February 2010 will establish the organization’s five-year plan, first year deliverables and member roles and responsibilities. Intellectual property issues will be addressed and defined in the forum’s initial planning meetings. The conditions for research and the results of that research will be high priority for discussion in the initial phase of the research forum’s development.

Computers having become increasingly more powerful over the past few decades, emphasis was on a ‘brute force’ mentality. This may have to be reconsidered in the light of these reports and more effort placed in future on reducing carbon footprints through optimization. It is a timely reminder that algorithmic efficiency is just another aspect of the more general thermodynamic efficiency. The genuine economic benefits of an optimized algorithm are, in any case, that more processing can be done for the same cost or that useful results can be shown in a more timely manner and ultimately, acted upon sooner.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Algorithmic efficiency, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The ”rainbow body” is the physical mastery state of Dzogchen of the Nyingmapa and the Bönpo where the trikaya (Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya) is in accord and the nirmanakaya is congruent with bodymind and the integrity of the mindstream to the heartmind) is realised as Dharmakaya. The corporeal body of the realised Dzogchenpa, which is now hallowed, returns to the primordial energetic essence of the Five Pure Lights of the five elemental processes through the Bardo of Mahasamadhi or Parinirvana. This is then projected as the mindstream through the process of phowa. The realiser of ”Jalus” resides in the timeless, eternal space that is considered a mystery.

According to Dzogchen folklore, the attainment of the Rainbow Body is the sign of complete realisation of the Dzogchen view. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (2002: p.& 141) states: “The realised Dzogchen practitioner, no longer deluded by apparent substantiality or dualism such as mind and matter, releases the energy of the elements that compose the physical body at the time of death.”

More specifically, the rainbow body is constituted by the Five Pure Lights. When the view of Dzogchen and the integrity of the mindstream which links the Trikaya is realised prior to the death-Bardo (Skt. ”antarabhava”), the bodymind of the Nirmanakaya (Tib. ”sprul sku”) Dzogchenpa enters samādhi (Tib. ”ting nge ‘dzin”) and commences Phowa or the ‘transferral of consciousness’ into the constituent Five Pure Lights of the Sambhogakaya (Ti

There have been a number of documented sightings of the Jalus process through the Bardo of death which may take a number of days to complete. The bodymind of the Nirmanakaya in samadhi, all the time decreasing its dimensionality as the constituent Five Pure Lights of the mindstream are transmuted into the ‘glorious body’ of Sambhogakaya.

From the case studies of those who have realised the rainbow body the practices of tregchöd and thödgal are key.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Rainbow body, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Monetary exchange

Gold has been widely used throughout the world as a vehicle for monetary exchange, either by issuance and recognition of gold coins or other bare metal quantities, or through gold-convertible paper instruments by establishing gold standards in which the total value of issued money is represented in a store of gold reserves.

However, the amount of gold in the world is finite and production has not grown in relation to the world’s economies. Today, gold mining output is declining. With the sharp growth of economies in the 20th century, and increasing foreign exchange, the world’s gold reserves and their trading market have become a small fraction of all markets and fixed exchange rates of currencies to gold were no longer sustained. At the beginning of World War I the warring nations moved to a fractional gold standard, inflating their currencies to finance the war effort. After World War II gold was replaced by a system of convertible currency following the Bretton Woods system. Gold standards and the direct convertibility of currencies to gold have been abandoned by world governments, being replaced by fiat currency in their stead. Switzerland was the last country to tie its currency to gold; it backed 40% of its value until the Swiss joined the International Monetary Fund in 1999.

Pure gold is too soft for day-to-day monetary use and is typically hardened by alloying with copper, silver or other base metals. The gold content of alloys is measured in carats (k). Pure gold is designated as 24k. Gold coins intended for circulation from 1526 in

Investment

Many holders of gold store it in form of bullion coins or bars as a hedge against inflation or other economic disruptions. However, some economists do not believe gold serves as a hedge against inflation or currency depreciation.

The ISO 4217 currency code of gold is XAU.

Modern bullion coins for investment or collector purposes do not require good mechanical wear properties; they are typically fine gold at 24k, although the American Gold Eagle, the British gold sovereign, and the South African Krugerrand continue to be minted in 22k metal in historical tradition. The ”special issue” Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin contains the highest purity gold of any bullion coin, at 99.999% or 0.99999, while the ”popular issue” Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin has a purity of 99.99%. Several other 99.99% pure gold coins are available. In 2006, the United States Mint began production of the American Buffalo gold bullion coin with a purity of 99.99%. The Australian Gold Kangaroos were first coined in 1986 as the Australian Gold Nugget but changed the reverse design in 1989. Other popular modern coins include the Austrian Vienna Philharmonic bullion coin and the Chinese Gold Panda.

Jewelry

Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower caratage, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper, or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy. Copper is the most commonly used base metal, yielding a redder color. Eighteen-carat gold containing 25% copper is found in antique and Russian jewelry and has a distinct, though not dominant, copper cast, creating rose gold. Fourteen-carat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color to certain bronze alloys, and both may be used to produce police, as well as other, badges. Blue gold can be made by alloying with iron and purple gold can be made by alloying with aluminium, although rarely done except in specialized jewelry. Blue gold is more brittle and therefore more difficult to work with when making jewelry. Fourteen and eighteen carat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and are referred to as green gold. White gold alloys can be made with palladium or nickel. White 18-carat gold containing 17.3% nickel, 5.5% zinc and 2.2% copper is silvery in appearance. Nickel is toxic, however, and its release from nickel white gold is controlled by legislation in Europe. Alternative white gold alloys are available based on palladium, silver and other white metals, but the palladium alloys are more expensive than those using nickel. High-carat white gold alloys are far more resistant to corrosion than are either pure silver or sterling silver. The Japanese craft of Mokume-gane exploits the color contrasts between laminated colored gold alloys to produce decorative wood-grain effects.

Medicine

In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something that rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. Even some modern esotericists and forms of alternative medicine assign metallic gold a healing power. Some gold salts do have anti-inflammatory properties and are used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions. However, only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, as elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body. In modern times, injectable gold has been proven to help to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis.

Gold alloys are used in restorative dentistry, especially in tooth restorations, such as crowns and permanent bridges. The gold alloys’ slight malleability facilitates the creation of a superior molar mating surface with other teeth and produces results that are generally more satisfactory than those produced by the creation of porcelain crowns. The use of gold crowns in more prominent teeth such as incisors is favored in some cultures and discouraged in others.

Colloidal gold preparations (suspensions of gold nanoparticles) in water are intensely red-colored, and can be made with tightly controlled particle sizes up to a few tens of nanometers across by reduction of gold chloride with citrate or ascorbate ions. Colloidal gold is used in research applications in medicine, biology and materials science. The technique of immunogold labeling exploits the ability of the gold particles to adsorb protein molecules onto their surfaces. Colloidal gold particles coated with specific antibodies can be used as probes for the presence and position of antigens on the surfaces of cells. In ultrathin sections of tissues viewed by electron microscopy, the immunogold labels appear as extremely dense round spots at the position of the antigen. Colloidal gold is also the form of gold used as gold paint on ceramics prior to firing.

Gold, or alloys of gold and palladium, are applied as conductive coating to biological specimens and other non-conducting materials such as plastics and glass to be viewed in a scanning electron microscope. The coating, which is usually applied by sputtering with an argon plasma, has a triple role in this application. Gold’s very high electrical conductivity drains electrical charge to earth, and its very high density provides stopping power for electrons in the electron beam, helping to limit the depth to which the electron beam penetrates the specimen. This improves definition of the position and topography of the specimen surface and increases the spatial resolution of the image. Gold also produces a high output of secondary electrons when irradiated by an electron beam, and these low-energy electrons are the most commonly used signal source used in the scanning electron microscope.

The isotope gold-198, (half-life 2.7 days) is used in some cancer treatments and for treating other diseases.

Food and drink

*Gold can be used in food and has the E number 175.

*Gold leaf, flake or dust is used on and in some gourmet foods, notably sweets and drinks as decorative ingredient. Gold flake was used by the nobility in Medieval Europe as a decoration in food and drinks, in the form of leaf, flakes or dust, either to demonstrate the host’s wealth or in the belief that something that valuable and rare must be beneficial for one’s health. Gold foil along with silver is sometimes used in South Asian sweets such as barfi.

* Danziger Goldwasser (German: Gold water of Danzig) or Goldwasser is a traditional German herbal liqueur produced in what is today Gdańsk, Poland, and Schwabach, Germany, and contains flakes of gold leaf. There are also some expensive (~$1000) cocktails which contain flakes of gold leaf. However, since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, it adds no taste nor has it any other nutritional effect and leaves the body unaltered.

Industry

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Gold, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Theosophy

H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophical teaching represented the convergence of 19th century Western occultism, Eastern philosophy, religion, science, and mysticism. ”The Secret Doctrine”, and ”The Key to Theosophy” combined the Vedantic concept of five koshas with Western esoteric traditions, (particularly Neoplatonism). She refers to a number of subtle bodies or vehicles of consciousness:

* ”Linga Sharira” – the Double or Astral body

* ”Kama rupa” – the “Desire Form”

* ”Manas” – the Mind, Lower and Higher

* ”Buddhi” – the Consciousness, Spiritual Soul (the vehicle of the Spirit)

The Linga Sarira or ”Linga Sharira”, which is part of the lower quaternary is the ”eidolon” of the Greeks, separated from the physical plane by a ”Laya center”. It is the invisible double of the human body elsewhere referred to as the etheric body, etheric double, doppelgänger or bioplasmic body and serves as a model or matrix of the physical body, which conforms to the shape, appearance and condition of this “double”.

The linga sarira can be separated or projected a limited distance from the body. When separated from the body it can be wounded by sharp objects. When it returns to the physical frame, the wound will be reflected in the physical counterpart, a phenomenon called “repercussion.” At death, it is discarded together with the physical body and eventually disintegrates or decompos

Theosophy was further systematised in the writings of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant, who established the Adyar School of Theosophy or neo-Theosophy. They described seven bodies, but they divided Blavatsky’s higher and lower astral and Manas into two bodies each:

* Etheric body

* Astral or emotional body

* Mental body (concrete mind)

* Causal body (abstract mind)

Each “body” has its own

aura and set of chakras, and corresponds to a particular plane of existence. C.W. Leadbeater considered the astral body equivalent to the kama principle of Blavatsky’s septenary series. Annie Besant wrote that the Linga Sarira corresponds to the ”Etheric Double”, contrary to earlier theosophical teachings. The Linga Sarira is considered the vehicle of prana.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Subtle body, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Comparison with Theosophy

Theosophists are divided on their assessment of Alice Bailey’s writings. For instance, the noted contemporary Theosophical writer Geoffrey Hodson wrote a highly favorable review of one her books, saying, “Once more Alice Bailey has placed occult students in her debt.” Olav Hammer writes, “Her first book, ”Initiation Human and Solar,” was at first favorably received by her fellow theosophists. Soon, however, her claims to be recipient of ageless wisdom from the Masters met with opposition.” The conflict is understandable since her works contain some criticisms of Theosophy, and at the time of the break she voiced her criticism of what she saw as dogmatic structures within the society, while questioning the pledges of loyalty to Theosophical leaders that were required. “During the annual convention of 1920 in Chicago, there was a power struggle between forces loyal to Besant and the Esoteric Section and others who believed that the ES had become too powerful. Below the surface was a hidden controversy regarding Alice’s work with the Tibetan.” For a more recent example of Bailey/Theosophy division, see Theosophy in Scandinavia.

Campbell writes that Bailey’s books are a reworking of major Theosophical themes, with some distinctive emphases, and that they present a comprehensive system of esoteric science and occult philosophy, cognizant of contemporary social and political developments. Steven J. Sutcliffe points out that both Bailey and Blavatsky’s work evoke a picture of Tibet as the

Jon Klimo, in ”Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources,” writes, “As with Blavatsky/Theosophical material, and more recent contemporary channeled material from other sources, we find in the Bailey work the same occult cosmological hierarchy: physical, etheric, astral, mental, causal, and higher inhabited levels of existence.” Olav Hammer, in the book ”Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age,” highlights Bailey’s Theosophical similarities as well as noting what he thinks are some differences between them: “To a large extent, Bailey’s teachings are a restatement and amplification of theosophy of the ”Secret Doctrine.” Bailey inherited from Blavatsky and Leadbeater a predilection for profuse details and complex classificatory schemes. … Her books have also introduced shifts in emphasis as well as new doctrinal elements.”

In contrast to the above, some Theosophical critics have contended that there are major differences between Bailey’s ideas and the Theosophy of Blavatsky, such as Bailey’s embrace of some mystical Christian terms and concepts and her acceptance of C.W. Leadbeater.

Nicholas Weeks, writing for the Theosophical magazine ”Fohat” in 1997, felt Bailey’s assertion that “… her teachings are grounded in and do not oppose in any fundamental way Theosophy as lived and taught by HPB and her Gurus” was false, claiming her books are in fact “rooted in the pseudo-theosophy pioneered by C. W. Leadbeater.” He claimed Bailey accepted Leadbeater’s “fantasy” of the return of Maitreya, and disparaged Bailey’s ”Great Invocation”, a prayer supposed to “induce Christ and his Masters to leave their hidden ashrams [and] enter into major cities” to lead the Aquarian Age. This contrasts with the Theosophy of Blavatsky, he says, which emphasizes reliance on “the Christos principle within each person”.

The Blavatskian theosophists.

Some critics and often followers of the so-called Blavatskian theosophy on Atma-Vidya refer to the following quotes. The theosophical Master K.H. was given by H. P. Blavatsky to say: “the Salvation Army by hypnotizing people and making them psychically drunk with excitement, is Black Magic”. And H. P. Blavatsky stated in contrast with Alice A. Bailey’s promotion of a Great Invocation arrival of a Maitreya Saviour in the flesh that: “(a) “the coming of Christ,” means the presence of CHRISTOS in a regenerated world, and not at all the actual coming in body of “Christ” Jesus; (b) this Christ is to be sought neither in the wilderness nor “in the inner chambers,” nor in the sanctuary of any temple or church built by man; for Christ—the true esoteric SAVIOUR—is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. ” This can be compared with Alice A. Bailey.s “The Externalization of the Hierarchy”, p.& 590.

H. P. Blavatsky also said in a letter to the honourable Abbé Roca: ””In carnalizing the central figure of the New Testament, in imposing the dogma of the Word made flesh, the Latin Church sets up a doctrine diametrically opposed to the tenets of Buddhist and Hindu Esotericism and the Greek Gnosis. Therefore, there will always be an abyss between the East and the West, as long as neither of these dogmas yields.”” And further on she said, that a ””true Theosophists will never accept either a Christ made Flesh, according to the Roman dogma, or an anthropomorphic God, still less a “Shepherd” in the person of a Pope””. Alice A. Bailey wrote: ””We have fought over the historical Christ, and thus fighting, have lost sight of His message of love to all beings. Fanatics quarrel over His words, and fail to remember that He was ‘the Word made flesh.’”” Alice A. Bailey wrote: “They will prepare and work for conditions in the world in which Christ can move freely among men, in bodily Presence; He need not then remain in His present retreat in Central Asia. “

Another principle of Theosophy, the Law of Attraction was discussed in esoteric writings by Blavatsky, Annie Besant, William Quan Judge, and others; and was also discussed in the writings of Alice Bailey, including a whole chapter in one of her books. The term has been embraced, in a simplified form, by the contemporary New Age movement and was recently popularized in the film ”The Secret”.

The Seven Rays of energy

Underlying her writings is the idea that all is energy and that spirit, matter, and the psychic forces intermediate between them are forms of energy. This energy is life itself. From one essential energy, divinity, proceed seven rays that underlie and shape the evolution of human life and the entire phenomenal world. On a cosmic level these seven rays of energy are the creative forces of planets and stars. On a microcosmic level they are the creative forces conditioning the physical, psychic, and spiritual constitution of man. (Jurriaance, p.& 73-152)

In ”Esoteric Psychology I”, the first book of ”A Treatise on the Seven Rays”, Bailey writes that the “one Life sought expansion” resulting in seven aeons, or emanations, manifesting in the expression of life, becoming the “seven Rishis of all the ancient scriptures.”

She enumerates these seven as:

# The Lord of Power or Will

# The Lord of Love-Wisdom

# The Lord of Active Intelligence

# The Lord of Harmony, Beauty and Art

# The Lord of Concrete Knowledge and Science

# The Lord of Devotion and Idealism

# The Lord of Ceremonial Order or Magic

Although described as “Lords” and “persons”, Bailey states that these “great forces” are not to be understood in terms of human personality. She also cautions that any description of such things must be couched in terms of our particular planet, such that humanity can understand it, but that these “pure Being[s] … have purposes and activities in which our Earth plays only a minor part.”

In Bailey’s concept the rays and all things manifest in centers of energy and their relationships. All rays and centers are focuses of some type of evolving life or consciousness. (Jurriaance, p.& 35-52) This includes everything from atoms to centers or chakras in the human constitution, and upwards through the human aura to groups of humans as centers, and cities and nations as centers. (Jurriaance, p.& 79- 90 ) Humanity as a whole is conceived as a center of energy as are the masters of wisdom of which she writes. Likewise, planet Earth as a whole, with all its subsidiary centers of life, is viewed as a center of life within the large life or divinity of our solar system.

The concept of the seven rays can also be found in Theosophical works. Campbell writes that Bailey, “…was the first to develop the idea of the seven rays, although it can be found in germ in earlier Theosophical writings.” The seven rays also appear in Hindu religious philosophy.

The constitution of man

In line with previous Theosophical teachings, Bailey taught that man consists of a ”soul” of abstract mental material, working through a ”personality”—a technical term used to describe the physical, emotional, and less-abstract mental ”bodies” considered holistically. She uses traditional terms for these lower three “vehicles” or “sheaths”: ”etheric” body, ”astral” body and ”mental” body. These auric aspects of the human being are defined as partial emanations or expressions of the soul, which is itself synonymous with the evolving human consciousness. The mind is not conceived to be simply an ephemeral brain effect, but as the motivating energy responsible for the inner constitution of individuals, and which also manifest as the aura.

In Bailey’s writings, ”evolution” is defined as the process of bringing the “lower sheaths” into integration and alignment with the ”will” of the soul—the “at-one-ment” of the personality. It is this transformation that leads to “right human relations” and spiritual revelation or awakening. Discrete steps on the spiritual path are called ”initiations”, which is to say that the evolving consciousness is entering into new and wider fields of awareness, relationships, responsibilities, and power. In terms of her ray concept, the note of the soul is imposed (or superimposed) on the note of the personality.

The spiritual Hierarchy, Sirius, Venus, and Shamballa

Bailey wrote that behind all human evolution stands a brotherhood of enlightened souls who have guided and aided humanity throughout history. For Bailey, the evolution of humanity was intimately bound up with its relationship to this Spiritual Hierarchy. She believed that the stimulating and uplifting influences of religions, philosophies, sciences, educational movements, and human culture in general are the result of this relationship, and though in time humanity debases all these developments, they are all in their original impetus conceived as the result of the Spiritual Hierarchy working in concert with evolving human potentials.

Bailey associated the spiritual hierarchy and its branches with the system of Sirius, the planet Venus, and the mythical land of Shambhala (which she spelled “Shamballa”), the residence of Sanat Kumara, “Lord of the World”. Bailey wrote, “The energy of Sirius by-passes (to use a modern word) Shamballa and is focused in the Hierarchy. [...] The entire work of the Great White Lodge is controlled from Sirius….” Monica Sjoo, in an essay about the New Age movement, explained her interpretation that “Bailey taught that the Hierarchy of Masters exists in Shambhala and that Venusians founded this fabled city some 18 million years ago on the sacred Gobi island, which is now in the Mongolian desert.” It may be noted here that, in Bailey’s concept, “city” is figurative since she states that Shamballa is not physical in the common usage of that word but is rather located in “higher ethers.”

The Great Invocation

The ”Great Invocation” is a mantra given in 1937 to Bailey by Djwhal Khul. The mantra begins with “From the point of Light within the Mind of God, let light stream forth into the minds of men.” with the rest of the passage reinforcing this idea of men acting in accordance with the plan of God. It is well known by some followers of the New Age movement, where it is used as part of meditation, particularly in groups.

The invocation has been used in the Findhorn Foundation community since the 1970s. In response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Great Invocation was used as a central element of a new daily program at Findhorn known as the “Network of Light meditations for peace”. Findhorn’s use of the Great Invocation later spun off to various other groups they had influenced, including groups interested in new age UFO philosophies.

Rosemary Keller described the Great Invocation as a call for “the Christ to return to Earth” and wrote that Bailey-related groups purchased radio and television time to broadcast the invocation as part of their mission, and that often the invocation was recited in what Keller called “light groups”, to accomplish what Bailey’s disciples considered to be attracting and focusing “spiritual energies to benefit the planet”. Researcher Hannah Newman described what she found to be an antisemitic element in the Great Invocation. According to Newman, “the Plan” named in the invocation refers to the plan authored by “the Hierarchy”, that Newman states places “high priority on removing all Jewish presence and influence from human consciousness, a goal to be achieved by eliminating Judaism.”

Discipleship and service

Bailey elaborated the relation of humanity to the Hierarchy in her teaching on ”Discipleship in the New Age”. A ”disciple” is an accepted student, or chela, in the spiritual ashram of a Master. In this scheme, all awakening souls stand in some relationship—for a long time unconsciously, but eventually in full conscious awareness—to some particular Master. The integrated personality, coming under the influence of the soul, is simultaneously coming under the influence of this Master. This relationship is determined by karma, by evolutionary status, and (most importantly) by the aspirant’s capacity for work to be done on behalf of humanity. This ”service” aspect is strongly emphasized throughout Bailey’s writings. In her concept, the greatly increased (“stepped-up”) evolution of consciousness that results from this Master–pupil relationship is made possible ”only” in and through service to humanity.

Bailey’s writing downplayed the traditional devotional and aspirational aspects of the spiritual life, in favor of serving “the Plan of the Hierarchy” by serving humanity. According to her, this is primary, and everything hinges upon it. For Bailey, ”discipleship” means work—”service”—and the evolution of those sensitivities and powers that enhance that labor. Disciples will never gain such powers or awareness unless and until they will be used solely for unselfish service. (Bailey, p.& 38)

Unity and divinity of nations and groups

Underlying Alice Bailey’s writing is the central concepts of unity and divinity.

Although she often identified groups of people by their race, nationality, or religion, she said the key matter was not race or religion per se, but the evolution of consciousness that transcends these labels. In her writings about the races, she focused on the humanitarian concept of unity and stated that the source of human problems is the spirit of separation that causes individuals and groups to set themselves apart from the rest of humanity. (Bailey, p.& 375)

Ross describes Bailey’s teachings as emphasizing the “underlying unity of all forms of life”, and the “essential oneness of all religions, of all departments of science, and of all the philosophies.” Campbell notes that the New Group of World Servers was established for “… promotion of international understanding, economic sharing, and religious unity.”

On fanaticism and intolerance

Alice Bailey wrote strongly against all forms of fanaticism and intolerance. She saw this fanaticism in churches, in nationalism, and in competing esoteric schools. (Bailey pp.& 15 & 453) She associated this fanaticism with unintelligent devotion and holding on to old ways and ancient theologies. Bailey indicated that these problems were found mostly in the older generations, that their fanaticism would limit their personal growth and that they would mostly find a solution for that limitation through devotion, and the forward movement of spiritual evolution.

Racial theories

Bailey upheld theories of racial differentiation that posited a division of humanity into races that are on different levels in a “ladder of evolution”. These ‘races’ do not represent a national or physical type, but a state of evolution. For example, she states that the Aryans (or ’5th race’), as an “emerging new race”, are the most recently evolved people on Earth, although the term ‘Aryan’ as used by her has a quite distinct meaning from the separative and racist use of the word. It refers not only to Caucasian peoples, but to origins in Indo-Persia, and indicates a culture where thought and intellect is dominant. In her book ”Education in the New Age”, Bailey made predictions about the use of occult racial theories in the schools of the future, which she said would be based on the idea of ‘root races’ (originally vast prehistoric spans of time covering thousands of years when a particular human facet was being developed) such as ”Lemurians” (physically adept), ”Atlanteans” (emotionally adept), Aryans (mentally adept), and the ”New Race” with “group qualities and consciousness and idealistic vision.”. However, she holds that the forthcoming ‘sixth sub-race’ (evolving from various facets of current ‘fifth race’ intellectual culture) cannot reach its peak until the ‘sixth race’ proper (due many thousands of years hence), and may therefore not be the advance some of her New Age followers wish for. In her ”The Destiny of the Nations”, Bailey described a process by which this “new race” will evolve from Caucasians, after which “low grade human bodies will disappear, causing a general shift in the racial types toward a higher standard.”

Her writings in this area were criticized by Victor Shnirelman, a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, who in a survey of modern Neopaganism in Russia, drew particular attention to “… groups [that] take an extremely negative view of multi-culturalism, object to the ‘mixture’ of kinds, [and] support isolationism and the prohibition of immigration.” He noted that a number of Bailey’s books, as well as those of her contemporary Julius Evola, had been recently translated into Russian, and said that “… racist and antisemitic trends are explicit, for example, in the occult teachings of Alice Bailey and her followers, who wish to cleanse Christianity of its ‘Jewish inheritance’ and reject the ‘Jewish Bible’ as a prerequisite for entering the Age of Aquarius.”.

Monica Sjöö, a Swedish-born British artist, writer, and supporter of the Goddess movement, wrote that Bailey, through her published teachings, had a “reactionary and racist influence on the whole New Age movement.” She also noted what she called Bailey’s (and Theosophy’s) “pro-fascist religious views”, such as the belief in a secret elite of “Masters” who control world events and human minds through occult means and attempt to bring about the evolution of an Aryan super-race (although this is an understandably modern misunderstanding of her teaching – ‘Aryan’ as used by Bailey is easily confused with the modern terminology, and the “Masters” are not an elite, but instead are ‘enlightened’ individuals originally introduced in Theosophy as having evolved beyond the human or “4th kingdom” into the 5th or “Kingdom of souls”, and who – in her view – guide the human race as a whole).

On the Negro race

Bailey stated that the Negro race contains a large number of “child souls”, leading lives of “physical activity motivated by the desire for satisfaction of some kind, and by a shallow “wish-life” or desire nature, and almost entirely oriented towards the physical life.” She also wrote of the need for the white races to train the Negroes of Africa so that they will be fitted for true self-government.

She described Negro people as “creative, artistic and capable of the highest mental development when taught and trained — as capable as is the white man;” and she emphasized the need for the white races to accord the Negro “the respect and the opportunity which is due him”, stating that “The future peace of the world depends today upon enlightened, farseeing statesmanship and an appreciation of the fact that God has made all men free.”

She wrote that what she described as “the Negro Problem” is divided into two areas: “the problem of the future of the African Negro and the problem of the future of the Negro in the western hemisphere.”

On “the Negro problem” in Africa

Bailey considered the indigenous people of Africa to be in the “embryonic stage” of evolutionary development, and wrote that, “Behind the many separative religious cults of that dark land, there emerges a fundamental and pure mysticism, ranging all the way from nature worship and a primitive animism to a deep occult knowledge and an esoteric understanding which may some day make Africa the seat of the purest form of occult teaching and living.” She said that “Right human relations must be firmly established between the emerging Negro empire and the rest of the world; the new ideals and the new world trends must be fostered in the receptive Negro consciousness and in this way darkest Africa will become a radiant center of light, ready for self-government and expressing true freedom.”

On “the Negro problem” in the Americas

Regarding the relations between the Negro race and other races in the Western Hemisphere, Bailey wrote that it “constitutes a very ugly story, seriously implicates the white man and provides an outstanding disgrace”, and that “The white people face a grave responsibility and it lies in their hands to change conditions.” She was a vocal advocate of humane treatment and equal rights for the Negro race, acknowledged that they had been subject to much cruelty and exploitation by the white race, but also said that good had come of this for Negroes, and described reason for optimism regarding their future prospects. She advocated improvement in the situation of the Negro in the United States, calling for the people of America to end discrimination, to accept the Negro population as brothers and friends and thereby bring about positive change. She also wrote that in the black peoples attempt to resolve their problem of separation in society, “the spiritual forces of the world are on the side of the Negro.”

On the Jewish people

Bailey wrote much about the Jewish people, referring to them collectively as a race, with group karma, characteristics, and behaviors. Specifically, she was of the opinion that Jews embody the characteristics of “materialism, cruelty and a spiritual conservatism” and the “separative, selfish, lower concrete mind.”

On the social characteristics of the Jews

Bailey described Jews as “the most reactionary and conservative race in the world”, explaining this as a result of their need to preserve their cultural identity as a wandering people under persecution. She wrote that, “People complain (and it is frequently true) the Jews lower the atmosphere of any district in which they reside. They hang their bedding and their clothing out of the windows. They live on the streets, sitting in groups on the sidewalks.”

She wrote that Jews “take what they want, to see to it that their children get the best of everything available, no matter what the cost to others”; they “blame the non-Jewish nations for their miseries”; and, “The Jew needs to recognize his share in bringing about the dislike which hounds him everywhere.”

She stated that even though the Jews are “possessed of great wealth and influence”, they create “dissension among the nations” and “almost abusive, demands for the Gentile to shoulder the entire blame and end the difficulty.”

On “the Jewish Problem”

Bailey said that what she called the “Jewish problem” was the result of negative karma accumulated by the Jews due to “acts and deeds there claimed by him as his racial acts and deeds (conquest, terrorism and cruelty)…” and wrote that the solution to this “problem” will come “…when the races regard the Jewish problem as a humanitarian problem but also when the Jew does his share of understanding, love and right action. This he [the Jew] does not yet do, speaking racially.”

Before World War II, she wrote: “The major racial problem has, for many centuries, been the Jewish, which has been brought to a critical point by Germany…”; that the Jews “constitute an international minority of great aggressiveness, exceedingly vocal”; and that while they are an ancient, civilized and cultured people, their problems as a “struggling minority” are the result of “certain inherent characteristics”, and the “untidy effect they have on any community”.

In 1939, as World War II began, Bailey wrote that “the Jewish problem, is definitely producing cleavage as a part of the divine plan… to bring humanity to certain realizations and decisions.”

In 1948, after the war and the Holocaust, she wrote that “there are eighty percent of other people in the concentration camps, only twenty percent Jews”, and that Jews have not only repudiated the Messiah, but they have forgotten their unique relation to humanity.

Bailey also wrote critically about hatred of the Jews and predicted a future in which Jews would “fuse and blend with the rest of mankind.” In her autobiography, she stated that she had been on Hitler’s “blacklist”, and she believed this had been because of her defense of the Jews during her lectures throughout Europe. She criticized the cruelty of “the Gentile” (non-Jewish people) for their treatment of the Jews, stating “great is his responsibility for wrong doing and cruel action.”

Bailey further stated that the Jews were themselves responsible for the bad treatment they received, “Changed inner attitudes are needed on both sides, but very largely on the side of the Jews.” She was aware of and accepted the controversial nature of her comments in this regard.

On interracial marriage

Bailey wrote regarding interracial marriage that “the best and soundest thinkers in both the white and black races at this time deplore mixed marriages. They mean no happiness for either party.” She also advised against intermarriage between Caucasians and Asians but said that children of interracial unions would be unavoidable following World War II due to the actions of what she called the “inevitable promiscuity” of the armies during that period. She wrote that “children of mixed race, as well as the half-castes and the Eurasians may be the answer to a large part of the problem. There will be hundreds of thousands of these children of mixed parentage, forming part of the world population in the next generation and immediate cycle and they are a group with which we will have to reckon.”

While she believed that intermarriage would not solve what she called “the Negro problem,” she implied this might change and on this issue, “I make no prophecy about the future.”

Her comments on the topic of interracial marriage are conflicting: On the one hand she suggested that mixed marriages have unhappy effects, on the other hand she seemed to view them as positive and contributing to the solution of racial tensions. Elsewhere she wrote that marriages are rooted in soul relationships, and that intermarriage in general is not a solution to racial problems, but that the solution lies in appreciation of the good qualites found groups other than one’s own and the killing out of the sense of racial superiority. Her contrary statements thus reflect the mixed and emerging views of the time in which she was writing.

On nationalism and nations

Bailey criticized national groups, based on what she believed were their violations of the spirit of unity and brotherhood. She believed that an individual’s primary allegiance is to humanity and not to any subgroup within it: “I call you to no organizational loyalties, but only to love your fellowmen, be they German, American, Jewish, British, French, Negro or Asiatic.”

On the United States and France

While praising the United States and France in some respects, Bailey saw in them political corruption. She regarded the talk about a free press as largely an illusory ideal and stated, “… particularly is it absent in the United States, where parties and publishers dictate newspaper policies.”

On Israel, Zionism, and the U.S.S.R.

Regarding the foundation of the modern nation of Israel after World War II, Bailey said that “The Jews, by their illegal and terrorist activities, have laid a foundation of great difficulty for those who are seeking to promote world peace.”

Bailey criticized Zionism, comparing it with the then-current Stalinist regime in the Russian-dominated Soviet Union, writing, “Zionism today stands for aggression and for the use of force, and the keynote is permission to take what you want irrespective of other people or of their inalienable rights. These points of view are against the position of the spiritual leaders of humanity, and therefore the leaders of the Zionist movement, and the group of men who direct and control the policies of Russia, are against the policies of the spiritual Hierarchy and are contrary to the lasting good of mankind. … The menace to world freedom today lies in the known policies of the rulers of the U.S.S.R. and in the devious and lying machinations of the Zionists.”

On the “present world crisis”

Bailey said, “We could take the nations, one by one, and observe how this nationalistic, separative or isolationist spirit, emerging out of an historical past, out of racial complexes, out of territorial position, out of revolt and out of possession of material resources, has brought about the present world crisis and cleavage and this global clash of interests and ideals.” In 1947, in listing the causes of world conflict, she citied the fight for oil, and the fight over Palestine, “[...] a fight which has greed and not any love of Palestine behind it, and which is governed by financial interests and not by the humanitarian spirit which the Zionists claim [...]“.

On organized religions

Bailey taught a form of universal spirituality that transcended denominational identification, believing that, “Every class of human beings is a group of brothers. Catholics, Jews, Gentiles, occidentals and orientals are all the sons of God.” She stated that all religions originate from the same spiritual source, and that humanity will eventually come to realize this, and as they do so, the result will be the emergence of a universal world religion and a “new world order.” Bailey described a world where there would be no separate religions but rather “one great body of believers.” She predicted that these believers would accept unified truths based on brotherhood and “divine sonship”, and would “cooperate with the divine Plan, revealed to them by the spiritual leaders of the race.” She wrote that this was not a distant dream but a change that was actually occurring during the time of her writing. (Bailey, p 140)

Despite her focus on unity of religion, Bromley and Hammond point out that Bailey and other “occultists” “…hammered home the central idea, ‘The East is the true home of spiritual knowledge and occult wisdom.’”

Author Steven Sutcliffe wrote that Bailey’s “World Goodwill” organization was promoting groups of “world servers” to, as he quotes Bailey, “serve the Plan, Humanity, the Hierarchy and the Christ.”

On Judaism

Bailey was highly critical of the religion of the Jews. She wrote: “The word ‘love’ as it concerns relation to other people is lacking in their religious presentation, though love of Jehovah is taught with due threats; the concept of a future life, dependent upon conduct and behavior to others and on right action in the world of men, is almost entirely lacking in The Old Testament and teaching on immortality is nowhere emphasized; salvation is apparently dependent upon the keeping of numerous physical laws and rules related to physical cleanliness; they go so far as to establish retail shops where these rules are kept – in a modern world where scientific methods are applied to purity in food. All these and other factors of less importance set the Jew apart, and these he enforces no matter how obsolete they are or inconvenient to others.”

Because of writings like these, the American Chassidic author Rabbi Yonassan Gershom wrote that Bailey’s plan for a New World Order and her call for “the gradual dissolution—again if in any way possible—of the Orthodox Jewish faith” revealed that “her goal is nothing less than the destruction of Judaism itself.” Gershom also wrote that “This stereotyped portrayal of Jews is followed by a hackneyed diatribe against the Biblical Hebrews, based upon the “angry Jehovah” theology of nineteenth-century Protestantism. Jews do not, and never have, worshipped an angry vengeful god, and we Jews never, ever call God “Jehovah.”

On Christianity

Bailey wrote of “the return of the Christ”, but her concept had little in common with that of mainstream Christian churches. Bailey almost always used the phrase “”the” Christ” when not referring specifically to the Christian idea. For her, the leadership of the Hierarchy is an “office” (so to speak), to be occupied by various Masters, including the Master Jesus, in the course of Their unfolding evolution. She saw the Christ as a great “Person”, embodying the energy of love, and His return as the awakening of that energy in human consciousness. She also introduced the ideas that the new Christ might be “of no particular faith at all”, that he may be from any nation, race, or religion, and wrote that his purpose of returning will be to “restore man’s faith in the Father’s love” in a close personal relationship with “all men everywhere”.

She stated that no one particular group can claim Him—that the New Age Christ belongs to whole world, and not to Christians alone, or to any nation or group. (Bailey, p 109) Bailey was highly critical of mainstream Christianity; she wrote that much of the Church’s teaching about Christ’s return is directly opposed to His own intentions and that “The history of the Christian nations and of the Christian church has been one of an aggressive militancy” (Bailey, p 110)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Alice Bailey, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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* The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge – description of plant allies and way towards knowledge: mescalito (peyote cactus)- the protector of man, seeing beings as liquid colors; mushrooms- learning to handle, fly, and perceive as animal form; datura (weed)- female spirit, hard to handle, gives strength, lengthy procedure. This book was unique of the series in that the last part included a detailed scholarly “Structural Analysis” of the teachings.

* A Separate Reality – Discusses the ideas of will, controlled folly, and seeing (as opposed to looking) as tools a warrior uses to be a man/person of knowledge.

* Journey to Ixtlan – lessons about the warriors way, or stalking the world, routines, personal history, self-importance, death as an advisor, not-doing, dreaming

* Tales of Power – description of points of perception in body or luminous cocoon, tonal or toñal (1st attention, known, right side awareness, [possibly the left-brain]) and nagual (2nd attention, unknown, left side awareness, right-brain), dreaming double

* The Second Ring of Power – describes events after Don Juan’s departure, experiences with the women warriors of the original nagual’s party, 2nd attention (second ring of power), losing “human ‘form’”, human mold, dreaming, gazing

* The Eagle’s Gift – description of the force that creates, destroys, and rules the universe (or at least the 48 bands of earth), also source of emanations themselves, description of the eagle’s command t

* The Fire From Within – step by step (actually chapter by chapter) elucidation of the mastery of awareness or the new seers’ knowledge: everything is energy (the Eagle’s emanations or luminous emanations), the luminous cocoon and assemblage point(glow of awareness), the known (1st attention or tonal), unknown (2nd attention or nagual), unknowable (outside luminous cocoon), petty tyrants as a way to move assemblage point and foster warrior’s way, twin worlds of organic and inorganic ( more correctly matter-beings and non-matter-bound beings — carbon-based/not carbon based wasn’t what was meant), shifting the assemblage point and other bands of awareness, bundles of emanations that are the basis for the different species source of awareness and forms/molds, the human mold, the rolling force or tumbler (that hits luminous cocoon), the death defier, self-stalking, intent, and dreaming.

* The Power of Silence – stories about essentially the mastery of intent, set into what were called sorcery cores.

* The Art of Dreaming – steps to mastering control and consciousness of dreams.

* Magical Passes – descriptions with photos of sorcery-based physical movements intended to increase well-being, a system which became known as Tensegrity

* The Active Side of Infinity – recapitulation, making a log of significant life events (as seen by the spirit)

* The Wheel of Time – recollection of the mood in which each previous book was written; significant quotes from each previous book

The nine popular works (as opposed to the academic or scholarly works) of Carlos Castaneda are organized into three sets of three, where each set corresponds to a Toltec mastery: the mastery of awareness, the mastery of transformation, and the mastery of intent. For each mastery there is also a compendium that describes essential teachings from the overall body of work. The three compendiums were published posthumously.

Each mastery is described in four works, three works presented in story form and one work compiled as a cross-set reference:

The Mastery of Awareness

* The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968)

* A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971)

* Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972)

* Compendium – Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico (1998)

The Mastery of Transformation

* Tales of Power (1975)

* The Second Ring of Power (1977)

* The Eagle’s Gift (1981)

* Compendium – The Active Side of Infinity (1999)

The Mastery of Intent

* The Fire from Within (1984)

* The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan (1987)

* The Art of Dreaming (1993)

* Compendium – The Wheel Of Time : The Shamans Of Mexico (2000)

The following list generally defines each mastery:

* Mastery of Awareness – The Mastery of Awareness entails the re-emphasis of awareness from the world of the tonal (every day objects) to the world of the nagual (spirit). During this stage of development the warrior-traveler endeavors to minimize self importance and gather energy. First and foremost, the student is encouraged to take action and assume responsibility for his or her life.

* Mastery of Transformation – During The Mastery of Transformation the warrior-traveler endeavors to cleanse and retrieve energy and to hone his only link to spirit, the intuition. The warrior-traveler becomes impeccable by empirically testing this connection and eventually banishing all doubts, accepting his or her fate, and committing to follow a path with heart.

* Mastery of Intent – Once the warrior-traveler has accumulated enough surplus energy, enough personal power, the dormant second attention is activated. Dreaming becomes possible. The warrior-traveler maintains impeccability, walks the path with heart, and waits for an opening to freedom.

Books by Carlos Castaneda

* ”The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” (1968) ISBN 0-520-21757-8

* ”A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan” (1971) ISBN 0-671-73249-8

* ”Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan” (1972) ISBN 0-671-73246-3

* ”Tales of Power” (1974) ISBN 0-671-73252-8

* ”The Second Ring of Power” (1977) ISBN 0-671-73247-1

* ”The Eagle’s Gift” (1981) ISBN 0-671-73251-X

* ”The Fire from Within” (1984) ISBN 0-671-73250-1

* ”The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan” (1987) ISBN 0-671-73248-X

* ”The Art of Dreaming” (1993) ISBN 0-06-092554-X

* ”Magical Passes : The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico” (1999) ISBN 0-06-092882-4

* ”The Active side of Infinity” (2000) ISBN 0-06-092960-X

* ”The Wheel of Time” (2001) ISBN 0-14-019604-8.

Books Forwarded by Carlos Castaneda

* ”The Sorcerer’s Crossing: A Woman’s Journey” Forward by Carlos Castaneda (1993) ISBN 9780140193664

* ”The Witch’s Dream” (1997) Forward by Carlos Castaneda ISBN 9780140195316

Note: ”Spanish language versions are available”

==Internal Links

*Carlos Castaneda Carlos_Castaneda

*Carlos Castaneda bibliography Carlos_Castaneda_bibliography

*Cleargreen Incorporated Cleargreen

*Tensegrity Tensagrity

*Recapitulation Recapitulation

Related Resources

*Tonal Tonal (Mythogy)

*Nagual Nagual

*Yaqui Yaqui

*Tutelary deity Tutelary_deity

*Chalchihuihtotolin Chalchihuihtotolin

*Maya calendrical divination Maya_calendrical_divination

*Out-of-body experience

*Astral projection

*Subtle body

*Astral body

*Out-of-body experience

*Apparitional experience

*Reality tunnel

*Entheogen

*Transcendence

*Folk religion

*Shamanism

*Totem

*Esotericism

*Toltec

*Caral

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Nagualism (Carlos Castaneda), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Chia states that he sees no conflict between his Christianity and the Healing Tao practices. He states that the system is not religious and that practitioners “can be Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and still enjoy the benefits in the framework of [their] own belief system”. In an interview, Chia stated that he teaches “how to control and harness the sexual energy”.

Regarding the mystical nature of the system, Chia stated:

Western society is presented in Chia’s writings as in the throes of crisis, which is a common trope in New Age and esoteric writings. He draws a parallel between the perceived excesses of Western culture and the “wasteful” failure to develop a means of semen retention. He indicates the need for recycling and conservatism, connecting the sexual practices with ecological standards.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mantak Chia, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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