Serious Moonlight is a 2009 American black comedy film directed by Cheryl Hines and starring Meg Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kristen Bell, and Justin Long. It was released by Magnolia Pictures on 4 December 2009.

Plot
When Louise, a high-powered Chicago attorney (Meg Ryan), discovers that her husband Ian (Timothy Hutton) is about to leave her for another woman named Sara (Kristen Bell), she prevents him from doing so by binding him to a chair with duct tape. She tries to persuade and convince him that he still loves her, but everything she says fails to change his mind. He lies and promises that he still loves her and won't run away when she frees him. When he tries to escape, she knocks him out with a flower pot and tapes him to a toilet. She then leaves the house to purchase groceries to make a "romantic meal." While she is out, a lawn service boy comes by to mow the lawn, and Ian successfully yells for help and gets his attention. The boy, realizing that there is no one else in the house, begins robbing their house. When Louise returns, the burglar attacks her and brings her into the bathroom with Ian. During their captivity, Ian realizes that he does still love his wife, and the couple makes up. The next morning, Sara (Ian's mistress) comes to the house, furious that Ian did not show up at the airport to go to Paris with her. The burglars put Sara into the bathroom with the reconciled couple, and the three discuss their love triangle situation. They manage to escape by calling the police from Sara's cell phone, which is in her back pocket. After the whole ordeal, Ian chooses to stay with Louise.

Some time later, Ian and Louise have sold their house and are moving away. They have had a baby as they had tried to in the past. They decide to have lunch one last time in town before they move. While walking to the restaurant, they walk past the same burglar who robbed their house, and the burglar nods at them in recognition. Louise looks away and walks away quickly, and Ian looks stunned (implying she organized the burglary).

Cast
 Meg Ryan as Louise
 Timothy Hutton as Ian
 Kristen Bell as Sara
 Justin Long as Todd

Production
In 2006, a year prior to filming, the screenplay's writer, Adrienne Shelly, was murdered in New York City. Her widower, Andy Ostroy, acted as a producer for the film. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Cheryl Hines, Shelly's Waitress co-star. "I feel a great sense of pride to be directing this film," Hines said. "I had such respect for Adrienne and the work she did. And I love her writing so much. That tone is really in my wheelhouse."

Release
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2009.

On 28 July, Magnolia Pictures revealed that they had acquired the North American rights to the film. It was released via Magnolia's Ultra VOD programme, providing a platform of 50 million households. This was followed by a December 4, 2009 theatrical release.

Myriad Pictures distributes the film outside of North America.

Reception
The film received a negative critical reaction.

Of those who praised the film, The Hollywood Reporter said: "'Moonlight' has its serious side as an intelligent peephole into the psychological and sexual dynamics that can drive a once loving, loyal couple to the edge of criminality." They also praised Ryan's "terrific" performance and concluded that the film is "a nuttily engaging tale of betrayal and, perhaps, redemption." The Los Angeles Times considered it "one of the pleasures of the film -- from conception to character to the conversations that fill the scenes -- is the savvy and off-center way Shelly had of crafting troubled relationships. Thankfully, Waitress co-star Cheryl Hines has not lost sight of that in making her feature directing debut."

Most critics agreed with Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, who believed the film to be "a tonal disaster, distasteful and sentimental by turns. It was probably a mistake to have Hines try to walk that same delicate line that took Shelly her entire career to master." The New York Post thought it "foul" and "a shrill farce that strains credibility even by the standards of black comedy", with "a problematic script by murdered filmmaker Adrienne Shelley ("Waitress"), which never should have seen the light of day". The Village Voice found the film's "backstory much more intriguingly dramatic than what's onscreen".

References

External links

2009 films
2009 black comedy films
2009 independent films
American black comedy films
American independent films
Films about couples
Home invasions in film
2009 directorial debut films
2009 comedy films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films

Serious Moonlight (2009 film)


The Ballad and the Source is a novel by Rosamond Lehmann, first published in 1944 by Collins in the UK. Set in Edwardian England, the book deals with the relationship between Rebecca, a young girl, and Sibyl Jardine, a complicated and domineering elderly woman.

Contemporary reviewers compared the novel to the work of Henry James, though the book's feminism was then considered unfashionable.

Lehmann returned to the character of Rebecca in her last novel, A Sea-Grape Tree (1976), which follows her as an adult dealing with betrayal by a married lover.

References

External links
 Review, Kirkus Reviews, April 2, 1945

1944 British novels
English novels
William Collins, Sons books

The Ballad and the Source


In cryptography, a Caesar cipher is an ancient form of substitution cipher. It is named in the honor of Roman emperor, Julius Caesar

Method
To encrypt a message with a Caesar cipher, each letter in the message is changed using a simple rule: shift by three. Each letter is replaced by the letter three letters later in the alphabet. A becomes D, B becomes E, and so on. For the last letters, we can think of the alphabet as a circle and "wrap around". W becomes Z, X becomes A, Y becomes B, and Z becomes C. To change a message back, each letter is replaced by the one three before it.

Weakness
However it is very easy to break a Caesar cipher, even if you change the "key number" to a different number. Using a more modern form of encryption would be better.

Changing by three is the rule that the well known Julius Caesar used, but the same idea works for any number. ROT13 can be seen as a modern version of the Caesar cipher, with the same weaknesses.

The Caesar cipher is a substitution cipher: each letter is replaced by another. No substitution cipher is safe for sensitive information.

References

Cryptography

Caesar cipher


Judith Anne Peabody (née Walker, formerly Dunnington; May 6, 1930 – July 25, 2010) was an American socialite and philanthropist who was best known for her involvement as a volunteer with causes ranging from the legal defense of Lenny Bruce to assisting families with AIDS.

Biography
Judith Anne Walker was born on May 6, 1930, in Richmond, Virginia. After her parents were divorced, her mother, Elizabeth Taylor Walker, married attorney Walter Grey Dunnington at a January 1937 ceremony conducted in the bride's apartment at the Carlyle Hotel, where the couple would continue to live. She attended Miss Hewitt's Classes in Manhattan and the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut and was introduced to society in September 1947 at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York. She was a member of the Colony Club and the New York Junior League. She met her future husband at a dinner party and they were engaged a week later. After her future husband picked her up for a date at a youth center for juvenile delinquents where she had been working, she pleaded with him not to tell her mother where she had been, saying "she thinks I'm having French lessons".

After two years at Bryn Mawr College, she married Samuel Parkman Peabody at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Manhattan in a ceremony officiated by the groom's father, Malcolm Endicott Peabody, a Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York.

A notable socialite in Manhattan who was frequently mentioned in the press, she was known for wearing clothing designed for her by Bill Blass and Donald Brooks, with the latter once saying that "she epitomizes the simplicity of our type of customer". Peabody was active in causes ranging from serving on the board of the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and was a patron of the American Ballet Theatre. After reading an article about the legal troubles faced by comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1960s, she sent him a contribution towards the costs of his legal defense and assisted him with research.

She earned a certificate in psychology from the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and established Reality House together with her husband, as an organization in Harlem dedicated to assisting heroin addicts who were trying to overcome their addiction. Three mornings each week she led groups of heroin users who were trying to deal with the personal issues that led to their addiction. The organization operated from a network of storefronts and established programs at two maximum security prisons, reaching out to over 250 participants. As of 1971, 50 former addicts who had undergone the intensive 18-month program of counseling and work therapy had completed the program and none of them returned to using drugs.

She also worked with the Renegades Housing Movement, which had started as a youth gang and was attempting to focus its efforts on social activism in East Harlem, where they worked on renovating a deteriorating building. After a friend died of AIDS, Peabody became involved at the Gay Men's Health Crisis, where she helped raise funds for the organization and conducted support groups. Marjorie J. Hill, chief executive of GMHC, described Peabody as "someone who recognized the challenge of AIDS long before it was fashionable" who "did everything she could, on a personal level and an institutional level, to combat the stigma of the disease". In 1987, Richard Dunne, executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, compared her influence to that of Betty Ford on alcoholism, saying that "when Judy Peabody talks about AIDS, it gets people attention". As part of her volunteering at GMHC, she served as the care partner for ten people with AIDS, and would drop everything to attend to them in cases of need, saying her "number one concern is always my friends who have AIDS", whom she would often visit in the hospital. She was an active fundraiser for GMHC, as well as with the People With AIDS Coalition, care programs at Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center and the development of an AIDS research laboratory at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

Peabody died at age 80 on July 25, 2010, at her apartment on Fifth Avenue, due to complications of a series of strokes that she had suffered in previous years. She was survived by her husband and a daughter.

References

1930 births
2010 deaths
Philanthropists from New York (state)
American socialites
Bryn Mawr College alumni
People from the Upper East Side
People from Richmond, Virginia
Hewitt School alumni
20th-century American philanthropists

Judith Peabody


Qabaniso Malewezi, also known as Q, (born 1979) is a Malawian musician and poet. A former producer for the hip-hop band Real Elements, he has since authored several collections of poems including the audio collection People. In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from Mzuzu University.

Biography
The son of Justin Malewezi, a former vice-president of Malawi, Malewezi grew up in Lilongwe. He developed a love for music at a young age, learned to play the guitar, and spent his teenage years performing and recording music. As an adult, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he studied performing arts at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, Surrey.

While in the United Kingdom, Malewezi became the producer for the group Real Elements, which performed hip-hop and became popular in Malawi and several other countries. They were active from the late 1990s to the first part of the 2000s.

In 2004, Malewezi temporarily returned to Malawi to be with his father, who campaigned unsuccessfully for the presidency of Malawi that year. After a short return to the UK, Malewezi returned again to Malawi in 2005.

Poetry
Malewezi's first poetry collection, The Road Taken, was published in 2011. The book was edited by Pascal Kishindo, and included photos by the author, Justin Malewezi Jr., and graphic designer Fred Coelho. Poems from the book have been included in several writing courses. In 2013, Malewezi published his second poetry collection, Little Discoveries, written in English, and in 2016 he published the audio poetry collection People. At its launch, Malewezi performed his poem "Wikipedia".

Malewezi has been featured on CNN's African Voices, BBC World, and The Travel Channel.

In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate from Mzuzu University in recognition of his contribution to the arts.

Bibliography

References

External links

1979 births
Living people
Malawian poets
21st-century Malawian male singers
People from Lilongwe

Qabaniso Malewezi


Lippoldswilen is a village and former municipality in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland.

It was first recorded in the year 1303 as Lupoltwile.

The municipality also contained the village Unterstöcken as well as six other hamlets. It had 153 inhabitants in 1850, which remained stable with 154 in 1900, but then decreased to 138 in 1950 and 97 in 1990.

In 1996, the municipality was merged with other neighboring municipalities including Alterswilen, Altishausen, Dotnacht, Ellighausen, Hugelshofen, Neuwilen and Siegershausen, to form a new and larger municipality Kemmental.

References

Former municipalities of Thurgau
Villages in Switzerland

Lippoldswilen


Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals (advertising and graphic design), the media (print and online publishing), and corporate (in-house design, marketing and communication departments).

Getty Images has distribution offices around the world and capitalizes on the Internet for distribution with over 2.3 billion searches annually on its sites. As Getty Images has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitised their collections, enabling online distribution. Getty Images operates a large commercial website that clients use to search and browse for images, purchase usage rights, and download images. Image prices vary according to resolution and type of rights. The company also offers custom photo services for corporate clients.

History
In 1995, Mark Getty and chief executive officer Jonathan Klein co-founded Getty Investments LLC in London. Mark Getty is the company's chairman. In September 1997, Getty Communications, as it was called at the time, merged with PhotoDisc, Inc. to form Getty Images. The company relocated to Seattle two years later and expanded in the United States, reaching 2,000 employees by 2006. In April 2003, Getty Images entered into a partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to market each other's images.

Getty Images acquired the Michael Ochs Archives in February 2007. The Michael Ochs Archives were described by The New York Times as "the premier source of musician photography in the world".

In 2008, the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman (H&F) acquired Getty Images for $2.4 billion. In 2012, H&F put Getty up for sale. As of the ensuing sale to Carlyle Group, the company was said to have an archive that included 80 million stills and illustrations. The company was acquired by the Getty family in 2018.

The company moved to its current headquarters, in the Union Station office complex in Seattle's International District, in 2011.

In 2015, Jonathan Klein became the company's chairman and Dawn Airey was hired as chief executive officer (CEO) of Getty Images. Airey remained in the role until 31 December 2018, at which time she became a non-executive director member of its board and Craig Peters was appointed CEO.

In 2019, Getty Images introduced Market Freeze, simplifying exclusivity of rights-managed images. Later that year, it announced that due to customers' needs changing, it plans to phase out rights-managed imagery by 2020 in favor of royalty-free images.

In December 2021, Getty Images announced its intention to become publicly traded once more through combination with CC Neuberger Principal Holdings II. In July 2022, the SPAC merger completed and the newly formed parent company of Getty Images went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GETY.

Activist investor Trillium Capital made an unsolicited bid to acquire Getty for billion in April 2023representing nearly a 100 percent premium. Getty turned down the offer questioning its credibility.

In September 2023, Getty announced that it was partnering with Nvidia to launch Generative AI by Getty Images, a new tool that lets people create images using Getty's library of licensed photos. Getty will use Nvidia's Edify model, which is available on Nvidia's generative AI model library Picasso.

Acquisitions

Since its formation, Getty Images has pursued an aggressive programme of acquisition, buying up many privately owned agencies that had built up the stock photography industry, from small family-run firms to larger agencies. By 1999, it had acquired one of the largest agencies, Tony Stone Images; the online art seller Art.com; the sports photography agency Allsport; the market leader in the Benelux and Scandinavia: Word View (1996, from Mr. Bert Blokhuis, four offices, for undisclosed sum); journalistic specialists Liaison Agency; Newsmakers, the first digital news photo agency; Online USA, a specialist in celebrity shots; and the Hulton Press Library, the former archive of the British photojournalistic magazine Picture Post. The Hulton collection was sold by the BBC to Brian Deutsch in 1988, when it was renamed Hulton Deutsch. In 1996, the Hulton collection was sold on once more, this time purchased by Getty Images and renamed Hulton Getty. With the acquisition of the Hulton library, Getty Images took ownership of the rights to some 15 million photographs from British press archives dating back to the nineteenth century. Hulton Getty also included photographs from the Keystone Collection, as well as images by notable photographers such as Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt, Weegee and Ernst Haas.

Getty has branched out into stock audio, music and sound effects, and also video with the acquisition of EyeWire and Energy Film Library. Getty has partnered with other companies including Slidely for companies and advertisers to use the Getty Images video library of around 2 million videos.

In 2000, Getty acquired one of its main competitors, Archive Photos of New York (a division of The Image Bank), for US$183 million. The Archive Photos library was combined with the Hulton Getty collection to form a new subsidiary, Hulton Archive. Archive Photos had been formed in 1990 from the merger of Pictorial Parade (est. 1935) and Frederick Lewis Stock Photos (est. 1938), two well-established US photo agencies. Their collections included archive images from The New York Times, Metronome and George Eastman House, and works by photographers such as Ruth Orkin, Anacleto Rapping, Deborah Feingold, Murray Garrett, Nat Fein and John Filo.

Further acquisitions followed, with the purchase in 2004 of image.net for US$20 million. On 9 February 2006, the microstock photo website iStockphoto was acquired by Getty Images for US$50 million. In 2007, Getty successfully purchased its largest competitor, MediaVast, for $207 million. The acquisition gave Getty Images control of WireImage (Entertainment, creative, and sports photography), FilmMagic (fashion and red carpet photography), and Contour Photos (portrait and studio photography). Getty Images also acquired other subsidiaries, including Master Delegates, which includes Isifa Image Service in Prague and Laura Ronchi in Italy. In 2008, Getty purchased Redferns Music Picture Library, the music photo library built up by British jazz photographer David Redfern.

On 23 October 2008, Getty Images announced their intention to buy Jupitermedia's online images division, Jupiterimages, for $96 million in cash. The sale went ahead in February 2009; Jupiterimages (including the sites stock.xchng and StockXpert) is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Getty. Jupitermedia, now trading as WebMediaBrands, continues its Internet publishing business, which they didn't sell to Getty Images.

On 25 January 2016, Corbis announced that it had sold its image licensing business, including the Corbis Images, Corbis Motion and Veer libraries and their associated assets, to Unity Glory, an affiliate of Visual China Group—Getty's exclusive distributor in China. Concurrently, it was announced that VCG would, after a transition period, license distribution and marketing of the Corbis library outside of China to Getty. Getty now manages Corbis's physical archives on behalf of VCG and Unity Glory.

In March 2021, Getty Images acquired Unsplash, a free-to-use stock photography website, for an undisclosed sum.

Corporate ownership and management
In February 2008, it was announced that Getty Images would be acquired by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in a transaction valued at an estimated US$2.4 billion. On 2 July 2008, Getty Images announced the completion of its acquisition.  Getty Images common stock ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange at the close of the acquisition and was delisted from the NYSE.

In 2012, H&F engaged investment bankers to sell the company. While a price of $4 billion was initially discussed, in August when the private equity firm Carlyle Group emerged as the likely acquirer, the price under consideration was said to be $3.3–3.4 billion. CVC Capital Partners Ltd. was also said to have been bidding but had yet to top Carlyle's price. The sale to Carlyle thereafter was announced at $3.3 billion, with co-founders Getty and Klein and the Getty family all carrying their investments over into the new ownership structure. Getty continues to serve as chairman and Klein as chief executive.

In September 2018, the Getty family announced it would acquire majority stake in the company from The Carlyle Group. In July 2022, the company went public again.

Gallery

The Getty Images Gallery is located at 46 Eastcastle Street, London.

In 2008 it hosted an exhibition of children for Barnardo's child adoption agency, in an exhibition called "Home Time", aimed at helping to find homes for hundreds of children waiting for adoption. It included photographs by celebrity photographer Cambridge Jones, as well as by Cherie Blair, Bruce Oldfield, Andrew Lincoln, Gail Porter, and Claudia Winkleman.

Copyright enforcement and controversy

Beginning in 2008, Getty Images has been the subject of controversy for its methods of pursuing copyright enforcement on behalf of its photographers. Rather than pursue a policy of sending "cease and desist" notices, Getty typically mails a demand letter that claims substantial monetary damages from owners of websites it believes infringed on their photographers' copyrights. Getty commonly tries to intimidate website owners by sending collection agents, even though a demand letter does not create a debt.

One photographer noted, "Courts don't like to be used as a means of extortion."  In one case, Getty sent a church in Lichfield, Staffordshire, a £6,000 bill for photographs it used on its website, apparently placed there by a church volunteer.  In this case, the church offered to pay Getty what it thought was a reasonable amount. The diocese's communications director said:

Getty was not playing ball or following the normal litigation or dispute resolution procedures and [I advised the church] to ignore them. We don't deal with bullies; we deal with legal threats appropriately. I told [Getty] by letter that's what [the church was] doing, that we were not going to play, and didn't hear any more.

The Guardian described other instances in which Getty or other stock photo businesses dropped a claim when a website owner refused to pay and hired a lawyer.  A law firm was quoted as saying: "Once we get involved generally Getty does back off."

In 2009, Oscar Michelen, a New York attorney who focuses on such damages claims, said: "The damages they're requesting aren't equal to the copyright infringement," and "there's no law that says definitively what images are worth in the digital age."  He called Getty's effort to assess four-figure fines "a legalized form of extortion".

In an effort to combat online copyright infringement, in March 2014 Getty Images made over 35 million images available free for non-commercial online use via embedding with attribution and a link back to the Getty Images website. According to Getty Images executive Craig Peters, "The principle is to turn what's infringing use with good intentions, turning that into something that's valid licensed use with some benefits going back to the photographer".

On 15 February 2018, Google Images' interface was modified in order to meet the terms of a settlement and licensing partnership with Getty. The "View image" button (a deep link to the image itself on its source server) was removed from image thumbnails. This change is intended to discourage users from directly viewing the full-sized image (although doing so using a browser's context menu on the embedded thumbnail is not frustrated), and encourage them to view the image in its appropriate context (which may also include attribution and copyright information) on its respective web page. The "Search by image" button has also been downplayed, as reverse image search can be used to find higher-resolution copies of copyrighted images. Google also agreed to make the copyright disclaimer within the interface more prominent.

Copyright infringement lawsuits
In 2009, Car-Freshner Corp., makers of Little Trees, filed a lawsuit against Getty Images in U.S. Federal Court, Northern District New York (Case 7:09-cv-01252-GTS -GHL).  Car-Freshner claimed that Getty Images had in its catalog photos that included the famous "tree-shaped" trademarked car fresheners.  In 2011, Getty Images attempted to have the case dismissed, but its motion was denied.  In 2012, Getty Images agreed to settle by paying $100,000 to Car-Freshener Corp., but admitted no wrongdoing.

In September 2013, Avril Nolan brought a $450,000 suit against Getty Images. Nolan alleged that Getty Images improperly let her image be used in advertisements that depicted her as HIV-positive. She claimed the ad's depiction of her as HIV-positive (she is not) hurt her personal and professional relationships and caused her emotional distress. In March 2014 a judge ruled the lawsuit will be taken to court rather than dismissed. Getty Images settled with Nolan in January 2015.

In November 2013, Getty and Agence France-Presse were ordered to pay $1.2 million compensation to freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel for using his images posted on Twitter related to the 2010 Haiti earthquake without his permission, in violation of copyright and Twitter's terms of service.

In July 2016, Getty was sued, unsuccessfully, for over $1 billion by Carol Highsmith, an American photographer notable for donating her 100,000+ image collection, royalty-free, to the Library of Congress, when Highsmith found that Getty had been selling unauthorized licenses of her work (an instance of copyfraud).  Highsmith found out about this when she received a letter from a law firm representing Getty, demanding $120 for displaying her pictures on a personal website of hers.

In August 2016, Zuma Press, an independent press agency, filed suit against Getty for alleged copyright violations and unauthorized licensing of more than 47,000 images.

Claiming copyright over public domain content
Getty Images has continued the practice that Corbis (whose license it acquired in 2016) has been criticized for of claiming copyright, watermarking and selling images that are in public domain, including images related to The Holocaust like the Warsaw Ghetto boy photo, the Polish cavalry in Sochaczew photograph, or images created by NASA. Getty has also tried to collect fees from photographers for use of their own images that they had previously put in the public domain.

Public-domain photos from historical photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans have long been available for unrestricted downloading from the United States Library of Congress.  The exact same images are also available from Getty Images, subject to a licensing fee of up to $5,000 for a six-month term.  This demonstrates an example of copyfraud.

Controversy over AI-generated art

On January 17, 2023, Getty Images said it was suing Stability AI over the use of Getty's images to train AI art generator Stable Diffusion and for imitating the Getty Images' trademark.

Prestige Grant

The Getty Images Prestige Grant is awarded to two commercial photographers to realise a dream project, awarding them US$15,000 and $7,500 respectively. The first recipients, in 2015, were Lisa Barnard and Andy Lo Po.

See also
Image hosting service
Image sharing
List of image-sharing websites
List of online image archives

References

External links

Getty Images
Companies based in Seattle
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Mass media companies established in 1995
images
Photography awards
Private equity portfolio companies
Stock photography
2008 mergers and acquisitions
2012 mergers and acquisitions
Photography companies of the United States
Photo agencies
Internet properties established in 1995
1995 establishments in England
Special-purpose acquisition companies

Getty Images


Feng shui ( ), sometimes called Chinese geomancy, is an ancient Chinese traditional practice which claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. The term feng shui means, literally, "wind-water" (i.e. fluid). From ancient times, landscapes and bodies of water were thought to direct the flow of the universal Qi – "cosmic current" or energy – through places and structures. More broadly, feng shui includes astronomical, astrological, architectural, cosmological, geographical and topographical dimensions.

Historically, as well as in many parts of the contemporary Chinese world, feng shui was used to orient buildings and spiritually significant structures such as tombs, as well as dwellings and other structures. One scholar writes that in contemporary Western societies, however, "feng shui tends to be reduced to interior design for health and wealth. It has become increasingly visible through 'feng shui consultants' and corporate architects who charge large sums of money for their analysis, advice and design." In the wake of the climate crisis, feng shui is being taken into academic consideration for possible contributions to ecological philosophy.

The concept of Qi and other vital energy formulations is pseudoscientific, and feng shui has been described as a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience. However, some academics regard modern practice of feng shui as a non-scientific cultural tradition rather than a pseudoscientific discipline, noting its functional usage as a tool for rural development, social mobilization, and conflict resolution.

History

Origins
The Yangshao and Hongshan cultures provide the earliest known evidence for the use of feng shui. Until the invention of the magnetic compass, feng shui relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe.
In 4000 BC, the doors of dwellings in Banpo were aligned with the asterism Yingshi just after the winter solstice—this sited the homes for solar gain. During the Zhou era, Yingshi was known as Ding and it was used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city, according to the Shijing. The late Yangshao site at Dadiwan (c. 3500–3000 BC) includes a palace-like building (F901) at its center. The building faces south and borders a large plaza. It stands on a north–south axis with another building that apparently housed communal activities. Regional communities may have used the complex.

A grave at Puyang (around 4000 BC) that contains mosaics— a Chinese star map of the Dragon and Tiger asterisms and Beidou (the Big Dipper, Ladle or Bushel)— is oriented along a north–south axis. The presence of both round and square shapes in the Puyang tomb, at Hongshan ceremonial centers and at the late Longshan settlement at Lutaigang,
suggests that gaitian cosmography (heaven-round, earth-square) existed in Chinese society long before it appeared in the Zhoubi Suanjing.

Cosmography that bears a resemblance to modern feng shui devices and formulas appears on a piece of jade unearthed at Hanshan and dated around 3000 BC. Archaeologist Li Xueqin links the design to the liuren astrolabe, zhinan zhen and luopan.

Beginning with palatial structures at Erlitou, all capital cities of China followed rules of feng shui for their design and layout. During the Zhou era, the Kaogong ji (; "Manual of Crafts") codified these rules. The carpenter's manual Lu ban jing (; "Lu ban's manuscript") codified rules for builders. Graves and tombs also followed rules of feng shui from Puyang to Mawangdui and beyond. From the earliest records, the structures of the graves and dwellings seem to have followed the same rules.

Early instruments and techniques

Some of the foundations of feng shui go back more than 3,500 years before the invention of the magnetic compass. It originated in Chinese astronomy. Some current techniques can be traced to Neolithic China, while others were added later (most notably the Han dynasty, the Tang, the Song, and the Ming).

The astronomical history of feng shui is evident in the development of instruments and techniques. According to the Zhouli, the original feng shui instrument may have been a gnomon. Chinese used circumpolar stars to determine the north–south axis of settlements. This technique explains why Shang palaces at Xiaotun lie 10° east of due north. In some of the cases, as Paul Wheatley observed, they bisected the angle between the directions of the rising and setting sun to find north. This technique provided the more precise alignments of the Shang walls at Yanshi and Zhengzhou. Rituals for using a feng shui instrument required a diviner to examine current sky phenomena to set the device and adjust their position in relation to the device.

The oldest examples of instruments used for feng shui are liuren astrolabes, also known as shi. These consist of a lacquered, two-sided board with astronomical sightlines. The earliest examples of liuren astrolabes have been unearthed from tombs that date between 278 BC and 209 BC. Along with divination for Da Liu Ren the boards were commonly used to chart the motion of Taiyi through the nine palaces.  The markings on a liuren/shi and the first magnetic compasses are virtually identical.

The magnetic compass was invented for feng shui and has been in use since its invention.  Traditional feng shui instrumentation consists of the Luopan or the earlier south-pointing spoon ( zhinan zhen)—though a conventional compass could suffice if one understood the differences. A feng shui ruler (a later invention) may also be employed.

Later History
After the Song dynasty, divination began to decline as a political institution and instead became an increasingly private affair. Many feng shui experts and diviners sold their services to the public market, allowing feng shui to quickly grow in popularity.

During the Late Qing dynasty, feng shui became immensely popular. Widespread destitution and increasing government despotism led to feng shui becoming more widely practiced in rural areas. The Qing dynasty attempted to crack down on heterodoxy following the White Lotus Rebellion and Taiping Revolt, but feng shui's decentralization made it difficult to suppress in popular and elite circles.

Under China's Century of Humiliation, feng shui began to receive implicit government encouragement as a method of colonial resistance. Through the militarization of the countryside, the local gentry used feng shui to justify and promote popular attacks against missionaries and colonial infrastructure. This allowed local elites and government officials to bypass foreign extraterritoriality and maintain local sovereignty. This, in addition to the cultural aspects of feng shui, made the practice a powerful expression of demarcation between foreign and Chinese identities.

Following the rise of Communist China, religion and traditional cosmology were suppressed more than ever, in the name of ideological purity. Decentralized heterodoxies, like feng shui, were best adapted to survive this period. As a result, feng shui became one of the only alternative forms of thought within the Chinese countryside. Feng shui experts remained highly sought after, in spite of numerous campaigns to suppress the practice.

It was only after China's Reform and Opening-Up that feng shui would see a complete resurgence. As economic liberalization promoted social competition and individualism, feng shui was able to find new footing due to its focus on individualism and amoral justification of social differences.

Foundational concepts

Definition and classification
At its core, feng shui views good and bad fortune as tangible elements that can be managed through predictable and consistent rules. This involves the management of qi, a form of cosmic "energy." In situating the local environment to maximize good qi, one can optimize their own good fortune. Feng shui holds that one's external environment can affect one's internal state. In this manner the "perfect spot" is a location and an axis in time that can help one achieve a state of shu fu (舒服) or harmony with the universe.

Traditional feng shui is inherently a form of ancestor worship. Popular in farming communities for centuries, it was built on the idea that the ghosts of ancestors and other independent, intangible forces, both personal and impersonal, affected the material world, and that these forces needed to be placated through rites and suitable burial places. For a fee, a Feng shui practitioner could properly site locations for the living and the dead to achieve shu fu. The  primary underlying value was material success for the living.

Feng Shui is a very diverse series of practices that vary across history and regions. In order to explain fortunes that have resulted in spite of good or bad siting, feng shui has developed separate exoteric and esoteric meanings. This has made an exact definition difficult to achieve by consensus.

According to Stuart Vyse, feng shui is "a very popular superstition." The PRC government has also labeled it as superstitious. Feng shui is classified as a pseudoscience since it exhibits a number of classic pseudoscientific aspects such as making claims about the functioning of the world which are not amenable to testing with the scientific method. It has been identified as both non-scientific and pseudoscientific by scientists and philosophers, and has been described as a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience.

For some anthropologists, feng shui takes on a more functionalist interpretation. Noted for its practical uses in village development, social mobilization, and conflict resolution, feng shui is seen as playing an important role in the unity and solidarity of village life.

Because of its great regional diversity, feng shui has also been interpreted as a tradition. Acting as an identifying framework, feng shui has been observed to act as an expression of local identity. Anthropologists in the field have noted feng shui's role as a polarizing force dividing various Chinese ethnicities.

Qi (ch'i)

Qi (, pronounced "chee", "cee", or "tsee") is a movable positive or negative life force which plays an essential role in feng shui. The Book of Burial says that burial takes advantage of "vital qi".  The goal of feng shui is to take advantage of vital qi by appropriate siting of graves and structures.

Polarity
Polarity is expressed in feng shui as yin and yang theory. That is, it is of two parts: one creating an exertion and one receiving the exertion. The development of this theory and its corollary, five phase theory (five element theory), have also been linked with astronomical observations of sunspot.

The Five Elements or Forces (wu xing) – which, according to the Chinese, are metal, earth, fire, water, and wood – are first mentioned in Chinese literature in a chapter of the classic Book of History. They play a very important part in Chinese thought: 'elements' meaning generally not so much the actual substances as the forces essential to human life.  Earth is a buffer, or an equilibrium achieved when the polarities cancel each other. While the goal of Chinese medicine is to balance yin and yang in the body, the goal of feng shui has been described as aligning a city, site, building, or object with yin-yang force fields.

Bagua (eight trigrams)
Eight diagrams known as bagua (or pa kua) loom large in feng shui, and both predate their mentions in the Yijing (or I Ching).  The Lo (River) Chart (Luoshu) was developed first, and is sometimes associated with Later Heaven arrangement of the bagua. This and the Yellow River Chart (Hetu, sometimes associated with the Earlier Heaven bagua) are linked to astronomical events of the sixth millennium BC, and with the Turtle Calendar from the time of Yao. The Turtle Calendar of Yao (found in the Yaodian section of the Shangshu or Book of Documents) dates to 2300 BC, plus or minus 250 years.

In Yaodian, the cardinal directions are determined by the marker-stars of the mega-constellations known as the Four Celestial Animals:
East: The Azure Dragon (Spring equinox)—Niao (Bird ), α Scorpionis
South: The Vermilion Bird (Summer solstice)—Huo (Fire ), α Hydrae
West: The White Tiger (Autumn equinox)—Mǎo (Hair ), η Tauri (the Pleiades)
North: The Black Tortoise (Winter solstice)—Xū (Emptiness, Void ), α Aquarii, β Aquarii

The diagrams are also linked with the sifang (four directions) method of divination used during
the Shang dynasty. The sifang is much older, however. It was used at Niuheliang, and figured large in Hongshan culture's astronomy. And it is this area of China that is linked to Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) who allegedly invented the south-pointing spoon (see compass).

Traditional feng shui
Traditional feng shui is an ancient system based upon the observation of heavenly time and earthly space. Literature, as well as archaeological evidence, provide some idea of the origins and nature of feng shui techniques. Aside from books, there is also a strong oral history. In many cases, masters have passed on their techniques only to selected students or relatives. Modern practitioners of feng shui draw from several branches in their own practices.

Form Branch
The Form Branch is the oldest branch of feng shui. Qing Wuzi in the Han dynasty describes it in the Book of the Tomb and Guo Pu of the Jin dynasty follows up with a more complete description in The Book of Burial.

The Form branch was originally concerned with the location and orientation of tombs (Yin House feng shui), which was of great importance. The branch then progressed to the consideration of homes and other buildings (Yang House feng shui).

The "form" in Form branch refers to the shape of the environment, such as mountains, rivers, plateaus, buildings, and general surroundings. It considers the five celestial animals (vermillion phoenix, azure dragon, white tiger, black turtle, and the yellow snake), the yin-yang concept and the traditional five elements (Wu Xing: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water).

The Form branch analyzes the shape of the land and flow of the wind and water to find a place with ideal qi. It also considers the time of important events such as the birth of the resident and the building of the structure.

Compass Branch
The Compass branch is a collection of more recent feng shui techniques based on the Eight Directions, each of which is said to have unique qi. It uses the Luopan, a disc marked with formulas in concentric rings around a magnetic compass.

The Compass Branch includes techniques such as Flying Star and Eight Mansions.

Western forms of feng shui
More recent forms of feng shui simplify principles that come from the traditional branches, and focus mainly on the use of the bagua.

Aspirations Method
The Eight Life Aspirations style of feng shui is a simple system which coordinates each of the eight cardinal directions with a specific life aspiration or station such as family, wealth, fame, etc., which come from the Bagua government of the eight aspirations. Life Aspirations is not otherwise a geomantic system.

List of specific feng shui branches

Ti Li (Form Branch)

Popular Xingshi Pai () "forms" methods
 Luan Tou Pai, , Pinyin: luán tóu pài, (environmental analysis without using a compass)
 Xing Xiang Pai,  or , Pinyin: xíng xiàng pài, (Imaging forms)
 Xingfa Pai, , Pinyin: xíng fǎ pài

Liiqi Pai (Compass Branch)

Popular Liiqi Pai () "Compass" methods
San Yuan Method,  (Pinyin: sān yuán pài)
 Dragon Gate Eight Formation,  (Pinyin: lóng mén bā fǎ)
 Xuan Kong,  (time and space methods)
 Xuan Kong Fei Xing  (Flying Stars methods of time and directions)
 Xuan Kong Da Gua,  ("Secret Decree" or 64 gua relationships)
 Xuan Kong Mi Zi,  (Mysterious Space Secret Decree)
 Xuan Kong Liu Fa,  (Mysterious Space Six Techniques)
 Zi Bai Jue,  (Purple White Scroll)
San He Method,  (environmental analysis using a compass)
 Accessing Dragon Methods
 Ba Zhai,  (Eight Mansions)
 Yang Gong Feng Shui,
 Water Methods,
 Local Embrace

Others
 Yin House Feng Shui,  (Feng Shui for the deceased)
 Four Pillars of Destiny,  (a form of hemerology)
 Zi Wei Dou Shu,  (Purple Star Astrology)
 I-Ching,  (Book of Changes)
 Qi Men Dun Jia,  (Mysterious Door Escaping Techniques)
 Da Liu Ren,  (Divination: Big Six Heavenly Yang Water Qi)
 Tai Yi Shen Shu,  (Divination: Tai Yi Magical Calculation Method)
 Date Selection,  (Selection of auspicious dates and times for important events)
 Chinese Palmistry,  (Destiny reading by palm reading)
 Chinese Face Reading,  (Destiny reading by face reading)
 Major & Minor Wandering Stars (Constellations)
 Five phases,  (relationship of the five phases or wuxing)
 BTB Black (Hat) Tantric Buddhist Sect (Westernised or Modern methods not based on Classical teachings)
 Symbolic Feng Shui, (New Age Feng Shui methods that advocate substitution with symbolic (spiritual, appropriate representation of five elements) objects if natural environment or object/s is/are not available or viable)
 Pierce Method of Feng Shui ( Sometimes Pronounced : Von Shway ) The practice of melding striking with soothing furniture arrangements to promote peace and prosperity

Traditional uses of feng shui

Environmental Management
Traditional feng shui was a system designed to aid rural villages from the effects of weather and natural disaster. As a set of consistent rules, feng shui can facilitate collective consensus on development without the need of centralized leadership. Understanding that one's actions could damage the feng shui and fortunes of the entire village, individuals were incentivized to know these rules and carefully manage the development of their land and resources. This served to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons. When conflict did erupt during development, feng shui experts played an important role in balancing interests and enforcing orderly development.

Different branches of feng shui were developed and embraced in response to differing local geographies. In southern China, this often resulted in villages located on high hills safe from flooding and erosion, with pooling streams that allow for easy irrigation and drainage, fields downstream fertilized by sewage, and graves located on the highest hills far from water and on otherwise unvaluable farmland. To this degree, feng shui could help communities manage their spaces to match their physical, environmental, and aesthetic needs.

Conflict Resolution
A core aspect of feng shui has been its understanding of polarity. As opposed to western dualism, in which concepts are completely oppositional and irreconcilable, Chinese polarity sees opposing concepts as constantly changing and inseparable. The result is an emphasis on continual compromise and balance in order to maintain harmony.

Feng shui has been observed to play an important role in the mediation of rural conflict. Through its amoral explanation of differential fortunes, feng shui provides a universal set of cosmic rules communities seek to abide by. This can promote community unity while also creating numerous points of polarization. Through the hiring of feng shui experts, disputes between villagers can be peaceably resolved without losing face. In addition, these impersonal cosmic rules help regulate local jealousies over wealth and prestige.

Community Mobilization and Political Protest
As early as the Tang dynasty, the Chinese state recognized the disruptive power popular expressions of feng shui had over government authority. At the community level, feng shui could play an important role in community mobilization and political protest. By elevating a cosmological explanations of events, feng shui allowed for the expression of otherwise impermissible political opinions.

During the Boxer Rebellion, feng shui was used to justify attacks on western missionaries and colonial infrastructure. Under the perceptions of these infrastructural projects and groups were generating bad feng shui, rebels were able to incite their local communities into revolt against foreign influence.

To a more civil degree, feng shui could facilitate community negotiation. During the development of the Shek Pik Reservoir, feng shui was used to rally the community against the reservoir and hinder construction. It was only after months of difficult negotiations that guaranteed of local oversight, compensation, and resettlement could construction go smoothly. For many communities, feng shui is a method to extract proper deference and compensation from the government.

Expression of Identity
Feng shui has been described as an egocentric tradition. Because of the nature of fortune, one person's gain comes at another's expense. Thus when compared to the more collectivist traditions of Confucianism, feng shui promotes social competition and the atomization of the family structure. This differentiation has been particularly expressed through excellent siting and the building of bigger homes that can change the local balance of feng shui.

Feng shui also helps promote ethnic differentiation. In Southern China, different folk traditions and beliefs guide differing interpretations of feng shui. Through conflicts over burial sites, these contrasting interpretations of feng shui act as an important medium to settle interethnic disputes and define local dynamics.

Contemporary uses of feng shui

After Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972, feng shui practices became popular in the United States. Critics warn that claims of scientific validity have proven to be false and that the practices are pseudoscientific. Others charge that it has been reinvented and commercialized by New Age entrepreneurs, or are concerned that much of the traditional theory has been lost in translation, not given proper consideration, frowned upon, or scorned.

Feng shui has nonetheless found many uses. Landscape ecologists often find traditional feng shui an interesting study. In many cases, the only remaining patches of Asian old forest  are "feng shui woods," associated with cultural heritage, historical continuity, and the preservation of various flora and fauna species. Some researchers interpret the presence of these woods as indicators that the "healthy homes," sustainability  and environmental components of traditional feng shui should not be easily dismissed. Environmental scientists and landscape architects have researched traditional feng shui and its methodologies. Architects study feng shui as an Asian architectural tradition. Geographers have analyzed the techniques and methods to help locate historical sites in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and archaeological sites in the American Southwest, concluding that Native Americans also considered astronomy and landscape features.

Believers use it for healing purposes, to guide their businesses, or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their homes, although there is no empirical evidence that it is effective. In particular, they use feng shui in the bedroom, where a number of techniques involving colors and arrangement are thought to promote comfort and peaceful sleep. Some users of feng shui may be trying to gain a sense of security or control, for example by choosing auspicious numbers for their phones or favorable house locations. Their motivation is similar to the reasons that some people consult fortune-tellers.

In 2005, Hong Kong Disneyland acknowledged feng shui as an important part of Chinese culture by shifting the main gate by twelve degrees in their building plans. This was among actions suggested by the planner of architecture and design at Walt Disney Imagineering, Wing Chao. At Singapore Polytechnic and other institutions, professionals including engineers, architects, property agents and interior designers, take courses on feng shui and divination every year, a number of whom become part-time or full-time feng shui consultants.

Criticisms

Traditional feng shui
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), one of the founding fathers of Jesuit China missions, may have been the first European to write about feng shui practices. His account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas tells about feng shui masters (geologi, in Latin) studying prospective construction sites or grave sites "with reference to the head and the tail and the feet of the particular dragons which are supposed to dwell beneath that spot." As a Catholic missionary, Ricci strongly criticized the "recondite science" of geomancy along with astrology as yet another superstitio absurdissima of the heathens: "What could be more absurd than their imagining that the safety of a family, honors, and their entire existence must depend upon such trifles as a door being opened from one side or another, as rain falling into a courtyard from the right or from the left, a window opened here or there, or one roof being higher than another?"

Victorian-era commentators on feng shui were generally ethnocentric, and as such skeptical and derogatory of what they knew of feng shui. In 1896, at a meeting of the Educational Association of China, Rev. P. W. Pitcher railed at the "rottenness of the whole scheme of Chinese architecture," and urged fellow missionaries "to erect unabashedly Western edifices of several stories and with towering spires in order to destroy nonsense about fung-shuy."

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, feng shui was officially considered a "feudalistic superstitious practice" and a "social evil" according to the state's ideology and was discouraged and even banned outright at times. Feng shui remained popular in Hong Kong, and also in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where traditional culture was not suppressed.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) feng shui was classified as one of the so-called Four Olds that were to be wiped out. Feng shui practitioners were beaten and abused by Red Guards and their works burned. After the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the official attitude became more tolerant but restrictions on feng shui practice are still in place in today's China. It is illegal in the PRC today to register feng shui consultation as a business and similarly advertising feng shui practice is banned. There have been frequent crackdowns on feng shui practitioners on the grounds of "promoting feudalistic superstitions" such as one in Qingdao in early 2006 when the city's business and industrial administration office shut down an art gallery converted into a feng shui practice. Some officials who had consulted feng shui were terminated and expelled from the Communist Party.

In 21st century mainland China less than one-third of the population believe in feng shui, and the proportion of believers among young urban Chinese is said to be even lower. Chinese academics permitted to research feng shui are anthropologists or architects by profession, studying the history of feng shui or historical feng shui theories behind the design of heritage buildings. They include Cai Dafeng, vice-president of Fudan University.  Learning in order to practice feng shui is still somewhat considered taboo. Nevertheless, it is reported that feng shui has gained adherents among Communist Party officials according to a BBC Chinese news commentary in 2006, and since the beginning of Chinese economic reforms the number of feng shui practitioners is increasing.

Contemporary feng shui
One critic called the situation of feng shui in today's world "ludicrous and confusing," asking "Do we really believe that mirrors and flutes are going to change people's tendencies in any lasting and meaningful way?" He called for much further study or "we will all go down the tubes because of our inability to match our exaggerated claims with lasting changes." Robert T. Carroll sums up the charges:

...feng shui has become an aspect of interior decorating in the Western world and alleged masters of feng shui now hire themselves out for hefty sums to tell people such as Donald Trump which way his doors and other things should hang. Feng shui has also become another New Age "energy" scam with arrays of metaphysical products...offered for sale to help you improve your health, maximize your potential, and guarantee fulfillment of some fortune cookie philosophy.
Skeptics charge that evidence for its effectiveness is based primarily upon anecdote and users are often offered conflicting advice from different practitioners, though feng shui practitioners use these differences as evidence of variations in practice or different branches of thought. A critical analyst concluded that "Feng shui has always been based upon mere guesswork." Another objection was to the compass, a traditional tool for choosing favorable locations for property or burials. Critics point out that the compass degrees are often inaccurate because solar winds disturb the electromagnetic field of the earth. Magnetic North on the compass will be inaccurate because true magnetic north fluctuates.

The American magicians Penn and Teller dedicated an episode of their Bullshit! television show to criticize the acceptance of feng shui in the Western world as science. They devised a test in which the same dwelling was visited by five different feng shui consultants: each produced a different opinion about the dwelling, showing there is no consistency in the professional practice of feng shui.

Feng shui is criticized by Christians around the world. Some have argued that it is "entirely inconsistent with Christianity to believe that harmony and balance result from the manipulation and channeling of nonphysical forces or energies, or that such can be done by means of the proper placement of physical objects. Such techniques, in fact, belong to the world of sorcery."

Feng shui practitioners in China have found officials that are considered superstitious and corrupt easily interested, despite official disapproval. In one instance, in 2009, county officials in Gansu, on the advice of feng shui practitioners, spent $732,000 to haul a 369-ton "spirit rock" to the county seat to ward off "bad luck." Feng shui may require social influence or money because experts, architecture or design changes, and moving from place to place is expensive. Less influential or less wealthy people lose faith in feng shui, saying that it is a game only for the wealthy. Others, however, practice less expensive forms of feng shui, including hanging special (but cheap) mirrors, forks, or woks in doorways to deflect negative energy.

See also

 Bagua
 Book of Burial
 Coin-sword
 Chinese folk religion
 Chinese fortune telling
 Chinese spiritual world concepts
 Four Symbols
 Five elements
 Geomancy
 Green Satchel Classic
 Luopan
 Tung Shing (Chinese almanac)
 Shigandang
 Ley line
 Tajul muluk
 Vastu shastra

References

Sources

Books

 , various years, vol I-II-III-IV-V-VI
 .

 . Includes translations of Archetypal burial classic of Qing Wu; The inner chapter of the Book of burial rooted in antiquity ; The yellow emperor's classic of house siting; Twenty four difficult problems; The secretly passed down water dragon classic.

 , length=616 pages  ## 71

 , length=150 pages

  Dover reprint ISBN 0-486-28092-6

 , length=440, Review= https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.1445553

Theses

Articles and chapters

Blogs and online

Web

  practitioner, turned to dowsing.
  not really archived. Moreover, the sentence to be proven is rather void

Miscellaneous

Traditional China

  . The "Ming Sizong robbed Li Zicheng's ancestral grave" section can be read at

Post-1949 China
2001
2006
2010
2013

U.S.A
2005 .

Aesthetics
Architectural theory
Chinese gardening styles
Divination
Environmental design
Geomancy
New Age practices
Pseudoscience
Superstitions
Taoist cosmology
Taoist divination
Types of garden
Yangshao culture

Feng shui


The DrumKAT is in a class of MIDI percussion controllers which also includes the DrumKAT Turbo, DrumKAT EZ (discontinued), DrumKAT DK10, TrapKAT and MalletKAT.  DrumKAT was first produced by KAT, Inc (Chicopee, MA).  The current manufacturer is Alternate Mode, Inc (also of Chicopee, MA).

Description
Control Surface: 10 velocity-sensitive gum-rubber pads have force-sensing resistors (FSR) which detect and convert mechanical energy into electrical signals.

Controller: Any object can be used to strike the pads.

References

External links
 Manufacturer web page

Drum machines

DrumKAT


David Harding Getches () was dean and Raphael J. Moses Professor of Natural Resources Law at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, Colorado.  He taught and wrote on water law, public land law, environmental law, and Indian law.

Biography
Getches was born in Abington, Pennsylvania in 1942. He received his B.A. in political science from Occidental College.  He received his J.D. degree from the University of Southern California Law School and was admitted to the California Bar in 1968.

He worked for a year at the San Diego law firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, then in 1968 became co-Directing Attorney at the California Indian Legal Services in Escondido. From  he founded and then served as executive director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a nonprofit law firm specializing in Native American issues.  While at NARF, he served as lead counsel on the controversial case United States v. Washington, 384 F.Supp 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974), also known as the Boldt Decision, a case that affirmed the right of most Indian tribes in Washington State to harvest salmon.  From , he worked with his law partner Bruce Greene at Getches and Greene.

Getches joined the law faculty at the University of Colorado School of Law in 1979.  While at the school, he served as faculty advisor to the Natural Resources Law Center, Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy, Indian Law Clinic, and other programs. He took two leaves of absence from the university, first to serve as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, during the administration of Governor Richard Lamm, from , and then to serve as a special consultant to the United States Secretary of the Interior in 1996.

In 2003, he was appointed to serve as Dean of the law school.  While serving as Dean, he led the effort to build the Wolf Law Building, a building notable on the campus for having 100% of its electrical power drawn from renewable energy sources.  In addition to classroom and lab space, it houses the William A. Wise Law Library, which is the most comprehensive law library in the 12-state Rocky Mountain region and one of the largest in the country.  In 2009, the Natural Resources Law Teachers Committee awarded Getches the Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award for excellence in teaching natural resources law.

On June 30, 2011, Getches stepped down from his position as Dean.  He died of an aggressive and advanced form of pancreatic cancer on July 5, 2011.  The next day, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) unanimously voted to give Getches the NCAI Lifetime Achievement Award, which is one of its highest honors.  The award is given to individuals who produce significant and influential work that honors the place of American Indian nations, cultures and governments through a lifetime of work and personal dedication.  The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) dedicated the 2011 edition of its annual report to Getches, citing his lifetime of scholarship and litigation to advance Indian law. The CU Boulder Alumni Association presented him with the Robert L. Stearns Award for extraordinary achievement and service to the university and students.  The Class of 96 endowed the David H. Getches Scholarship in honor of his commitment and service to the University of Colorado Law School, and Colorado Law students benefit from tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships and fellowships distributed every year by other funds established in his honor.

In January 2013, the University of Colorado Law School created the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment to support research in the areas of natural resources, energy and the environment.  The center was named for Professor Getches and Professor Charles Wilkinson to honor their contributions in these areas of study.

Public service
David Getches served on nonprofit and public interest boards, committees, and councils in his areas of expertise and interest.  He chaired the board of directors of the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies from .  Also in 1989, he was of Counsel to Centro de Derecho Ambiental y de los Recursos Naturales. He served on the board of trustees for the Grand Canyon Trust from , including as chair from .  From , he served on the Native American Lands Advisory Committee.  In 2001, he co-founded the Colorado Water Trust and served on its board of directors from .  He also served on the governing or senior advisory boards for the Center for Environmental Studies and Policy at the Fundación Neotropica Costa Rica, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, The Trust for Public Land, Defenders of Wildlife, and Wilderness Society, among others.

Publications
Professor Getches' publications included books, articles, Congressional testimony, speeches, litigation documents, and much more.  Getches' writings are preserved in a special collection at the Wise Law Library at the University of Colorado Law School.  Some of his better known works include:

Water Law in a Nutshell (1997)
Searching Out the Headwaters: Change and Rediscovery in Western Water Law and Policy, with Bates, MacDonnell and Wilkinson (1993)
Controlling Water Use:  The Unfinished Business of Water Quality Control, with MacDonnell and Rice (1991)
Water Resource Management, with Tarlock and Corbridge (1993)
Federal Indian Law, with Wilkinson and Williams (1998)

References

American legal scholars
Deans of law schools in the United States
State cabinet secretaries of Colorado
Occidental College alumni
University of Colorado faculty
University of Colorado Law School faculty
USC Gould School of Law alumni
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
2011 deaths
1942 births
People from Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
20th-century American lawyers
21st-century American lawyers

David Getches


Ich Troje ("The Three of Them") is a Polish pop band. Ich Troje was founded in 1996 by songwriter Michał Wiśniewski and composer Jacek Łągwa. Since 2000, Ich Troje has been one of the most successful Polish groups. They have sold more than 1.5 million records since June 2001. Their songs are typically about love, betrayal and break-ups.  They represented Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest twice: with "Keine Grenzen – Żadnych granic" in 2003 and "Follow My Heart" in 2006.

Members
Former members are Magdalena Pokora (a.k.a. Magda Femme, 1996–2000), Justyna Majkowska (2000–2003), Elli Mücke (2003) and Ania Wisniewska (2003–2010). After a series of auditions including fan votes, Norwegian singer Jeanette Vik was in December 2010 chosen as the band's next lead singer.

Eurovision 2003
On 25 January 2003, Polish TV viewers chose Ich Troje to represent them in 2003 Eurovision Song Contest by televoting. The band took part in the contest with the song "Keine Grenzen – Żadnych granic" (English translation: "No Borders"), a trilingual song performed in German, Polish and Russian. The song is a dramatic ballad, in which the singers express their desire to be astronauts, gazing down from space at the earth. As well as the beauty of the spectacle, they sing that from that distance it is impossible to see borders, flags and warfare. The theme of the need for peace is underscored by the multilingual lyrics, in which Polish is performed alongside the languages of two neighbouring states which have historically fought with Poland. The song received the maximum 12 points from Germany but none from Russia. The song finished 7th in a field of 26 entries.

A fully German version of the song was recorded as well. Another trilingual version (French, English, Esperanto) was recorded in 2016.

Eurovision 2006
The group setup was arranged to add a fifth member when taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, by adding the German rapper O-Jay (Olaf Jeglitza) of the German Eurodance act, Real McCoy. For Eurovision, credit was Ich Troje featuring Real McCoy and the song was "Follow My Heart". Their music was castigated by critics. The song finished 11th in the semi-final failing to qualify to the final.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

References

External links

Polish pop music groups
Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Poland
Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2003
Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2006

Ich Troje


The Faeth Farmstead and Orchard District is a nationally recognized historic district located near Fort Madison, Iowa, United States. At the time of its nomination it contained 27 resources, which included 15 contributing buildings, three  contributing sites, three contributing structures, and six non-contributing buildings. The contributing buildings include the farm house (c. 1873), the main barn (1882), a stable (c. 1890–1910), a privy, engine house, smokehouse, chicken house, and hog house all from the early 1900s, a shop/crib (c. 1915), a second barn (1925), an apple packing shed (c. 1942), an apple cold storage shed or cooler with loading dock (c. 1950), a truck shed (late 1940s), a garage (1950s) and a machine shed (c. 1960).  The contributing structures include a pond that was used for spraying apples (c. 1936), a spray tank/house (1946), and an old section of road.  The contributing sites are the three historic orchards. The East Orchard was established before 1874 and it still has remnant older trees. The Old North Orchard was established around the turn of the 20th century,  but the trees were primarily planted in the 1970s and the 1980s. The North Orchard was established in 1940-1941 and includes some remnant older trees and replacement trees from the 1970s to the 1990s. The non-contributing buildings are more recently built, or moved here in recent years.

The farm was founded by German immigrants Jacob and Elizabeth Faeth in 1842. Mormons encamped near the farm after fleeing Nauvoo, Illinois. Adam Faeth built the existing house and barn. Herb Faeth expanded the orchard; he was close friends with the naturalist Aldo Leopold. Faeth Farm was self-supporting, sustainable farm for decades, and is believed to have the oldest orchard west of the Mississippi.
In November, 2008, the farm was divided among four different parties, and much of it is likely to be developed. The core of the farmstead might remain orchard, but the property is still considered one of Iowa's most endangered historic sites.

References

Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa
National Register of Historic Places in Lee County, Iowa
Historic districts in Lee County, Iowa
Orchards
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa

Faeth Farmstead and Orchard District


The predominant religion in Brazil is Christianity, with Catholicism being its largest denomination.

In 1891, when the first Brazilian Republican Constitution was set forth, Brazil ceased to have an official religion and has remained secular ever since, though the Catholic Church remained politically influential into the 1970s. The Constitution of Brazil guarantees freedom of religion and strongly prohibits the establishment of any religion by banning government support or hindrance of religion at all levels.

Overview
Brazil possesses a richly spiritual society formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved Africans and indigenous people. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholicism, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities. Until recently Catholicism was overwhelmingly dominant. Changes in the 21st century have led to a growth in secularism (no religious affiliation) and to Evangelical Protestantism, at 31% of the population. A 2020 poll indicates that around 50% of Brazilians consider themselves Catholic, down from 90% in 1970. Despite falling in most of the country, Catholicism remains strong in most of the Northeast. Some analysts have projected Protestants to possibly outnumber Catholics around 2030, with the Catholic Church membership dropping to 38.6%, the Protestant membership in hundreds of independent denominations rising to 39.8%, and the non-Christian population (including the non-affiliated) rising to over 20%. In the 2010 census, 64.63% of the population declared themselves as Catholic, 22.2% as Protestant, 8% as non-religious, and 5.2% as followers of other religions (mostly Spiritists or Kardecists who follow the doctrines of Allan Kardec, Umbandists, Candomblers, Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and minorities of Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and other groups).

Brazilian religions are very diversified and inclined to syncretism. In recent decades, there has been a great increase of Neo-Pentecostal churches and in Afro-Brazilian religions, which has decreased the number of members of the Roman Catholic Church. The number of Umbandists and Candomblers could be significantly higher than the official census figure since many of them continue to this day to disguise their religion under "Catholic" syncretism. About ninety percent of Brazilians declared some sort of religious affiliation in the most recent census.

Although the Federal Constitution guarantees religious tolerance to all its citizens (see article 5, item VI), it expressly prohibits all entities that make up the Federation to found and finance public cults and state churches controlled and coordinated by the Government - (see article 19, I), since until now the Brazilian State recognizes the "peculiar character" of the Catholic Church under the other religions in its legal system (see Article 16 of Decree 7107/2010), which is why the law recognizes the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the "patroness of Brazil" (see Article 1 of Law 6,802 / 1980); the Constitution is sworn "under the protection of God" (see Preamble of the Federal Constitution); Catholic holidays (such as the day of Our Lady of Aparecida and the day of Our Lord's birth) are recognized as national holidays by law (see Law 10.607 / 2002, Law 6.802 / 1980); the Catholic religion has an exclusive Law regulating its relationship with the State (see Decree 7107/2010); cities and states bear the name of Catholic saints; Catholic statues are exposed in public offices; the expression "God be praised" is present in all real notes; and religious teaching exclusively Catholic in public schools is permitted in the country (see ADI 4439).

Religious intolerance is a crime in Brazil, and several laws ensure freedom of worship and protection for those who profess their faith. The Federal Constitution of 1988 (Arti.5, Clause IV) guarantees that "freedom of conscience and belief is inviolable, ensuring the free exercise of religious cults and guaranteeing, in accordance with the law, the protection of places of worship and their liturgies."

The Brazilian Penal Code (Decree-Law 2,848/1940), establishes as a crime the act of "publicly mock someone based on their beliefs or religious function, stop or disturb a religious ceremony or practice, or publicly disrespect acts or objects of religious worship." The penalty for these acts is imprisonment for one month to one year or a fine. Law n. 14.532/2023 added paragraph three to Article 140 of the Penal Code, which determines that, in the case of the crime of insult, if it consists of elements related to religion or the condition of an elderly or disabled person, the penalty for the crime will be imprisonment for one to three years and a fine.

Demographics
2010 Census:
 Christianity: 169,329,176 - 88.77%
Roman Catholicism: 123,280,172 - 64.63%
Protestantism: 42,275,440 - 22.16%
Other Christians: 3,773,564 - 1.98%
 No religion: 15,335,510 - 8.04%
 Other religions': 6,091,113 - 3.19%

Christianity

Catholicism

Brazil has the largest number of Catholics in the world. Catholicism has been Brazil's main religion since the beginning of the 16th century. It was introduced among the Native Brazilians by Jesuits missionaries and also observed by all the Portuguese first settlers.

During colonial times, there was no freedom of religion. All Portuguese settlers and Brazilians were compulsorily bound to the Catholic faith and were bound to pay tithes to the church. After Brazilian independence, the first constitution introduced freedom of religion in 1824, but Catholicism was kept as the official religion. The Imperial Government paid a salary to Catholic priests and influenced the appointment of bishops. The political-administrative division of the municipalities accompanied the hierarchical division of the bishoprics in "freguesias" (parishes). There was also some hindrances to the construction of temples and cemeteries that belonged to the Catholic Church. The first Republican Constitution in 1891 separated religion from state and made all religions equal in the Codes of Law, but the Catholic Church remained very influential until the 1970s. For example, due to the strong opposition of the Catholic Church, divorce was not allowed in Brazil until 1977 even if a separated couple observed a different religion.

The Catholic faith practiced in Brazil is full of popular festivities rooted in centuries-old Portuguese traditions, but also heavily influenced by African and Native Brazilian usage. Popular traditions include pilgrimages to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida (Nossa Senhora Aparecida), the patron saint of Brazil, and religious festivals like the "Círio de Nazaré" in Belém and the "Festa do Divino" in many cities of Central Brazil. Areas that received many European immigrants in the last century, especially Italian and German, have Catholic traditions closer to that practiced in Europe.

The largest proportion of Catholics is concentrated in the Northeast (59%) and South (53%) regions. The smallest proportion of Catholics is found in the Center-West region (49%). The State of Piauí has the largest proportion of Catholics (85%) and the State of Rio de Janeiro has the smallest one (45.19%). Among the state capitals, Teresina has the largest proportion of Catholics in the country (86.010%), followed by Aracaju, Fortaleza, Florianópolis and João Pessoa.IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics). Notícias - Estudo revela 60 anos de transformações sociais no país. Accessed 2008-11-03.

Alternatively, in the 20th century, former Catholic bishop Carlos Duarte Costa founded the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church after disagreements with clerical celibacy and other doctrines.

 Protestantism

Protestantism in Brazil largely originated with American missionaries in the second half of the 19th century, following up on efforts that began in the 1830s. Evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism has grown very rapidly in Brazil since the late 20th century. The 2010 Census reported that 22.2% of the Brazilian population is Protestant, about 44 million people. Brazil has many versions of Protestantism. These include neo-Pentecostals, old Pentecostals, and Traditional Protestants (most of them Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists) predominantly from Minas Gerais to the South. The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, part of the Anglican Communion, has some 120,000 members. Centers of neo-Pentecostalism are Londrina in Paraná state, as well the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte (capital of Minas Gerais), especially the suburban and nearby areas of these cities. Lutherans are concentrated mostly in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and in countryside regions of the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo.

As of the year 2000, the largest proportion of Protestants was found in North (19.8%), Central-West (18.9%) and Southeast (17.5%) regions. Among the state capitals, Rio de Janeiro has the largest proportion of non-Pentecostal Protestants in the country (10.07%), followed by Vitória, Porto Velho, Cuiabá and Manaus. But Goiânia is the state capital with the largest proportion of Pentecostal Protestants in the country (20.41%), followed by Boa Vista, Porto Velho, Belém and Belo Horizonte.

 Orthodoxy

The Eastern Orthodox Church is also present in Brazil. The Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral, located in São Paulo, is the See of the Archdiocese of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch in São Paulo. It is an example of Byzantine architecture that can be appreciated in South America. Its construction, which began in the 1940s, was inspired by the Basilica of Hagia Sophia of Istanbul and was inaugurated in January 1954. According to IBGE, there were 131,571 Orthodox Christians in Brazil.

Jehovah's Witnesses
In 2022, according to the denomination, Brazil had 909,879 Jehovah's Witnesses with 12,439 congregations and a ratio of 1 Witness to 238 residents. However, the 2010 census reported nearly 1.4 million people listed themselves as members.

 Latter-day Saints

The 2010 national census reported 226,509 people identifying as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; This is very different from the church's reported membership, in 2012, of 1,173,533 causing some to question the membership numbers reported by the LDS church.

The church also reports 1940 congregations and 315 family history centers. The LDS Church now also has 6 temples spread out across the nation, in Campinas, Curitiba, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Recife, and São Paulo, with additional temples under construction or announced in Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, Belém, Brasília, and Salvador.

Church president Spencer W. Kimball dedicated the São Paulo Brazil Temple on October 30, 1978. On October 4, 2020, President Russell M. Nelson announced that the church would build a second temple in São Paulo.

 Non-Christian religions
There are small populations of people professing Buddhism (215,000), Judaism (107,000), Islam (35,000), Shinto, Rastafari and many other religions. They comprise 21st century immigrants from East Asia, the Middle East, or of recent immigrant descent.
 African and indigenous religions

Afro-Brazilian religions are syncretic religions, such as Candomblé, that have many followers, mainly Afro-Brazilians. They are concentrated mainly in large urban centers in the Northeast, such as Salvador, Recife, or Rio de Janeiro in the Southeast. The cities of São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Florianópolis have a great number of followers, but in the South of Brazil the most common African influenced Ritual is Almas e Angola, which is an Umbanda like a ritual. Nowadays, there are over 70 "terreiros" (temples) in Florianópolis, which are the places where the rituals run. In addition to Candomblé which arose through a process of syncretism between several of the traditional religions of West Africa, especially that of the Yoruba, and the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, there is also Umbanda, a syncretic Brazilian religion that blends African traditions with Roman Catholicism, Spiritism, and Indigenous American beliefs. There are also Catholics, Protestants, and other kinds of Christians who hold a dual belief system and go to both churches and terreiros.

Candomblé, Umbanda, Batuque, Xango, and Tambor de Mina are Afro-Brazilian religions influenced by the native cults brought by black slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil. These black slaves would summon their gods, called Orixas, Voduns, or Inkices with chants and dances they had brought from Africa. These cults were persecuted throughout most of Brazilian history, largely because they were believed to be pagan or even satanic. However, the Brazilian republic government legalized all of them on the grounds of the necessary separation between the State and the Church in 1889.

In current practice, Umbanda followers leave offerings of food, candles, and flowers in public places for the spirits. Candomblé terreiros have similar practices, and there are a number of festivals that occur yearly especially in the Northeast, with celebrations such as the famous Iyemanja Festival and the Waters of Oxala.

From Bahia northwards there are different practices such as Catimbo, and Jurema with heavy indigenous elements. All over the country, but mainly in the Amazon rainforest, there are many Indians still practicing their original traditions. Many of their beliefs and use of naturally occurring plant derivatives are incorporated into African, Spiritualists, and folk religions.

These religions have suffered increasing hostility from Protestant churches, with attacks on temples and the defacement of statues of the gods. In recent years measures have been taken to counter religious conflict.

 Spiritism

Spiritism is a religion, founded in the 19th century by the French educator Allan Kardec, which proposes the study of "the nature, origin, and destiny of spirits, and their relation with the corporeal world". Spiritism follows Jesus's moral teachings, and therefore its status as a non-Christian religion is an object of debate between its followers and mainstream Christians. If considered non-Christian, Spiritism would be by far the largest non-Christian religion in Brazil; if considered as a Christian religion, it would be the third largest denomination after Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Assemblies of God.  It studies topics such as life after death, reincarnation, spirits, moral teachings and much more.

 Buddhism

Buddhism is probably the largest of all minority religions, with about 215,000 followers. Brazil is home to the third-largest Buddhist population in the Americas, after the United States and Canada. This is mostly because of the large Japanese Brazilian community.  About a fifth of the Japanese Brazilian community are followers of Buddhism. Japanese Buddhist sects like Jodo Shinshu, Nichiren Buddhism (most notably the Soka Gakkai), and Zen are the most popular.  Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) is also present, since Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche founded the Khadro Ling center in Três Coroas, Rio Grande do Sul (where he lived until his death in 2002), and many other institutions across the country. However, in recent years both Chinese Mahayana and South East Asian Theravāda sects are gaining popularity. Buddhism was introduced to Brazil in the early twentieth century, by Japanese immigrants, although now, 60% of Japanese Brazilians are now Christian due to missionary activities and intermarriage.  Nevertheless, Japanese Brazilian culture has a substantial Buddhist influence. A number of Buddhist organizations and groups are also active in Brazil, with nearly 150 temples spread across the states.

 Judaism

The first Jews arrived in Brazil as cristãos-novos (New Christians) or conversos, names applied to Jews or Muslims who converted to Catholicism, most of them forcibly. According to the Inquisition reports, many New Christians living in Brazil during colonial times were condemned for secretly observing Jewish customs.

In 1630, the Dutch conquered portions of northeast Brazil and permitted the open practice of any religion. Many Jews came from the Netherlands to live in Brazil in an area dominated by the Dutch. Most of them were descendants of the Portuguese Jews who had been expelled from Portugal in 1497. In 1636, the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, the first synagogue in the Americas was built in Recife, the capital of Dutch Brazil. The original building remains to this day, but the Jews were forced to leave Brazil when the Portuguese-Brazilians retook the land in 1654.

The first Jews that stayed in Brazil and openly practiced their religion came when the first Brazilian constitution granted freedom of religion in 1824, just after the independence. They were mainly Moroccan Jews.

The first wave of Sephardic Jews was exceeded by the larger wave of immigration by Ashkenazi Jews that came at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, mainly from Russia, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. A final significant group came, fleeing Nazism or the destruction that followed World War II.

Brazil has the second-largest Jewish population in Latin America of 120,000 people, making up a total of 0.06% of Brazil's population. As of 2017, Rio de Janeiro's Jewish population was 22,000, with 24 active synagogues and São Paulo has a Jewish population of 44,000.

 Islam

By Pew in 2010, there are 204,000 Muslims in Brazil,  representing 0.1% of the total population. The Federation of Muslim Associations of Brazil estimates there are about 1.5 million Muslims and others say about 400,000 to 500,000. There are over 150 mosques where Muslims perform their daily prayers.

Islam in Brazil may be presumed to have first been practiced by African slaves brought from West Africa. Scholars note that Brazil received more enslaved Muslims than anywhere else in the Americas. During Ramadan, in January 1835, a small group of black slaves and freedmen from Salvador da Bahia, inspired by Muslim teachers, rose up against the government in the Malê Revolt, the largest slave rebellion in Brazil. (Muslims were called malê in Bahia at this time, from Yoruba image that designated a Yoruba Muslim.) Fearing the example might be followed, the Brazilian authorities began to watch the malês very carefully and in subsequent years intensive efforts were made towards conversions to Catholic Christianity and erase the popular memory of and affection towards Islam. However, the African Muslim community was not erased overnight, and as late as 1910 it is estimated there were still some 100,000 African Muslims living in Brazil.

A recent trend has been the increase in conversions to Islam among non-Arab citizens.

 Hinduism in Brazil
Most of the Brazilian Hindus are ethnic East Indians. However, there are new converts due to the missionary effects of Hare Krishnas.

There are as many as 1500 PIOs in the Indian community in Brazil, and only 400 NRIs since foreign nationals can acquire local citizenship without any discrimination after 15 years of domicile in this country. Brazil has also no bar against dual citizenship. But in recent years, it has been granting immigration visas only in high technology fields. The only exceptions are the Sindhis in Manaus (who have formed an Indian Association with about a hundred members) and the Goans in São Paulo.

Besides the PIOs, there are Hindu organizations such as ISKCON as well as Brahma Kumaris which are very active in Brazil. The number of adherents of these organizations is not officially recorded but is estimated to be a few thousand. The Vedic Astrology, vedanga of Hinduism, is increasingly popular in Brazil, especially by the efforts of the Academia Brasileira de Astrologia Védica (ABAV) which promotes this branch of the Vedic culture in the country.

Positivist Church of Brazil

Many confuse Spiritism with Afro-Brazilian Religions like Umbanda, Candomblé, and others that have a following of almost 600,000 adherents. One of the most unusual features of the rich Brazilian spiritual landscape are the sects that use ayahuasca (an Amazonian entheogenic tea), including Santo Daime, União do Vegetal, and Centro de Cultura Cósmica. This syncretism, coupled with ideas prevalent during the military dictatorship, has resulted in a church for the secular, based on philosopher Auguste Comte's principles of positivism, based at the Positivist Church of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.

 Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith in Brazil started in 1919 with Bahá'ís first visiting the country that year, and the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly in Brazil was established in 1928. There followed a period of growth with the arrival of coordinated pioneers from the United States finding national Brazilian converts and in 1961 an independent national Bahá'í community was formed. During the 1992 Earth Summit, which was held in Brazil, the international and local Bahá'í community were given the responsibility for organizing a series of different programs, and since then the involvement of the Bahá'í community in the country have continued to multiply. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 42,100 Bahá'ís in Brazil in 2010.

 Japanese New Religions

There are, in Brazil, many followers of Japanese new Religions like Oomoto, PL Kyodan, Seicho-no-Ie and the Church of World Messianity. The total number of adherents, if merged, maybe in the hundreds of thousands.

 Beliefs

A 2007 poll, made by Datafolha'' and published in newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, asked diverse questions about the beliefs of the Brazilian people. In this poll, 64% reported to be Catholics, 17% Pentecostal Protestants, 5% non-Pentecostal Protestants, 3% Kardecists or Spiritists, 3% followers of other religions, 7% non-religious or atheists. Less than 1% reported to follow Afro-Brazilian religions.

 Belief in God and the Devil

 97% of Brazilians reported believing in God; 2% have doubts and 1% do not believe in God.
 75% reported believing in the Devil, 9% have doubts and 15% do not believe in the Devil.
 81% of those non-religious reported believing in God.

 About Jesus Christ

 93% Reported they believe Jesus Christ rose after death; 92% that the Holy Spirit exists; 87% in the occurrence of miracles; 86% that Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin; 77% that Jesus will return to Earth at the end of time; 65% that the sacramental bread is the body of Jesus; 64% that after death some people go to Heaven; 58% that after death some people go to Hell and 60% that there is life after death.

 Belief in saints

 57% Believe there are saints.
 49% Pray for the intercession of a saint (68% among self-declared Catholics).
 18% Pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Aparecida (26% among Catholics); Saint Anthony, Saint Expeditus (5% each), Saint George (3%), Saint Jude, Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Joseph (2% each).

 About the Catholic priests

 51% Believe some priests respect chastity, 31% most, 8% none, and 4% they all do.
 66% That priests should be allowed to marry (59% among Catholics and 94% among followers of Candomblé).
 About the sexual abuse scandals involving priests, 38% believe some of the complaints are true, 30% most are, 21% all are and 4% none of them.

 About different religions

 About the sentence "Catholics do not practice their religion", 19% reported agreeing completely and 41% agreed, but not completely.
 About the sentence "the Protestants are misled by their priests", 61% agreed (77% among the Kardecists, 67% among Catholics and 45% among Protestants).
 About the sentence "Umbanda is a Devil thing", 57% agreed (83% among Evangelical Protestants, 53% among Catholics and 12% among Umbandists).
 About the sentence "Jews only think about money", 49% agreed. 51% disagreed.
 About the sentence "Muslims advocate terrorism", 49% agreed. 51% disagreed.

Freedom of religion
In 2023, the country was scored 4 out of 4 for religious freedom; it was noted Afro-Brazilian religious groups face considerable discrimination and violence.

Regional data

See also

 Demographics of Brazil
 Roman Catholicism in Brazil
 Protestantism in Brazil
 Islam in Brazil
 Judaism in Brazil
 Bahá'í Faith in Brazil
 Hinduism in Brazil
 Religion in Latin America

Pie Chart notes

References

Religion in Brazil


I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg (German: Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren) is a 1926 German silent film directed by Arthur Bergen and starring Emil Höfer, Gertrud de Lalsky and Werner Fuetterer. The title alludes to the popular 1925 song I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg composed by Fred Raymond with lyrics by Fritz Löhner-Beda and Ernst Neubach. The film taps into the nostalgic reputation of Old Heidelberg.

Cast
 Emil Höfer as Pastor Schönhoff
 Gertrud de Lalsky as Sophie, seine Frau
 Werner Fuetterer as Rudolf - sein Sohn
 Mary Parker as Charlotte, seine Tochter
 Sylvester Bauriedl as Fritz Merkelbach - Cand.med. Erstchargierter
 Harry Halm as Alex Winkler, Fuchsmajor
 Karl Platen as Georg Schröder - Corpsdiener
 Dorothea Wieck as Klärchen - seine Tochter
 Viktor Gehring as Ingenieur Frank
 Carla Färber as Trude - Klärchens Freundin
 I.W. Lautsch as Bornschläger
 Maria Meyerhofer as seine Frau
 Josef Eichheim as Schneidermeister Stenglein
 Else Kündinger as seine Frau
 Frau Heuberger-Schönemann as Frau Klinger
 Georg Irmer as Fritz Merkelbach

References

Bibliography
 Lamb, Andrew. 150 Years of Popular Musical Theatre. Yale University Press, 2000.

External links

1926 films
Films of the Weimar Republic
German silent feature films
Films directed by Arthur Bergen
Films set in Heidelberg
Bavaria Film films
German black-and-white films

I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg (1926 film)


Objectivism may mean:

Objectivity (philosophy): A philosophical opinion or doctrine. It holds that reality exists outside (independent of) the human mind.

Moral objectivism: that some acts are right or wrong in themselves, and are not matters of opinion.

Objectivism (Ayn Rand). The objectivist philosophy created by novelist Ayn Rand, which endorses productive achievement and logical reasoning.

The Objectivist poets, a group of Modernist writers who emerged in the 1930s.

Objectivism