Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (; ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and his older sister is actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in Donnie Darko (2001).

Gyllenhaal starred in the 2004 science fiction disaster film The Day After Tomorrow. He played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which Gyllenhaal won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller Zodiac (2007), the romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs (2010), and the science fiction film Source Code (2011). Further acclaim came with his roles in Denis Villeneuve's thrillers Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2013), and he received nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler (2014) and a troubled writer in Nocturnal Animals (2016). His highest-grossing release came with the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), in which he portrayed Quentin Beck / Mysterio. He has since starred in Wildlife (2018), Velvet Buzzsaw (2018), The Guilty (2021), and Ambulance (2022).

Gyllenhaal has performed on stage, starring in a West End production of the play This Is Our Youth and Broadway productions of the musical Sunday in the Park with George as well as the plays Constellations and Sea Wall/A Life, the lattermost of which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Aside from acting, he is vocal about political and social issues.

Life and career

1980–2000: Early life and career beginnings

Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, to film producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs) and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his older sister, appeared with him in the film Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaal's father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Gyllenhaal family. His last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal's mother is Jewish, and was born in New York City to an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Russia and Poland. Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. On his 13th birthday, Gyllenhaal performed a "Bar Mitzvah-like act, without the typical trappings", volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle.

As a child, Gyllenhaal was regularly exposed to filmmaking due to his family's ties to the industry. He made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in The Mighty Ducks (1992) because it would have required him to leave home for two months. In subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for roles but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his father's films several times. Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993's A Dangerous Woman (along with sister Maggie), in "Bop Gun", a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his senior year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform was the 1993 film Josh and S.A.M., a little-known children's adventure.

His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself, and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend. Gyllenhaal said his parents encouraged artistic expression: "I do have parents who constantly supported me in certain ways. In other ways, they were lacking. Definitely, it's in expression and creativity where my family has always been best at." Gyllenhaal graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles in 1998, then attended Columbia University, where his sister was a senior and from which his mother had graduated, to study Eastern religions and philosophy. At Columbia, he was a resident of John Jay Hall. Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. Gyllenhaal's first lead role was in October Sky, Joe Johnston's 1999 adaptation of the Homer Hickam autobiography Rocket Boys, in which he portrayed a young man from West Virginia striving to win a science scholarship to avoid becoming a coal miner. The film was positively received and earned $32 million; it was described in the Sacramento News and Review as Gyllenhaal's "breakout performance".

2001–2004: Donnie Darko to the London stage
Donnie Darko, in which Gyllenhaal played his second lead role on film, was not a box office success on its initial 2001 release but eventually became a cult favorite. Directed by Richard Kelly, the film is set in 1988 and stars Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who experiences visions of a  tall rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is coming to an end. Gyllenhaal's performance was well received by critics; Gary Mairs of Culture Vulture wrote that he "manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene."

Gyllenhaal's next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002's Highway alongside Jared Leto. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, clichéd and straight to video". Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in Lovely and Amazing with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable character who begins a reckless affair with an older woman. Gyllenhaal later described these as "teenager in transition" roles. Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter. The film portrays the title character's adventures as he pursues the love of his life before she marries the wrong man. The film was panned by critics, with one calling it "stupid and devoid of any redeeming features".

Following Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal starred opposite Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Pompeo in Moonlight Mile (2002), as a young man coping with the death of his fiancée and the grief of her parents. The story, which received mixed reviews, is loosely based on writer-director Brad Silberling's personal experiences following the murder of his girlfriend, Rebecca Schaeffer. In his theatrical debut, Gyllenhaal starred on the London stage in Kenneth Lonergan's revival of This Is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre in 2002. Gyllenhaal said, "Every actor I look up to has done theatre work, so I knew I had to give it a try." The play ran for eight weeks in London's West End; Gyllenhaal received favorable reviews and an Evening Standard Theatre Award in the Outstanding Newcomer category.

Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for 2004's Spider-Man 2, due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's health. Maguire recovered, however, and the sequel was shot without Gyllenhaal. The actors later starred together in Brothers (2009), and resemble each other enough that Gyllenhaal has jokingly complained about cab drivers often calling him "Spider-Man." In 2003, he also auditioned for the role of Batman in the superhero film Batman Begins and came close being offered the part, but it was given to Christian Bale. Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in the science fiction blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father.

2005–2011: Brokeback Mountain and leading roles

In 2005, Gyllenhaal was cast in the drama Proof, with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, where he played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community. The film received a generally positive response. He also starred in Sam Mendes' Jarhead, where Gyllenhaal played a U.S. Marine during the first Gulf War. The film garnered a favorable response; Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post praises Gyllenhaal's performance, writing, "He makes us see his character's intelligence", adding "he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others".

In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a sexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and lasts for 20 years. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase "the gay cowboy movie", although there was differing opinion on the sexual orientation of the characters. The film won numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film won three Academy Awards, and earned Gyllenhaal a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to George Clooney for Syriana. The film also won four Golden Globes, and four British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), in which Gyllenhaal won for Best Supporting Actor. He and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in 2006. Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career.

Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain but generally had more praise than criticism for his directorial style. While critical of the way Lee tended to disconnect from his actors once filming began, Gyllenhaal praised his encouraging direction of the actors and sensitive approach to the material. At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28, 2006, Gyllenhaal also praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him". When asked about his kissing scenes with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal said, "As an actor, I think we need to embrace the times we feel most uncomfortable." When asked about the more intimate scenes with Ledger, Gyllenhaal likened them to "doing a sex scene with a woman I'm not particularly attracted to". Following the release of Brokeback Mountain, rumors circulated regarding the actor's sexual orientation. When asked about such gossip during an interview, Gyllenhaal said:

Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt. In January 2007, as host of Saturday Night Live, he put on a sparkly evening dress and sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls for his opening monologue, dedicating the song to his "unique fan base... the fans of Brokeback". Later, Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac (2007), based on the Zodiac killer. He played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist. In preparation for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior. The film received a positive response; writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Byrnes opined that it was "poignant, provocative and haunting", and called Gyllenhaal "terrific". He next starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Reese Witherspoon in 2007's Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition. Although it garnered a mixed response, New York magazine's David Edelstein called Gyllenhaal "compelling ... he's a reticent actor. But he builds that limitation into the character". Two years later, he co-starred with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers, a 2009 remake of Susanne Bier's Danish film of the same name. It was met with mixed reviews and moderate box office returns, but Anthony Quinn of The Independent thought Gyllenhaal and Maguire gave "honest performances". Gyllenhaal has also claimed that Maguire's performance in the film influenced his acting throughout his career.

The following year, Gyllenhaal played the lead role in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and released by Disney. He starred opposite Anne Hathaway in the romantic-comedy Love & Other Drugs, released on November 24, 2010, which gained him a Golden Globe Award nomination. The Guardian Philip French welcomed Gyllenhaal's choice of a comic role, in contrast to his previous film roles, but thought the film "stumbles badly". For his sole project in 2011, he portrayed Colter Stevens, a U.S. Army Aviation captain, in the 2011 time-travel thriller Source Code. Despite noting the film's unrealistic plot, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star praised the prime performances of the cast.

2012–2018: Critical acclaim and Broadway debut
Gyllenhaal starred alongside Michael Peña in David Ayer's action thriller End of Watch, about two Los Angeles street cops. The film, for which Gyllenhaal was also an executive producer, was released in September 2012 and received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert deeming it "one of the best police movies in recent years, a virtuoso fusion of performances and often startling action" and Salons Andrew O'Hehir stating that the film was "at least the best cop movie since James Gray's We Own the Night, and very likely since Antoine Fuqua's memorable Training Day (which, not coincidentally, was written by Ayer)". To prepare for the role, Gyllenhaal took tactical training and participated in actual police ride-alongs with co-star Peña to help establish the language of the characters.

He served as a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival that was held in February 2012. Also in 2012, Gyllenhaal made his Off-Broadway debut in Nick Payne's play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. 2013 saw Gyllenhaal appear in two films directed by Denis Villeneuve, whom Gyllenhaal describes as "an older brother". The first, the thriller Prisoners, starred Gyllenhaal as a detective named Loki in search of the abductor of two young girls. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers praised Gyllenhaal's "exceptional" performance in the film. In their second collaboration, Gyllenhaal portrayed the dual role of a history teacher and his doppelgänger in the thriller Enemy. The following year, he produced and starred in the crime thriller Nightcrawler, earning Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance. Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader called Gyllenhaal's performance "attention-grabbing" and said that he "creates a memorable screen presence".

Gyllenhaal debuted on Broadway in Payne's Constellations at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre opposite Ruth Wilson, also in her Broadway debut. The production opened in January 2015 and closed in March of the same year. That same year, he starred in the comedy Accidental Love, which was filmed in South Carolina with Jessica Biel, as well as Antoine Fuqua's sports drama Southpaw. Writing for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab called his portrayal of a boxer in Southpaw "plausible" and complimented his "emotional vulnerability", despite an unoriginal plot. He then portrayed American mountaineer Scott Fischer in Baltasar Kormákur's Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster; the film was a commercial success, grossing $203 million worldwide. Finally, he appeared in Jean-Marc Vallée's comedy-drama Demolition, playing an investment banker Davis Mitchell, who rebuilds his life after losing his wife. The Village Voices Bilge Ebiri praised his performance, writing, "He nails Davis's boyish curiosity, the quiet, wide-eyed uncertainty of someone discovering the world for the first time." He also served as a jury member for the main competition of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2016, he starred in Tom Ford's neo-noir thriller Nocturnal Animals, based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. The film received positive reviews. The Sydney Morning Heralds Sandra Hall praised Gyllenhaal's brilliant portrayal of his two roles, while Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that his performance contained "rich emotional shadings" and escalating intensity that becomes overwhelming. In October 2016, he appeared in four benefit concert performances of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George at the New York City Center as the titular character. Alexis Soloski of The Guardian gave the performance a perfect five-star review and hailed Gyllenhaal's superb singing. Starting in February 2017, Gyllenhaal reprised the role at the reopened Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised his "searing theatrical presence, in which his eyes are his center of gravity." He was scheduled to appear in Lanford Wilson's Burn This on Broadway under the direction of Michael Mayer in 2017. However, a new production of Burn This took place in 2019 with Adam Driver appearing, with Gyllenhaal's production having reportedly been abandoned.

In 2017, Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film Life; Slant Magazines Eric Henderson stated that Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene". He also had a supporting role in the action-adventure film Okja and starred in the drama Stronger, based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. In his review of the latter, The Independents Geoffrey Macnab complimented Gyllenhaal's versatility and "outstanding" portrayal of Bauman. The following year, he co-starred in the drama Wildlife opposite Carey Mulligan, in which he plays a father who temporarily abandons his family to take a dangerous job. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Richard Ford. Ella Kemp, writing for Sight & Sound magazine, praised the chemistry of the lead actors which "fizzes with an effortless dynamism". He also had a role in the western drama The Sisters Brothers (2018).

2019–present: Action and thriller films
Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw, in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Netflix. Varietys Peter Debrudge opined that Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances". That same year, Gyllenhaal played comic book villain Mysterio / Quentin Beck in the superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home, a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. He appeared alongside Tom Sturridge in Sea Wall/A Life, a double bill of monologues by Nick Payne and Simon Stephens, at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 2019. He garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. Gyllenhaal also lent his voice for the animation Spirit Untamed (2021). That same year, he played detective Joe Baylor in the crime thriller The Guilty, a remake of the Danish film of the same name.

In 2022, he starred as a criminal in Michael Bay's action thriller Ambulance; the film received mixed reviews from critics. Gyllenhaal also voiced a farmer in the Disney animation Strange World. He will next star in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant and in Doug Liman's action film Road House.

Public image
Gyllenhaal was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In April 2012, Shalom Life ranked him number six on its list of "the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world". He was ranked number 35 in Empire magazine's poll of The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. In another poll conducted by Glamour magazine, Gyllenhaal was selected as one of the Sexiest Men of The Year 2018.

Personal life

Family and relationships

Gyllenhaal's sister Maggie is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal's co-star in Jarhead and Rendition. In December 2006, Gyllenhaal and his sister escaped a fire that destroyed Manka's Inverness Lodge, a famed lodge and restaurant in Inverness, California, at which they were vacationing. The two were among a dozen or so guests who fled after the fire, sparked by a falling tree, broke out at about 3 a.m. Co-owner and celebrity chef Daniel DeLong said the pair were supportive despite having to brave the wind and cold. "Jake was helping me pull things out of the fire," DeLong said.

Gyllenhaal has both godparents and what he describes as "celebrity godparents". Actor and director Paul Newman was his godfather, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. Other godparents of unknown status include a gay couple and cinematographer Robert Elswit. Gyllenhaal is the godfather of Matilda Rose Ledger (born October 28, 2005), daughter of his Brokeback Mountain co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams.

Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile, introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms. He dated his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009. He dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013.

Gyllenhaal has been in a relationship with French model Jeanne Cadieu since late 2018.

Political views and other interests
Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He also campaigned for Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry. He has said that "it frustrates me when actors talk politics; I'm political and I make choices in my movies that I think are political. I try and say things with what I do. Rightly or wrongly, young actors have all the power." In an interview, he remarked that "it's a sad time when actors are politicians and politicians are actors". In the 2018 midterm elections, Gyllenhaal endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. His endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and a caption that also endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections.

Gyllenhaal recycles regularly, and said in an interview that he spends $400 a year to have trees planted in a Mozambique forest, partly to promote the Future Forests program. After filming The Day After Tomorrow, he flew to the Arctic to promote awareness of climate change. He has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure.

In 2003, Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer. Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick. In 2014, Gyllenhaal attended an event that benefited the Headstrong Project, an organization that provides treatment to military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, during which he read a poem by a veteran, and in 2017 he participated in a fundraiser to help survivors who lost limbs during the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism, and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day. He has also been seen attending home games of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Acting credits and awards

Gyllenhaal's most acclaimed films, according to the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include October Sky (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Lovely & Amazing (2002), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Zodiac (2007), Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Nightcrawler (2014), and Stronger (2017). He has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

References

External links

1980 births
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
American male child actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American male stage actors
American people of English descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Swedish descent
Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Jake
Harvard-Westlake School alumni
Jewish American male actors
Living people
Male actors from Los Angeles
21st-century American Jews
American Ashkenazi Jews

Jake Gyllenhaal


Astral projection (also known as astral travel) is a term used in esotericism to describe an intentional out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of a subtle body, known as the astral body or body of light, through which consciousness can function separately from the physical body and travel throughout the astral plane.

The idea of astral travel is ancient and occurs in multiple cultures. The term "astral projection" was coined and promoted by 19th-century Theosophists. It is sometimes associated with dreams and forms of meditation. Some individuals have reported perceptions similar to descriptions of astral projection that were induced through various hallucinogenic and hypnotic means (including self-hypnosis). There is no scientific evidence that there is a consciousness whose embodied functions are separate from normal neural activity or that one can consciously leave the body and make observations of the physical universe, and astral projection has been characterized as a pseudoscience.

Accounts

Ancient Egyptian
Similar concepts of soul travel appear in various other religious traditions. For example, ancient Egyptian teachings present the soul (ba) as having the ability to hover outside the physical body via the ka, or subtle body.

Amerindian traditions

Amazon
The yaskomo of the Waiwai is believed to have the ability to perform a soul flight that can serve several functions such as healing, flying to the sky to consult cosmological beings (the moon or the brother of the moon) to obtain a name for a new-born baby, flying to the cave of peccaries' mountains to ask the father of peccaries for abundance of game, or flying deep down in a river to seek the aid of other beings.

Inuit
In some Inuit groups, individuals with special capabilities, known as angakkuq, are said to be able to travel to (mythological) remote places, and report their experiences and important matters back to their community. Those abilities would be unavailable to individuals with normal capabilities. Among other things, an angakkuq was said to have the ability to stop bad hunting luck or heal a sick person.

Hindu
Similar ideas such as the Liṅga Śarīra are found in ancient Hindu scriptures such as, the YogaVashishta-Maharamayana of Valmiki. Modern Indians who have vouched for astral projection include Paramahansa Yogananda who witnessed Swami Pranabananda doing a miracle through a possible astral projection.

The Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba described one's use of astral projection:
In the advancing stages leading to the beginning of the path, the aspirant becomes spiritually prepared for being entrusted with free use of the forces of the inner world of the astral bodies. He may then undertake astral journeys in his astral body, leaving the physical body in sleep or wakefulness. The astral journeys that are taken unconsciously are much less important than those undertaken with full consciousness and as a result of deliberate volition. This implies conscious use of the astral body. Conscious separation of the astral body from the outer vehicle of the gross body has its own value in making the soul feel its distinction from the gross body and in arriving at fuller control of the gross body. One can, at will, put on and take off the external gross body as if it were a cloak and use the astral body for experiencing the inner world of the astral and for undertaking journeys through it, if and when necessary....The ability to undertake astral journeys therefore involves considerable expansion of one's scope for experience. It brings opportunities for promoting one's own spiritual advancement, which begins with the involution of consciousness.

Astral projection is one of the siddhis ('magical powers') considered achievable by yoga practitioners through self-disciplined practice. In the epic Mahabharata, Drona leaves his physical body to see if his son is alive.

Japanese
In Japanese mythology, an  is a manifestation of the soul of a living person separately from their body. Traditionally, if someone holds a sufficient grudge against another person, it is believed that a part or the whole of their soul can temporarily leave their body and appear before the target of their hate in order to curse or otherwise harm them, similar to an evil eye. Souls are also believed to leave a living body when the body is extremely sick or comatose; such  are not malevolent.

Taoist
Taoist alchemical practice involves creation of an energy body by breathing meditations, drawing energy into a 'pearl' that is then circulated.

Judaic and Christian
Carrington, Muldoon, Peterson, and Williams say that the subtle body is attached to the physical body by means of a psychic silver cord. The final chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes is often cited in this respect: "Before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern." Scherman, however, contends that the context points to this being merely a metaphor, comparing the body to a machine, with the silver cord referring to the spine.

Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians is more generally agreed to refer to the astral planes: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows."

Western esoteric

According to the classical, medieval, renaissance Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and later Theosophist and Rosicrucian thought, the 'astral body' is an intermediate body of light linking the rational soul to the physical body while the astral plane is an intermediate world of light between Heaven and Earth, composed of the spheres of the planets and stars. These astral spheres were held to be populated by angels, demons, and spirits.

In the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, for example, the individual is a microcosm ("small world") of the universe (the macrocosm or "great world"). "The rational soul...is akin to the great Soul of the World" while "the material universe, like the body, is made as a faded image of the Intelligible". Each succeeding plane of manifestation is causal to the next, a world-view known as emanationism; "from the One proceeds Intellect, from Intellect Soul, and from Soul—in its lower phase, or that of Nature—the material universe". The idea of the astral figured prominently in the work of the nineteenth-century French occultist Eliphas Levi, whence it was adopted and developed further by Theosophy, and used afterwards by other esoteric movements.

The subtle bodies, and their associated planes of existence, form an essential part of some esoteric systems that deal with astral phenomena. Often these bodies and their planes of existence are depicted as a series of concentric circles or nested spheres, with a separate body traversing each realm.

Terminology
The expression "astral projection" came to be used in two different ways. For the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and some Theosophists, it retained the classical and medieval philosophers' meaning of journeying to other worlds, heavens, hells, the astrological spheres and other landscapes in the body of light; but outside these circles the term was increasingly applied to non-physical travel around the physical world.

Though this usage continues to be widespread, the term, "etheric travel", used by some later Theosophists, offers a useful distinction. Some experiments say they visit different times and/or places: etheric, then, is used to represent the sense of being out of the body in the physical world, whereas astral may connote some alteration in time-perception. Robert Monroe describes the former type of projection as "Locale I" or the "Here-Now", involving people and places that exist: Robert Bruce calls it the "Real Time Zone" (RTZ) and describes it as the non-physical dimension-level closest to the physical. This etheric body is usually, though not always, invisible but is often perceived by the experient as connected to the physical body during separation by a silver cord. Some link falling dreams with projection.

According to Max Heindel, the etheric double serves as a medium between the astral and physical realms. In his system the ether, also called prana, is the vital force that empowers the physical forms to change. From his descriptions it can be inferred that, to him, when one views the physical during an out-of-body experience, one is not technically in the astral realm at all.

Other experiments may describe a domain that has no parallel to any known physical setting. Environments may be populated or unpopulated, artificial, natural or abstract, and the experience may be beatific, horrific or neutral. A common Theosophical belief is that one may access a compendium of mystical knowledge called the Akashic records. In many accounts the experiencer correlates the astral world with the world of dreams. Some even report seeing other dreamers enacting dream scenarios unaware of their wider environment.

The astral environment may also be divided into levels or sub-planes by theorists, but there are many different views in various traditions concerning the overall structure of the astral planes: they may include heavens and hells and other after-death spheres, transcendent environments, or other less-easily characterized states.

Notable practitioners
Emanuel Swedenborg was one of the first practitioners to write extensively about the out-of-body experience, in his Spiritual Diary (1747–65). French philosopher and novelist Honoré de Balzac's fictional work Louis Lambert suggests he may have had some astral or out-of-body experiences.

There are many 20th-century publications on astral projection, although only a few authors remain widely cited. These include Robert Monroe, Oliver Fox, Sylvan Muldoon, and Hereward Carrington, and Yram.

Robert Monroe's accounts of journeys to other realms (1971–1994) popularized the term "OBE" and were translated into a large number of languages. Though his books themselves only placed secondary importance on descriptions of method, Monroe also founded an institute dedicated to research, exploration and non-profit dissemination of auditory technology for assisting others in achieving projection and related altered states of consciousness.

Robert Bruce, William Buhlman, Marilynn Hughes, and Albert Taylor have discussed their theories and findings on the syndicated show Coast to Coast AM several times. Michael Crichton gives lengthy and detailed explanations and experience of astral projection in his non-fiction book Travels.

In her book, My Religion, Helen Keller tells of her beliefs in Swedenborgianism and how she once traveled astrally to Athens:

The practice of soul travel is taught in Surat Shabd Yoga, where the experience of leaving the body at will or while sleeping to visit the various planes of heaven is achieved mostly by meditation techniques and mantra repetition. All Sant Mat Gurus widely spoke about this kind of out of body experience, such as Kirpal Singh.

In occult traditions, practices range from inducing trance states to the mental construction of a second body, called the Body of Light in Aleister Crowley's writings, through visualization and controlled breathing, followed by the transfer of consciousness to the secondary body by a mental act of will.

Edgar Cayce wrote extensively on the subject.

Scientific reception
There is no known scientific evidence that astral projection as an objective phenomenon exists.

There are cases of patients having experiences suggestive of astral projection from brain stimulation treatments and hallucinogenic drugs, such as ketamine, phencyclidine, and DMT.

Robert Todd Carroll writes that the main evidence to support claims of astral travel is anecdotal and comes "in the form of testimonials of those who claim to have experienced being out of their bodies when they may have been out of their minds." Subjects in parapsychological experiments have attempted to project their astral bodies to distant rooms and see what was happening. However, such experiments have not produced clear results.

Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that astral projection can be explained by delusion, hallucination and vivid dreams.

Arthur W. Wiggins, writing in Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins, said that purported evidence of the ability to astral travel great distances and give descriptions of places visited is predominantly anecdotal. In 1978, Ingo Swann provided a test of his alleged ability to astral travel to Jupiter and observe details of the planet. Actual findings and information were later compared to Swann's reported observations; according to an evaluation by James Randi, Swann's accuracy was "unconvincing and unimpressive" with an overall score of 37 percent. Wiggins considers astral travel an illusion, and looks to neuroanatomy, human belief, imagination and prior knowledge to provide prosaic explanations for those claiming to experience it.

See also

References

Works cited

Further reading

External links

 Astral Projection at the Skeptic's Dictionary

Paranormal terminology
Parapsychology
Pseudoscience
Shamanism
Theosophy

la:Proiectura astralis

Astral projection


Space Cowboys is a 2000 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as four older "ex-test pilots" who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.

Plot
In 1958, two U.S. Air Force pilots and aspiring astronauts William "Hawk" Hawkins and Frank Corvin are testing a modified Bell X-2 when Hawk decides to break speed and altitude records.  The plane stalls and they are forced to eject, narrowly missing a Boeing B-50 Superfortress flying with navigator "Tank" Sullivan. On the ground, Frank punches Hawk, but their fight is broken up by flight engineer Jerry O'Neill. Their boss, Bob Gerson chastises Hawk before taking them to a press conference, where he announces that the newly created NASA, rather than the USAF, will be conducting space flight tests.

In the present day, NASA is tasked to prevent a Soviet communications satellite, IKON, from decaying out of orbit and crashing to Earth because of the uplink loss. The satellite's archaic electronics are based on those of Skylab that Frank had developed. Bob, now a project manager at NASA, requests Frank's help. Frank still despises Bob, but agrees provided he has the help of "Team Daedalus" including Hawk, Tank, and Jerry. Bob plans to have younger astronauts shadow the four, so as to replace them before launch. When the press learn of Frank's team, the Vice President convinces Bob that they must be part of the mission for publicity. The old and young teams soon work together, with the older astronauts showing off skills learned without the aid of onboard computers.

The Space Shuttle Daedalus finds the satellite. It is not a communication satellite but in fact houses six nuclear missiles, relics from the Cold War and a violation of the Outer Space Treaty. Frank discovers that the satellite control system was stolen from Bob's files by the KGB, and without a control signal from the ground via the damaged uplink, the satellite's computers will launch the missiles at predetermined targets. NASA and the crew plan to use the payload-assist rockets to push the satellite into deep space. However, one of the younger astronauts, Ethan Glance, acting under Bob's original orders, tries to put the satellite into stable orbit himself. He sets off a chain reaction: the satellite collides with the shuttle, damaging most of the shuttle's computer systems and engines, destroying the solar panels on the satellite, and sending it into a faster decaying orbit, while Ethan is knocked out and dragged along with the satellite.

While Tank and Jerry tend to the other young astronaut Roger Hines, who suffered a concussion on the impact, Frank and Hawk space walk to the satellite in time to activate a booster rocket and slow the orbit's decay. As they see to Ethan, they realize that the only option is to have someone ride on the satellite as they fire the missiles' engines so that it escapes into deep space. Hawk, who was recently widowed and who has eight months to live from pancreatic cancer, sacrifices himself, hoping that he will be able to land on the Moon to fulfill his life's dream.

Frank, Tank, and Jerry now plan to bring the shuttle down over water since landing it would be difficult, but the shuttle comes in too fast. After safely bailing out Ethan and Roger, Tank and Jerry stay with Frank regardless of the risk. Frank recalls a maneuver Hawk had used before, purposely increasing the shuttle's angle in the flare to bring the aircraft near a stall, thus allowing the shuttle to drop its speed quickly and allowing him to land the shuttle safely.

The film ends with the Frank Sinatra song "Fly Me to the Moon", zooming in on the surface of the Moon showing that Hawk had indeed landed there before he died.

Cast
 Clint Eastwood as Colonel Francis D. "Frank" Corvin, Ph.D., USAF (Ret.)
 Toby Stephens as Young Frank Corvin
 Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel William "Hawk" Hawkins, USAF (Ret.)
 Eli Craig as Young William "Hawk" Hawkins
 Donald Sutherland as Captain Jerry O'Neill, USAF (Ret.)
 John Asher as Young Jerry O'Neill
 James Garner as Captain / Reverend "Tank" Sullivan, USAF (Ret.)
 Matt McColm as Young "Tank" Sullivan
 Marcia Gay Harden as Sara Holland
 William Devane as Flight Director Eugene "Gene" Davis
 Loren Dean as Ethan Glance
 Courtney B. Vance as Roger Hines
 James Cromwell as Bob Gerson
 Billie Worley as Young Bob Gerson
 Rade Šerbedžija as General Vostov
 Barbara Babcock as Barbara Corvin
 Blair Brown as Dr. Anne Caruthers
 Jay Leno as Himself
 Jon Hamm as Young pilot
 Chris Wylde as Jason, The Birthday Boy
 Anne Stedman as Girlfriend

Production
Principal photography started in July 1999 and lasted three months. Scenes were filmed on location at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Interior shots of the flight simulator, shuttle, and mission control were filmed on sets at Warner Bros.

The 1958 portrayals of the characters are filmed with younger actors dubbed by their older counterparts.

The original music score was composed by longtime Eastwood collaborator Lennie Niehaus.

Release

The film grossed over $90 million in its United States release, and a further $38 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $128.8 million.

Reception
Space Cowboys was well received by critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports a critic score of 78% based on 122 reviews, with an average rating of 6.72/10. The website's consensus reads, "While the plot is overly clichéd, the superb acting by the stars (especially the tense interactions between Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones) and the spectacular special effects make this a movie worth seeing." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three out of four stars and wrote: "it's too secure within its traditional story structure to make much seem at risk — but with the structure come the traditional pleasures as well."

Accolades
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing in 2001.

References

Bibliography

External links

2000 films
2000s buddy drama films
2000s disaster films
2000 science fiction films
American buddy action films
American disaster films
American science fiction films
American space adventure films
Cold War films
Films about astronauts
Films about old age
Films directed by Clint Eastwood
Films produced by Clint Eastwood
Films set in Florida
Films set in Houston
Films set in Texas
Films set in Utah
Malpaso Productions films
Village Roadshow Pictures films
Films scored by Lennie Niehaus
Warner Bros. films
Films about NASA
Films about nuclear war and weapons
2000s English-language films
2000s American films

Space Cowboys


Doug Stewart is a game designer who edited the Monstrous Manual, a compilation of monsters from the 2nd edition of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. He was also a designer for RPG rulebooks The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game, Encyclopedia Magica, and Player's Secrets of Stjordvik. He is credited as a designer on the adventure supplements Children of the Night: Ghosts and The Naval Architect's Manual, as well as the adventure paths Castle Spulzeer and Missions of State.

References

Dungeons & Dragons game designers

Doug Stewart (game designer)


Hauyne or haüyne, also called hauynite or haüynite ( ), is a tectosilicate sulfate mineral with endmember formula .  As much as 5 wt %  may be present, and also  and Cl. It is a feldspathoid and a member of the sodalite group. Hauyne was first described in 1807 from samples discovered in Vesuvian lavas in Monte Somma, Italy, and was named in 1807 by Brunn-Neergard for the French crystallographer René Just Haüy (1743–1822). It is sometimes used as a gemstone.

Sodalite group
Formulae:

haüyne
sodalite
nosean
lazurite
tsaregorodtsevite
tugtupite
vladimirivanovite
All these minerals are feldspathoids.
Haüyne forms a solid solution with nosean and with sodalite. Complete solid solution exists between synthetic nosean and haüyne at 600 °C, but only limited solid solution occurs in the sodalite-nosean and sodalite-haüyne systems.

The characteristic blue color of sodalite-group minerals arises mainly from caged  and  clusters.

Unit cell
Haüyne belongs to the hexatetrahedral class of the isometric system, 3m, space group P3n.  It has one formula unit per unit cell (Z = 1), which is a cube with side length of 9 Å. More accurate measurements are as follows:
a = 8.9 Å
a = 9.08 to 9.13 Å
a = 9.10 to 9.13 Å
a = 9.11(2) Å
a = 9.116 Å
a = 9.13 Å

Structure
All silicates have a basic structural unit that is a tetrahedron with an oxygen ion O at each apex, and a silicon ion Si in the middle, forming (SiO4)4−.  In tectosilicates (framework silicates) each oxygen ion is shared between two tetrahedra, linking all the tetrahedra together to form a framework. Since each O is shared between two tetrahedra only half of it "belongs" to the Si ion in either tetrahedron, and if no other components are present then the formula is SiO2, as in quartz.

Aluminium ions Al, can substitute for some of the silicon ions, forming (AlO4)5− tetrahedra. If the substitution is random the ions are said to be disordered, but in haüyne the Al and Si in the tetrahedral framework are fully ordered.

Si has a charge 4+, but the charge on Al is only 3+.  If all the cations (positive ions) are Si then the positive charges on the Si's exactly balance the negative charges on the O's.  When Al replaces Si there is a deficiency of positive charge, and this is made up by extra positively charged ions (cations) entering the structure, somewhere in between the tetrahedra.

In haüyne these extra cations are sodium Na+ and calcium Ca2+, and in addition the negatively charged sulfate group (SO4)2− is also present. In the haüyne structure the tetrahedra are linked to form six-membered rings that are stacked up in an ..ABCABC.. sequence along one direction, and rings of four tetrahedra are stacked up parallel to another direction.  The resulting arrangement forms continuous channels that can accommodate a large variety of cations and anions.

Appearance

Haüyne crystallizes in the isometric system forming rare dodecahedral or pseudo-octahedral crystals that may reach 3 cm across; it also occurs as rounded grains.  The crystals are transparent to translucent, with a vitreous to greasy luster.  The color is usually bright blue, but it can also be white, grey, yellow, green and pink.  In thin section the crystals are colorless or pale blue, and the streak is very pale blue to white.

Optical properties
Haüyne is isotropic. Truly isotropic minerals have no birefringence, but haüyne is weakly birefringent when it contains inclusions. The refractive index is 1.50; although this is quite low, similar to that of ordinary window glass, it is the largest value for minerals of the sodalite group. It may show reddish orange to purplish pink fluorescence under longwave ultraviolet light.

Physical properties
Cleavage is distinct to perfect, and twinning is common, as contact, penetration and polysynthetic twins.  The fracture is uneven to conchoidal, the mineral is brittle, and it has hardness  to 6, almost as hard as feldspar.  All the members of the sodalite group have quite low densities, less than that of quartz; haüyne is the densest of them all, but still its specific gravity is only 2.44 to 2.50.  If haüyne is placed on a glass slide and treated with nitric acid HNO3, and then the solution is allowed to evaporate slowly, monoclinic needles of gypsum form.  This distinguishes haüyne from sodalite, which forms cubic crystals of chlorite under the same conditions.  The mineral is not radioactive.

Geological setting and associations
Haüyne occurs in phonolites and related leucite- or nepheline-rich, silica-poor, igneous rocks; less commonly in nepheline-free extrusives and metamorphic rocks (marble).  Associated minerals include nepheline, leucite, titanian andradite, melilite, augite, sanidine, biotite, phlogopite and apatite.

Localities

The type locality is Lake Nemi, Alban Hills, Rome Province, Latium, Italy.

Occurrences include:
 Canary Islands: A pale blue mineral intermediate between haüyne and lazurite has been found in spinel dunite xenoliths from La Palma, Canary Islands.
 Ecuador: Phenocrysts found in alkaline extrusive rocks (tephrite), product of effusive volcanism of the Sumaco volcano, of northeast Ecuador.
 Germany: In ejected rocks of hornblende-haüyne-scapolite rock from the Laach lake volcanic complex, Eifel, Rhineland-Palatinate
 Italy: Anhedral blue to dark grey phenocrysts in leucite-melilite-bearing lava at Monte Vulture, Melfi, Basilicata, Potenza
 Italy: Millimetric transparent blue crystals in ejecta consisting mainly of K-feldspar and plagioclase from Albano Laziale, Roma
 Italy: Ejected blocks in the peperino of the Alban Hills, Rome Province, Latium, contain white octahedral haüyne associated with leucite, garnet, melilite and latiumite.
 US: Haüyne of metamorphic origin occurs at the Edwards Mine, St. Lawrence County, New York.
 US: Haüyne occurs in nepheline alnoite with melilite, phlogopite and apatite at Winnett, Petroleum County, Montana, US.
 US: Haüyne is common in small quantities as phenocrysts in phonolite and lamprophyre at the Cripple Creek, Colorado Mining District, Colorado, US.

See also

References

External links
 JMol: http://rruff.geo.arizona.edu/AMS/viewJmol.php?id=05334

Feldspathoid
Sodalite group
Sodium minerals
Calcium minerals
Aluminium minerals
Cubic minerals
Minerals in space group 218
Luminescent minerals
Gemstones

Hauyne


Richard Burgon (born 19 September 1980) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds East since 2015. Burgon served as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020.

Burgon read English Literature at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Labour Club. After working as an employment lawyer, he was elected as the MP for Leeds East at the 2015 general election.

Burgon was appointed as Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury (City Minister) in September 2015 by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Burgon was promoted to Shadow Justice Secretary in June 2016 following the organised mass resignations in protest against the leadership of Corbyn. He was a candidate in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election. He was dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet in April 2020 after Keir Starmer became Labour Leader.

As of March 2021, he was Vice President of Labour CND, a group open to all Labour Party members who are also members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Early life

Burgon was brought up in Leeds and has distant Irish ancestry. He was educated at Cardinal Heenan Roman Catholic High School in Leeds. He moved to St Aidan's and St John Fisher Associated Sixth Form in Harrogate to complete his A Levels. He was the first person in his immediate family to go to University, studying English Literature at St John's College, Cambridge. He was chair of Cambridge University Labour Club.

Burgon has said that growing up hearing about the 1984–85 Miners' Strike initiated his interest in politics. His aunt was a member of Women Against Pit Closures and was married to a striking miner. He is the nephew of the former Labour MP Colin Burgon. Tony Benn described meeting Burgon in July 1999 in his diary, describing him as "a good socialist, [who] had written a thesis on 'Tony Benn's influence on the Labour Party'." Benn also noted that Burgon wore a "specially made" T-shirt which said "Socialism is the Flame of Anger and the Flame of Hope".

Burgon attended the 15 February 2003 anti-war protests against George W. Bush and Tony Blair's planned invasion of Iraq.

Legal career
Burgon qualified as a solicitor in 2006, specialising in employment law for 10 years in the Employment Rights Unit at Thompsons Solicitors in Leeds. Burgon has described how, as a solicitor, he "represented members from a wide range of trade unions in Employment Tribunal cases relating to, for example, unfair dismissal, detriment on trade union grounds, disability discrimination, sex discrimination, discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, unlawful deduction of wages and TUPE."

Political career
In 2004, Burgon first contested a public election as one of the Labour Party candidates for the Wetherby ward of Leeds City Council. On previous boundaries, the ward's majorities suggested a safe seat for the Conservative Party, and Burgon was unsuccessful in being elected.

Burgon stood for selection as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for the 2011 Barnsley Central by-election, coming second to Dan Jarvis after tying in the penultimate round of voting. Two pieces of paper were put in a hat, and Jarvis won the nomination. He also applied to be selected as the candidate for the 2012 Rotherham by-election, but was not shortlisted. Prior to the 2015 general election, Burgon defeated local councillor Judith Cummins to be successfully selected by the Leeds East Constituency Labour Party to replace George Mudie.

Member of Parliament

Burgon was elected as MP for Leeds East at the 2015 general election, increasing the Labour Party's majority in the seat from 10,293 to 12,533 votes.

He was described by The Observer as one of "the stars of the [2015] intake". Standing on the floor of the House of Commons in May 2015, he prefaced his mandatory oath of allegiance to Elizabeth II by expressing his support for constitutional change for an elected head of state: "As someone that believes that the head of state should be elected I make this oath in order to serve my constituents".

Following the resignation of Ed Miliband as Labour leader, Burgon was one of 10 newly elected Labour MPs who wrote an open letter calling for "a new leader who looks forward and will challenge an agenda of cuts, take on big business and will set out an alternative to austerity – not one which will draw back to the New Labour creed of the past". Along with Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell, Burgon was one of 48 Labour MPs to defy the whip and vote against the 2015 Welfare Bill, explaining that he was voting "for the people of East Leeds and against Conservative attacks on welfare."
He was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015. Following Corbyn's victory in that campaign he appointed Burgon as Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury. He nominated Corbyn again as leader during the 2016 Labour leadership election.

In an October 2015 Channel 4 News interview, Burgon admitted that, despite having been Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury for over a month, he was still yet to meet anyone from the city of London's finance and banking industry, nor could he predict the UK budget deficit for 2015.

Burgon is secretary of the GMB Parliamentary Group. In this role, he ensures that issues of interest to GMB members are raised in the House of Commons. Burgon is also a member of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union. Burgon is the Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, and is regarded as being on the left of the Labour Party; he has taken part in People's Assembly Against Austerity protests. Burgon has called for more democracy within the Labour Party, saying: "All parties need to be made more democratic. We've got a membership of well over half a million and I would like the members to have more say in our party's policies and in the way the party's run."

Burgon successfully defended his Leeds East seat at the December 2019 general election, winning with 19,464 votes (49.8%). His majority of the votes fell from 12,752 in 2017 to 5,531.

He stood in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election, coming third behind Angela Rayner and Rosena Allin-Khan and receiving 21.3% of the vote in the final round.

Shadow Justice Secretary
Burgon was promoted to Shadow Justice Secretary and Shadow Lord Chancellor on 27 June 2016 following the organised mass resignations in protest against the leadership of Corbyn.

Burgon has called for an end to privatisation in the justice system, labelling privatisation "an ideological experiment ... that has been a calamitous failure", and  criticising the part-privatisation of probation by former Justice Secretary Chris Grayling as "a costly failure that has left our communities less safe." As Shadow Justice Secretary Burgon has raised concerns that sustained cuts to the prison service have led to a crisis, with prisons becoming increasingly dangerous for both staff and inmates. He has called for a reversal of Ministry of Justice cuts and for emergency funding to recruit more prison officers and provide prison staff with new equipment, action to end overcrowding and for plans to build new private prisons to be scrapped. At Labour Party Conference in 2017 Burgon announced that a Labour Government would "properly support law centres as engines of empowerment for working-class communities".

In September 2017, the political commentator Iain Dale listed Burgon at Number 86 in 'The 100 Most Influential People on the Left'."

Burgon believes cuts to legal aid are a false economy and deny people justice, saying, "A lack of early legal advice can create unnecessary costs for the taxpayer as legal problems go to court when they could have been resolved earlier or spiral into costly social problems as people lose their homes or jobs ... legal aid cuts have deliberately weakened people's ability to challenge injustices and enforce their rights." In the aftermath of the Windrush scandal, Burgon criticised Conservative cuts to legal aid for immigration cases in Parliament, saying "The Windrush scandal is one of the cruellest examples of unaccountable state power targeting the vulnerable, the defenceless and the innocent that I can ever remember".

On 6 April 2020, upon the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Labour Party, Burgon was sacked from the shadow cabinet.

International issues
Burgon opposed military intervention and the bombing of Syria following the November 2015 Paris attacks by ISIS militants. Burgon opposed the 2018 missile strikes against Syria. At a protest against the strikes on Parliament Square, he said "The Prime Minister says that bombing of Syria was, in her words, "right and legal". I say it was wrong and immoral. It was wrong and immoral because it risks escalating a war that could involve up to a dozen countries. It was wrong because she never waited for the weapons inspectors to do their job. It was wrong because she never waited for Parliament to have its say."

Burgon is a vocal critic of Donald Trump, commenting during at the Together Against Trump demo during Trump's state visit to the UK that the US President "scapegoats migrants for all society's ills while letting the powerful off the hook." He has warned against the consequences of diplomatic tensions between the US and Iran, commenting that Britain could be "dragged into a conflict" and stating that "we don't want to end up being the messengers of Donald Trump".

Burgon has criticised alleged human rights abuses by the Israeli Government in Palestine, and visited the West Bank in March 2016 as part of a group of Labour MPs. Of the visit, Burgon said "I was proud to visit the Occupied Territories of Palestine to show solidarity with the Palestinian people struggling for justice".

Burgon has previously expressed support for the PSUV government in Venezuela and tweeted a congratulatory message to Nicolás Maduro when he became president in 2013. On an episode of Question Time in February 2019, Burgon refused to express regret for supporting Maduro following the outbreak of the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. He has also expressed support for the Communist Party government in Cuba and spoke at a memorial event for Cuban President Fidel Castro following his death in 2016. During his speech, in which he praised Castro extensively, he stated that "Fidel Castro was a giant. A man of ideas. A man of action".

Burgon has called climate change "the greatest ever market failure. It is a failure driven by capitalism's endless focus on profits whatever the cost", and has expressed support for the School Strike for Climate. He called Corbyn's speech arguing for Parliament to declare a Climate Emergency "one of the most important ever made in Parliament".

In 2021, Burgon put forward a Ten Minute Rule Bill that would ban arms trade with Israel supported by Caroline Lucas, Liz Saville Roberts and Tommy Sheppard.

On 24 February 2022, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Burgon was one of 11 Labour MPs threatened with losing the party whip after they signed a statement by the Stop the War Coalition which questioned the legitimacy of NATO and accused the military alliance of "eastward expansion". All 11 MPs subsequently removed their signatures.

Libel case against The Sun
On 6 February 2019, Burgon won a libel case against The Sun newspaper after it falsely claimed that he had performed with a music group who "delighted" in Nazi imagery. The High Court ruled that the allegations made by The Sun were defamatory and untrue. Burgon was awarded damages of £30,000, which he said would be spent supporting an apprenticeship in Leeds.

Controversies

On the BBC's Daily Politics in March 2018, he was asked by presenter Andrew Neil about claims that he had said at a 2016 Labour Party meeting that "Zionism is the enemy of peace". Burgon responded, "No and that was not my view", adding "I didn't make those comments". Footage surfaced in April 2019 of Burgon speaking at an event in 2014 where he  was recorded saying "The enemy of the Palestinian people is not the Jewish people. The enemy of the Palestinian people are Zionists, and Zionism is the enemy of peace and the enemy of the Palestinian people", which led to accusations that he lied when he denied that this was a view he held. Burgon said that he had not recalled using what he called a "simplistic" phrase that he would not now use.

Burgon was criticised in December 2021 when he appeared on LBC for refusing to condemn the Uyghur genocide that is being carried out by the Chinese government claiming that it would "fuel anti-Chinese racism in our society".

Personal life
Burgon is a fan of heavy metal music.

His uncle is Colin Burgon, the former Labour MP for Elmet.

References

External links

|-

|-

1980 births
Living people
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
British republicans
British socialists
English socialists
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
English solicitors
UK MPs 2019–present
People educated at Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School, Leeds
Politicians from Leeds

Richard Burgon


Live in Mexico City is a live album by band King Crimson, first released as a free Windows Media Audio download in 1999. Some tracks later appeared on the live albums Cirkus: The Young Persons' Guide to King Crimson Live (1999) and Vrooom Vrooom (2001), and as part of the expanded "THRAK BOX" in 2015. The album was recorded at the Metropolitan Theater, Mexico City, Mexico, 2–4 August 1996

Track listing
"Dinosaur" (Adrian Belew, Bill Bruford Robert Fripp, Trey Gunn, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto)
"One Time" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Gunn, Levin, Mastelotto)
"VROOOM VROOOM" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Gunn, Levin, Mastelotto)
"B'Boom" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Gunn, Levin, Mastelotto)
"THRAK" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Gunn, Levin, Mastelotto)
"Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Gunn, Levin, Mastelotto)
"The Talking Drum" (Bruford, David Cross, Fripp, Jamie Muir, John Wetton)
"Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part II)" (Fripp)
"Neurotica" (Belew, Bruford, Fripp, Levin)
"21st Century Schizoid Man" (Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, Peter Sinfield)
"Prism" (Pierre Favre)
"Red" (Fripp)

Personnel
Robert Fripp – guitar
Adrian Belew – guitar, vocals
Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman stick, backing vocals
Trey Gunn – Warr guitar
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion
Pat Mastelotto – drums, percussion
 Ronan Chris Murphy – mixing

References

External links

1999 live albums
King Crimson live albums
Discipline Global Mobile albums

Live in Mexico City (King Crimson album)


Manuel Domingo y Sol (1 April 1836 - 25 January 1909) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Pontifical Spanish College in Rome and the religious order known as the Diocesan Labour Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1883). As a new priest he had built a sports arena and a theater to provide a place for adolescents to engage in sport activities and to act.

His beatification cause started under Pope Pius XII in 1946 and he was titled as a Servant of God while Pope Paul VI later titled him as Venerable in 1970 upon the confirmation of his heroic virtue; Pope John Paul II beatified him on 29 March 1987 in Saint Peter's Square.

Life
Manuel Domingo y Sol was born on 1 April 1836 in Tortosa as the last of twelve children and was baptized in the same month at some point.

In 1851 he commenced his studies at Tortosa for the priesthood and was later ordained as such on 2 June 1860; he celebrated his first Mass on 7 June at the church of Saint Blai. The Bishop of Tortosa Benet Vilamitjana i Vila - in 1862 - requested he go to the Valencia college for further studies and in 1865 he obtained a licentiate in theology. He became a religious education teacher in 1864 and a professor at his old seminary in 1865. On 7 March 1862 he was made a pastor of La Aldea and in 1863 sent to the parish of Santiago de Tortosa.

On one cold day in February 1873 he met the seminarian Ramón Valero who could not continue his studies because his Tortosa seminary was destroyed during the 1868 revolution. This touched Sol who - in September 1873 - opened "Saint Joseph's House" for seminarians and on 11 April 1879 opened the "College of Saint Joseph for Ecclesiastical Vocations".

He became firm in the need for a college in Rome to cater to Spanish seminarians and this idea would later come to fruition after he met Rafael Merry del Val in Rome at Piazza Navona; the latter decided to aid Sol in his mission. Sol founded the Pontifical Spanish College in Rome on 1 April 1892 and he soon lodged the first eleven seminarians at Via Giulia as the first students for that college. At the time there were some in the Spanish episcopate who were hostile to the idea and tried to stop it. It was their view that Spanish students should train at Spanish universities - in particular at Salamanca - and believed the students would become too "Romanized" as a result.

Pope Leo XIII welcomed Sol's efforts and ended up finding a home himself for the students and issued a grant on 25 October 1893 in the letter "Non medicori cura" for them to live at the usufruct of Palazzo Altemps near the Piazza Navona. The college was granted the honor of being "pontifical" during the pontificate of Pope Pius X due to the now Cardinal del Val's intervention. Sol founded a religious order - the Diocesan Labour Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - on 29 January 1883 and it received diocesan approval on 1 January 1886 and the papal decree of praise from Leo XIII on 1 August 1898.

Sol died in 1909. His order received papal approval from Pope Pius XI after his death on 19 March 1927 and it now operates in states such as Portugal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Beatification

The beatification process opened in Tortosa that opened on 13 November 1930 in an informative process that closed sometime later. Theologians approved Sol's spiritual writings on 5 February 1941. The formal introduction to the cause came under Pope Pius XII on 12 July 1946 in which he was titled as a Servant of God; the confirmation of his heroic virtue allowed for Pope Paul VI to name him as Venerable on 4 May 1970.

The process for a miracle opened in Caracas and closed in 1976. The miracle in question involved an individual's complete and lasting cure from lung cancer in 1972; a medical board approved this miracle on 5 March 1986 as did theologians on 27 June 1986 and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 21 October 1986. Pope John Paul II approved this miracle on 10 November 1986 and later beatified Sol in Saint Peter's Square on 29 March 1987.

The current postulator for this cause is the Rev. Santiago Luis de Vega Alonso.

References

Sources
Bunson, Matthew and Margaret Bunson; John Paul II's Book of Saints, 1999, 2007, Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, IN

External links
Hagiography Circle

1836 births
1909 deaths
19th-century venerated Christians
19th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests
20th-century venerated Christians
20th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests
Beatifications by Pope John Paul II
Founders of Catholic religious communities
Spanish beatified people
University of Valencia alumni
Venerated Catholics

Manuel Domingo y Sol