''3000BC Medical Spa l Skincare in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia'
Our 99% followers sometimes ask ---why do you think MOVING FORWARD takes us back to 1000BC----or why are you talking about religious structures from 3000BC when our global banking 1% FREEMASON LITERARY STARS are taking us back to 1000AD medieval Europe?
THE PHYSICIAN takes ROB J to PERSIAN medical schools where today's TRAPPER JOHN and HAWKEYE would have been admitted to become the BEST PHYSICIANS. But MOVING FORWARD today does not take us to the advances of medieval PERSIA-----it seeks to take 99% US AND GLOBAL 99% of citizens back to 3000BC where all that is available are HEALTH SPAS------BARBER SURGEONS -----knowing only the most primitive of medical procedures. The name of the SPA in PHILADELPHIA has it correct------MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE WORLD HEALTH will kill all US and European standards of public health care available to all 99% WE THE PEOPLE and fill with myth-making FAKE DATA as our only source of information on what the heck happened to first world developed nation MEDICAL STANDARDS AND HEALTH ACCESS.
THE PHYSICIAN as we stated creates a story to make us love and respect the protagonist ROB J as he is used to promote global banking 1% medical FADS and societal changes. That is why we see continuous mention of ROB J and PERSIAN medical schools and use of HERBAL remedies -----AND it is why the entire book focuses on ROB J fighting against medieval religious norms. ROB J pursues his passions not caring who is harmed----making any harm OK because he would serve as a PHYSICIAN like HAWKEYE and not as a BARBER SURGEON. This blending of DARK AND LIGHT in moral values is what global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS do in promoting continuous wars---sacking and looting of civil societies----TELEMEDICINE----its all about EXCEPTIONAL TECHNOLOGY that will help the poor----it not about BILLIONAIRES WANTING TO BE TRILLIONAIRES.
THEY ARE TAKING EVERYTHING BUT THE HUMAN BONES FROM DYING PATIENTS IN US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES -----
Oh, really???? You don't think BARBER SURGEONS will use human bones for profit?
PI -64, Rev 2, 11/2011
RM -1632
READ BEFORE USING
DBX
Demineralized Bone Matrix
Putty
DONATED HUMAN TISSUE
`
CAUTION: DEVICE IS FOR SINGLE PATIENT USE ONLY.
Aseptically Processed. Passes USP <71> Sterility Tests.
DBX Putty Is Not Terminally Sterilized.
DESCRIPTION
DBX Demineralized Bone Matrix Putty is processed human bone that has been
demineralized and combined with sodium hyaluronate, which is a naturally derived material
not of animal origin that is both biocompatible and biodegradable. The combination of
demineralized bone and sodium hyaluronate results in a putty-like consistency for ease and
flexibility of use during surgical application.
OSTEOINDUCTIVE POTENTIAL
DBX
Demineralized Bone Matrix is osteoconductive and has been shown to have
osteoinductive potential in an athymic mouse model. Every lot of final DBX
Putty product is
tested
in vivo
or in an alkaline phosphatase assay, which has been shown to have a positive
correlation with the athymic mouse model, to ensure the
osteoinductive potential of the final
product. Standard testing performed
in vivo
or by the alkaline phosphatase assay must prove
positive for lot release. It is unknown how the osteoinductive potential measured
in vivo
or
by the alkaline phosphatase assay, will correlate with clinical performance in human subjects.
INDICATIONS FOR USE
DBX Putty is intended for use as a Demineralized Bone Matrix for voids or gaps that are not
intrinsic to the stability of the bony structure.
DBX Putty is indicated for treatment of
surgically created osseous defects or osseous defects created from traumatic injury.
DBX Putty can be used as follows:
Extremities
Posterolateral spine
Pelvis
Ridge augmentation
Filling of extraction sites
Cranium
Craniofacial augmentation
Once our morals and ethics kill all respect for the human body as sacred ------then as with global banking 1% global human slave trading where people are not sovereign CITIZENS but HUMAN CAPITAL-----then the lives of our 99% WE THE PEOPLE are worth nothing ----lambs are more valuable then sheep after all.
Weird Stuff
10 Disturbing Products Derived from the Human Body
Jess Ward December 25, 2012
The human body – thing of wonder, grace, and raw materials. Aside from traditional organ and tissue transplants, human “material” is also being utilized in common products you wouldn’t even suspect. Apparently the guys from Fight Club were on the right track. We are animals after all, right? Researchers have even found practical uses for all of the interesting substances that humans excrete. The following products prove that if you think hard enough, even poop has potential in a free market.
10
Hair Sunglasses
Nothing says cool like hair in your face. It’s even cooler when the hair isn’t yours. These funky biodegradable shades feature assorted colors and styles, all crafted from resin and human locks. Designers Alex and Azuka out of Studio Swine envisioned the glasses as an experiment in sustainability because the world is just way too hairy for its own good. The manufacturers even tout that the glasses are made according to green standards.
9
Tooth Knuckles
Teeth have been a common item found in jewelry since cave dwellers made necklaces from bear and wolf canines. Nowadays, when you need to pack a little extra in your punch, artist Polly van der Glas has the answer: knuckle dusters made from human molars. The teeth are collected from consenting individuals who are apparently happy to part with their only means of chewing. The silver-encased chompers are perfect to have on hand if you forgot the baby food and need to mash something on the spot. The big question is: do they need to be brushed and flossed regularly?
8
Blood sculpture
If you’ve ever thought that making a giant popsicle of your head was a great idea, you should be friends with Marc Quinn. The sculptor makes a new noggin every five years with 9 pints of his own blood (roughly equivalent to the amount circulating through his body). It takes him about five months to safely withdraw enough life juice to fill the head mold. A national gallery in the UK actually purchased his 2006 version, shelling out nearly half a million bucks for his bodily treasure.
7
Human leather
What do you get for someone who has everything? Human leather, of course. One company in the UK brazenly fashions leather wallets, belts, and shoes from donated skin. According to the website, the small grain size of human hide creates leather superior to any other animal skin put through the tanning process. Their discerning customers pay thousands of dollars for these products, prefer anonymity even when it comes to photos of the items, tend to like lotion and watch quite a bit of Silence of the Lambs.
6
Fat fuel
New Zealand ecoboat Earthrace took a carbon-free journey around the world using only biodiesel, some of which was generated from human fat. The skipper and a few other committed volunteers initially endured liposuction for the cause. Though the boat did not travel exclusively on donated love handles, proponents of human fat biofuel are quick to point out that the potential from liposuction leftovers is virtually untapped and otherwise wasted. Unless you know how to make soap.
5
Mummy paint
Back before people actually cared about what sort of hazardous substances they slathered on the walls, Egyptian mummies were ground and mixed with white pitch and myrrh to create the classic shade “mummy brown.” The hue was highly regarded by Pre-Raphaelite painters. When people caught wind of what the paint was made from, popularity died down a bit. However, manufacturers continued to produce the original recipe until the mid 20th century when they ran out of mummies. Bummer!
4
People gelatin
The magic of genetics and ingenuity of the Chinese is soon to bring the world better Jello. Because traditional gelatin is derived from cows and pigs, it has the potential to be tainted with crazy contaminants like Mad Cow. Consumer food allergies are also more common with animal-based gelatin. The new jiggly stuff is generated by combining human DNA with yeast to make a more chemically stable substance that is both safer to eat and can be systematically mass produced. That is, until the Jello evolves and starts fighting back.
3
Fertility Drugs
Pee is pretty popular in the pharmaceutical sphere. One of the compounds found in urine – urea – is amazingly versatile and appears frequently in many products from cosmetics to diabetes medication. But one fertility drug in particular is literally made from the pee of post-menopausal women. Coveted hormones are extracted from the golden liquid and administered primarily to women to combat fertility issues. Though less common, the same drug also encourages sperm production in dudes.
2
Masato
Generally speaking, it’s not good form to spit into someone’s drink. But in Amazonian Peru, guests are treated to a traditional drink that is laden with saliva. The drink, called masato, is home brewed from the root of the cassava plant. Chunks of peeled cassava are chewed up by the local ladies and the liquid portion spat back into a vat. Certain proteins in the saliva initiate fermentation and a few hours later the result is a cloudy white drink with a slightly sweet but sour taste. The alcohol content of masato varies dramatically from the time it was made as the liquid ferments, converting starch to sugar to alcohol. But it still has spit in it. You can’t cover that up with a mixer.
1
Stool Transplant
When antibiotics failed to help individuals with severe cases of Clostridium difficile (or C. diff), poop came to the rescue. Graciously donated feces are scooped, tested, and then pureed with saline and administered (via the mouth or butt) to patients who need help with their intestinal flora. The pesky bacteria C. diff can cause GI distress, fever, and even death if left untreated. The implanted poop reestablishes healthy microbes in the gut. Even though stool transplants have been on the edge of mainstream until now, practicing physicians have found them to fairly effective in cases where drugs just aren’t working. Some advocates even go so far as to suggest that poop donation centers will make an appearance as cases of C. diff continue to strike younger populations.
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We see below the MORAL values that existed even in 3000BC placing respect and an attachment to the DIVINITY of that day-----our human body.
There was plenty of knowledge in 3000BC of how to use animal bodies for everyday materials------yet, they chose to respect the human body. Civilized societies have always protected against the degradation of what it is to be human------the stigma of human cannibalism-----
GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS see our 99% WE THE PEOPLE as human capital----the body is property from which to profit-----whether white, black, or brown citizens. When our 99% of CITIZENS allow ourselves to be global corporate campus HUMAN CAPITAL----our human bodies become more valuable then our living bodies---especially when MOVING FORWARD artificial intelligence and robotics end our ability to be employed as workers.
THE PHYSICIANS did a great job in characters respecting the moral and ethical treatment of the human body because they were CIVILIZED.
Tomb Of Newgrange - Irish History 3000BC Neolithic Burial Tomb
youtube.com
It did not take a rocket scientist to KNOW deregulation of organ transplant and tying it to predatory, profiteering global health systems would create a GLOBAL HUMAN ORGAN TRAFFIC CARTEL. We KNOW as well, deregulating and breaking thousand-year old respect for the human dead body will end in creating motives to MAKE OUR 99% OF US AND GLOBAL CITIZENS DEAD.
The goals of MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1% tied to health care takes us back to 3000BC where respect for our human body disappears------respect for building civil societies that value 99% of people as productive citizens able to work, earn a living, be members of society disappear.
So, there are no WINNERS in MOVING FORWARD desecrating the human body ------only the global 1% will appoint BARBER SURGEONS as medical staff making sure no TRAPPER JOHNS or HAWKEYES can be found to curtail MEDICAL PROFITEERING.
Organ Harvesting, Human Trafficking, and the Black Market
March 23, 2016 by Dianne Small-Jordan
Corneas are among the most common harvested organs.
Image by nacu
When families or individuals are tired of spending years on a medical waiting list, they sometimes purchase body parts – kidneys, eyes, lungs, heart, limbs and more – for transplant on the black market.
It sounds like science fiction, but organ harvesting is an unfortunate fact in the criminology world of today.
Organ Harvesting and Human Trafficking
Organ harvesting has been tied to human trafficking and has become a booming business in the 21st century on a global scale.
It is a criminal offense to traffic body parts, or perform transplants from any source not legally affiliated with a hospital or other medical facility, but legality doesn’t deter either side of these transactions.
Notably, quite a lot of illegally-trafficked body parts are harvested by any means necessary, and are gladly received, no-questions-asked, by the person willing to pay top dollar for a kidney, a heart, or a hip.
Illegal Organs: Supply and Demand
According to the American Transplant Foundation, 123,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list to receive an organ. Every 12 minutes a new name is added to the list and an average of 21 persons per day die due to a lack of organ availability. Corneas, kidneys, liver, lung, intestines, bone marrow are the most common transplant needs.
FOLKS-----21 PERSONS DYING A DAY FROM UNAVAILABLE ORGANS PALES TO THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE GLOBALLY KILLED IN EFFORTS OF CARTEL ORGAN HARVESTING. PLEASE LET THE STRUCTURE HAVING BEEN IN US LAST CENTURY WORK AS IT SHOULD.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data of Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network reports 121,333 currently awaiting organ transplant of which 100,402 are waiting for a kidney. Only 30,970 transplants actually took place (legally) in 2015. According to the World Health Organization, America is one of many organ-importing countries and by the use of the web, patients can get transplant packages from $70 to over $160,000.00.
USA Today conducted an investigative report in 2006 and found that illegal body harvesting is very lucrative in the U.S. due to the high demand of body parts. The investigation revealed that from 1987- 2006 (19 years), over 16,800 families had pursued lawsuits stating that their loved ones body parts were illegally sold for an estimated $6 million dollars. That amount is based on figures obtained from federal and local investigators, public organizations and medical universities.
Where do the organs come from? Willing donors, in some cases. An NBC Chicago investigative reporter found that people even boldly advertise their kidneys for sale on Craigslist. The investigation revealed that hundreds of people in Illinois were willing to sell their kidney for a few thousand dollars. After discovering a Chicago area man who was offered $30,000.00 for his kidney and received several hits in one month, they went undercover posing as a person willing to sell a kidney and exchanged emails from organ brokers as well as doctors who were willing to perform the transplant for a fee.
Unfortunately, many people become victims of the illegal organ trafficking industry as well.
Doctors use ice to keep organs from decomposing before a transplant. Image by Elvis Santana.
Organ Trafficking Laws and Offenders
Organ trafficking is a form of human trafficking and is an organized crime.
According to the UN Gift Hub, organ trafficking falls into three categories:
(1) Traffickers who trick the victim into giving up an organ for no cost, (2) Con artists who convince victims to sell their organs, but who do not pay or who pay less than they agreed to pay, and (3) Doctors who treat people for ailments which may or may not exist, and remove the organs without the victim’s knowledge.
The organ trafficking trade involves a host of offenders. As the UN Gift noted, there is a recruiter who seeks out the ‘donor,’ there is a transporter of the organs, there are staff of the hospital or clinic that receives the organs, and of course the medical practitioners who perform the transplants. There are also middlemen, contractors, buyers and the banks that store the organs/tissues.
Decoded Science interviewed a former transplant clinical researcher for a major hospital, who spoke with us under condition of anonymity. He stated he had encountered cases where people bought their organs from people willing to sell. He shared an experience of an elite Saudi Arabian who arrived at the hospital for a kidney transplant accompanied by a young man he claimed was his brother. Testing showed no genetic match. The researcher later found out that the Saudi elite had paid the young man $50,000.00 in U.S. money for his kidney. Our source also noted that even though there is a waiting list for organs, favoritism does occur, and money can get someone moved up on the list fairly quickly.
Ann Cheney, author of Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains stated “Today we aren’t robbing graves but we are violating corpses, we are failing to carry out donor wishes, and we are putting patients at risk- all because we have been disturbingly complacent about what happens to people’s bodies when they die.”
Real Life Body Snatcher
According to NBC New York, Levy Rosenbaum, known as the “Kidney Broker” was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison and was the first proven case of organ trafficking. His indictment came from an FBI sting operation from the black market sale of 3 kidneys for a total of $410,000.00. Rosenbaum recruited poor Israeli donors who sold him their kidneys for $10,000.00 and re-sold the organs to Americans for over $120,000.00 each. He told undercover FBI agents that he arranged for a lot of transplants and sold them to the Albert Einstein Medical Center and Hospital where he acted as a facilitator for donor matches for Israeli patients from 1999-2000.
Killing To Give Life
In addition to con-artists and unscrupulous doctors, there are also extreme cases in which people are outright murdered for their organs. Every year, there are suspicious deaths, in which the victim had their organs removed.
The FDA is the regulating body on the buying and sale of organs, body parts, however it is the FBI who has made many arrests. Who is protecting your body – or the body of your loved ones?
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'Many of us dream of living on other planets, but are two things we'll need before it can actually happen: money and raw materials'.
OH, REALLY???? You mean those romanticized fictional HOLLYWOOD STAR WARS STAR TREK missions have fooled our 99% US and global citizens as to the realities of life in space?
CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now TRUMP are MOVING FORWARD any societal FAD that makes people believe there is social benefit from HUMANS BEING MADE CAPITAL and advancing policies tied to extreme wealth and extreme power.
The technology for mining meteors was of course global banking 1% goal through OBAMA----that technology is not as advanced as building ELEVATORS to the MOON. Please be careful of what we see today being allowed to be printed in captured, global banking media selling FAKE NEWS AND DATA.
The data created last century from research conducted by HAWKEYE REAL PHYSICIANS and medical professionals already documented the damage exposure to planetary solar radiation especially microwaves does----and the costs of building structures to protect HUMAN CAPITAL who global banking 1% could care less live or die----will not be expended.
WHETHER REVENUE EXPENDED TO PROTECT OUR 99% WE THE PEOPLE FROM SMART CITIES MICROWAVE ENVIRONMENTS TODAY -----OR TOMORROW'S SPACE COLONIES----THERE WILL BE NO PUBLIC HEALTH IN MOVING FORWARD.
Barber surgeons tied to global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS will flay the skin from a human to make that ROBOT more human. So, global banking 5% players are educating as THE BODY IS A TEMPLE while MOVING FORWARD the human body is corporate property to be used for profiteering.
What started as a well-regulated organ transplant tightly controlled by HAWKEYE/ROB J PHYSICIANS requiring equal opportunity and access was made the worst kind of brutal corruption where organs are now bought at the highest price by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA installing BARBER SURGEONS and removing our REAL PHYSICIANS.
So, we already KNOW what will happen as every human organ and body part now has a price as MEDICAL PARTS.
THE BLOG
05/19/2010 09:33 am ET Updated Dec 06, 2017
Unplugging From Your Medicine Cabinet: Respecting the Body’s Intelligence
By Dana Ullman Huffington Post
It may be time to go on a special type of vacation: a drug vacation.* A drug vacation is a time in which you reduce the doses or eliminate entirely whatever drug or drugs you are taking. A drug vacation may give you (and your doctor) an opportunity to learn whether you really need to continue taking this drug or not. More important, this vacation will give your body an opportunity to manifest its everyday self-regulating and self-healing propensities without the crutch of a pharmaceutical agent inhibiting or suppressing its important work.
IF you are ready, step away from the medicine cabinet. You may not even recognize it, but you may be addicted to one or more of the drugs there. It may be time that you received an intervention, though this time, you should probably intervene on yourself rather than have anyone do it for or to you.
You may have noticed but your body has become accustomed to these drugs, and you’ve probably have had to increase the dosage over time, though you probably also noticed that various weird symptoms emerged when you did so. You then probably chose to increase it on some days and decrease on other days, in the hopes that they will still work, though some people may wonder if they are really helping or not.
You’ve probably also experienced other symptoms and syndromes for which you’ve been encouraged to take additional drugs. If you’re smart enough, you’re wondering what interactions the drugs have. Your doctor has told you that “there are no problems” taking two, three, four or five medications together, but he cannot point to ANY research that has ever studied that question.
In any case, with the increased number of pills or the higher dosages, you, like Alice in Wonderland, may seem to be walking twice as fast but remaining in the same place (or are going backwards). Over the years, you’re probably noticing that you are having decreased amounts of energy, increased anxiety or depression, new symptoms, including some real strange ones, and in general, you’re not feeling like your “old self.”
Put down that aspirin, acetaminophen, or other pain medication. Don’t open that bottle or box of allergy medication, sleep aid, headache drug or whatever and step away from the medicine cabinet.
Why Unplugging Works
The logic and wisdom of “unplugging” from various stressors in your life is that there is an inherent intelligence of our bodymind that continually strives to defend and heal ourselves. Living systems have certain innate self-organizing and self-healing propensities, and unplugging is simply an important strategy that enables your bodymind to work its every-day magic as it manifests its magnificent survival strategies.
Sadly, many of us are so arrogant that we think that we are smarter than our own bodies. We think that we can do better than what nature has provided us. The idea that we can or even should “conquer” nature is so 19th century. Some people today actually think that our bodies are not very smart and that we could and should overcome its weaknesses by the use of pharmaceutical agents that can rid the body of its symptoms.
The fact of the matter is that our symptoms are our body’s best efforts to defend and heal ourselves from infection, environmental assault or any type of stress. Drugs that suppress our symptoms may provide short-term benefits, but they usually inhibit our own self-healing and self-regulating functions.
Ultimately, from a purely pharmacological point of view, drugs do not have “side effects.” Drugs only have “effects,” and we arbitrarily differentiate those effects of the drug that we like from those that we don’t like (and we then call these latter symptoms the “side effects”).
The lesson here is that just because a drug is effective in getting rid of a symptom does not necessarily mean that this treatment is truly curative, and in fact, the elimination of the body’s symptoms may cause more long-term harm than good.
Wisdom of the Bodymind
The basic assumption behind the broad field of natural medicine is that the human body has an inherent wisdom within it that strives to defend itself and to survive. Symptoms of illness are not simply something “wrong” with the person, but instead, symptoms are actually responses and efforts of the organism to defend and heal itself against infection and/or stress. Hans Selye, M.D., Ph.D., the father of stress theory, once asserted, “Disease is not mere surrender to attack but also the fight for health; unless there is a fight, there is no disease.”
Our human body has survived these thousands of years because of its incredible adaptive capabilities, and one of the ways that it adapts is through the creation of symptoms. Whether it be through fever and inflammation, cough and expectoration, nausea and vomiting, fainting and comatose states, and even the variety of emotional and mental states, each symptom represents the best efforts of the bodymind in its effort to fight infection and/or adapt to physical and psychological stresses.
Although symptoms may be the best effort of the organism to defend itself at that time, it is not usually effective to simply let the body try to heal itself. Most often, some treatment must be provided to help nurture, nourish and augment the body’s own wisdom. The challenge to physicians, healers and patients is to determine when to help aid this inner wisdom of the body and when to intervene to make certain that the body does not harm itself.
The word “symptom“ comes from a Greek root and refers to “something that falls together with something else.” Symptoms are a sign or signal of something else, and treating them doesn’t necessarily change that “something else.” Ultimately, a symptom is a signal, a warning light that something is off-balance. It is akin to an oil warning light in your car. Although this light will go off if you unscrew the lamp, this simple action doesn’t solve the more complex problem that led to the light turning on in the first place.
Concepts in new physics offer further support for the notion that living and non-living systems have inherent self-regulating, self-organizing and self-healing capacities. This ongoing effort to maintain homeostasis (balance) and to develop higher and higher levels of order and stability have been described in detail by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ilya Prigogine in Order Out of Chaos, Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point, and Erich Jantsch in The Self-Organizing Universe. In systems thinking, “perturbations” are understood as efforts of a system to re-establish balance and to increase its complexity so that there is greater dynamic homeostasis.
Please know that I am not “Pollyanna-ish” about the wisdom of the bodymind. In other words, as much as I respect the innate intelligence of the human body, I also recognize its limitations. Although the human body has magnificent self-regulating, self-healing propensities, it is usually not enough to “let the body heal itself.” Usually, one needs to nurture and nourish the wisdom of the body. Various naturopathic strategies and homeopathic medicines help to augment this wisdom. The fact that homeopathy has been called “medical biomimicry” and “medical aikido” helps us to better understand why it is so effective. By using a medicine to mimic the body’s own wisdom, the body is better able to defend and heal itself.
It is no coincidence that two of the very few conventional medical treatments that augment the body’s own immune system are immunizations and allergy treatments, and these drug treatment modalities “coincidentally” derive from the homeopathic principle of similar (treating “like with like”).
However, in order for naturopathic and homeopathic medicines to work most effectively, it is sometimes necessary to diminish or eliminate those drugs that suppress symptoms and thereby inhibit the body’s own self-healing tendencies. Is it time that you took a vacation from your medications? In so doing, you may finally be giving your body an opportunity to express its own defenses and to heal.
* I am primarily referring to taking a vacation from over-the-counter drugs, but if you’re taking prescription drugs (Rx), I suggest you to talk with your doctor about creating a plan to diminish the doses of whatever drugs you’re taking, with a goal of stopping the medication(s) for a period of time, if possible and appropriate.
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The killing of all world religions as a goal of MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE has us referring to a 3000BC HINDI/BUDDHIST religion looking much like our 3000BC ancient Greek gods and goddesses where KINGS/QUEENS were the human relatives of those gods -----and the 99% of WE THE PEOPLE existed as property to be used any which way.
We always state that MOVING FORWARD ENDING WORLD RELIGIONS has a goal of creating a new world religion that LOOKS somewhat like our HINDI/BUDDHIST----but that is not what will be installed. The goal of making 99% WE THE PEOPLE think leaving EARTH while living to be transported to a SPACE COLONY is somehow placing us closer to the COSMOS higher being whatever global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS make that higher being look like-----will be what MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE RELIGION will unfold. Before then installing far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM to kill all modern religions taking with it all our thousands of years of moral and ethical treatment of our HUMAN BODIES.
OUR TRAPPER JOHNS/HAWKEYES-----JUST AS ROB J IN THE PHYSICIAN WERE AT BEST AGNOSTIC NOT OVERLY RELIGIOUS BUT EVEN IF HUMANIST THEY HELD THOSE MORAL AND ETHICAL BELIEFS IN RESPECT FOR HUMAN BODY.
Below we see the national global banking 1% media outlet YES----being that NEW WORLD cosmos pushing societal FADS including mysticism that conforms to goals of PLANETARY MINING SLAVE COLONIES.
'The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge'.
OH, REALLY??????? A RESPECT FOR CREATION ----A NEW STORY OF ORIGIN----A RESPECT FOR MOTHER EARTH AND NATURE? THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1%.
Religion, Science, and Spirit: A Sacred Story for Our Time
Is it possible that the human future depends upon a new sacred story—a story that gives us a reason to care? Could it be a story already embraced by a majority, although it has neither institutional support nor a place in the public conversation?
David Korten posted Jan 17, 2013
“For people, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value,” Thomas Berry wrote in The Dream of the Earth. “The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.”
The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge.We live at such a moment. Humanity’s current behavior threatens Earth’s capacity to support life and relegates more than a billion people to lives of destitution. This self-destructive behavior and our seeming inability to change have deep roots in the stories by which we understand the nature and meaning of our existence. The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation—that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge; a story to guide us to mature relationships with one another and a living Earth.
Three Cosmologies
Three distinct cosmologies have each had their influence in shaping the Western worldview. Two are familiar. The third—and most relevant to the task at hand—has ancient roots, and may in one form or another be the most widely held. It has virtually no public presence.
The cosmos is created and ruled by a Distant Patriarch. This is the cosmology most commonly associated with the institutions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It views creation as the work of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. From his home in a separate, sacred dimension called Heaven, He observes and judges our obedience to His commandments handed down to us through sacred texts and interpreted by His anointed religious authorities.
This cosmology focuses attention on our individual relationship with a personal but distant God, as expressed in Michelangelo’s famous rendering of a God portrayed in the image of man. By implication, our human relationships with one another and with nature are secondary to this primary relationship. Although some adherents believe that we have an obligation to care for God’s creation in this life and to show compassion to our fellow human beings, in many interpretations of the Distant Patriarch story, life on Earth is but a way station on the path to paradise. Nature exists for our temporary human use and comfort. Those who demonstrate their closeness to God by their pious religious observance and special knowledge of His intention properly exercise authority over the rest of us.
The cosmos is a Grand Machine.
This is the cosmology commonly associated with science. It is the standard story of Newtonian physics, evolutionary biology, and the institutions of secular academia. In this cosmology only the material is real. The formation and function of the cosmos and the evolution of life are consequences of a combination of physical mechanism and random chance. Life is an accidental outcome of material complexity and has no larger meaning or purpose. Consciousness and free will are illusions.
By this reckoning, the cosmos is much like a mechanical clock-works gradually running down as its spring unwinds. Building on the mechanistic determinism of classical physics, classical biology holds that life evolves through a combination of chance genetic mutation and a competitive struggle by which the fitter survive and flourish as the weaker perish.
According to the Grand Machine cosmology, a brutal competition for survival, territory, and reproductive advantage is the basic law of nature, and these same instincts define our human nature. Indeed, as economists of a social Darwinist perspective assure us, our competitive instinct is the primary and essential driver of human prosperity and progress. The defining debate turns on the question of whether this instinct best serves society when free from government interference or when guided by public regulation and incentives.
The cosmos is a manifestation of Integral Spirit.
This cosmology has ancient roots and a significant modern following, but lacks institutional support and public visibility. By its reckoning, all of creation is the expression of an integral spiritual intelligence engaged in a sacred journey to discover and actualize its possibilities through an ongoing process of becoming. Our world and the material universe of our experience are more than God's creation—they are God made flesh. God is in the world and the world is in God, yet they are not identical. Although the spirit is imminent, it is also transcendent, a concept religious scholars refer to as panentheism.
Brain scientists tell us the human brain evolved to reward cooperation, service, and compassion.We come to know the nature, purpose, and intention of this divine force through both our inner experience and our observation of its physical manifestation. All beings, stars, planets, humans, animals, plants, rocks, and rivers are expressions of this divine force—each with its place and function in the journey of the whole.
Contrary to prevailing theories of social Darwinism, the Integral Spirit cosmology recognizes that life is a fundamentally cooperative enterprise.
Indigenous wisdom keepers speak of the creator’s original instructions to humans to get along with one another and nature. Brain scientists tell us the human brain evolved to reward cooperation, service, and compassion—suggesting that the creative processes of evolution have programmed these original instructions into our brains and DNA.
Extreme individualism, greed, and violence are pathological and signs of physical, developmental, cultural, and/or institutional system failure. Caring relationships are the foundation of healthy families and communities. The Golden Rule common to all major faiths is a better guide to appropriate moral behavior than mechanistic rules are.
The Integral Spirit cosmology postulates that we humans participate in and contribute to the divine journey. We can apply our distinctive capacities for reflective consciousness and choice either to advance creation’s evolutionary thrust toward ever more creative possibility, or to disrupt it. Together, our individual choices determine our collective fate and shape the course of the journey far beyond our time.
We find threads of this story in the traditional wisdom teachings of indigenous peoples and the mystical traditions of all faiths, including the Abrahamic faiths. In his expression of his Jewish faith, Jesus taught, “The Kingdom is within.” Muhammad taught, “Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah."
The Integral Spirit cosmology is consistent with the findings of quantum physics, which reveals that the apparent solidity of matter is an illusion and at the deepest level of understanding only relationships are real. I find that Integral Spirit is the underlying cosmology of a reassuring number of religious leaders and devout members of many faiths, including a great many Catholic nuns, as well as most people who define themselves as spiritual, but not necessarily religious.
Why Creation Stories Matter
Our creation stories have powerful implications for our understanding of our place in the cosmos and thereby shape our most foundational values, our politics, and the distribution of power in society.
The Distant Patriarch story characterizes our earthly existence as a separation from the divine goodness and grace of heaven. Our experience in this life becomes a test of faith, a burden to be endured and ultimately left behind in an eventual ascent of the righteous to reside with the creator in paradise. This cosmology reduces the purpose of life in the present to a fear-based quest to earn credits toward a divine judgment that will determine whether our fate after death will be to join the saved or the damned. It is a perfect setup for the manipulation and exploitation of believers by demagogues.
All beings are interconnected and our fates are inextricably intertwined.The Grand Machine story strips our existence of meaning and purpose. In so doing, it supports consumerism and an ethic of individual material gratification as a distraction from the terrifying loneliness and despair of an otherwise meaningless existence. By characterizing life as inherently competitive, it provides a pseudo-scientific justification for social Darwinism, colonial imperialism, racial domination, and the unrestrained competition of market fundamentalism. It neglects the far greater role of cooperation and synergy on which all living systems—and human society, civilization, and culture—depend.
Though sharply at odds regarding the presence or absence of a spiritual intelligence, both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies affirm the self-destructive individualism and separation that lead us to behave in ways that threaten Earth’s biosphere and our future as a species.
The Integral Spirit story, by contrast, infuses all we behold in this life and beyond with profound meaning. All of creation is a sacred and ultimately unified expression of an eternal and intimately present divine will. All beings are interconnected and our fates are inextricably intertwined. As participants in and contributors to the ongoing process of creation, we each bear a sacred responsibility. Our lives take on profound meaning and purpose in relationship and service to the sacred whole.
This cosmology has the elements of the needed story for our time. It remains, however, largely a private story without the institutional sponsors that give the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies authority and public presence. The absence of institutional sponsorship helps to secure its authenticity, but the absence of public visibility limits its influence as a guide to rethinking and restructuring our human relationships with one another and nature.
Largely invisible in the public forum, it is not included in public opinion polls, leaving us with little idea of how widespread its acceptance actually is. Consequently, those of us who align with its foundational insights have no way to assess whether we are just cultural outliers or members of what may quite possibly be a cultural majority. Intimidated by our isolation, we may be reluctant to share the truth in our hearts, thus limiting our ability to share and deepen our insights and to join with others to fulfill the responsibilities to which the insights of this story call us.
Six Blind Men Describe an Elephant
Reflecting on the relationship between these three seemingly mutually exclusive cosmologies brings to mind the story of the six blind men describing an elephant. The first feels its side and proclaims, “An elephant is like a wall.” The second gropes its tusk and counters, “No, it is like a spear.” The third feels the trunk and says, “Truly it is like a snake.” The fourth feels a leg and insists, “An elephant is like a tree.” The fifth feels its ear and pronounces it to be “Like a fan.” The sixth grasps the tail and says “Nonsense, an elephant is like a rope.”
We understand and relate to our world largely through our basic senses. The spiritual dimension, however, lies beyond our limited direct sensory experience. When we seek to describe it, like the blind men groping the elephant, we turn to familiar imagery. This story is a warning that any interpretation of the infinite is likely to capture only a part of a much larger reality.
The Politics of Story Power
The mystics among the prophets, sages, and wisdom keepers of all times and traditions have discerned a spiritual order and unity in creation they could make intelligible to their followers only through metaphor. Consequently, they sought to communicate their mystical insights through easily understood stories and familiar images. Not surprisingly, the intended messages have been subject to omission and distortion as they pass from generation to generation.
Generally, for early indigenous peoples the deeper truth of creation as the expression of an integral spiritual consciousness translated into stories of an enchanted world inhabited by spirits of diverse motives and magical abilities. Matrilineal societies tended toward feminine imagery and worshiped images of the Goddess. More gender-balanced societies worshiped both a Sky Father and an Earth Mother.
With time, human societies developed large-scale institutional structures that supported powerful political and religious rulers with a considerable interest in shaping stories of divine power to serve their political interests. Stories and images of gods and goddesses as larger-than-life versions of their earthly rulers served them better than stories and images of an enchanted world of spirit beings.
The Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were each built on the foundation of a deep and profound sense of the integral spiritual unity and order of creation. Each emerged within male-dominated societies in which patriarchs were familiar figures and symbols. They naturally looked to the patriarch as their symbol for an all-knowing, all-powerful spiritual consciousness.
It was also natural that these societies placed their religious institutions in the care of men—who in turn found that it best served their political interests to favor the distant Sky Father over the imminent Earth Mother and to dismiss goddess worship as primitive and pagan. The priestly class further strengthened its power and authority by affirming sacred ancient texts interpreted by religious scholars as the sole authority on the will of God.
Eventually, the keepers of the faith conveniently forgot that the image of the Distant Patriarch was only a metaphor for the unity and order of the Integral Spirit from which all being manifests.
In its contemporary expression, the cosmology of the Integral Spirit embraces and melds insights from the frontiers of scientific observation, the world’s major religions, and the experience of indigenous peoples and mystics.Separation of the material and spiritual worlds, rejection of the feminine, and a reliance on ancient texts as the primary (if not sole) source of human knowledge and moral authority, in denial of the data of the senses, became a serious barrier to the advancement of human knowledge and understanding. As the world divided into a multitude of institutionalized religious sects and subsects, the underlying stories of the spiritual unity of creation gave way to often violent competition for market share based on "My God is the real God" product differentiation.
Newtonian science emerged as a counter to religion’s rejection of the experience of the senses in favor of explanations of events based on stories of the magical powers of mythic figures, and to the barrier this rejection posed to human advancement. To secure its integrity and authority, science embraced disciplined observation of how matter interacts with matter as its primary—even exclusive—source of knowledge and learning. This brought a new rigor to the search for order in the cosmos and lifted human understanding and technological possibility to previously unimagined levels.
Much as the priestly classes of institutionalized Western religions conveniently forgot that the patriarch was a metaphor, however, the gatekeepers of science eventually forgot that the denial of agency and free will that imposed a useful and beneficial discipline on scientific inquiry within the context of 17th-century belief systems was a choice—not a scientific finding.
A scientific culture that ignored or denied spiritual consciousness brought with it an implicit denial of life’s capacity for conscious self-direction. This in turn limited our ability to comprehend and embrace the richness, potential, and responsibilities of our nature as conscious, intelligent, self-directing participants in Earth’s interconnected, ever-evolving, ever-learning web of life.
That the reductionist story underlying most scientific inquiry to this day describes only one element of a larger reality does not invalidate the truth or utility of its contributions. It is essential, however, that we recognize how the myopia of classical scientific reductionism suppresses our sense of wonder, agency, responsibility to and for one another and living Earth, and our ability to actualize a democratic vision of the authentic popular sovereignty of self-governing peoples and an equitable distribution of power.
Integral Spirit as a Liberating Synthesis
In their current institutionalized forms, Western religion and science are both relics of an imperial past.Our future as a species depends on bringing to the fore of human consciousness a story that invites us to consider the whole of the elephant, and to relate to it in ways appropriate to both its nature and ours. The Integral Spirit story provides a core narrative.
In its contemporary expression, the cosmology of the Integral Spirit draws from the many ways of human knowing. It embraces and melds insights from the frontiers of scientific observation, the world’s major religions, and the experience of indigenous peoples and mystics extending back to ancient times. In acknowledging both intelligent agency and material mechanism, it recognizes that agency plays out in an ordered living cosmos within a framework of rules, and it clearly distinguishes between free will and license. It affirms our human nature as spiritual beings with an epic calling to advance a sacred purpose, and it frames a vision of possibility to guide us to a viable future consistent with the divine will as revealed in our most comprehensive understanding of the cosmic unfolding.
Contemporary Western culture presses us to choose between the institutions of religion and science as our primary source for understanding our human nature, purpose, and possibilities. In their current institutionalized forms, Western religion and science are both relics of an imperial past. Both define themselves by stories that support the prevailing systems of human domination of one another, other species, and Earth. Each resolutely defends its claim to being society’s ultimate and final intellectual and moral authority and clings to its own self-limiting cosmology as the only valid story.
Despite their imperial legacy, the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies are both the product of efforts to discern and describe critical elements of the larger story of the Integral Spirit. That larger story has been with us in various forms since the beginning of human consciousness.
It is readily evident why the Integral Spirit cosmology has lacked sponsorship and support from the imperial institutions that have defined the dominant human societies for the past 5,000 years. It evokes a radical vision of democratic possibility and presents a fundamental challenge to their legitimacy.
It is for this very reason that it is the story and the vision we now need to guide our way to a future in which we humans learn to live in balanced and mutual prosperous relationship with one another and nature.
Distributed Intelligence and Life’s Capacity to Self-Organize
We now know a great deal more than we have in the past about the creative capacity of the processes through which Integral Spirit manifests. We still have much to learn from and contribute to these processes, but to do so we must acknowledge and celebrate them.
We know, for example, that at every level, the cosmos has an amazing capacity to self-organize toward greater complexity and potential.
The theory of distributed cognition or intelligence suggests that multiple minds have capabilities inherently greater than does a single mind. Many interlinked personal computers have more power than a single super computer. It seems that creation learned early on to apply this principle on a grand scale in the design of the endless fractal structures of its self-organizing systems long before the arrival of humans. It is a key to the creativity and resilience of the cosmos.
Earth’s biosphere, the exquisitely complex, resilient, and continuously evolving layer of Earth life, demonstrates on a grand scale the creative potentials of the distributed intelligence of many trillions of individual choice-making living organisms, self-organizing to optimize the capture, organization, and sharing of Earth’s energy, water, and nutrients to bring Earth to life. Acting in concert, they continuously regenerate Earth’s soils, rivers, aquifers, fisheries, forests, and grasslands while maintaining Earth’s climatic balance and the composition of Earth’s atmosphere to serve the needs of Earth’s widely varied life forms.
When we see all being as a manifestation of spirit, we might think of all of the biosphere’s complex choice-making processes as occurring within the mind of God. In the ultimate sense, perhaps it does. Such a formulation, however, can obscure and diminish our appreciation of the true wonder and structure of the biosphere as a self-organizing living system.
The human body is an even more intimate example of the creative power of distributed intelligence. My body, which hosts my personal consciousness, is but one of the many trillions of organisms that together form Earth’s biosphere. It is in turn comprised of tens of trillions of individual living cells, each a decision-making entity in its own right with the ability to manage and maintain its own health and integrity under changing and often stressful circumstances.
So how do our cells decide, individually and collectively, what to do? Is there some form of conscious intelligence involved at the cellular level?Simultaneously, each cell faithfully discharges its responsibility to serve the demanding needs of my entire body on which its own health and integrity (and mine) depend. Together, these cells maintain the body’s health and integrity even under conditions of extreme stress and deprivation to create a capacity for extraordinary feats of physical grace and intellectual acuity far beyond the capability of the individual cell. Resources are shared based on need, not greed.
We are also learning that trillions of non-human micro-organisms inhabit our skin, genital areas, mouth, and intestines with essential roles in supporting and regulating our bodily functions as members of a high-functioning living community
The body’s individual decision-making resource-sharing cells and microbes are more than interdependent. Each is integral to a larger whole of which no part or sub-system can exist on its own. Together they fight off a vast variety of viruses, cancer cells, and harmful bacteria and create regulatory mechanisms internal to the whole that work to assure that no part asserts dominance over the others or monopolizes the body’s stores of energy, nutrients, and water for its exclusive use. All the while, they adapt to changing temperatures and energy needs and variations in the body’s food and water intake, heal damaged tissues, and collect and provide the sensory data to our conscious mind essential to our conscious choice making.
Another of the many impressive expressions of the body’s capacity to self-organize is the process by which its cells continuously renew with no loss of body integrity. The cells lining the human stomach have a turnover of only five days. Red blood cells are replaced every 120 days or so. The surface of the skin recycles every two weeks.
Most of this cellular and molecular activity occurs far below the level of our personal awareness. So long as we provide the essentials of nutrition, hydration, rest, and exercise, our bodies' cells fulfill their responsibilities to maintain our healthy function without specific instruction from our conscious mind.
Cells can and do go rogue, with terrible consequences. Cancer, Alzheimer’s, and leukemia are examples. Within limits, the body has mechanisms to eliminate such threats. If those mechanisms fail, the body dies and the rogue cells die with it.
So how do our cells decide, individually and collectively, what to do? Is there some form of conscious intelligence involved at the cellular level? The Grand Machine story says no; the processes are mechanical. The Distant Patriarch story does not address the question beyond the fatalistic suggestion that whatever happens is God’s will. The Integral Spirit story says yes—the capacity for conscious choice is a defining quality of life and indeed of all being.
Is the consciousness underlying the choices of an individual cell a form of consciousness that would be in any way familiar to the human mind? Probably not, but we may never know, because with the exception of mystics who have developed a capacity to bridge the barrier between themselves and the meta-consciousness, we have no recognized means to experience a consciousness other than our own, and least of all the consciousness of a single cell. What seems evident is that intelligent choice-making is a hallmark of living organisms at all levels.
One critical insight from recent findings in biology is that most of the body’s self-organization occurs at the cellular level through intercellular communication and choice-making independent of direct intervention or direction from the brain and central nervous system.
Similarly, although the biosphere self-organizes on a global scale and is subject to external influences from other celestial bodies, the locus of agency is everywhere local. The dynamic consequences of local choice-making play out through the biosphere's fractal structure and create global dynamics that in turn shape local choice-making with no evident central authority.
The separation or differentiation of consciousness is essential to creation’s incredible capacity for creative innovation, yet we see in our human experience how the illusion of separation can lead us to relate to one another and nature in deeply destructive ways. Buddhism teaches that this illusion of separation is the cause of humanity's self-inflicted suffering. To become fully functioning as individuals and societies, we must achieve a maturity of self-awareness that allows us to hold in mind the reality of oneness and at the same time honor the illusion of separation by accepting responsibility for our individual actions.
Conscious Choices
Exactly how it all works may forever remain a mystery beyond our human understanding. Based on what we do know, however, our bodies, the biosphere, and the cosmos all express as fractal structures that self-organize from the bottom up rather than from the top down—exactly the opposite of what the Distant Patriarch story suggests. And contrary to the foundational assumption of the Grand Machine story, the evidence of our daily experience, reports of mystics, and some interpretations of quantum physics suggest that intelligence—and presumably some form of consciousness—is the organizing principle of our bodies, Earth’s biosphere, and the cosmos.
When we see all of creation as a manifestation of God, of spirit made flesh, we may recognize ourselves as physical expressions of God, but not in the sense of Michelangelo’s famous painting. We may also recognize that within the scale of the cosmos, we are far from being creation’s only expression of conscious intelligence. To the contrary, we are only a tiny element of an expression so grand as to be beyond our perception and comprehension.
So what is our individual human relationship to the grand expression of Integral Spirit? This is pure conjecture on my part, but I believe there may be clues in the relationship between the individual cells of our body and our conscious mind. I know my body’s individual cells exist, but only because science tells me so. I may care deeply about their good health, yet I cannot discern the condition or function of any individual cell—let alone consciously intervene to save an errant cell from the consequences of its bad choices.
Given that my body’s cells number in the trillions, the possibility that I might have such ability defies imagination. Imagine the distraction if our minds attempted to track details of the life of each individual cell in our bodies. It is for good reason our minds are highly selective in the information to which they attune.
It seems similarly unimaginable that the living Earth is conscious of my individual existence or behavior as a human cell in its larger body. If we scale this logic to the cosmic level, it would suggest that the living cosmos is unlikely to be conscious even of the Living Earth as one of the countless celestial entities that comprise it.
There is no necessary contradiction here with the reports down through the ages from spiritual mystics who experience the melding of their human consciousness with an undifferentiated consciousness that transcends all of material reality. If all creation is a manifestation of undifferentiated Integral Spirit, then the system of distributed intelligence discernible in a living, evolving cosmos is derivative of the undifferentiated meta-consciousness
.
I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. —Albert Einstein
Perhaps the individual human consciousness, with proper training and discipline, has the capacity to penetrate the illusion of separation to experience a temporary reunification with the undifferentiated spirit. Perhaps we all have the ability through meditation and prayer to tap into the wisdom of the higher levels of consciousness from which we manifest, and thereby tap into and experience the beauty of its creative wisdom in a very personal way.
It does not, however, follow that the undifferentiated meta-consciousness has the intention, desire, or capacity to attune to us individually, to intervene in our individual or collective human lives, or to change the operant rules of the self-organizing processes of the differentiated consciousness that shape the unfolding of the cosmos or its individual elements. This is not to suggest that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence. It may care deeply with the love that some believe to be the binding force of the universe.
Consider also that as manifestations of the Integral Spirit, we are instruments of its agency. We might therefore think of the voice that replies in the course of meditation or prayer to those who succeed in penetrating the ego’s illusion of separation as at once the voice of our authentic self and the voice of God. Similarly, when we pray for divine intervention to save us from the consequences of our individual and collective choices, we in effect appeal to ourselves as agents of the Integral Spirit.
Step to Adult Responsibility
The important point is that, right or wrong, our choice of creation stories has real world consequences. If we choose to believe our fate lies with purely mechanistic forces beyond our control in denial of our own agency and responsibility, we then resign ourselves to the outcome of forces beyond our control. If we assume that a parental overseer—whether it be God, the market, a new technology, or compassionate space aliens—will save us from our foolish behavior, we likewise absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions as we await divine intervention.
Most important at this moment in the human experience is that our chosen story calls us to accept adult responsibility for the consequences of our choices for ourselves, one another, and a living Earth.If we accept, however, that we are conscious, intelligent agents in a conscious, intelligent, self-organizing cosmos, it becomes evident that our future is in our hands and the well-being of all of Earth’s children depends on our acceptance of adult responsibility for our individual and collective choices and their consequences.
Recall the Buddhist teaching that the illusion of separation is the source of human suffering. As manifestations of the spirit, we humans are instruments by which the spirit (God) expresses its agency in the material world. Thus, our appeals to God for salvation from our suffering are in effect appeals to ourselves.
The earlier assertion that evolution has hard-wired cooperation, service, and compassion into the healthy human brain does not negate our capacity for free will. Free will and the illusion of separation are both essential to our human potential to contribute to the creativity, adaptability, and resilience of a living Earth and thereby to the whole of creation. If we lose sight, however, of the interdependence behind the illusion, the sense of separation can become so terrifying as to overwhelm our predisposition for cooperation and lead to us to use our free will in deeply self-destructive ways. Free will conveys creative responsibility, not individualistice license.
If there is to be a human future, we must fundamentally reshape our cultures and institutions to work in creative partnership with the structure and dynamics of the biosphere.Whether specific details of our chosen story are right or wrong is less important than whether its overarching narrative awakens us spiritually; inspires cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships; supports a way of living that recognizes the wonder, beauty, goodness, ultimate meaning and value of life; and puts us on a path to a viable future. Most important at this moment in the human experience is that our chosen story calls us to accept adult responsibility for the consequences of our choices for ourselves, one another, and a living Earth.
Consequently, on purely pragmatic grounds, the Integral Spirit story in its many variations is the obvious choice. If wrong, we lose nothing. A clockwork cosmos could care less. A loving parent God will be pleased with our progress toward mature adulthood. If right, we avoid self-extinction, our lives take on profound meaning, and we unleash yet unrealized capacities for creative expression.
The Integral Spirit and a New Economy
Both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies contribute to a sense of detachment from life that leads to a devaluation of nature. They also lend legitimacy to an undemocratic centralization of institutional power and authority. Further, the social Darwinism of the Grand Machine cosmology lends moral authority to flawed economic theories that instruct us to value money more than life and actively celebrate the behavior and ethics of the psychopath as a cultural ideal.
Whether or not the stories themselves are the cause of the deep, self-inflicted social and psychological pathology expressed in our self-destructive relationships with one another and Earth, their broad cultural acceptance poses a serious barrier to healing.
The pathology finds its clearest expression in a greed-driven economy grounded in a financial logic that assures us we are getting richer even as we destroy the real wealth of cooperative, caring human communities and Earth’s natural living systems.
In our confusion, we forget that the only true wealth is living wealth, pay more attention to financial deficits than social and environmental deficits, and assume that the economy and business exist to make money rather than to serve life.
The living systems perspective of the Integral Spirit cosmology provides a framing story to guide our path to a planetary system of local bioregional living economies aligned with the needs and realities of the Ecozoic Era.
Transition to an Ecozoic Era
The foundational insights of the Integral Spirit cosmology hold the conceptual key to our collective passage to what cosmologist Brian Swimme and eco-theologian Thomas Berry call the Ecozoic Era, the fourth in the succession of life eras identified as the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic. In The Universe Story, they note that our passage to this new era depends on a fundamental shift in the human relationship to Earth grounded in four foundational insights:
1. “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.” (p. 243)
2. “The Earth is so integral in the unity of its functioning that every aspect of the Earth is affected by what happens to any component member of the community. Because of its organic quality, Earth cannot survive in fragments….The integral functioning of the planet must be preserved.” (p. 243)
3. “Earth is a one-time endowment….Although the Earth is resilient and has extensive powers of renewal, it also has a finite and nonrenewable aspect…Once a species is extinguished we know of no power in heaven or on Earth that can bring about a revival.” (pp. 246-7)
4. “[O]ur human economy is derivative from the Earth economy. To glory in a rising Gross Domestic Product with an irreversibly declining Earth Product is an economic absurdity.” (p. 256). [See inset: “The Integral Spirit and a New Economy”]
As Berry elaborates in an earlier lecture:
“Earth is primary and humans are derivative….
The Earth economy can survive the loss of its human component, but there is no way the human economy can survive and prosper apart from the Earth economy….There is no such thing as a human community in any manner separate from the Earth community. The human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single integral community or we will both experience disaster on the way. However differentiated in its modes of expression, there is only one Earth community—one economic order, one health system, one moral order, one world of the sacred.” [Thomas Berry, “The Ecozoic Era”]
Failing to recognize the fundamental truth of our dependence on the generative systems of Earth’s biosphere, we humans act as a reckless, predatory invasive species, the equivalent of cancer cells systematically destroying Earth’s living body. In an act of collective insanity, we have created a global civilization that depends on a non-sustainable fossil fuel subsidy to work in direct defiance and opposition to the natural structure and forces of the biosphere. This leads to the systematic disruption and depletion of the biosphere’s generative systems and thereby Earth’s capacity to support life.
To accelerate this awakening and actualize its possibilities we need an open and self-critical public conversation about the foundational stories by which we understand our human nature and purpose.If there is to be a human future, we must fundamentally reshape our cultures and institutions to work in creative partnership with the structure and dynamics of the biosphere. Is it consistent with our nature to do so? It depends on the story.
The Distant Patriarch story is ambiguous, with many contrasting versions from which to choose. The Great Machine story says no; it is our inherent nature to be individualist, competitive, greedy, and violent. The Integral Spirit story and the narrative emerging from a deeper and more contemporary understanding of evolution articulated by evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson and others say yes; humans evolved to cooperate, share, and serve.
A Big Story Connecting Three Narratives
The emerging story of creation's epic unfolding features three narratives, each flowing from one to the next.
1. The Integral Spirit Cosmology narrative recognizes the unity of creation and the contributions of our varied religious traditions, bridges the domains of science and religion, and draws from the breadth and depth of human experience and knowledge to reveal a self-organizing process that
combines order, chance, learning, and the agency of a distributed integral intelligence.
2. The Sacred Living Earth narrative builds on the understanding of the Integral Spirit narrative to present Earth as an intelligent living organism with an extraordinary resilience and capacity to learn, adapt, and innovate as it creates the conditions necessary to the emergence of ever more
complex, capable, intelligent, self-aware, and cooperative life forms.
3. The Living Earth Economies narrative builds on the Living Earth
narrative to frame a vision of and pathway to the culture and institutions of a New Economy that brings us into balanced partnership with Earth's biosphere, meets the needs of all people, and is radically democratic.
As we follow the flow of the narratives from Integral Spirit to Sacred Living Earth to Living Earth Economies we move from the transcendent to the imminent, from the abstract to the practical, and begin to discern a pathway to a viable human future ripe with meaning and possibility.
A Story for Our Time
The turning we humans must navigate to a viable future depends on a profound awakening to our nature as spiritual beings and our responsibility as participants in creation’s epic journey of self-discovery. This awakening will be partly experiential—a joyful reunion with our true nature. It will be partly intellectual—a larger and more nuanced understanding of the nature and purpose of creation and our human role in its continued unfolding.
To accelerate this awakening and actualize its possibilities we need an open and self-critical public conversation about the foundational stories by which we understand our human nature and purpose. That conversation must go far beyond an unproductive debate between doctrinaire Distant Patriarch creationists and doctrinaire Grand Machine social Darwinist evolutionists. Fortunately, the conversation is already underway in a rapidly growing number of forums sponsored by influential organizations including Contemplative Alliance, Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, Pachamama Alliance, Temple of Understanding, Wall Street Trinity Institute, and others,
Hmmmm, we are positive the above institutions being those global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS having killed MOTHER EARTH ---MOVING FORWARD more environmental devastation expanding FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---wanting to be those BRAHMIN ONE WORLD for only the global 1% ======not a good source for SPIRITUALISM----RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
That we humans seem naturally drawn to unsolved mysteries, may be a key to discovering and fulfilling our place of service to the whole.These conversations call us to reflect on what we truly believe and to examine contrasting cosmologies from the perspective of historical experience, the insights of history’s greatest teachers, the frontiers of science, and implications for the path ahead. The process is best served by a sense of humility and recognition that for all our scientific advances, we remain far from a full understanding of the deep mysteries of the cosmos.
The Integral Spirit cosmology appears to offer many of the elements of the story we seek. Yet even with its ancient roots and its affirmation and enrichment by recent breakthroughs in science, it too remains a partially developed story and we are limited to speculating on many of its elements.
That we humans seem naturally drawn to unsolved mysteries may be a key to discovering and fulfilling our place of service to the whole.
We know not where the journey leads, nor whether a final destination is even a meaningful concept. The attraction is the inherent thrill of participating in a grand creative endeavor for which participation is its own reward.
We invite you to share your own thoughts, reflections, and questions in the comment field below.
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CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA these few decades took what was the strongest of public health structures including our US medical schools built as a model of PERSIAN and EGYPTIAN best in world medical practices ----our US medical schools that used to graduate THE PHYSICIANS ----and installed to all our national HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES----our NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH----our NATIONAL CANCER SOCIETY-----and at our US state level our global banking 5% players allowed to become GOVERNORS----appointed to our state health and human services----to our county and city public health -----MEDIEVAL BARBER SURGEONS. So, from 1990s to today our US medicine became filled with global banking 1% profiteering and corruption------wealth and position replaced our strong talented and passionate HEALERS----and we have watched as these few decades of ROBBER BARON economy of stealing from the poor sacked and looted our MEDICARE TRUSTS----our FEDERAL HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MEDICAID funds privatizing all those best in world history US PUBLIC MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS to build MEDIEVAL BARBER SURGEON GLOBAL HEALTH SYSTEMS overseas in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
When we allow global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS to buy those 5% global banking freemason/Greeks living only for today ---we are allowing our US sovereignty and rights as citizens disappear and will be ruled by SOCIOPATHS tied to THOUSANDS OF YEAR OLD barbarlan laissez-faire ECONOMICS.
TODAY, IN US WE HAVE VERY FEW AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION PHYSICIANS GUILD MEMBERS----WE ARE SOARING IN MEDIEVAL BARBER GUILD MEMBERS.
We don't hear ANY open and honest discussion of goals of health and medical public policy from our US MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS and medical professionals. We hear LYING, CHEATING, and see FAKE MEDICAL DATA being sold as public benefit.
It really is EASY PEASY to return to civilized THE PHYSICIAN medical institutions aimed at all 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens----we simply need to GET RID OF GLOBAL BANKING 5% POLS AND PLAYERS. We KNOW these medical histories over thousands of years.
The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association
Frank A. Riddick, Jr, MD
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The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA) consists of three components:
HISTORY
The Oath of Hippocrates, a brief exposition of principles for physicians' conduct, dates from the fifth century BCE. Its statements protect the rights of the patient and oblige the physician voluntarily to behave in an altruistic manner towards patients. It was modified in the 10th or 11th century AD to eliminate reference to pagan deities and is used widely in a variety of forms to mark entry into the medical profession early in medical school or upon graduation to serve as a guide to ideal conduct for physicians.
In 1803, Thomas Percival, an English physician and philosopher, published a Code of Medical Ethics describing professional duties and ideal behavior relative to hospitals and other charities (2). At the initial meeting of the AMA in Philadelphia, PA in 1847, the two major items on the agenda were the establishment of a code of ethics and the enumeration of minimum requirements for medical education and training (3). The Code of Ethics adopted at that meeting drew heavily on Percival's Medical Ethics.
PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
The original 1847 Code retained its form, content, and principles through revisions in 1903, 1912, and 1947. A major change, with the intent of distinguishing between medical etiquette and medical ethics, appeared in the Principles of Medical Ethics adopted by AMA in 1957. This document contained only 10 short sections intended to provide a succinct expression of the basic concepts of its predecessor (Appendix A) (4).
The 1980 revision of the Principles represented an attempt to balance the dynamic tension between professional standards and legal requirements (5). It occurred in the milieu of legal actions ultimately adverse to the AMA, with judgments that its policies and acts in excluding associations between physicians and chiropractors constituted anticompetitive behavior (6). Section 3 of the 1957 Principles stated, “A physician should practice a method of healing founded on a scientific basis; and he should not voluntarily associate professionally with anyone who violates this principle.” This was replaced in the 1980 Principles by Principle V, “A physician shall continue to study, apply and advance scientific knowledge, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues and the public, obtain consultations, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated” (5). And in Principle VI the statement “A physician shall…be free to choose …with whom to associate…” appears. The 1980 Principles also introduced gender neutrality, replacing “he” and “his” with “the physician” and “the physician's” (Appendix B) (5).
The 2001 revision of Principles of Medical Ethics added two new principles. One emphasizes that a physician, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount. The other asserts that physicians should support access to medical care for all people (7). The 2001 Principles appear as Appendix C.
ETHICAL OPINIONS OF THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS (CEJA)
The Principles of Medical Ethics are intended to address the elements of ethical behavior broadly and to be subject to alteration only infrequently; “(they) are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician” (1). Ethical Opinions issued by CEJA represent application of the Principles to specific issues and areas of professional activity. The environment of medical practice is ever changing and CEJA's Ethical Opinions are often revisited in light of new professional activities, new technology and procedures, and socioeconomic changes in the organization of medical practice.
The Opinions are organized in the following sections:
REPORTS OF THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS
Reports of the CEJA provide discussion of and recommend ethical policies concerning the specific issue targeted by the report. They are initiated when new questions or issues are not covered adequately by existing Ethical Opinions, e.g. cloning; when there is non-clarity about how existing ethical policy should be applied to new situations, e.g. managed care; when existing policy is questioned by the profession; or when changes in the environment of practice require revisiting previous opinions.
Typically, topics under consideration for study by CEJA are presented at an Open Forum at the biannual meetings of AMA's House of Delegates with the agenda circulated in advance. Interested individuals are afforded the opportunity to provide input and advice on the topics. Those items that stimulate interest or controversy are selected for study.
Other issues stimulating study and issuance of a Report are those referred from the House of Delegates or Board of Trustees. CEJA Reports include in-depth study of the elements of the issue in question. Drafts of proposed Reports are often reviewed by ethical or technical consultants or by other AMA Councils for comment from their area of expertise. Reports of CEJA are discussed before Reference Committees of the House of Delegates before presentation to the House of Delegates. The House may accept a CEJA Report, reject it, or refer it back for additional study and revision, but it may not amend the Report. Upon adoption of a Report, the recommendations of the Report form the basis for an Ethical Opinion of CEJA which is issued at the succeeding meeting of the House of Delegates.
THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS
In a rough analogy between the structure of AMA and that of the Federal Government, the Officers and the Board of Trustees constitute the Executive Branch; the House of Delegates the Legislative Branch; and CEJA the Judicial Branch. Oversight of the Code of Medical Ethics resides with CEJA, which is charged with interpretation of the Principles of Medical Ethics and issuing and promulgating Opinions on ethical matters. Its opinions are not subject to approval by popular vote of the House of Delegates. In addition, CEJA is charged with interpretation of the AMA's constitution and bylaws. It has original jurisdiction in all questions regarding membership, on controversies under the constitution and bylaws and under the Principles of Medical Ethics in which AMA is a party, and in controversies between two or more state medical associations or their members. It has appellate jurisdiction in questions of law and procedure but not of fact in controversies between a constituent association and one or more of its component societies and between a member or members of a component society and that society.
Annually, each incoming President of the AMA presents a nominee for membership on CEJA to the House of Delegates, which may accept or reject, but not offer other candidates. Members serve a 7-year term and may not hold other offices within AMA during their terms. Membership, in addition to the seven senior physician members, includes a Resident Member and a Medical Student member, each eligible to serve a 3-year term so long as they are in the category of Resident or Medical Student. The prohibition against holding office, serving on other AMA Councils or Committees, or representing any association in the House of Delegates is intended to depoliticize CEJA and to help assure that AMA Ethical Policy is not subject to changes in the tide of popular vote. The Council elects its own Chair and Vice Chair.
CEJA limits its ethical pronouncements to physician activities and behavior, and AMA's Code of Medical Ethics does not purport to set standards or provide guidelines for ethical behavior for other health professions, health care institutions, purchasers or purveyors of insurance products, or those who manufacture drugs or medical equipment. This gives some limitations in this era in which forces affecting patient care are increasingly influenced by the government, complex health care organizations, insurers, and industry. It is clear that ethical precepts for physician activities and behavior apply equally to a single physician and to a practice composed of two or three physicians. It is much less clear that these precepts apply to 500 physicians in a practice governed under a corporate structure, and the interaction between expectation for physician behavior and organizational behavior remains a challenge to be addressed in future revisions of AMA's Code of Medical Ethics.
Issues addressed in recent years by CEJA Reports and subsequent Ethical Opinions include genetic testing, aspects of human cloning, conflicts of interest in clinical trials, ethical considerations in encouragement of donation of cadaveric organs for transplantation, interactions with and inducements from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, electronic communication with patients, and issues of privacy and confidentiality of patients' personal medical information. AMA ethical policies on these topics may be referenced on CEJA's website or through AMA's Policy Finder.
A recent activity is the drafting, approval, and promulgation of the Declaration of Professional Responsibility (Appendix D) (8). This document, conceived in the wake of concerns following the disaster of September 11, 2001, offers to patients a pledge that the medical profession will be available to them in their times of need. The Declaration has been ratified by almost 100 state and specialty medical associations. AMA is in the process of presenting it to organizations representing physicians in other nations for their consideration and support.
Appendix A American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (1957)
(4).These principles are intended to aid physicians individually and collectively in maintaining a high level of ethical conduct. They are not laws but standards by which a physician may determine the propriety of his conduct in his relationship with patients, with colleagues, with members of allied professions, and with the public.
Section 1. The principle objective of the medical profession is to render service to humanity with full respect for the dignity of man. Physicians should merit the confidence of patients entrusted to their care, rendering to each a full measure of service and devotion.
Section 2. Physicians should strive continually to improve medical knowledge and skill, and should make available to their patients and colleagues the benefits of their professional attainments.
Section 3. A physician should practice a method of healing founded on a scientific basis; and he should not voluntarily associate professionally with anyone who violates this principle.
Section 4.The medical professional should safeguard the public and itself against physicians deficient in moral character or professional competence. Physicians should observe all laws, uphold the dignity and honor of the profession and accept its self-imposed disciplines. They should expose, without hesitation, illegal or unethical conduct of fellow members of the profession.
Section 5. A physician may choose whom he will serve. In an emergency, however, he should render service to the best of his ability. Having undertaken the care of a patient, he may not neglect him; and unless he has been discharged he may discontinue his services only after giving adequate notice. He should not solicit patients.
Section 6. A physician should not dispose of his services under terms of conditions which tend to interfere with or impair the free and complete exercise of his medical judgment and skill or tend to cause deterioration of the quality of medical care.
Section 7. In the practice of medicine a physician should limit the source of his professional income to medical services actually rendered by him, or under his supervision, to his patients. His fee should be commensurate with services rendered and the patient's ability to pay. He should neither pay nor receive a commission for referral of patients. Drugs, remedies or appliances may be dispensed or supplied by the physician provided it is in the best interests of the patients.
Section 8. A physician should seek consultation upon request; in doubtful or difficult cases; or whenever it appears that the quality of medical service may be enhanced thereby.
Section 9. A physician may not reveal the confidences entrusted to him in the course of medical attendance, or the deficiencies he may observe in the character of patients, unless he is required to do so by law or unless it becomes necessary in order to protect the welfare of the individual or of the community.
Section 10. The honored ideals of the medical profession imply that the responsibilities of the physician extend not only to the individual, but also to society where these responsibilities deserve his interest and participation in activities which have the purpose of improving both the health and the well-being of the individual and the community.
Appendix B American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (1980)
(5)Preamble:
The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility not only to patients, but also to society, to other health professionals, and to self. The following Principles adopted by the American Medical Association are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.
Appendix C American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (2001)
(7)Preamble:
The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility to patients first and foremost, as well as to society, to other health professionals, and to self. The following Principles adopted by the American Medical Association are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.
Appendix D Declaration of Professional Responsibility
(8)Preamble:
Never in the history of human civilization has the well-being of each individual been so inextricably linked to that of every other. Plagues and pandemics respect no national borders in a world of global commerce and travel. Wars and acts of terrorism enlist innocents as combatants and mark civilians as targets. Advances in medical science and genetics, while promising great good, may also be harnessed as agents of evil. The unprecedented scope and immediacy of these universal challenges demand concerted action and response by all. As physicians, we are bound in our response by a common heritage of caring for the sick and the suffering. Through the centuries, individual physicians have fulfilled this obligation by applying their skills and knowledge competently, selflessly, and at times heroically. Today, our profession must reaffirm its historical commitment to combat natural and man-made assaults on the health and well-being of humankind. Only by acting together across geographic and ideological divides can we overcome such powerful threats. Humanity is our patient.
Declaration
We, the members of the world community of physicians, solemnly commit ourselves to:
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Another reason we keep shouting MOVING FORWARD takes us to 3000BC---1000BC and not 1000AD medieval Europe can be found in THE PHYSICIAN as well. The SHAH OF PERSIA preparing to start the next round of endless wars kidnaps and brings to his court the best of SWORD AND DAGGER smiths-----being that skilled artisan knowing how to make the strongest and efficient weapons and tools from METALS.
Our ROB J winning the hearts and minds of our 99% of people he met because he was HAWKEYE PHYSICIAN and not FRANK BURNS the BARBER SURGEON-----was rewarded by this prized metal artisan with the offer of a free set of his finest weapons as daggers and swords. Of course our THE PHYSICIAN HEALER would not want to kill people in wars or disagreements ----so he asked this best of METAL ARTISAN to fashion in METAL the best of medical TOOLS.
1000 AD the time of THE PHYSICIAN was well into what we call THE METAL AGE------where today we are MOVING FORWARD to the total depletion of EARTH's metals----any METAL access has been taken by GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----even our US sovereign metal and mineral mines.
'The Stone Age persisted far and far greater period than the Metal Age whereas metal came in use only recently'.
MOVING FORWARD OUR US 99% WE THE PEOPLE AND OUR 99% OF GLOBAL CITIZENS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS METALS----EVEN IF GLOBAL BANKING 1% ARE ABLE TO ESTABLISH MOON-MINING SLAVE LABOR COLONIES.
Modern medicine has depended upon METALS from everything tied to tools, treatments, preventative devices. Our 99% WE THE PEOPLE----will not have access to METAL----we will be living in STONE AGE. We are heading here in US to a point where not one of our US 99% of citizens even if wanting to be a metal artisan will have the ability to secure METAL ORE.
ROB J's most valued possession taken with him leaving PERSIA to return to LONDON/SCOTLAND----was those crafted METAL PHYSICIAN TOOLS.
This is a long article---please glance through to remember the ERAS of HUMAN DEVELOPMENT tied to our natural resources.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE EARTH IS DEPLETED OF ALL ITS IRON, COPPER, BRONZE???
3 Major Periods of Metal Age: Copper, Bronze and Iron Age
Three Major periods of metal age in the world are as follows:
1. Copper Age 2. Bronze Age 3. Iron Age.
The cultural record of man’s existence is divided into two great periods – the ‘Age of Stone’ and the ‘Age of Metal’. The ‘Age of Stone’ preceded the ‘Age of metal’. The duration of these two periods was not equal. The Stone Age persisted far and far greater period than the Metal Age whereas metal came in use only recently.
It was first used in Asia and Egypt about 3500 BC, and in Europe about 2000 BC. Once the use of metal was recognized, the art of writing, the city-life and also an infinite variety of inventions took place which contributed to the rise of human civilization. Metal enhanced man’s mastery with stone, wood, bone and other substances.
The ‘Age of metal’ is sub-divided into two principal ages—Copper Age and the Iron Age. Bronze Age appeared between these two. Towards the end of New Stone Age (Neolithic) man acquired greater knowledge about environment and its resources.
With this advanced knowledge he proceeded for metalworking. Metals were neither easy to be found out, nor it was easy to make tools out of them Because, though some pieces of free copper or meteoric iron was available in nature, most of the metals were embedded in ores, which were difficult to use unless mining and smelting were learnt.
In fact, there were four major stages in metalworking:
(i) Mining, the discovery and collection of suitable ores.
(ii) Smelting, the extraction of pure metal from ore or from impurities.
(iii) Alloying, the mixing of different metals.
(iv) Forging or Casting, the techniques to shape the metals.
However, Copper Age was the first phase of Metal Age, which continued up to the discovery of iron i e before the beginning of the Iron Age. Iron Age dates between 1200 B.C. and 1000 B.C. which means a time of about three thousand years ago from now. Late Copper Age is considered as Bronze Age which marks the Copper Age off from the Iron Age. Metalworking is a very complex empirical science. Extraction of metal from the ore is the hallmark of metallurgy.
It demands an advanced mode of knowledge as well as technical specialization. Although man had learnt the way of making fire, but a higher temperature that was required to melt the metals, was not possible to generate with an ordinary primitive furnace.
For this a special blast furnace was required. So, it is assumed that the essentially required apparatus e.g. furnace, crucibles, tongs etc. had been invented in the ‘Age of Metal’. Although a little use of gold and silver were noted in Neolithic period, but the Metal Age is actually counted from the particular time when metal (copper) came into use in a massive scale.
Metal Age denotes the large-scale industrial use of metal. Here presence of any metal or the occasional appearance of a metal in precious ornaments is never considered. Advantage of metal is that, when hot it melts and so can be poured into a mould.
On cooling, it becomes hard and the edge of the metal implements may be made more sharp and strong than the stone implements. As writing seems to have come hand in hand with metallurgy, Age of Metal corresponds approximately with the period of history. But written records are available particularly from the Middle East and around the shores of Mediterranean; for the regions of Northern and Central Europe and also for the remainder parts of the world this record is either lacking or inadequate.
Therefore, for those cases stratigraphy is the most accurate as well as reliable method of determining the sequence and dating. Typological arrangements were considered from stratum to stratum, site by site, river valley by river valley, region to region.
Tying up with the written records, wherever possible, the final history of Metal Age was reconstructed. Various sequences of culture submitted by the archaeologists in different parts of the world were gathered to draw an over-all picture of the Metal Age in the world.
Three major periods—Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age were chalked out:
1. Copper Age: Copper first appeared in the Old World particularly in Mesopotamia. Some copper tools occurred with the late, improved Neolithic implements in the floor of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Mesopotamia. The floor of this valley at the head of the Persian Gulf had just risen above sea level when the first people came down from the Persian highlands, about 4000 BC with the culture known as Ubaid.
Those people began to drain the swamps and founded towns. A Spear-point made of native copper appeared in A1 Ubaid III period at Ur of the Chaldea. For the earliest Mesopotamians copper was scarce, still a few more implements were found there. Such findings suggested that copper implements came into use in Mesopotamia between 4000 BC and 3500 BC.
The first copper tools from native copper ore were made in the same manner as the stone tools were made in Neolithic Age. Pounding i.e. application of the method of cold hammering drew the shapes. The implements include simple flat axes and daggers. The nature as well as the limited number of the tools suggests that the people of the particular period did not know the art of smelting, casting or molding.
Knowledge of copper came to Egypt and the Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean from Chaldea. In Egypt, a pin and two beads have been found as belonging to the Badarian period, just after 4000 BC. As we meet with copper at the foundation of early civilization, so it is likely that in later period knowledge of copper spread to the other regions from its center of discovery.
As per the deduction, the principal types of copper implements reaching to Egypt and Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean, advanced further into the Mediterranean islands and thereafter into the Western and perhaps even into the Central and Northern Europe.
But by that time the nature of the implements became modified. Neolithic culture of respective region influenced them, although the principal characters were retained. However, copper reached to Gaul simultaneously from the South and the East crossing Black Sea and Aegean civilization.
Naturally it took a long time to reach British Isles and Scandinavia. Thus implements made of native copper had been in use for a considerable time in almost all countries including Asia, Europe and Africa, excepting a few countries like Japan, Oceania, etc.
Copper occurs in a native state as pure metal in many parts of the world. It also comes in various ores being mixed with rocks and other metals. But as it was hard for the early people to extract copper from the ores, they avoided using of the ores and liked to work on native copper which were widely found in the form of small masses and nuggets.
Large masses were of limited occurrence. However, the small lumps of copper, scattered on the surface of the ground used to be picked up for making implements. The earliest method of metalworking, the cold hammering, was very simple. The pieces of native copper were hammered in order to flatten them out into various shapes.
Neolithic people were the expert stone workers. So their successors came forward to experiment their craftsmanship on the pieces of copper. Since the material was metal, so constant hammering did not produce any chips as like the flint of Chalcedonv. Rather they produced different pimple stone implements of desired shape. But the principal drawback of this method was that the implements produced in this manner became very brittle. The only remedy was to heat and hammer them in an alternative way while making. The technique is known as annealing.
The next step in primitive metalworking was the learning of the procedure of extraction. It is held that in course of dealing with fire for annealing, once a lump of copper was accidentally thrown into the primitive hearth which was nothing but a stab of clay. Since there was strong fire, the copper nodule melted down. By a coincidence of most unusual kind, some intellectual brain noticed the strange change from solid to liquid.
The property of molten copper was known gradually as the people spent their energy and enterprise further on it. But smelting of copper from copper ore was not as simple as the melting of native copper nodules by fire. It requires not only a higher temperature about 1200° C, also involves complicated procedure.
Besides, as compounds of copper are different in different ores, so the process of smelting is also different. Let us consider the malachite, the most commonly found ore in the earth consisting of copper carbonate. To separate the copper from it, at first the part of carbon has to be driven out. Copper-oxide will be obtained as a residual deposit. Charcoal has to be added at this stage to provide more carbon which will be able to break the copper-oxide compound into carbon dioxide and carbon-mono-oxide, leaving the pure copper.
In the next phase, the metal is allowed to run out into small trenches where it is cooled into ingots of standard size for the purpose of storage, transport and trade. Sometimes another substance, limestone is added to it for refinement. This keeps the metal in a more liquid state and prevents re-oxidization. Primitive copper smelting furnaces were very simple having holes in the ground. However, the extracted copper was possibly worked by the same method of cold hammering at the initial stage of learning.
Invention of the smelting process was a remarkable step in man’s mastery over nature and widened the scope of scientific achievements towards high civilization. It was realized that the melted copper would flow into any shape, and the size and outlines of those shapes could be controlled.
So in the next step people learned mould casting. By running the molten copper directly from the smelter into the moulds (of desired size and shape), they made different implements and ornaments. This saved the tremendous labour of hammering the ingots. The method has been named as open-mould casting. The first moulds were merely the prepared holes in the ground but soon moulds of clay and stone were introduced.
The next achievement was the making of closed-mould with two or more pieces. This was an evolved form of open-mould, which facilitated full use of the fluid nature of melted copper. The other advantages was, it allowed the metal worker to cast his copper in round shape, instead of entirely fiat or flat in one side.
With this trick of casting, people gave up the old shapes, which were merely copies of stone models and began to make truly metallic shapes. Hollow sockets were also made in plenty into which butt ends of axes and spearheads could be firmly mounted. The smiths of Near East were more experienced; they used moulds with multiple pieces for casting more complex objects.
The finest casting technique was the ‘lost wax’ casting. The most intricate pieces were shaped by this technique. At first, the desired shape has to be carved out of wax. The model is then covered with a coating of clay. One or a few openings are left on the clay-case. When it is put to fire, the wax melts by the heat and eventually the clay wrapped on the model gets hard.
The melted wax runs out of the holes. So when the molten metal is poured into the holes, it covers the place of the wax. Finally the clay cast has to be broken to remove the metal in cold state. The shape of each implement achieved by this method is unique because the hand-made model is destroyed in each case and so the same model cannot be used repeatedly.
However, it is not yet possible to say that when the smelting of copper began. According to Lauriston Ward, the time was probably during the Jemdet Nasr period, shortly before 3000 BC and the first casting of copper were possibly done in the Nile Valley. However, even before 3000 BC, there was a great burst of metallurgical activity in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. A good number of copper implements and ornaments were obtained from different sites. Some scholars have pointed out that earliest smelted copper Trinkets appeared at Catal Huyuk (Anatolia) in the middle of seventh millennium BC.
The development of industries around the metals started about 3000 BC and therefore the period has been labeled as Metal Age. Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are the parts of the whole. Prof. Childe termed the period between 4000BC to 3000BC as the period of urban revolution.
Because this period had witnessed great discoveries and inventions which brought the people together and made a larger co-operate group. The new trade and techniques demanded specialists and when a man became full-time craftsman (metal worker); the other people came forward to provide him with food, clothing and other necessities of life.
Not only this, many other industries came into existence with the rise of mining and metallurgy. To get the raw materials and to circulate the manufactured articles, transport system was also developed. Mode of transaction improved. On one hand, wealth began to be controlled by the officials of the temples as trustee of god and on the other hand, for the sake of keeping records, systems of writing began to develop.
The Neolithic people used the animals for meat and milk but the demand of the trade in later period made many animals as beast of burden. The use of horses and camels for the purposes of riding as well as packing has been noted from the copper Age levels in Persia, Egypt and Turkey.
Trade not only started on land but also on water. Picture of boats and sails on Egyptian vases denote the presence of water transport before 3000BC. Instead of raft and canoe (used in fishing and crossing a river), man became more dependent on boats for carrying goods from place to place up the river.
Various occupational groups came into existence but all of them were not the producer of food. The non-producer groups gathered in cities and for the difference of wealth and trade, stratification was created within the society. Therefore, in contrast to Neolithic Age, towns and cities were found to be grown in Copper Age.
The appearance of mere copper could not bring an occasion of revolution. It started to change the established order of the things but very slowly. In the early stage tools and weapons were scarce because of the rarity of copper. The forms were copied from the flint implements by using Stone Age methods. When the metallurgy became established in the mining countries, the commercial relations started. Using of stone was reduced metals became a substitute material of stone.
But no where the appearance of copper could change the customs and usage of Neolithic people nor it persisted for a definite span of time. In fact, the non-technological cultural activities – social, political and ideological activities remained unchanged. This is the reason for which the Italian archaeologists liked to designate this phase as Aeneolithic.
By the term Aeneolithrc they wanted to mean a phase of culture at the dawn of Metal Age (instead of Copper Age). Some other scholars regard the phase as chalcolithic (Greek word chalkos means copper and lithos means stone). The propounders of the term chalcolithic perceived the Copper Age as Stone-Bronze transition where metal was creeping but in a subsidiary fashion. Another name, cyprolithic is also found for the Copper Age as most of the raw copper used in antiquity came from the Isle of Cyprus.
Recent radio-carbon dating suggests that an independent metallurgy in the Balkan started prior to 4000BC. In East Yugoslavia mines with a depth about 20m to 25m have been found. Tools of smelted copper from West Russia are contemporary to the earliest open moulds recovered from Bulgaria and Russia. Both can be dated as 4000BC. But stone continued to be the basic raw material until the spread of bronze.
2. Bronze Age: Alloying as a higher metal working technique appeared at the end of the Copper Age. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. In contrast to copper, the malleable soft metal, bronze possesses a superior quality of hardness. Tin has to be mixed with copper in a proportion of about one-tenth to produce bronze. A higher percentage of tin renders the alloy increasingly brittle. However, bronze predominated between the Copper Age and the Iron Age and therefore this particular period has been referred as Bronze Age.
Several types of bronze were found in the Bronze Age. Everywhere copper was the principal material. A small admixture of tin, phosphorous, arsenic or even sometimes the gold or silver is used with it. Copper-tin mixtures were found most widespread. Some good quality of bronze appeared in the Early Dynastic period in Egypt, close to 3000BC.
Some of the pre-historians believe that the entire bronze technique was percolated from outside, probably being cultivated by the people of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor and Armenia who later came to Egypt in search of raw materials. But the fact is far from proved to everyone’s satisfaction. Those who believe bronze ted in South Russia around 3000BC, advocated a rapid spread to East Europe, Near East and North India by 2500BC. Whatever may be, once the invention occurred, it was utilized effectively in different adjacent regions.
Since the copper-bearing strata are much more widely spread over the surface of the globe than those bearing tin, copper was discovered first and then tin. Archaeologists debate as to whether bronze was prepared by measuring out the proportion of the two elements in the metallic state or whether the ores were mixed up before putting them into the furnace.
By these hypotheses they wanted to explain the notable differences in the quality of the bronze arising from difference of tin content in the bronze. Not only the tin, a very small proportion of arsenic, antimony or zinc can modify the molecular shape of copper.
Ancient metal workers through their experience understood the varied properties of amalgamated metals. Because they found some copper ores produced a metal that cast better and naturally that particular kind of metal made better and harder implements than others. Thus the early workers became conscious about the nature of the ores.
Gradually they understood that copper as a metal is rarely available in the natural state but abundantly found in various ores being mixed with rocks and other metals as copper sulphides, copper oxides, copper carbonates, etc. The metallic copper in ores is formed as a result of a prolonged contact of the outcropping copper veins and lodes with the atmosphere.
The most common compound is the copper carbonate (malachite). It was often grounded up to use as a green paint and regarded as the best source of metallic copper. Another kind of copper carbonate, which gave the blue colour, is called azurite. Besides, there are two forms of copper oxide—cuprite and melacouite and many sulpides of copper. As sulphide ores occur in deep veins and hard to find out, early people did not use them much. They have been the chief source of the metal only in recent days.
Early men first picked up the nodules of native copper either to get paint or to make an ornament. Primitive metal workers never went in search of great, concentrated deposits, not even in the period of Bronze Age when industrial use of the copper reached to the peak. However, there were many surface deposits throughout Asia and the mountainous regions of the Near East.
In Europe also, they were abundant. But the best sources are believed to be situated in Cyprus, Hungary and Spain. In Africa, the largest number of deposits is scattered in the Katanga region of the Belgian Congo and it is not known that whether they were worked before the Middle Ages.
The Tin which is essentially required for bronze, was not readily available in past. Tin-bearing strata are actually rare as well as limited to a few localities. Tin ores occur in the original deposits in veins and in the form of small crystals in the crystalline rocks known as granulite’s; it is always an oxide called cassiterite and never found as a native metal.
Moreover, as cassiterite looks like a heavy dark sand, it does not seem to be a metallic substance and so very difficult to be identified. Small and moderate deposits occur in Armenia, Syria, North-West Persia and Bengal. Large deposits are only found in Malay Peninsula, in South-East Africa and China. The principal European sources are Bohemia, Spain and the British Isles. In Africa, same old tin mines have been reported from the Northern Nigeria and Transvaal but their age is not certain.
The attrition of rock-matrices and outcropping veins by atmospheric agencies produced alluvial formations in which stream-tin occurs in the form of sand. It is only necessary to wash this alluvium in order to extract the cassiterite. This method was used in the exploitation of tin in Malaya, at Brangka, Perak, etc. places. The first metallurgists found the beds of copper and tin in a virgin state. They simply dealt with oxides and used a reducing fire of charcoal to separate the metal. This metallurgical process is still utilized in Malay with the primitive furnaces or smelting hearths.
Cassiterite is always found in a siliceous gangue, which flakes in the fire. As for the carbonates of copper, the gangue is either calcareous or siliceous; it splits with the heat. From the very early times fire was used for the disaggregation of rocks containing metals.
It is held that man discovered the alloy of these two metals by chance of favoring circumstances, which played an important role in the history of mankind. In the closed moulds, not only the bronze, but any alloy was found suitable. Most copper ores contained other metals such as nickel, lead, phosphorus, antimony, arsenic etc. as natural impurities. Presence of these different metals produced good effects on the casting process and the products.
For instance:
(a) The manufactured object if contains arsenic with copper becomes harder than pure copper and provide a more durable cutting edge. It attains a property similar to bronze objects. Warriors with bronze weapons have always found their advantage over the enemies having copper or stone weapons.
(b) When metals with a lower melting point remain mixed with copper ore, the melting point for the whole alloy automatically comes down. This property provided a great convenience to the early metal workers who worked on primitive furnaces. The melting point of pure Copper is about 1085°C whereas for Antimony it is 630°C, for Lead 327°C and for Tin 232°C.
(c) The greatest advantage is found in the process of casting. In a closed mould, it is very difficult to cast copper because explosions or cracking of the moulds often take place. But the presence of other metal with copper minimizes this difficulty.
For successful casting 10 per cent to 12 per cent tin was mixed with 90 per cent to 88 per cent copper. All weapons and tools were made with this percentage. Since the addition of higher tin percentage renders the material increasingly brittle, a content of 30% of tin was used to produce a very fragile white metal which had been very popular as mirror in that olden time.
Bronze Age has been divided into four sub-periods by the early archaeologists. They attempted to classify the objects of each period on the basis of their size, shape, tangs, sockets, blades and ornamentation. It was especially significant in reference to the site of Montelius in France.
But more and more excavations throughout the Old World exhibited that the sequences for the development of Bronze Age cultures are not similar in all places. Some types, which occurred earlier in some places, found from a later period in other places. Influences passed forward and backward in the adjacent areas but the main trend went outward from the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Prof V. Gordon Childe forwarded a new classification on the basis of usage of the metal. His classification had an academic support as he collected more evidences before presenting the classification.
He made three stages like:
(a) When the metal was used for making weapons and ornaments only.
(b) When the metal made tools for using them in various crafts and skilled trades.
(c) When the metal came into use in agriculture and rough work.
The Bronze was seldom used at the beginning for the difficulty of mining, smelting and working. It served as weapon, tool and ornaments of the wealthy people. The mass population, especially in ore-less regions, treated a bronze-piece as treasure.
It took several centuries for this new metal to diffuse from the upper classes to farmers and carpenters. Though stone tools were replaced gradually by bronze in Western Asia and parts of Europe, in China it remained confined to the limit of rich and powerful.
Bronze proved itself better for the most purposes than the materials like stone, bone, wood and shell. Different tasks like ploughing the field, felling of trees, harvesting of crop, building of houses became easy as well as quick with the help of hard metal (bronze) tools. Some Bronze implements also stood unquestionable for the domestic uses.
Numerous bronze razors indicate that the shaving of men became quite popular during this period. Vessels had been made of bronze and bronze ornaments for personal adornments also appeared in this time. Elegant bracelets and necklaces were most notable; safety pins out of bronze became plenty for the use of both men and women. A great variety of weapons developed at the same time.
Most of them began to outgrow from an old form but with time they took a distinct form. For example, the bronze Celt at the beginning was very simple; wings and flanges were added later and finally the wings had grown so large that they met to form a complete socket. Such a transformation of a Celt to an axe was complete at the last phase of the Bronze Age. In the same way, long swords grew out of the chipped-stone dagger.
In the early Bronze Age these swords were very simple in type but in the late Bronze Age they were converted into broad-bladed double-edged sword. Neolithic polished stone axe with the haft hole gave rise to beautiful decorative battle-axe. Bronze spearheads developed out of flint spearheads. Although bronze arrowheads were not absent, but the scarcity of this weapon indicates that bow and arrow lost its popularity.
In the Bronze Age, pottery became a more developed craft of skill; different local styles were evolved. But the decorative art found on jewelry, tool or pottery was not considered as pure art. Megalithic monuments continued to be built in the Bronze Age, but the practice seemed to decline, as burial in cysts became popular.
At the late phase, cremation became fashionable. In Bronze Age we further find the sea-going boats which replaced the dugout canoe in order to carry a large number of passengers. Commerce therefore got a chance to be flourished through the river ways.
Weapons made of bronze altered the warfare strategy. But it is sure that the life was not peaceful. The nature as well as the number of weapons suggests that the people preferred face to face combat with hand. Villages were like fortified camps and men used to keep arms with them.
However, the intelligence of man lifted them up from their lethal capacities. They invented defensive devices against each killing tool. Therefore, shields, helmets, cuirass etc. were built during this period. Chiefs or kings were in the habit of using the precious bronze armours. Larger settlements were grown in general; in the advanced centers of civilization great palaces of stone and plaster were found to be built.
The use of bronze in almost all countries succeeded the use of pure copper. Neolithic stone implements disappeared slowly. The copper age towns, by the processes of cultural development, invention, diffusion (trade) and migration, gradually turned into Bronze Age cities and new ones were also built. In Mesopotamia, on the agriculturally rich Tigris-Euphrates valley, Sumerian cities grew up in the place of Copper Age settlements like Sumer, Ur, Layash, Erech and Eridu.
The Sumerian culture afterwards spread to the North upto Khabur and also to the vicinity of Baghdad. Archaeologists have divided it into two phases, the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr; the names were derived from two important sites. Parallel Bronze Age cities sprang up along the river Nile in Egypt. Bronze Age cities of Egypt are better known than their Copper Age predecessors.
Bronze Age cities grew up more or less at the same time in India on the Indus River valley and its tributaries in the Punjab. Those people knew carts and the potter’s wheel and also the bronze making techniques. Some of their techniques were found identical with the Mesopotamian techniques.
The evidences of trade can be traced between Indus and Tigris-Euphrates. Bronze Age influences spread from Egypt and the Syrian coast to Cyprus, Troy and other cities in Asia Minor and also to the Greek islands and mainland where the classic Mediterranean civilizations arose. In the next phase, Bronze Age culture advanced westward through Italy towards Europe. Trade routes were maintained both in land and sea. Thus, Bronze Age spread eastern, western and central Europe and from those areas to Gaul and Britain, and finally to Germany and Scandinavia.
It is difficult to be precise about the date of the inception of bronze industry in different lands and different localities. In the ancient centers like Chaldea and Egypt it existed towards the end of the fifth millennium before the present era; in the Eastern Mediterranean it would be about third millennium before the present era. Perhaps in Gaul it reached around 200BC and in the North of Persia and Caucasus only a thousand years earlier. Nevertheless, all these estimates are merely approximate and unfortunately the documentation is not as perfect as to establish a chronology with absolute certainty.
Copper phase was not a universal phenomenon in prehistory, nor it lasted more than a few centuries. Copper Age appeared largely in those places where the natural distribution of copper nuggets was accidentally found. As soon as the use of copper was established, the discovery of bronze was followed in rapid pace. However, the copper producing zones can be distinguished into two groups.
The group in which the metallurgical knowledge had been originated by itself and the other group which gained this knowledge from foreign source. To begin with, the two Americas were ruled out. According to archaeological testimony, neither Algeria, Spain, France, the British Isles and Scandinavia, nor the Central Europe saw the Separation of first copper ingot from its gangue.
Europe witnessed a brief and fleeting era of copper. The Aegean islands Western Asia and Egypt were left. Among them, Egypt can be expelled from the group of copper-producing countries because this country probably got the knowledge of copper from Asia. The Altai and the Pamirs are equally rich in copper but the antiquity of metallurgy in both the regions does not seem to go very far. In all probability, it was the north of Western Asia where the metallurgic knowledge was first discovered.
Thereafter the knowledge, in a rudimentary state, would have gone down into Chaldea with the men who first went there to establish their settlements. Then it would have passed over to Egypt, the Phoenician Coasts and the Aegean islands i.e. the centers from which the knowledge spreaded to Europe.
Indo-china and China were favoured by nature for the discovery of bronze as plenty of cupriferous ore and Stanniferous ore were found there. But we should restrain our pen from drawing any inference until the Central Asia and China are better explored.
Although the social effect of the copper was almost nil, the full-fledged bronze technology influenced the entire culture as well as the structure of the society. As the craft of extracting ores and working with bronze required special skills, the labourers like smiths, artisans and the miners came into being. Each of them assumed a vital role in the society.
Miners and particularly the bronze-founders tended to become a set-off caste with hereditary trade secrets. So class divisions appeared in the society. Not only that, advent of agriculture itself sowed the seeds of social inequality and class-distinctions. Since all soils had not same amount of productive power, it was very likely that some particular families might produce much more crops in the field than others might.
Naturally the classification like rich and poor was already in vogue. This inequality increased sharply in the Bronze Age. Different classes like rulers, the nobles, the traders or businessmen, the artisan, the farmers and slaves came into existence. Emergence of cities was found in this Age; the copper Age towns by the process of cultural development grew up into cities.
Apart from the farmers, all other people used to live in the towns. Increase in the production of crops generated surplus food which was enough to foster the town-dwellers. The rulers and nobles living in the town accumulated much wealth in their hands and they often used to employ the bronze- smiths to acquire the products such as weapons, armour and various kinds of tools made of bronze.
As none of them produced food-grains, they were in the habit of taking crops from the farmers of the village. In lieu, they supplied the farmers some necessary things like tools, sickles, Celts, etc. This period can be said as the germination period of trade and commerce. The exchange of goods was done exclusively by barter. However, the people who lived in town had various occupations. So they had different interest as well.
The necessity of an organization was felt at this time to regulate and control the urban life. This necessity gave the rise to state. With the rise of city-states, the kingdoms became widespread; the political and economic system came into existence. Kings and priests achieved the status like God. These kings along with the priestly class were found to rule the society.
Some monumental temples were built to house the kings and priests, and all their works and wealth including the images of Gods and Goddesses. These monuments were built of stone, brick or wood, or by the combinations of these materials, depending on their availability in the locality. The commerce flowed in and out of the so-called temples.
Old barter systems was no more found suitable for active and complicated trading, so money economy was invented and great wealth was accumulated within the cities. With the increased scope of leisure and wealth, man’s intelligence flourished in different directions; art, architecture, commerce, craft, script etc. all developed at a time.
Foundation of our modern science was also laid down during this period. The knowledge of arithmetic and geometry facilitated in dealing with weights and measurements; lunar or solar calendars contributed to human attributes. On the whole Bronze Age brought revolutionary changes in the growth of cities, of states and kings, of social classes, of enduring structures, monuments and writing. All new developments were interconnected with copper-bronze metallurgy.
Bronze Age in Europe:
The European Bronze Age poses interesting features. There are no Bronze Age cities in Europe no known political unification, no writing; even the potter’s wheels were not adopted until about 1000BC when the Bronze Age was ending in Asia. Actually Bronze Age Europe continued like Neolithic Europe with a peasant – culture. But there were communal undertakings large structures, and presence of chiefs resembling the Megalithic period of late Neolithic.
A class of bronze-working smiths obviously appeared at that time but the rest of the people were the farmers. The reason for all these is that the infiltration of bronze took place in Europe after an expectable lag. In fact bronze crept to Hungary around 1900 BC, Czechoslovakia, Central Germany and Italy around 1800 BC; the Rhine, France and Britain around 1700 BC and lastly to the Baltic Shores and Scandmavia around 1500 BC.
3. Iron Age: Iron is the other metal, which gained supreme industrial importance in history. It stood as wonderful material for tools and weapons for its considerable hardness. Its standard was proved higher than the bronze and eventually the materials like stone, bone, wood and shell did not come in comparison. The second advantage was that, it could be found almost everywhere.
The sources of iron on earth are as follows:
(i) The earth’s surface contains 4 per cent to 5 per cent of iron.
(ii) There are several iron ores, which offer metallic iron in the form of iron oxides, hematite, limonite, magnetite and siderites.
(iii) Small particles of pure iron are found in the basalt rock, though they cannot be used for practical purposes.
(iv) The meteorites, which drop on the earth from the sky, also hold a large quantity of iron.
The nature of these sources indicated that except from the meteorites, iron is never available in pure state Even the meteoric iron contains 5% to 25% of nickel for which the implements escape from rust. However, the first iron objects made by man were of meteoric origin. Because, the early men could easily pick up such iron lumps. In quality, this iron is very tough but malleable.
Like bronze, iron made its appearance at different dates in different countries. But the history of iron began with the Hittites of Anatolia in the Near East. By 1000BC it spread out in all directions and became a metal for general use in Western Asia, Egypt, South Eastern and Central Europe.
Therefore it is seen that iron came into use about two thousand years or more later than bronze and in no country the passage from a bronze to an iron industry did not occur suddenly. Since iron ores were more abundant than that of copper and infinitely greater than the tin ores, a natural question came to the mind that why Iron Age appeared so late! There are several views in this respect.
Some scholars argue that the people of Near East region knew the working of iron by 3000BC, i.e. as early as bronze. But the iron objects of that era were very few and most of them were made of meteoric iron. It is still not clear that whether all iron objects came from Near East before 1500BC were made of meteoric iron or some of them were made of iron extracted from ore. If all of them were made of meteoric iron, why people of that place took so much time to learn smelting of iron ores while they made themselves easily versed to smelt copper, lead and several other ores?
Even if some of these early iron objects were found to be made of iron extracted from ore, the same question comes again. Why the general use of iron was delayed for about 1500 to 2000 years? This late coming of iron can be partially explained by its high melting point.
The melting point of iron is 1530° C which is about 500° C above than that of the copper or gold. Early metal workers were not capable of producing this high temperature; nor were they acquainted with the chemistry of iron. Moreover, for a long time they failed to recognize the spongy mass or wrought iron as a useful metal.
There were other reasons too. The bronze-workers who extended their skill to smelt iron in later period did not foresee any profit at first. Secondly, there was limitation with the softness of pre-steel iron. Thirdly, iron could not supersede the prestige value of bronze for which bronze was considered as a symbol of high rank and treated as a sacred metal.
The smelting technology of iron was much complex than copper. Furthermore, like ‘native copper’, no native iron could be obtained merely by heating. To obtain metallic iron from the ores, at first it is necessary to get rid of the oxygen or the carbonic acid with which it is generally combined.
The silica and other rocks, which form a part of the ore, have to be separated also. For this, the ore must be heated in a charcoal fire. The charcoal takes up the oxygen from the ore (in case of an oxide ore) and passes off as carbon-dioxide. On the other hand, silica gets combined with a part of the iron and goes off as slag. Rest of the iron is left as a pasty, sponge-like mass, known as ‘bloom’.
The slag generally contains the ferrous silicate but may show considerable variation for the presence of other rocks in the ore. However, it plays an important part in the technical process because as a scum it floats on the surface of the liquid iron and prevents deoxidizing which takes place in contact with air.
The slag is no longer needed after this and so a method of elimination is followed. The spongy mass is heated and hammered repeatedly until the whole slag runs out and iron forms an ingot – a solid mass. The heating and beating of the spongy lump is called forging.
Iron may be obtained in three forms:
(i) The solid mass of iron as available in the above-mentioned process is called ‘wrought iron’. It includes a little or no carbon at all. In this state, iron remains relatively soft and further malleable, so can easily be worked.
(ii) If the heat of the furnace increases more than the required temperature, instead of forming a spongy mass, the iron melts completely and flows off. Iron in this state possesses some carbon in it.
(iii) If the percentage of carbon is excessively high, the iron becomes hard but brittle. In this state the iron is called ‘cast iron’.
Primitive smelting of iron did not produce the bright liquid needed for casting. Rather it produced a dirty spongy mass with slag in it, which can then be beaten into a desired shape. The fully molten iron for casting, which needs a higher temperature, was first utilized in China, long after the beginning of the Christian era. In between, the process of carburizing (steeling) was invented around 1500BC in the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountain, not far from the area where first invention of bronze had taken place. In forging a bar of wrought iron, constant reheating was required.
If the smith reheated the bar by thrusting it into the heart of a charcoal fire and if the heat was more than sufficient, the outer surface of the bar would became carburized to a depth proportionate to the length of the treatment and heat of the fire. Therefore the surface of the bar became steel and this hardness increased the efficiency of iron.
The regions namely Near East, India and Far East are still considered rich in iron. India seems to have a tradition of early iron working as it appeared in megalithic graves. Huge forged column up to 42 feet high, weighing about ten tons are found in the North. But unfortunately no archaeological or historical evidence justifies the fact that iron has been in India from before the beginning of Christian era Iron Age reached its peak in the great classical civilizations of Greece, Rome, China and India.
In Europe, Iron Age culture appeared in 650BC where the first phase is known as Hallstalt A or Hallstalt I named after a famous cemetery site in the Austrian Alps. But the arms and implements of Bronze Age continued to be used long after the Hallstalt forms came in. Superiority of the Hallstalt models was recognized and so their forms were copied in copper alloys.
Objects of Iron Age comprises of long, slender daggers and swords made of iron which occur along with lance and bow-arrow. The iron swords and daggers are remarkable for the shape of their hilts, which often have horns, and a conical pommel of characteristic appearance.
The celts and scythes are the other propagators of iron industry. Iron objects and implements of a later date have been found from Italy, Spain and Central Europe. They exhibited considerable change and modifications resulting from the influence spread out through Eastern Mediterranean. In the New World, in Oceania, in Polynesia and also among the Tribes of Siberia, the appearance of iron is quite recent.
No compulsive stages have been identified in the succession of stone, copper, bronze or iron, for example, Negro Africa and Japan have skipped the Bronze Age altogether and passed directly from Stone Age to Iron Age. The works of Negro blacksmiths are so great that some scholars think that iron work may have begun in Africa a long time ago. Some old mines are also present there. But it is a matter of disgrace that no archaeological proof exists in this respect.
It is also believed that a camel was brought to Northwest Africa from the desert of Sahara by trade about some centuries after the birth of Christ. Iron presumably reached to Negro Africa after this event. Although the most primitive method of securing the metal is still practised among the African Negroes, but nearly all peoples of Negro Africa use iron. Some scholars argue that the Negroes of Africa developed the art of iron-working quite independently.
The discovery of iron opened a new horizon xo man. As a hard metal it became very useful in cultivation; agriculture could not make expected headway with the soft metals like copper and bronze. The discovery of iron supplemented the handicaps of the ‘copper-bronze’ Age.
As a matter of fact, iron brought about many changes in the methods of production and increased the yield of crops. As iron was easily available at a cheap price, any peasant could afford iron implements necessary for his agricultural work. Besides, iron led to the manufacture of different vehicles and vessels, which facilitated communication with foreign lands through trade and commerce. As a result, the civilization of Iron Age spread much more widely and over a much vaster area than that of the ‘copper-bronze’ Age. Types of industries increased in number and workshops became larger, employing more and more men.
The growth was linked up in a chain. Introduction of the cheap iron plough paved the way for extensive cultivation that yielded a higher food-crop. This increase led the population to grow very fast into the hundreds of thousands. As a consequence, cities began to increase in size with many acres of parks and gardens.
New empires and trading groups arose. Society became further divided into certain classes as the aristocrats, the middle-class people, the peasants and the slaves. The big landowners were the aristocrats; the middle-class people of those days were comprised of traders or businessmen and the craftsmen. The peasants still used to live and cultivate in the villages with cheap iron implements.
The slaves belonged to the lower rung of the social ladder; slavery as a system was widely known in this age. On the other hand, the issues of conflict increased a lot. The need of powerful ruler was felt to prevent the situation and therefore kingship made its appearance.
The invention of true alphabets in the Iron Age brought the possibility of literacy to all classes. In the Bronze Age, the literacy was confined to the priests, officials and clerks only. The arrival of the alphabet instead of hieroglyphic or cuneiform scripts made it possible for all to receive at least elementary education with minimum effort.
Side by side, stamped coins of standard type was invented. This replaced the use of silver-bar, which seemed to be awkward to handle and difficult to manipulate for purposes of fraud. The development of coined money though could not improve the financial condition of the poor but it undoubtedly signified a better medium of exchange useful for minor transactions at the market places.
A peasant hereby could earn money by selling his surplus foodstuff and purchase any commodity after his liking. Increased production, transport facilities and invention of coin – all contributed to the improvement of trade and industry. Thus, man marched gradually towards the higher civilization.
Our 99% followers sometimes ask ---why do you think MOVING FORWARD takes us back to 1000BC----or why are you talking about religious structures from 3000BC when our global banking 1% FREEMASON LITERARY STARS are taking us back to 1000AD medieval Europe?
THE PHYSICIAN takes ROB J to PERSIAN medical schools where today's TRAPPER JOHN and HAWKEYE would have been admitted to become the BEST PHYSICIANS. But MOVING FORWARD today does not take us to the advances of medieval PERSIA-----it seeks to take 99% US AND GLOBAL 99% of citizens back to 3000BC where all that is available are HEALTH SPAS------BARBER SURGEONS -----knowing only the most primitive of medical procedures. The name of the SPA in PHILADELPHIA has it correct------MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE WORLD HEALTH will kill all US and European standards of public health care available to all 99% WE THE PEOPLE and fill with myth-making FAKE DATA as our only source of information on what the heck happened to first world developed nation MEDICAL STANDARDS AND HEALTH ACCESS.
THE PHYSICIAN as we stated creates a story to make us love and respect the protagonist ROB J as he is used to promote global banking 1% medical FADS and societal changes. That is why we see continuous mention of ROB J and PERSIAN medical schools and use of HERBAL remedies -----AND it is why the entire book focuses on ROB J fighting against medieval religious norms. ROB J pursues his passions not caring who is harmed----making any harm OK because he would serve as a PHYSICIAN like HAWKEYE and not as a BARBER SURGEON. This blending of DARK AND LIGHT in moral values is what global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS do in promoting continuous wars---sacking and looting of civil societies----TELEMEDICINE----its all about EXCEPTIONAL TECHNOLOGY that will help the poor----it not about BILLIONAIRES WANTING TO BE TRILLIONAIRES.
THEY ARE TAKING EVERYTHING BUT THE HUMAN BONES FROM DYING PATIENTS IN US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES -----
Oh, really???? You don't think BARBER SURGEONS will use human bones for profit?
PI -64, Rev 2, 11/2011
RM -1632
READ BEFORE USING
DBX
Demineralized Bone Matrix
Putty
DONATED HUMAN TISSUE
`
CAUTION: DEVICE IS FOR SINGLE PATIENT USE ONLY.
Aseptically Processed. Passes USP <71> Sterility Tests.
DBX Putty Is Not Terminally Sterilized.
DESCRIPTION
DBX Demineralized Bone Matrix Putty is processed human bone that has been
demineralized and combined with sodium hyaluronate, which is a naturally derived material
not of animal origin that is both biocompatible and biodegradable. The combination of
demineralized bone and sodium hyaluronate results in a putty-like consistency for ease and
flexibility of use during surgical application.
OSTEOINDUCTIVE POTENTIAL
DBX
Demineralized Bone Matrix is osteoconductive and has been shown to have
osteoinductive potential in an athymic mouse model. Every lot of final DBX
Putty product is
tested
in vivo
or in an alkaline phosphatase assay, which has been shown to have a positive
correlation with the athymic mouse model, to ensure the
osteoinductive potential of the final
product. Standard testing performed
in vivo
or by the alkaline phosphatase assay must prove
positive for lot release. It is unknown how the osteoinductive potential measured
in vivo
or
by the alkaline phosphatase assay, will correlate with clinical performance in human subjects.
INDICATIONS FOR USE
DBX Putty is intended for use as a Demineralized Bone Matrix for voids or gaps that are not
intrinsic to the stability of the bony structure.
DBX Putty is indicated for treatment of
surgically created osseous defects or osseous defects created from traumatic injury.
DBX Putty can be used as follows:
Extremities
Posterolateral spine
Pelvis
Ridge augmentation
Filling of extraction sites
Cranium
Craniofacial augmentation
Once our morals and ethics kill all respect for the human body as sacred ------then as with global banking 1% global human slave trading where people are not sovereign CITIZENS but HUMAN CAPITAL-----then the lives of our 99% WE THE PEOPLE are worth nothing ----lambs are more valuable then sheep after all.
Weird Stuff
10 Disturbing Products Derived from the Human Body
Jess Ward December 25, 2012
The human body – thing of wonder, grace, and raw materials. Aside from traditional organ and tissue transplants, human “material” is also being utilized in common products you wouldn’t even suspect. Apparently the guys from Fight Club were on the right track. We are animals after all, right? Researchers have even found practical uses for all of the interesting substances that humans excrete. The following products prove that if you think hard enough, even poop has potential in a free market.
10
Hair Sunglasses
Nothing says cool like hair in your face. It’s even cooler when the hair isn’t yours. These funky biodegradable shades feature assorted colors and styles, all crafted from resin and human locks. Designers Alex and Azuka out of Studio Swine envisioned the glasses as an experiment in sustainability because the world is just way too hairy for its own good. The manufacturers even tout that the glasses are made according to green standards.
9
Tooth Knuckles
Teeth have been a common item found in jewelry since cave dwellers made necklaces from bear and wolf canines. Nowadays, when you need to pack a little extra in your punch, artist Polly van der Glas has the answer: knuckle dusters made from human molars. The teeth are collected from consenting individuals who are apparently happy to part with their only means of chewing. The silver-encased chompers are perfect to have on hand if you forgot the baby food and need to mash something on the spot. The big question is: do they need to be brushed and flossed regularly?
8
Blood sculpture
If you’ve ever thought that making a giant popsicle of your head was a great idea, you should be friends with Marc Quinn. The sculptor makes a new noggin every five years with 9 pints of his own blood (roughly equivalent to the amount circulating through his body). It takes him about five months to safely withdraw enough life juice to fill the head mold. A national gallery in the UK actually purchased his 2006 version, shelling out nearly half a million bucks for his bodily treasure.
7
Human leather
What do you get for someone who has everything? Human leather, of course. One company in the UK brazenly fashions leather wallets, belts, and shoes from donated skin. According to the website, the small grain size of human hide creates leather superior to any other animal skin put through the tanning process. Their discerning customers pay thousands of dollars for these products, prefer anonymity even when it comes to photos of the items, tend to like lotion and watch quite a bit of Silence of the Lambs.
6
Fat fuel
New Zealand ecoboat Earthrace took a carbon-free journey around the world using only biodiesel, some of which was generated from human fat. The skipper and a few other committed volunteers initially endured liposuction for the cause. Though the boat did not travel exclusively on donated love handles, proponents of human fat biofuel are quick to point out that the potential from liposuction leftovers is virtually untapped and otherwise wasted. Unless you know how to make soap.
5
Mummy paint
Back before people actually cared about what sort of hazardous substances they slathered on the walls, Egyptian mummies were ground and mixed with white pitch and myrrh to create the classic shade “mummy brown.” The hue was highly regarded by Pre-Raphaelite painters. When people caught wind of what the paint was made from, popularity died down a bit. However, manufacturers continued to produce the original recipe until the mid 20th century when they ran out of mummies. Bummer!
4
People gelatin
The magic of genetics and ingenuity of the Chinese is soon to bring the world better Jello. Because traditional gelatin is derived from cows and pigs, it has the potential to be tainted with crazy contaminants like Mad Cow. Consumer food allergies are also more common with animal-based gelatin. The new jiggly stuff is generated by combining human DNA with yeast to make a more chemically stable substance that is both safer to eat and can be systematically mass produced. That is, until the Jello evolves and starts fighting back.
3
Fertility Drugs
Pee is pretty popular in the pharmaceutical sphere. One of the compounds found in urine – urea – is amazingly versatile and appears frequently in many products from cosmetics to diabetes medication. But one fertility drug in particular is literally made from the pee of post-menopausal women. Coveted hormones are extracted from the golden liquid and administered primarily to women to combat fertility issues. Though less common, the same drug also encourages sperm production in dudes.
2
Masato
Generally speaking, it’s not good form to spit into someone’s drink. But in Amazonian Peru, guests are treated to a traditional drink that is laden with saliva. The drink, called masato, is home brewed from the root of the cassava plant. Chunks of peeled cassava are chewed up by the local ladies and the liquid portion spat back into a vat. Certain proteins in the saliva initiate fermentation and a few hours later the result is a cloudy white drink with a slightly sweet but sour taste. The alcohol content of masato varies dramatically from the time it was made as the liquid ferments, converting starch to sugar to alcohol. But it still has spit in it. You can’t cover that up with a mixer.
1
Stool Transplant
When antibiotics failed to help individuals with severe cases of Clostridium difficile (or C. diff), poop came to the rescue. Graciously donated feces are scooped, tested, and then pureed with saline and administered (via the mouth or butt) to patients who need help with their intestinal flora. The pesky bacteria C. diff can cause GI distress, fever, and even death if left untreated. The implanted poop reestablishes healthy microbes in the gut. Even though stool transplants have been on the edge of mainstream until now, practicing physicians have found them to fairly effective in cases where drugs just aren’t working. Some advocates even go so far as to suggest that poop donation centers will make an appearance as cases of C. diff continue to strike younger populations.
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We see below the MORAL values that existed even in 3000BC placing respect and an attachment to the DIVINITY of that day-----our human body.
There was plenty of knowledge in 3000BC of how to use animal bodies for everyday materials------yet, they chose to respect the human body. Civilized societies have always protected against the degradation of what it is to be human------the stigma of human cannibalism-----
GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS see our 99% WE THE PEOPLE as human capital----the body is property from which to profit-----whether white, black, or brown citizens. When our 99% of CITIZENS allow ourselves to be global corporate campus HUMAN CAPITAL----our human bodies become more valuable then our living bodies---especially when MOVING FORWARD artificial intelligence and robotics end our ability to be employed as workers.
THE PHYSICIANS did a great job in characters respecting the moral and ethical treatment of the human body because they were CIVILIZED.
Tomb Of Newgrange - Irish History 3000BC Neolithic Burial Tomb
youtube.com
It did not take a rocket scientist to KNOW deregulation of organ transplant and tying it to predatory, profiteering global health systems would create a GLOBAL HUMAN ORGAN TRAFFIC CARTEL. We KNOW as well, deregulating and breaking thousand-year old respect for the human dead body will end in creating motives to MAKE OUR 99% OF US AND GLOBAL CITIZENS DEAD.
The goals of MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1% tied to health care takes us back to 3000BC where respect for our human body disappears------respect for building civil societies that value 99% of people as productive citizens able to work, earn a living, be members of society disappear.
So, there are no WINNERS in MOVING FORWARD desecrating the human body ------only the global 1% will appoint BARBER SURGEONS as medical staff making sure no TRAPPER JOHNS or HAWKEYES can be found to curtail MEDICAL PROFITEERING.
Organ Harvesting, Human Trafficking, and the Black Market
March 23, 2016 by Dianne Small-Jordan
Corneas are among the most common harvested organs.
Image by nacu
When families or individuals are tired of spending years on a medical waiting list, they sometimes purchase body parts – kidneys, eyes, lungs, heart, limbs and more – for transplant on the black market.
It sounds like science fiction, but organ harvesting is an unfortunate fact in the criminology world of today.
Organ Harvesting and Human Trafficking
Organ harvesting has been tied to human trafficking and has become a booming business in the 21st century on a global scale.
It is a criminal offense to traffic body parts, or perform transplants from any source not legally affiliated with a hospital or other medical facility, but legality doesn’t deter either side of these transactions.
Notably, quite a lot of illegally-trafficked body parts are harvested by any means necessary, and are gladly received, no-questions-asked, by the person willing to pay top dollar for a kidney, a heart, or a hip.
Illegal Organs: Supply and Demand
According to the American Transplant Foundation, 123,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list to receive an organ. Every 12 minutes a new name is added to the list and an average of 21 persons per day die due to a lack of organ availability. Corneas, kidneys, liver, lung, intestines, bone marrow are the most common transplant needs.
FOLKS-----21 PERSONS DYING A DAY FROM UNAVAILABLE ORGANS PALES TO THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE GLOBALLY KILLED IN EFFORTS OF CARTEL ORGAN HARVESTING. PLEASE LET THE STRUCTURE HAVING BEEN IN US LAST CENTURY WORK AS IT SHOULD.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data of Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network reports 121,333 currently awaiting organ transplant of which 100,402 are waiting for a kidney. Only 30,970 transplants actually took place (legally) in 2015. According to the World Health Organization, America is one of many organ-importing countries and by the use of the web, patients can get transplant packages from $70 to over $160,000.00.
USA Today conducted an investigative report in 2006 and found that illegal body harvesting is very lucrative in the U.S. due to the high demand of body parts. The investigation revealed that from 1987- 2006 (19 years), over 16,800 families had pursued lawsuits stating that their loved ones body parts were illegally sold for an estimated $6 million dollars. That amount is based on figures obtained from federal and local investigators, public organizations and medical universities.
Where do the organs come from? Willing donors, in some cases. An NBC Chicago investigative reporter found that people even boldly advertise their kidneys for sale on Craigslist. The investigation revealed that hundreds of people in Illinois were willing to sell their kidney for a few thousand dollars. After discovering a Chicago area man who was offered $30,000.00 for his kidney and received several hits in one month, they went undercover posing as a person willing to sell a kidney and exchanged emails from organ brokers as well as doctors who were willing to perform the transplant for a fee.
Unfortunately, many people become victims of the illegal organ trafficking industry as well.
Doctors use ice to keep organs from decomposing before a transplant. Image by Elvis Santana.
Organ Trafficking Laws and Offenders
Organ trafficking is a form of human trafficking and is an organized crime.
According to the UN Gift Hub, organ trafficking falls into three categories:
(1) Traffickers who trick the victim into giving up an organ for no cost, (2) Con artists who convince victims to sell their organs, but who do not pay or who pay less than they agreed to pay, and (3) Doctors who treat people for ailments which may or may not exist, and remove the organs without the victim’s knowledge.
The organ trafficking trade involves a host of offenders. As the UN Gift noted, there is a recruiter who seeks out the ‘donor,’ there is a transporter of the organs, there are staff of the hospital or clinic that receives the organs, and of course the medical practitioners who perform the transplants. There are also middlemen, contractors, buyers and the banks that store the organs/tissues.
Decoded Science interviewed a former transplant clinical researcher for a major hospital, who spoke with us under condition of anonymity. He stated he had encountered cases where people bought their organs from people willing to sell. He shared an experience of an elite Saudi Arabian who arrived at the hospital for a kidney transplant accompanied by a young man he claimed was his brother. Testing showed no genetic match. The researcher later found out that the Saudi elite had paid the young man $50,000.00 in U.S. money for his kidney. Our source also noted that even though there is a waiting list for organs, favoritism does occur, and money can get someone moved up on the list fairly quickly.
Ann Cheney, author of Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains stated “Today we aren’t robbing graves but we are violating corpses, we are failing to carry out donor wishes, and we are putting patients at risk- all because we have been disturbingly complacent about what happens to people’s bodies when they die.”
Real Life Body Snatcher
According to NBC New York, Levy Rosenbaum, known as the “Kidney Broker” was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison and was the first proven case of organ trafficking. His indictment came from an FBI sting operation from the black market sale of 3 kidneys for a total of $410,000.00. Rosenbaum recruited poor Israeli donors who sold him their kidneys for $10,000.00 and re-sold the organs to Americans for over $120,000.00 each. He told undercover FBI agents that he arranged for a lot of transplants and sold them to the Albert Einstein Medical Center and Hospital where he acted as a facilitator for donor matches for Israeli patients from 1999-2000.
Killing To Give Life
In addition to con-artists and unscrupulous doctors, there are also extreme cases in which people are outright murdered for their organs. Every year, there are suspicious deaths, in which the victim had their organs removed.
- 2012 – Vance Anderson, 51 year old painter of Philadelphia, died at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia due to complications from a lung condition. By time he his mother was to claim his body for burial, his eyes, heart, brain and pancreas were removed. The explanation given was that the organs were “donated for education” – but this occurred without the family’s consent. (Philly.com)
- 2013- Kendrick Johnson, 17 year old student of Georgia, was found dead inside of a mat at his school, the death was ruled an accident. When his parents demanded an independent investigation, a second autopsy revealed that his internal organs, brains, lungs, liver were missing, and the cavities were filled with newspaper. (WSBTV)
- 2014- Ryan Singleton, 24 year old of Georgia, went to California in pursuit of acting jobs. His body was discovered in Death Valley with multiple organs removed. (Eyes, heart, lung, liver, and kidney were missing) The rest of his body remained intact. The investigators told his family that his organs may have been eaten by a wild animal. (WGNTV)
- 2015 – Nicholas Rodriguez, 24 year old California State Prison inmate was found after a 15 hour prison riot in a garbage can in the shower next to his cell. His body was almost cut in half and his abdominal and chest organs were removed. This mutilation occurred in a medium security prison with surveillance. (Huffington Post)
The FDA is the regulating body on the buying and sale of organs, body parts, however it is the FBI who has made many arrests. Who is protecting your body – or the body of your loved ones?
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'Many of us dream of living on other planets, but are two things we'll need before it can actually happen: money and raw materials'.
OH, REALLY???? You mean those romanticized fictional HOLLYWOOD STAR WARS STAR TREK missions have fooled our 99% US and global citizens as to the realities of life in space?
CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now TRUMP are MOVING FORWARD any societal FAD that makes people believe there is social benefit from HUMANS BEING MADE CAPITAL and advancing policies tied to extreme wealth and extreme power.
The technology for mining meteors was of course global banking 1% goal through OBAMA----that technology is not as advanced as building ELEVATORS to the MOON. Please be careful of what we see today being allowed to be printed in captured, global banking media selling FAKE NEWS AND DATA.
The data created last century from research conducted by HAWKEYE REAL PHYSICIANS and medical professionals already documented the damage exposure to planetary solar radiation especially microwaves does----and the costs of building structures to protect HUMAN CAPITAL who global banking 1% could care less live or die----will not be expended.
WHETHER REVENUE EXPENDED TO PROTECT OUR 99% WE THE PEOPLE FROM SMART CITIES MICROWAVE ENVIRONMENTS TODAY -----OR TOMORROW'S SPACE COLONIES----THERE WILL BE NO PUBLIC HEALTH IN MOVING FORWARD.
Barber surgeons tied to global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS will flay the skin from a human to make that ROBOT more human. So, global banking 5% players are educating as THE BODY IS A TEMPLE while MOVING FORWARD the human body is corporate property to be used for profiteering.
What started as a well-regulated organ transplant tightly controlled by HAWKEYE/ROB J PHYSICIANS requiring equal opportunity and access was made the worst kind of brutal corruption where organs are now bought at the highest price by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA installing BARBER SURGEONS and removing our REAL PHYSICIANS.
So, we already KNOW what will happen as every human organ and body part now has a price as MEDICAL PARTS.
THE BLOG
05/19/2010 09:33 am ET Updated Dec 06, 2017
Unplugging From Your Medicine Cabinet: Respecting the Body’s Intelligence
By Dana Ullman Huffington Post
It may be time to go on a special type of vacation: a drug vacation.* A drug vacation is a time in which you reduce the doses or eliminate entirely whatever drug or drugs you are taking. A drug vacation may give you (and your doctor) an opportunity to learn whether you really need to continue taking this drug or not. More important, this vacation will give your body an opportunity to manifest its everyday self-regulating and self-healing propensities without the crutch of a pharmaceutical agent inhibiting or suppressing its important work.
IF you are ready, step away from the medicine cabinet. You may not even recognize it, but you may be addicted to one or more of the drugs there. It may be time that you received an intervention, though this time, you should probably intervene on yourself rather than have anyone do it for or to you.
You may have noticed but your body has become accustomed to these drugs, and you’ve probably have had to increase the dosage over time, though you probably also noticed that various weird symptoms emerged when you did so. You then probably chose to increase it on some days and decrease on other days, in the hopes that they will still work, though some people may wonder if they are really helping or not.
You’ve probably also experienced other symptoms and syndromes for which you’ve been encouraged to take additional drugs. If you’re smart enough, you’re wondering what interactions the drugs have. Your doctor has told you that “there are no problems” taking two, three, four or five medications together, but he cannot point to ANY research that has ever studied that question.
In any case, with the increased number of pills or the higher dosages, you, like Alice in Wonderland, may seem to be walking twice as fast but remaining in the same place (or are going backwards). Over the years, you’re probably noticing that you are having decreased amounts of energy, increased anxiety or depression, new symptoms, including some real strange ones, and in general, you’re not feeling like your “old self.”
Put down that aspirin, acetaminophen, or other pain medication. Don’t open that bottle or box of allergy medication, sleep aid, headache drug or whatever and step away from the medicine cabinet.
Why Unplugging Works
The logic and wisdom of “unplugging” from various stressors in your life is that there is an inherent intelligence of our bodymind that continually strives to defend and heal ourselves. Living systems have certain innate self-organizing and self-healing propensities, and unplugging is simply an important strategy that enables your bodymind to work its every-day magic as it manifests its magnificent survival strategies.
Sadly, many of us are so arrogant that we think that we are smarter than our own bodies. We think that we can do better than what nature has provided us. The idea that we can or even should “conquer” nature is so 19th century. Some people today actually think that our bodies are not very smart and that we could and should overcome its weaknesses by the use of pharmaceutical agents that can rid the body of its symptoms.
The fact of the matter is that our symptoms are our body’s best efforts to defend and heal ourselves from infection, environmental assault or any type of stress. Drugs that suppress our symptoms may provide short-term benefits, but they usually inhibit our own self-healing and self-regulating functions.
Ultimately, from a purely pharmacological point of view, drugs do not have “side effects.” Drugs only have “effects,” and we arbitrarily differentiate those effects of the drug that we like from those that we don’t like (and we then call these latter symptoms the “side effects”).
The lesson here is that just because a drug is effective in getting rid of a symptom does not necessarily mean that this treatment is truly curative, and in fact, the elimination of the body’s symptoms may cause more long-term harm than good.
Wisdom of the Bodymind
The basic assumption behind the broad field of natural medicine is that the human body has an inherent wisdom within it that strives to defend itself and to survive. Symptoms of illness are not simply something “wrong” with the person, but instead, symptoms are actually responses and efforts of the organism to defend and heal itself against infection and/or stress. Hans Selye, M.D., Ph.D., the father of stress theory, once asserted, “Disease is not mere surrender to attack but also the fight for health; unless there is a fight, there is no disease.”
Our human body has survived these thousands of years because of its incredible adaptive capabilities, and one of the ways that it adapts is through the creation of symptoms. Whether it be through fever and inflammation, cough and expectoration, nausea and vomiting, fainting and comatose states, and even the variety of emotional and mental states, each symptom represents the best efforts of the bodymind in its effort to fight infection and/or adapt to physical and psychological stresses.
Although symptoms may be the best effort of the organism to defend itself at that time, it is not usually effective to simply let the body try to heal itself. Most often, some treatment must be provided to help nurture, nourish and augment the body’s own wisdom. The challenge to physicians, healers and patients is to determine when to help aid this inner wisdom of the body and when to intervene to make certain that the body does not harm itself.
The word “symptom“ comes from a Greek root and refers to “something that falls together with something else.” Symptoms are a sign or signal of something else, and treating them doesn’t necessarily change that “something else.” Ultimately, a symptom is a signal, a warning light that something is off-balance. It is akin to an oil warning light in your car. Although this light will go off if you unscrew the lamp, this simple action doesn’t solve the more complex problem that led to the light turning on in the first place.
Concepts in new physics offer further support for the notion that living and non-living systems have inherent self-regulating, self-organizing and self-healing capacities. This ongoing effort to maintain homeostasis (balance) and to develop higher and higher levels of order and stability have been described in detail by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ilya Prigogine in Order Out of Chaos, Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point, and Erich Jantsch in The Self-Organizing Universe. In systems thinking, “perturbations” are understood as efforts of a system to re-establish balance and to increase its complexity so that there is greater dynamic homeostasis.
Please know that I am not “Pollyanna-ish” about the wisdom of the bodymind. In other words, as much as I respect the innate intelligence of the human body, I also recognize its limitations. Although the human body has magnificent self-regulating, self-healing propensities, it is usually not enough to “let the body heal itself.” Usually, one needs to nurture and nourish the wisdom of the body. Various naturopathic strategies and homeopathic medicines help to augment this wisdom. The fact that homeopathy has been called “medical biomimicry” and “medical aikido” helps us to better understand why it is so effective. By using a medicine to mimic the body’s own wisdom, the body is better able to defend and heal itself.
It is no coincidence that two of the very few conventional medical treatments that augment the body’s own immune system are immunizations and allergy treatments, and these drug treatment modalities “coincidentally” derive from the homeopathic principle of similar (treating “like with like”).
However, in order for naturopathic and homeopathic medicines to work most effectively, it is sometimes necessary to diminish or eliminate those drugs that suppress symptoms and thereby inhibit the body’s own self-healing tendencies. Is it time that you took a vacation from your medications? In so doing, you may finally be giving your body an opportunity to express its own defenses and to heal.
* I am primarily referring to taking a vacation from over-the-counter drugs, but if you’re taking prescription drugs (Rx), I suggest you to talk with your doctor about creating a plan to diminish the doses of whatever drugs you’re taking, with a goal of stopping the medication(s) for a period of time, if possible and appropriate.
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The killing of all world religions as a goal of MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE has us referring to a 3000BC HINDI/BUDDHIST religion looking much like our 3000BC ancient Greek gods and goddesses where KINGS/QUEENS were the human relatives of those gods -----and the 99% of WE THE PEOPLE existed as property to be used any which way.
We always state that MOVING FORWARD ENDING WORLD RELIGIONS has a goal of creating a new world religion that LOOKS somewhat like our HINDI/BUDDHIST----but that is not what will be installed. The goal of making 99% WE THE PEOPLE think leaving EARTH while living to be transported to a SPACE COLONY is somehow placing us closer to the COSMOS higher being whatever global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS make that higher being look like-----will be what MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE RELIGION will unfold. Before then installing far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM to kill all modern religions taking with it all our thousands of years of moral and ethical treatment of our HUMAN BODIES.
OUR TRAPPER JOHNS/HAWKEYES-----JUST AS ROB J IN THE PHYSICIAN WERE AT BEST AGNOSTIC NOT OVERLY RELIGIOUS BUT EVEN IF HUMANIST THEY HELD THOSE MORAL AND ETHICAL BELIEFS IN RESPECT FOR HUMAN BODY.
Below we see the national global banking 1% media outlet YES----being that NEW WORLD cosmos pushing societal FADS including mysticism that conforms to goals of PLANETARY MINING SLAVE COLONIES.
'The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge'.
OH, REALLY??????? A RESPECT FOR CREATION ----A NEW STORY OF ORIGIN----A RESPECT FOR MOTHER EARTH AND NATURE? THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1%.
Religion, Science, and Spirit: A Sacred Story for Our Time
Is it possible that the human future depends upon a new sacred story—a story that gives us a reason to care? Could it be a story already embraced by a majority, although it has neither institutional support nor a place in the public conversation?
David Korten posted Jan 17, 2013
“For people, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value,” Thomas Berry wrote in The Dream of the Earth. “The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.”
The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge.We live at such a moment. Humanity’s current behavior threatens Earth’s capacity to support life and relegates more than a billion people to lives of destitution. This self-destructive behavior and our seeming inability to change have deep roots in the stories by which we understand the nature and meaning of our existence. The challenge before us is to create a new civilization based on a cosmology—a story of the origin, nature, and purpose of creation—that reflects the fullness of our current human knowledge; a story to guide us to mature relationships with one another and a living Earth.
Three Cosmologies
Three distinct cosmologies have each had their influence in shaping the Western worldview. Two are familiar. The third—and most relevant to the task at hand—has ancient roots, and may in one form or another be the most widely held. It has virtually no public presence.
The cosmos is created and ruled by a Distant Patriarch. This is the cosmology most commonly associated with the institutions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It views creation as the work of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. From his home in a separate, sacred dimension called Heaven, He observes and judges our obedience to His commandments handed down to us through sacred texts and interpreted by His anointed religious authorities.
This cosmology focuses attention on our individual relationship with a personal but distant God, as expressed in Michelangelo’s famous rendering of a God portrayed in the image of man. By implication, our human relationships with one another and with nature are secondary to this primary relationship. Although some adherents believe that we have an obligation to care for God’s creation in this life and to show compassion to our fellow human beings, in many interpretations of the Distant Patriarch story, life on Earth is but a way station on the path to paradise. Nature exists for our temporary human use and comfort. Those who demonstrate their closeness to God by their pious religious observance and special knowledge of His intention properly exercise authority over the rest of us.
The cosmos is a Grand Machine.
This is the cosmology commonly associated with science. It is the standard story of Newtonian physics, evolutionary biology, and the institutions of secular academia. In this cosmology only the material is real. The formation and function of the cosmos and the evolution of life are consequences of a combination of physical mechanism and random chance. Life is an accidental outcome of material complexity and has no larger meaning or purpose. Consciousness and free will are illusions.
By this reckoning, the cosmos is much like a mechanical clock-works gradually running down as its spring unwinds. Building on the mechanistic determinism of classical physics, classical biology holds that life evolves through a combination of chance genetic mutation and a competitive struggle by which the fitter survive and flourish as the weaker perish.
According to the Grand Machine cosmology, a brutal competition for survival, territory, and reproductive advantage is the basic law of nature, and these same instincts define our human nature. Indeed, as economists of a social Darwinist perspective assure us, our competitive instinct is the primary and essential driver of human prosperity and progress. The defining debate turns on the question of whether this instinct best serves society when free from government interference or when guided by public regulation and incentives.
The cosmos is a manifestation of Integral Spirit.
This cosmology has ancient roots and a significant modern following, but lacks institutional support and public visibility. By its reckoning, all of creation is the expression of an integral spiritual intelligence engaged in a sacred journey to discover and actualize its possibilities through an ongoing process of becoming. Our world and the material universe of our experience are more than God's creation—they are God made flesh. God is in the world and the world is in God, yet they are not identical. Although the spirit is imminent, it is also transcendent, a concept religious scholars refer to as panentheism.
Brain scientists tell us the human brain evolved to reward cooperation, service, and compassion.We come to know the nature, purpose, and intention of this divine force through both our inner experience and our observation of its physical manifestation. All beings, stars, planets, humans, animals, plants, rocks, and rivers are expressions of this divine force—each with its place and function in the journey of the whole.
Contrary to prevailing theories of social Darwinism, the Integral Spirit cosmology recognizes that life is a fundamentally cooperative enterprise.
Indigenous wisdom keepers speak of the creator’s original instructions to humans to get along with one another and nature. Brain scientists tell us the human brain evolved to reward cooperation, service, and compassion—suggesting that the creative processes of evolution have programmed these original instructions into our brains and DNA.
Extreme individualism, greed, and violence are pathological and signs of physical, developmental, cultural, and/or institutional system failure. Caring relationships are the foundation of healthy families and communities. The Golden Rule common to all major faiths is a better guide to appropriate moral behavior than mechanistic rules are.
The Integral Spirit cosmology postulates that we humans participate in and contribute to the divine journey. We can apply our distinctive capacities for reflective consciousness and choice either to advance creation’s evolutionary thrust toward ever more creative possibility, or to disrupt it. Together, our individual choices determine our collective fate and shape the course of the journey far beyond our time.
We find threads of this story in the traditional wisdom teachings of indigenous peoples and the mystical traditions of all faiths, including the Abrahamic faiths. In his expression of his Jewish faith, Jesus taught, “The Kingdom is within.” Muhammad taught, “Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah."
The Integral Spirit cosmology is consistent with the findings of quantum physics, which reveals that the apparent solidity of matter is an illusion and at the deepest level of understanding only relationships are real. I find that Integral Spirit is the underlying cosmology of a reassuring number of religious leaders and devout members of many faiths, including a great many Catholic nuns, as well as most people who define themselves as spiritual, but not necessarily religious.
Why Creation Stories Matter
Our creation stories have powerful implications for our understanding of our place in the cosmos and thereby shape our most foundational values, our politics, and the distribution of power in society.
The Distant Patriarch story characterizes our earthly existence as a separation from the divine goodness and grace of heaven. Our experience in this life becomes a test of faith, a burden to be endured and ultimately left behind in an eventual ascent of the righteous to reside with the creator in paradise. This cosmology reduces the purpose of life in the present to a fear-based quest to earn credits toward a divine judgment that will determine whether our fate after death will be to join the saved or the damned. It is a perfect setup for the manipulation and exploitation of believers by demagogues.
All beings are interconnected and our fates are inextricably intertwined.The Grand Machine story strips our existence of meaning and purpose. In so doing, it supports consumerism and an ethic of individual material gratification as a distraction from the terrifying loneliness and despair of an otherwise meaningless existence. By characterizing life as inherently competitive, it provides a pseudo-scientific justification for social Darwinism, colonial imperialism, racial domination, and the unrestrained competition of market fundamentalism. It neglects the far greater role of cooperation and synergy on which all living systems—and human society, civilization, and culture—depend.
Though sharply at odds regarding the presence or absence of a spiritual intelligence, both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies affirm the self-destructive individualism and separation that lead us to behave in ways that threaten Earth’s biosphere and our future as a species.
The Integral Spirit story, by contrast, infuses all we behold in this life and beyond with profound meaning. All of creation is a sacred and ultimately unified expression of an eternal and intimately present divine will. All beings are interconnected and our fates are inextricably intertwined. As participants in and contributors to the ongoing process of creation, we each bear a sacred responsibility. Our lives take on profound meaning and purpose in relationship and service to the sacred whole.
This cosmology has the elements of the needed story for our time. It remains, however, largely a private story without the institutional sponsors that give the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies authority and public presence. The absence of institutional sponsorship helps to secure its authenticity, but the absence of public visibility limits its influence as a guide to rethinking and restructuring our human relationships with one another and nature.
Largely invisible in the public forum, it is not included in public opinion polls, leaving us with little idea of how widespread its acceptance actually is. Consequently, those of us who align with its foundational insights have no way to assess whether we are just cultural outliers or members of what may quite possibly be a cultural majority. Intimidated by our isolation, we may be reluctant to share the truth in our hearts, thus limiting our ability to share and deepen our insights and to join with others to fulfill the responsibilities to which the insights of this story call us.
Six Blind Men Describe an Elephant
Reflecting on the relationship between these three seemingly mutually exclusive cosmologies brings to mind the story of the six blind men describing an elephant. The first feels its side and proclaims, “An elephant is like a wall.” The second gropes its tusk and counters, “No, it is like a spear.” The third feels the trunk and says, “Truly it is like a snake.” The fourth feels a leg and insists, “An elephant is like a tree.” The fifth feels its ear and pronounces it to be “Like a fan.” The sixth grasps the tail and says “Nonsense, an elephant is like a rope.”
We understand and relate to our world largely through our basic senses. The spiritual dimension, however, lies beyond our limited direct sensory experience. When we seek to describe it, like the blind men groping the elephant, we turn to familiar imagery. This story is a warning that any interpretation of the infinite is likely to capture only a part of a much larger reality.
The Politics of Story Power
The mystics among the prophets, sages, and wisdom keepers of all times and traditions have discerned a spiritual order and unity in creation they could make intelligible to their followers only through metaphor. Consequently, they sought to communicate their mystical insights through easily understood stories and familiar images. Not surprisingly, the intended messages have been subject to omission and distortion as they pass from generation to generation.
Generally, for early indigenous peoples the deeper truth of creation as the expression of an integral spiritual consciousness translated into stories of an enchanted world inhabited by spirits of diverse motives and magical abilities. Matrilineal societies tended toward feminine imagery and worshiped images of the Goddess. More gender-balanced societies worshiped both a Sky Father and an Earth Mother.
With time, human societies developed large-scale institutional structures that supported powerful political and religious rulers with a considerable interest in shaping stories of divine power to serve their political interests. Stories and images of gods and goddesses as larger-than-life versions of their earthly rulers served them better than stories and images of an enchanted world of spirit beings.
The Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were each built on the foundation of a deep and profound sense of the integral spiritual unity and order of creation. Each emerged within male-dominated societies in which patriarchs were familiar figures and symbols. They naturally looked to the patriarch as their symbol for an all-knowing, all-powerful spiritual consciousness.
It was also natural that these societies placed their religious institutions in the care of men—who in turn found that it best served their political interests to favor the distant Sky Father over the imminent Earth Mother and to dismiss goddess worship as primitive and pagan. The priestly class further strengthened its power and authority by affirming sacred ancient texts interpreted by religious scholars as the sole authority on the will of God.
Eventually, the keepers of the faith conveniently forgot that the image of the Distant Patriarch was only a metaphor for the unity and order of the Integral Spirit from which all being manifests.
In its contemporary expression, the cosmology of the Integral Spirit embraces and melds insights from the frontiers of scientific observation, the world’s major religions, and the experience of indigenous peoples and mystics.Separation of the material and spiritual worlds, rejection of the feminine, and a reliance on ancient texts as the primary (if not sole) source of human knowledge and moral authority, in denial of the data of the senses, became a serious barrier to the advancement of human knowledge and understanding. As the world divided into a multitude of institutionalized religious sects and subsects, the underlying stories of the spiritual unity of creation gave way to often violent competition for market share based on "My God is the real God" product differentiation.
Newtonian science emerged as a counter to religion’s rejection of the experience of the senses in favor of explanations of events based on stories of the magical powers of mythic figures, and to the barrier this rejection posed to human advancement. To secure its integrity and authority, science embraced disciplined observation of how matter interacts with matter as its primary—even exclusive—source of knowledge and learning. This brought a new rigor to the search for order in the cosmos and lifted human understanding and technological possibility to previously unimagined levels.
Much as the priestly classes of institutionalized Western religions conveniently forgot that the patriarch was a metaphor, however, the gatekeepers of science eventually forgot that the denial of agency and free will that imposed a useful and beneficial discipline on scientific inquiry within the context of 17th-century belief systems was a choice—not a scientific finding.
A scientific culture that ignored or denied spiritual consciousness brought with it an implicit denial of life’s capacity for conscious self-direction. This in turn limited our ability to comprehend and embrace the richness, potential, and responsibilities of our nature as conscious, intelligent, self-directing participants in Earth’s interconnected, ever-evolving, ever-learning web of life.
That the reductionist story underlying most scientific inquiry to this day describes only one element of a larger reality does not invalidate the truth or utility of its contributions. It is essential, however, that we recognize how the myopia of classical scientific reductionism suppresses our sense of wonder, agency, responsibility to and for one another and living Earth, and our ability to actualize a democratic vision of the authentic popular sovereignty of self-governing peoples and an equitable distribution of power.
Integral Spirit as a Liberating Synthesis
In their current institutionalized forms, Western religion and science are both relics of an imperial past.Our future as a species depends on bringing to the fore of human consciousness a story that invites us to consider the whole of the elephant, and to relate to it in ways appropriate to both its nature and ours. The Integral Spirit story provides a core narrative.
In its contemporary expression, the cosmology of the Integral Spirit draws from the many ways of human knowing. It embraces and melds insights from the frontiers of scientific observation, the world’s major religions, and the experience of indigenous peoples and mystics extending back to ancient times. In acknowledging both intelligent agency and material mechanism, it recognizes that agency plays out in an ordered living cosmos within a framework of rules, and it clearly distinguishes between free will and license. It affirms our human nature as spiritual beings with an epic calling to advance a sacred purpose, and it frames a vision of possibility to guide us to a viable future consistent with the divine will as revealed in our most comprehensive understanding of the cosmic unfolding.
Contemporary Western culture presses us to choose between the institutions of religion and science as our primary source for understanding our human nature, purpose, and possibilities. In their current institutionalized forms, Western religion and science are both relics of an imperial past. Both define themselves by stories that support the prevailing systems of human domination of one another, other species, and Earth. Each resolutely defends its claim to being society’s ultimate and final intellectual and moral authority and clings to its own self-limiting cosmology as the only valid story.
Despite their imperial legacy, the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies are both the product of efforts to discern and describe critical elements of the larger story of the Integral Spirit. That larger story has been with us in various forms since the beginning of human consciousness.
It is readily evident why the Integral Spirit cosmology has lacked sponsorship and support from the imperial institutions that have defined the dominant human societies for the past 5,000 years. It evokes a radical vision of democratic possibility and presents a fundamental challenge to their legitimacy.
It is for this very reason that it is the story and the vision we now need to guide our way to a future in which we humans learn to live in balanced and mutual prosperous relationship with one another and nature.
Distributed Intelligence and Life’s Capacity to Self-Organize
We now know a great deal more than we have in the past about the creative capacity of the processes through which Integral Spirit manifests. We still have much to learn from and contribute to these processes, but to do so we must acknowledge and celebrate them.
We know, for example, that at every level, the cosmos has an amazing capacity to self-organize toward greater complexity and potential.
The theory of distributed cognition or intelligence suggests that multiple minds have capabilities inherently greater than does a single mind. Many interlinked personal computers have more power than a single super computer. It seems that creation learned early on to apply this principle on a grand scale in the design of the endless fractal structures of its self-organizing systems long before the arrival of humans. It is a key to the creativity and resilience of the cosmos.
Earth’s biosphere, the exquisitely complex, resilient, and continuously evolving layer of Earth life, demonstrates on a grand scale the creative potentials of the distributed intelligence of many trillions of individual choice-making living organisms, self-organizing to optimize the capture, organization, and sharing of Earth’s energy, water, and nutrients to bring Earth to life. Acting in concert, they continuously regenerate Earth’s soils, rivers, aquifers, fisheries, forests, and grasslands while maintaining Earth’s climatic balance and the composition of Earth’s atmosphere to serve the needs of Earth’s widely varied life forms.
When we see all being as a manifestation of spirit, we might think of all of the biosphere’s complex choice-making processes as occurring within the mind of God. In the ultimate sense, perhaps it does. Such a formulation, however, can obscure and diminish our appreciation of the true wonder and structure of the biosphere as a self-organizing living system.
The human body is an even more intimate example of the creative power of distributed intelligence. My body, which hosts my personal consciousness, is but one of the many trillions of organisms that together form Earth’s biosphere. It is in turn comprised of tens of trillions of individual living cells, each a decision-making entity in its own right with the ability to manage and maintain its own health and integrity under changing and often stressful circumstances.
So how do our cells decide, individually and collectively, what to do? Is there some form of conscious intelligence involved at the cellular level?Simultaneously, each cell faithfully discharges its responsibility to serve the demanding needs of my entire body on which its own health and integrity (and mine) depend. Together, these cells maintain the body’s health and integrity even under conditions of extreme stress and deprivation to create a capacity for extraordinary feats of physical grace and intellectual acuity far beyond the capability of the individual cell. Resources are shared based on need, not greed.
We are also learning that trillions of non-human micro-organisms inhabit our skin, genital areas, mouth, and intestines with essential roles in supporting and regulating our bodily functions as members of a high-functioning living community
The body’s individual decision-making resource-sharing cells and microbes are more than interdependent. Each is integral to a larger whole of which no part or sub-system can exist on its own. Together they fight off a vast variety of viruses, cancer cells, and harmful bacteria and create regulatory mechanisms internal to the whole that work to assure that no part asserts dominance over the others or monopolizes the body’s stores of energy, nutrients, and water for its exclusive use. All the while, they adapt to changing temperatures and energy needs and variations in the body’s food and water intake, heal damaged tissues, and collect and provide the sensory data to our conscious mind essential to our conscious choice making.
Another of the many impressive expressions of the body’s capacity to self-organize is the process by which its cells continuously renew with no loss of body integrity. The cells lining the human stomach have a turnover of only five days. Red blood cells are replaced every 120 days or so. The surface of the skin recycles every two weeks.
Most of this cellular and molecular activity occurs far below the level of our personal awareness. So long as we provide the essentials of nutrition, hydration, rest, and exercise, our bodies' cells fulfill their responsibilities to maintain our healthy function without specific instruction from our conscious mind.
Cells can and do go rogue, with terrible consequences. Cancer, Alzheimer’s, and leukemia are examples. Within limits, the body has mechanisms to eliminate such threats. If those mechanisms fail, the body dies and the rogue cells die with it.
So how do our cells decide, individually and collectively, what to do? Is there some form of conscious intelligence involved at the cellular level? The Grand Machine story says no; the processes are mechanical. The Distant Patriarch story does not address the question beyond the fatalistic suggestion that whatever happens is God’s will. The Integral Spirit story says yes—the capacity for conscious choice is a defining quality of life and indeed of all being.
Is the consciousness underlying the choices of an individual cell a form of consciousness that would be in any way familiar to the human mind? Probably not, but we may never know, because with the exception of mystics who have developed a capacity to bridge the barrier between themselves and the meta-consciousness, we have no recognized means to experience a consciousness other than our own, and least of all the consciousness of a single cell. What seems evident is that intelligent choice-making is a hallmark of living organisms at all levels.
One critical insight from recent findings in biology is that most of the body’s self-organization occurs at the cellular level through intercellular communication and choice-making independent of direct intervention or direction from the brain and central nervous system.
Similarly, although the biosphere self-organizes on a global scale and is subject to external influences from other celestial bodies, the locus of agency is everywhere local. The dynamic consequences of local choice-making play out through the biosphere's fractal structure and create global dynamics that in turn shape local choice-making with no evident central authority.
The separation or differentiation of consciousness is essential to creation’s incredible capacity for creative innovation, yet we see in our human experience how the illusion of separation can lead us to relate to one another and nature in deeply destructive ways. Buddhism teaches that this illusion of separation is the cause of humanity's self-inflicted suffering. To become fully functioning as individuals and societies, we must achieve a maturity of self-awareness that allows us to hold in mind the reality of oneness and at the same time honor the illusion of separation by accepting responsibility for our individual actions.
Conscious Choices
Exactly how it all works may forever remain a mystery beyond our human understanding. Based on what we do know, however, our bodies, the biosphere, and the cosmos all express as fractal structures that self-organize from the bottom up rather than from the top down—exactly the opposite of what the Distant Patriarch story suggests. And contrary to the foundational assumption of the Grand Machine story, the evidence of our daily experience, reports of mystics, and some interpretations of quantum physics suggest that intelligence—and presumably some form of consciousness—is the organizing principle of our bodies, Earth’s biosphere, and the cosmos.
When we see all of creation as a manifestation of God, of spirit made flesh, we may recognize ourselves as physical expressions of God, but not in the sense of Michelangelo’s famous painting. We may also recognize that within the scale of the cosmos, we are far from being creation’s only expression of conscious intelligence. To the contrary, we are only a tiny element of an expression so grand as to be beyond our perception and comprehension.
So what is our individual human relationship to the grand expression of Integral Spirit? This is pure conjecture on my part, but I believe there may be clues in the relationship between the individual cells of our body and our conscious mind. I know my body’s individual cells exist, but only because science tells me so. I may care deeply about their good health, yet I cannot discern the condition or function of any individual cell—let alone consciously intervene to save an errant cell from the consequences of its bad choices.
Given that my body’s cells number in the trillions, the possibility that I might have such ability defies imagination. Imagine the distraction if our minds attempted to track details of the life of each individual cell in our bodies. It is for good reason our minds are highly selective in the information to which they attune.
It seems similarly unimaginable that the living Earth is conscious of my individual existence or behavior as a human cell in its larger body. If we scale this logic to the cosmic level, it would suggest that the living cosmos is unlikely to be conscious even of the Living Earth as one of the countless celestial entities that comprise it.
There is no necessary contradiction here with the reports down through the ages from spiritual mystics who experience the melding of their human consciousness with an undifferentiated consciousness that transcends all of material reality. If all creation is a manifestation of undifferentiated Integral Spirit, then the system of distributed intelligence discernible in a living, evolving cosmos is derivative of the undifferentiated meta-consciousness
.
I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. —Albert Einstein
Perhaps the individual human consciousness, with proper training and discipline, has the capacity to penetrate the illusion of separation to experience a temporary reunification with the undifferentiated spirit. Perhaps we all have the ability through meditation and prayer to tap into the wisdom of the higher levels of consciousness from which we manifest, and thereby tap into and experience the beauty of its creative wisdom in a very personal way.
It does not, however, follow that the undifferentiated meta-consciousness has the intention, desire, or capacity to attune to us individually, to intervene in our individual or collective human lives, or to change the operant rules of the self-organizing processes of the differentiated consciousness that shape the unfolding of the cosmos or its individual elements. This is not to suggest that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence. It may care deeply with the love that some believe to be the binding force of the universe.
Consider also that as manifestations of the Integral Spirit, we are instruments of its agency. We might therefore think of the voice that replies in the course of meditation or prayer to those who succeed in penetrating the ego’s illusion of separation as at once the voice of our authentic self and the voice of God. Similarly, when we pray for divine intervention to save us from the consequences of our individual and collective choices, we in effect appeal to ourselves as agents of the Integral Spirit.
Step to Adult Responsibility
The important point is that, right or wrong, our choice of creation stories has real world consequences. If we choose to believe our fate lies with purely mechanistic forces beyond our control in denial of our own agency and responsibility, we then resign ourselves to the outcome of forces beyond our control. If we assume that a parental overseer—whether it be God, the market, a new technology, or compassionate space aliens—will save us from our foolish behavior, we likewise absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions as we await divine intervention.
Most important at this moment in the human experience is that our chosen story calls us to accept adult responsibility for the consequences of our choices for ourselves, one another, and a living Earth.If we accept, however, that we are conscious, intelligent agents in a conscious, intelligent, self-organizing cosmos, it becomes evident that our future is in our hands and the well-being of all of Earth’s children depends on our acceptance of adult responsibility for our individual and collective choices and their consequences.
Recall the Buddhist teaching that the illusion of separation is the source of human suffering. As manifestations of the spirit, we humans are instruments by which the spirit (God) expresses its agency in the material world. Thus, our appeals to God for salvation from our suffering are in effect appeals to ourselves.
The earlier assertion that evolution has hard-wired cooperation, service, and compassion into the healthy human brain does not negate our capacity for free will. Free will and the illusion of separation are both essential to our human potential to contribute to the creativity, adaptability, and resilience of a living Earth and thereby to the whole of creation. If we lose sight, however, of the interdependence behind the illusion, the sense of separation can become so terrifying as to overwhelm our predisposition for cooperation and lead to us to use our free will in deeply self-destructive ways. Free will conveys creative responsibility, not individualistice license.
If there is to be a human future, we must fundamentally reshape our cultures and institutions to work in creative partnership with the structure and dynamics of the biosphere.Whether specific details of our chosen story are right or wrong is less important than whether its overarching narrative awakens us spiritually; inspires cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships; supports a way of living that recognizes the wonder, beauty, goodness, ultimate meaning and value of life; and puts us on a path to a viable future. Most important at this moment in the human experience is that our chosen story calls us to accept adult responsibility for the consequences of our choices for ourselves, one another, and a living Earth.
Consequently, on purely pragmatic grounds, the Integral Spirit story in its many variations is the obvious choice. If wrong, we lose nothing. A clockwork cosmos could care less. A loving parent God will be pleased with our progress toward mature adulthood. If right, we avoid self-extinction, our lives take on profound meaning, and we unleash yet unrealized capacities for creative expression.
The Integral Spirit and a New Economy
Both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies contribute to a sense of detachment from life that leads to a devaluation of nature. They also lend legitimacy to an undemocratic centralization of institutional power and authority. Further, the social Darwinism of the Grand Machine cosmology lends moral authority to flawed economic theories that instruct us to value money more than life and actively celebrate the behavior and ethics of the psychopath as a cultural ideal.
Whether or not the stories themselves are the cause of the deep, self-inflicted social and psychological pathology expressed in our self-destructive relationships with one another and Earth, their broad cultural acceptance poses a serious barrier to healing.
The pathology finds its clearest expression in a greed-driven economy grounded in a financial logic that assures us we are getting richer even as we destroy the real wealth of cooperative, caring human communities and Earth’s natural living systems.
In our confusion, we forget that the only true wealth is living wealth, pay more attention to financial deficits than social and environmental deficits, and assume that the economy and business exist to make money rather than to serve life.
The living systems perspective of the Integral Spirit cosmology provides a framing story to guide our path to a planetary system of local bioregional living economies aligned with the needs and realities of the Ecozoic Era.
Transition to an Ecozoic Era
The foundational insights of the Integral Spirit cosmology hold the conceptual key to our collective passage to what cosmologist Brian Swimme and eco-theologian Thomas Berry call the Ecozoic Era, the fourth in the succession of life eras identified as the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic. In The Universe Story, they note that our passage to this new era depends on a fundamental shift in the human relationship to Earth grounded in four foundational insights:
1. “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.” (p. 243)
2. “The Earth is so integral in the unity of its functioning that every aspect of the Earth is affected by what happens to any component member of the community. Because of its organic quality, Earth cannot survive in fragments….The integral functioning of the planet must be preserved.” (p. 243)
3. “Earth is a one-time endowment….Although the Earth is resilient and has extensive powers of renewal, it also has a finite and nonrenewable aspect…Once a species is extinguished we know of no power in heaven or on Earth that can bring about a revival.” (pp. 246-7)
4. “[O]ur human economy is derivative from the Earth economy. To glory in a rising Gross Domestic Product with an irreversibly declining Earth Product is an economic absurdity.” (p. 256). [See inset: “The Integral Spirit and a New Economy”]
As Berry elaborates in an earlier lecture:
“Earth is primary and humans are derivative….
The Earth economy can survive the loss of its human component, but there is no way the human economy can survive and prosper apart from the Earth economy….There is no such thing as a human community in any manner separate from the Earth community. The human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single integral community or we will both experience disaster on the way. However differentiated in its modes of expression, there is only one Earth community—one economic order, one health system, one moral order, one world of the sacred.” [Thomas Berry, “The Ecozoic Era”]
Failing to recognize the fundamental truth of our dependence on the generative systems of Earth’s biosphere, we humans act as a reckless, predatory invasive species, the equivalent of cancer cells systematically destroying Earth’s living body. In an act of collective insanity, we have created a global civilization that depends on a non-sustainable fossil fuel subsidy to work in direct defiance and opposition to the natural structure and forces of the biosphere. This leads to the systematic disruption and depletion of the biosphere’s generative systems and thereby Earth’s capacity to support life.
To accelerate this awakening and actualize its possibilities we need an open and self-critical public conversation about the foundational stories by which we understand our human nature and purpose.If there is to be a human future, we must fundamentally reshape our cultures and institutions to work in creative partnership with the structure and dynamics of the biosphere. Is it consistent with our nature to do so? It depends on the story.
The Distant Patriarch story is ambiguous, with many contrasting versions from which to choose. The Great Machine story says no; it is our inherent nature to be individualist, competitive, greedy, and violent. The Integral Spirit story and the narrative emerging from a deeper and more contemporary understanding of evolution articulated by evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson and others say yes; humans evolved to cooperate, share, and serve.
A Big Story Connecting Three Narratives
The emerging story of creation's epic unfolding features three narratives, each flowing from one to the next.
1. The Integral Spirit Cosmology narrative recognizes the unity of creation and the contributions of our varied religious traditions, bridges the domains of science and religion, and draws from the breadth and depth of human experience and knowledge to reveal a self-organizing process that
combines order, chance, learning, and the agency of a distributed integral intelligence.
2. The Sacred Living Earth narrative builds on the understanding of the Integral Spirit narrative to present Earth as an intelligent living organism with an extraordinary resilience and capacity to learn, adapt, and innovate as it creates the conditions necessary to the emergence of ever more
complex, capable, intelligent, self-aware, and cooperative life forms.
3. The Living Earth Economies narrative builds on the Living Earth
narrative to frame a vision of and pathway to the culture and institutions of a New Economy that brings us into balanced partnership with Earth's biosphere, meets the needs of all people, and is radically democratic.
As we follow the flow of the narratives from Integral Spirit to Sacred Living Earth to Living Earth Economies we move from the transcendent to the imminent, from the abstract to the practical, and begin to discern a pathway to a viable human future ripe with meaning and possibility.
A Story for Our Time
The turning we humans must navigate to a viable future depends on a profound awakening to our nature as spiritual beings and our responsibility as participants in creation’s epic journey of self-discovery. This awakening will be partly experiential—a joyful reunion with our true nature. It will be partly intellectual—a larger and more nuanced understanding of the nature and purpose of creation and our human role in its continued unfolding.
To accelerate this awakening and actualize its possibilities we need an open and self-critical public conversation about the foundational stories by which we understand our human nature and purpose. That conversation must go far beyond an unproductive debate between doctrinaire Distant Patriarch creationists and doctrinaire Grand Machine social Darwinist evolutionists. Fortunately, the conversation is already underway in a rapidly growing number of forums sponsored by influential organizations including Contemplative Alliance, Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, Pachamama Alliance, Temple of Understanding, Wall Street Trinity Institute, and others,
Hmmmm, we are positive the above institutions being those global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS having killed MOTHER EARTH ---MOVING FORWARD more environmental devastation expanding FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---wanting to be those BRAHMIN ONE WORLD for only the global 1% ======not a good source for SPIRITUALISM----RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
That we humans seem naturally drawn to unsolved mysteries, may be a key to discovering and fulfilling our place of service to the whole.These conversations call us to reflect on what we truly believe and to examine contrasting cosmologies from the perspective of historical experience, the insights of history’s greatest teachers, the frontiers of science, and implications for the path ahead. The process is best served by a sense of humility and recognition that for all our scientific advances, we remain far from a full understanding of the deep mysteries of the cosmos.
The Integral Spirit cosmology appears to offer many of the elements of the story we seek. Yet even with its ancient roots and its affirmation and enrichment by recent breakthroughs in science, it too remains a partially developed story and we are limited to speculating on many of its elements.
That we humans seem naturally drawn to unsolved mysteries may be a key to discovering and fulfilling our place of service to the whole.
We know not where the journey leads, nor whether a final destination is even a meaningful concept. The attraction is the inherent thrill of participating in a grand creative endeavor for which participation is its own reward.
We invite you to share your own thoughts, reflections, and questions in the comment field below.
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CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA these few decades took what was the strongest of public health structures including our US medical schools built as a model of PERSIAN and EGYPTIAN best in world medical practices ----our US medical schools that used to graduate THE PHYSICIANS ----and installed to all our national HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES----our NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH----our NATIONAL CANCER SOCIETY-----and at our US state level our global banking 5% players allowed to become GOVERNORS----appointed to our state health and human services----to our county and city public health -----MEDIEVAL BARBER SURGEONS. So, from 1990s to today our US medicine became filled with global banking 1% profiteering and corruption------wealth and position replaced our strong talented and passionate HEALERS----and we have watched as these few decades of ROBBER BARON economy of stealing from the poor sacked and looted our MEDICARE TRUSTS----our FEDERAL HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MEDICAID funds privatizing all those best in world history US PUBLIC MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS to build MEDIEVAL BARBER SURGEON GLOBAL HEALTH SYSTEMS overseas in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
When we allow global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS to buy those 5% global banking freemason/Greeks living only for today ---we are allowing our US sovereignty and rights as citizens disappear and will be ruled by SOCIOPATHS tied to THOUSANDS OF YEAR OLD barbarlan laissez-faire ECONOMICS.
TODAY, IN US WE HAVE VERY FEW AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION PHYSICIANS GUILD MEMBERS----WE ARE SOARING IN MEDIEVAL BARBER GUILD MEMBERS.
We don't hear ANY open and honest discussion of goals of health and medical public policy from our US MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS and medical professionals. We hear LYING, CHEATING, and see FAKE MEDICAL DATA being sold as public benefit.
It really is EASY PEASY to return to civilized THE PHYSICIAN medical institutions aimed at all 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens----we simply need to GET RID OF GLOBAL BANKING 5% POLS AND PLAYERS. We KNOW these medical histories over thousands of years.
The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association
Frank A. Riddick, Jr, MD
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This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA) consists of three components:
- The Principles of Medical Ethics
- Ethical Opinions of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
- Reports of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.
HISTORY
The Oath of Hippocrates, a brief exposition of principles for physicians' conduct, dates from the fifth century BCE. Its statements protect the rights of the patient and oblige the physician voluntarily to behave in an altruistic manner towards patients. It was modified in the 10th or 11th century AD to eliminate reference to pagan deities and is used widely in a variety of forms to mark entry into the medical profession early in medical school or upon graduation to serve as a guide to ideal conduct for physicians.
In 1803, Thomas Percival, an English physician and philosopher, published a Code of Medical Ethics describing professional duties and ideal behavior relative to hospitals and other charities (2). At the initial meeting of the AMA in Philadelphia, PA in 1847, the two major items on the agenda were the establishment of a code of ethics and the enumeration of minimum requirements for medical education and training (3). The Code of Ethics adopted at that meeting drew heavily on Percival's Medical Ethics.
PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
The original 1847 Code retained its form, content, and principles through revisions in 1903, 1912, and 1947. A major change, with the intent of distinguishing between medical etiquette and medical ethics, appeared in the Principles of Medical Ethics adopted by AMA in 1957. This document contained only 10 short sections intended to provide a succinct expression of the basic concepts of its predecessor (Appendix A) (4).
The 1980 revision of the Principles represented an attempt to balance the dynamic tension between professional standards and legal requirements (5). It occurred in the milieu of legal actions ultimately adverse to the AMA, with judgments that its policies and acts in excluding associations between physicians and chiropractors constituted anticompetitive behavior (6). Section 3 of the 1957 Principles stated, “A physician should practice a method of healing founded on a scientific basis; and he should not voluntarily associate professionally with anyone who violates this principle.” This was replaced in the 1980 Principles by Principle V, “A physician shall continue to study, apply and advance scientific knowledge, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues and the public, obtain consultations, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated” (5). And in Principle VI the statement “A physician shall…be free to choose …with whom to associate…” appears. The 1980 Principles also introduced gender neutrality, replacing “he” and “his” with “the physician” and “the physician's” (Appendix B) (5).
The 2001 revision of Principles of Medical Ethics added two new principles. One emphasizes that a physician, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount. The other asserts that physicians should support access to medical care for all people (7). The 2001 Principles appear as Appendix C.
ETHICAL OPINIONS OF THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS (CEJA)
The Principles of Medical Ethics are intended to address the elements of ethical behavior broadly and to be subject to alteration only infrequently; “(they) are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician” (1). Ethical Opinions issued by CEJA represent application of the Principles to specific issues and areas of professional activity. The environment of medical practice is ever changing and CEJA's Ethical Opinions are often revisited in light of new professional activities, new technology and procedures, and socioeconomic changes in the organization of medical practice.
The Opinions are organized in the following sections:
- 1.0 Introduction
- 2.0 Opinions on Social Policy Issues
- 3.0 Opinions on Interprofessional Relations
- 4.0 Opinions on Hospital Relations
- 5.0 Opinions on Confidentiality, Advertising, and Communications Media Relations
- 6.0 Opinions on Fees and Charges
- 7.0 Opinions on Physician Records
- 8.0 Opinions on Practice Matters
- 9.0 Opinions on Professional Rights and Responsibilities
- 10.0 Opinions on the Patient-Physician Relationship
REPORTS OF THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS
Reports of the CEJA provide discussion of and recommend ethical policies concerning the specific issue targeted by the report. They are initiated when new questions or issues are not covered adequately by existing Ethical Opinions, e.g. cloning; when there is non-clarity about how existing ethical policy should be applied to new situations, e.g. managed care; when existing policy is questioned by the profession; or when changes in the environment of practice require revisiting previous opinions.
Typically, topics under consideration for study by CEJA are presented at an Open Forum at the biannual meetings of AMA's House of Delegates with the agenda circulated in advance. Interested individuals are afforded the opportunity to provide input and advice on the topics. Those items that stimulate interest or controversy are selected for study.
Other issues stimulating study and issuance of a Report are those referred from the House of Delegates or Board of Trustees. CEJA Reports include in-depth study of the elements of the issue in question. Drafts of proposed Reports are often reviewed by ethical or technical consultants or by other AMA Councils for comment from their area of expertise. Reports of CEJA are discussed before Reference Committees of the House of Delegates before presentation to the House of Delegates. The House may accept a CEJA Report, reject it, or refer it back for additional study and revision, but it may not amend the Report. Upon adoption of a Report, the recommendations of the Report form the basis for an Ethical Opinion of CEJA which is issued at the succeeding meeting of the House of Delegates.
THE COUNCIL ON ETHICAL AND JUDICIAL AFFAIRS
In a rough analogy between the structure of AMA and that of the Federal Government, the Officers and the Board of Trustees constitute the Executive Branch; the House of Delegates the Legislative Branch; and CEJA the Judicial Branch. Oversight of the Code of Medical Ethics resides with CEJA, which is charged with interpretation of the Principles of Medical Ethics and issuing and promulgating Opinions on ethical matters. Its opinions are not subject to approval by popular vote of the House of Delegates. In addition, CEJA is charged with interpretation of the AMA's constitution and bylaws. It has original jurisdiction in all questions regarding membership, on controversies under the constitution and bylaws and under the Principles of Medical Ethics in which AMA is a party, and in controversies between two or more state medical associations or their members. It has appellate jurisdiction in questions of law and procedure but not of fact in controversies between a constituent association and one or more of its component societies and between a member or members of a component society and that society.
Annually, each incoming President of the AMA presents a nominee for membership on CEJA to the House of Delegates, which may accept or reject, but not offer other candidates. Members serve a 7-year term and may not hold other offices within AMA during their terms. Membership, in addition to the seven senior physician members, includes a Resident Member and a Medical Student member, each eligible to serve a 3-year term so long as they are in the category of Resident or Medical Student. The prohibition against holding office, serving on other AMA Councils or Committees, or representing any association in the House of Delegates is intended to depoliticize CEJA and to help assure that AMA Ethical Policy is not subject to changes in the tide of popular vote. The Council elects its own Chair and Vice Chair.
CEJA limits its ethical pronouncements to physician activities and behavior, and AMA's Code of Medical Ethics does not purport to set standards or provide guidelines for ethical behavior for other health professions, health care institutions, purchasers or purveyors of insurance products, or those who manufacture drugs or medical equipment. This gives some limitations in this era in which forces affecting patient care are increasingly influenced by the government, complex health care organizations, insurers, and industry. It is clear that ethical precepts for physician activities and behavior apply equally to a single physician and to a practice composed of two or three physicians. It is much less clear that these precepts apply to 500 physicians in a practice governed under a corporate structure, and the interaction between expectation for physician behavior and organizational behavior remains a challenge to be addressed in future revisions of AMA's Code of Medical Ethics.
Issues addressed in recent years by CEJA Reports and subsequent Ethical Opinions include genetic testing, aspects of human cloning, conflicts of interest in clinical trials, ethical considerations in encouragement of donation of cadaveric organs for transplantation, interactions with and inducements from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, electronic communication with patients, and issues of privacy and confidentiality of patients' personal medical information. AMA ethical policies on these topics may be referenced on CEJA's website or through AMA's Policy Finder.
A recent activity is the drafting, approval, and promulgation of the Declaration of Professional Responsibility (Appendix D) (8). This document, conceived in the wake of concerns following the disaster of September 11, 2001, offers to patients a pledge that the medical profession will be available to them in their times of need. The Declaration has been ratified by almost 100 state and specialty medical associations. AMA is in the process of presenting it to organizations representing physicians in other nations for their consideration and support.
Appendix A American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (1957)
(4).These principles are intended to aid physicians individually and collectively in maintaining a high level of ethical conduct. They are not laws but standards by which a physician may determine the propriety of his conduct in his relationship with patients, with colleagues, with members of allied professions, and with the public.
Section 1. The principle objective of the medical profession is to render service to humanity with full respect for the dignity of man. Physicians should merit the confidence of patients entrusted to their care, rendering to each a full measure of service and devotion.
Section 2. Physicians should strive continually to improve medical knowledge and skill, and should make available to their patients and colleagues the benefits of their professional attainments.
Section 3. A physician should practice a method of healing founded on a scientific basis; and he should not voluntarily associate professionally with anyone who violates this principle.
Section 4.The medical professional should safeguard the public and itself against physicians deficient in moral character or professional competence. Physicians should observe all laws, uphold the dignity and honor of the profession and accept its self-imposed disciplines. They should expose, without hesitation, illegal or unethical conduct of fellow members of the profession.
Section 5. A physician may choose whom he will serve. In an emergency, however, he should render service to the best of his ability. Having undertaken the care of a patient, he may not neglect him; and unless he has been discharged he may discontinue his services only after giving adequate notice. He should not solicit patients.
Section 6. A physician should not dispose of his services under terms of conditions which tend to interfere with or impair the free and complete exercise of his medical judgment and skill or tend to cause deterioration of the quality of medical care.
Section 7. In the practice of medicine a physician should limit the source of his professional income to medical services actually rendered by him, or under his supervision, to his patients. His fee should be commensurate with services rendered and the patient's ability to pay. He should neither pay nor receive a commission for referral of patients. Drugs, remedies or appliances may be dispensed or supplied by the physician provided it is in the best interests of the patients.
Section 8. A physician should seek consultation upon request; in doubtful or difficult cases; or whenever it appears that the quality of medical service may be enhanced thereby.
Section 9. A physician may not reveal the confidences entrusted to him in the course of medical attendance, or the deficiencies he may observe in the character of patients, unless he is required to do so by law or unless it becomes necessary in order to protect the welfare of the individual or of the community.
Section 10. The honored ideals of the medical profession imply that the responsibilities of the physician extend not only to the individual, but also to society where these responsibilities deserve his interest and participation in activities which have the purpose of improving both the health and the well-being of the individual and the community.
Appendix B American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (1980)
(5)Preamble:
The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility not only to patients, but also to society, to other health professionals, and to self. The following Principles adopted by the American Medical Association are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.
- I. A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical service with compassion and respect for human dignity.
- II. A physician shall deal honestly with patients and colleagues, and strive to expose those physicians deficient in character or competence, or who engage in fraud or deception.
- III. A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient.
- IV. A physician shall respect the rights of patients, colleagues, and of other health professionals, and shall safeguard patient confidences within the constraints of the law.
- V. A physician shall continue to study, apply and advance scientific knowledge, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues, and the public, obtain consultation, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated.
- VI. A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical services.
- VIII. A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to an improved community.
Appendix C American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics (2001)
(7)Preamble:
The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility to patients first and foremost, as well as to society, to other health professionals, and to self. The following Principles adopted by the American Medical Association are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.
- I. A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.
- II. A physician shall uphold standards of professionalism, be honest in all professional interactions, and strive to report physicians deficient in character or competence, or engaging in fraud or deception, to appropriate entities.
- III. A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient.
- IV. A physician shall respect the rights of patients, colleagues, and other health professionals, and shall safeguard patient confidences and privacy within the constraints of the law.
- V. A physician shall continue to study, apply, and advance scientific knowledge, maintain a commitment to medical education, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues, and the public, obtain consultation, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated.
- VI. A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical care.
- VII. A physician shall, recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.
- VIII. A physician shall, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount.
- IX. A physician shall support access to medical care for all people.
Appendix D Declaration of Professional Responsibility
(8)Preamble:
Never in the history of human civilization has the well-being of each individual been so inextricably linked to that of every other. Plagues and pandemics respect no national borders in a world of global commerce and travel. Wars and acts of terrorism enlist innocents as combatants and mark civilians as targets. Advances in medical science and genetics, while promising great good, may also be harnessed as agents of evil. The unprecedented scope and immediacy of these universal challenges demand concerted action and response by all. As physicians, we are bound in our response by a common heritage of caring for the sick and the suffering. Through the centuries, individual physicians have fulfilled this obligation by applying their skills and knowledge competently, selflessly, and at times heroically. Today, our profession must reaffirm its historical commitment to combat natural and man-made assaults on the health and well-being of humankind. Only by acting together across geographic and ideological divides can we overcome such powerful threats. Humanity is our patient.
Declaration
We, the members of the world community of physicians, solemnly commit ourselves to:
- Respect human life and the dignity of every individual.
- Refrain from supporting or committing crimes against humanity and condemn all such acts.
- Treat the sick and injured with competence and compassion and without prejudice.
- Apply our knowledge and skills when needed, though doing so may put us at risk.
- Protect the privacy and confidentiality of those for whom we care and breach that confidence only when keeping it would seriously threaten their health and safety or that of others.
- Work freely with colleagues to discover, develop, and promote advances in medicine and public health that ameliorate suffering and contribute to human well-being.
- Educate the public polity about present and future threats to the health of humanity.
- Advocate for social, economic, educational, and political changes that ameliorate suffering and contribute to human well-being.
- Teach and mentor those who follow us for they are the future of our caring profession.
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Another reason we keep shouting MOVING FORWARD takes us to 3000BC---1000BC and not 1000AD medieval Europe can be found in THE PHYSICIAN as well. The SHAH OF PERSIA preparing to start the next round of endless wars kidnaps and brings to his court the best of SWORD AND DAGGER smiths-----being that skilled artisan knowing how to make the strongest and efficient weapons and tools from METALS.
Our ROB J winning the hearts and minds of our 99% of people he met because he was HAWKEYE PHYSICIAN and not FRANK BURNS the BARBER SURGEON-----was rewarded by this prized metal artisan with the offer of a free set of his finest weapons as daggers and swords. Of course our THE PHYSICIAN HEALER would not want to kill people in wars or disagreements ----so he asked this best of METAL ARTISAN to fashion in METAL the best of medical TOOLS.
1000 AD the time of THE PHYSICIAN was well into what we call THE METAL AGE------where today we are MOVING FORWARD to the total depletion of EARTH's metals----any METAL access has been taken by GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----even our US sovereign metal and mineral mines.
'The Stone Age persisted far and far greater period than the Metal Age whereas metal came in use only recently'.
MOVING FORWARD OUR US 99% WE THE PEOPLE AND OUR 99% OF GLOBAL CITIZENS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS METALS----EVEN IF GLOBAL BANKING 1% ARE ABLE TO ESTABLISH MOON-MINING SLAVE LABOR COLONIES.
Modern medicine has depended upon METALS from everything tied to tools, treatments, preventative devices. Our 99% WE THE PEOPLE----will not have access to METAL----we will be living in STONE AGE. We are heading here in US to a point where not one of our US 99% of citizens even if wanting to be a metal artisan will have the ability to secure METAL ORE.
ROB J's most valued possession taken with him leaving PERSIA to return to LONDON/SCOTLAND----was those crafted METAL PHYSICIAN TOOLS.
This is a long article---please glance through to remember the ERAS of HUMAN DEVELOPMENT tied to our natural resources.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE EARTH IS DEPLETED OF ALL ITS IRON, COPPER, BRONZE???
3 Major Periods of Metal Age: Copper, Bronze and Iron Age
Three Major periods of metal age in the world are as follows:
1. Copper Age 2. Bronze Age 3. Iron Age.
The cultural record of man’s existence is divided into two great periods – the ‘Age of Stone’ and the ‘Age of Metal’. The ‘Age of Stone’ preceded the ‘Age of metal’. The duration of these two periods was not equal. The Stone Age persisted far and far greater period than the Metal Age whereas metal came in use only recently.
It was first used in Asia and Egypt about 3500 BC, and in Europe about 2000 BC. Once the use of metal was recognized, the art of writing, the city-life and also an infinite variety of inventions took place which contributed to the rise of human civilization. Metal enhanced man’s mastery with stone, wood, bone and other substances.
The ‘Age of metal’ is sub-divided into two principal ages—Copper Age and the Iron Age. Bronze Age appeared between these two. Towards the end of New Stone Age (Neolithic) man acquired greater knowledge about environment and its resources.
With this advanced knowledge he proceeded for metalworking. Metals were neither easy to be found out, nor it was easy to make tools out of them Because, though some pieces of free copper or meteoric iron was available in nature, most of the metals were embedded in ores, which were difficult to use unless mining and smelting were learnt.
In fact, there were four major stages in metalworking:
(i) Mining, the discovery and collection of suitable ores.
(ii) Smelting, the extraction of pure metal from ore or from impurities.
(iii) Alloying, the mixing of different metals.
(iv) Forging or Casting, the techniques to shape the metals.
However, Copper Age was the first phase of Metal Age, which continued up to the discovery of iron i e before the beginning of the Iron Age. Iron Age dates between 1200 B.C. and 1000 B.C. which means a time of about three thousand years ago from now. Late Copper Age is considered as Bronze Age which marks the Copper Age off from the Iron Age. Metalworking is a very complex empirical science. Extraction of metal from the ore is the hallmark of metallurgy.
It demands an advanced mode of knowledge as well as technical specialization. Although man had learnt the way of making fire, but a higher temperature that was required to melt the metals, was not possible to generate with an ordinary primitive furnace.
For this a special blast furnace was required. So, it is assumed that the essentially required apparatus e.g. furnace, crucibles, tongs etc. had been invented in the ‘Age of Metal’. Although a little use of gold and silver were noted in Neolithic period, but the Metal Age is actually counted from the particular time when metal (copper) came into use in a massive scale.
Metal Age denotes the large-scale industrial use of metal. Here presence of any metal or the occasional appearance of a metal in precious ornaments is never considered. Advantage of metal is that, when hot it melts and so can be poured into a mould.
On cooling, it becomes hard and the edge of the metal implements may be made more sharp and strong than the stone implements. As writing seems to have come hand in hand with metallurgy, Age of Metal corresponds approximately with the period of history. But written records are available particularly from the Middle East and around the shores of Mediterranean; for the regions of Northern and Central Europe and also for the remainder parts of the world this record is either lacking or inadequate.
Therefore, for those cases stratigraphy is the most accurate as well as reliable method of determining the sequence and dating. Typological arrangements were considered from stratum to stratum, site by site, river valley by river valley, region to region.
Tying up with the written records, wherever possible, the final history of Metal Age was reconstructed. Various sequences of culture submitted by the archaeologists in different parts of the world were gathered to draw an over-all picture of the Metal Age in the world.
Three major periods—Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age were chalked out:
1. Copper Age: Copper first appeared in the Old World particularly in Mesopotamia. Some copper tools occurred with the late, improved Neolithic implements in the floor of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Mesopotamia. The floor of this valley at the head of the Persian Gulf had just risen above sea level when the first people came down from the Persian highlands, about 4000 BC with the culture known as Ubaid.
Those people began to drain the swamps and founded towns. A Spear-point made of native copper appeared in A1 Ubaid III period at Ur of the Chaldea. For the earliest Mesopotamians copper was scarce, still a few more implements were found there. Such findings suggested that copper implements came into use in Mesopotamia between 4000 BC and 3500 BC.
The first copper tools from native copper ore were made in the same manner as the stone tools were made in Neolithic Age. Pounding i.e. application of the method of cold hammering drew the shapes. The implements include simple flat axes and daggers. The nature as well as the limited number of the tools suggests that the people of the particular period did not know the art of smelting, casting or molding.
Knowledge of copper came to Egypt and the Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean from Chaldea. In Egypt, a pin and two beads have been found as belonging to the Badarian period, just after 4000 BC. As we meet with copper at the foundation of early civilization, so it is likely that in later period knowledge of copper spread to the other regions from its center of discovery.
As per the deduction, the principal types of copper implements reaching to Egypt and Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean, advanced further into the Mediterranean islands and thereafter into the Western and perhaps even into the Central and Northern Europe.
But by that time the nature of the implements became modified. Neolithic culture of respective region influenced them, although the principal characters were retained. However, copper reached to Gaul simultaneously from the South and the East crossing Black Sea and Aegean civilization.
Naturally it took a long time to reach British Isles and Scandinavia. Thus implements made of native copper had been in use for a considerable time in almost all countries including Asia, Europe and Africa, excepting a few countries like Japan, Oceania, etc.
Copper occurs in a native state as pure metal in many parts of the world. It also comes in various ores being mixed with rocks and other metals. But as it was hard for the early people to extract copper from the ores, they avoided using of the ores and liked to work on native copper which were widely found in the form of small masses and nuggets.
Large masses were of limited occurrence. However, the small lumps of copper, scattered on the surface of the ground used to be picked up for making implements. The earliest method of metalworking, the cold hammering, was very simple. The pieces of native copper were hammered in order to flatten them out into various shapes.
Neolithic people were the expert stone workers. So their successors came forward to experiment their craftsmanship on the pieces of copper. Since the material was metal, so constant hammering did not produce any chips as like the flint of Chalcedonv. Rather they produced different pimple stone implements of desired shape. But the principal drawback of this method was that the implements produced in this manner became very brittle. The only remedy was to heat and hammer them in an alternative way while making. The technique is known as annealing.
The next step in primitive metalworking was the learning of the procedure of extraction. It is held that in course of dealing with fire for annealing, once a lump of copper was accidentally thrown into the primitive hearth which was nothing but a stab of clay. Since there was strong fire, the copper nodule melted down. By a coincidence of most unusual kind, some intellectual brain noticed the strange change from solid to liquid.
The property of molten copper was known gradually as the people spent their energy and enterprise further on it. But smelting of copper from copper ore was not as simple as the melting of native copper nodules by fire. It requires not only a higher temperature about 1200° C, also involves complicated procedure.
Besides, as compounds of copper are different in different ores, so the process of smelting is also different. Let us consider the malachite, the most commonly found ore in the earth consisting of copper carbonate. To separate the copper from it, at first the part of carbon has to be driven out. Copper-oxide will be obtained as a residual deposit. Charcoal has to be added at this stage to provide more carbon which will be able to break the copper-oxide compound into carbon dioxide and carbon-mono-oxide, leaving the pure copper.
In the next phase, the metal is allowed to run out into small trenches where it is cooled into ingots of standard size for the purpose of storage, transport and trade. Sometimes another substance, limestone is added to it for refinement. This keeps the metal in a more liquid state and prevents re-oxidization. Primitive copper smelting furnaces were very simple having holes in the ground. However, the extracted copper was possibly worked by the same method of cold hammering at the initial stage of learning.
Invention of the smelting process was a remarkable step in man’s mastery over nature and widened the scope of scientific achievements towards high civilization. It was realized that the melted copper would flow into any shape, and the size and outlines of those shapes could be controlled.
So in the next step people learned mould casting. By running the molten copper directly from the smelter into the moulds (of desired size and shape), they made different implements and ornaments. This saved the tremendous labour of hammering the ingots. The method has been named as open-mould casting. The first moulds were merely the prepared holes in the ground but soon moulds of clay and stone were introduced.
The next achievement was the making of closed-mould with two or more pieces. This was an evolved form of open-mould, which facilitated full use of the fluid nature of melted copper. The other advantages was, it allowed the metal worker to cast his copper in round shape, instead of entirely fiat or flat in one side.
With this trick of casting, people gave up the old shapes, which were merely copies of stone models and began to make truly metallic shapes. Hollow sockets were also made in plenty into which butt ends of axes and spearheads could be firmly mounted. The smiths of Near East were more experienced; they used moulds with multiple pieces for casting more complex objects.
The finest casting technique was the ‘lost wax’ casting. The most intricate pieces were shaped by this technique. At first, the desired shape has to be carved out of wax. The model is then covered with a coating of clay. One or a few openings are left on the clay-case. When it is put to fire, the wax melts by the heat and eventually the clay wrapped on the model gets hard.
The melted wax runs out of the holes. So when the molten metal is poured into the holes, it covers the place of the wax. Finally the clay cast has to be broken to remove the metal in cold state. The shape of each implement achieved by this method is unique because the hand-made model is destroyed in each case and so the same model cannot be used repeatedly.
However, it is not yet possible to say that when the smelting of copper began. According to Lauriston Ward, the time was probably during the Jemdet Nasr period, shortly before 3000 BC and the first casting of copper were possibly done in the Nile Valley. However, even before 3000 BC, there was a great burst of metallurgical activity in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. A good number of copper implements and ornaments were obtained from different sites. Some scholars have pointed out that earliest smelted copper Trinkets appeared at Catal Huyuk (Anatolia) in the middle of seventh millennium BC.
The development of industries around the metals started about 3000 BC and therefore the period has been labeled as Metal Age. Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are the parts of the whole. Prof. Childe termed the period between 4000BC to 3000BC as the period of urban revolution.
Because this period had witnessed great discoveries and inventions which brought the people together and made a larger co-operate group. The new trade and techniques demanded specialists and when a man became full-time craftsman (metal worker); the other people came forward to provide him with food, clothing and other necessities of life.
Not only this, many other industries came into existence with the rise of mining and metallurgy. To get the raw materials and to circulate the manufactured articles, transport system was also developed. Mode of transaction improved. On one hand, wealth began to be controlled by the officials of the temples as trustee of god and on the other hand, for the sake of keeping records, systems of writing began to develop.
The Neolithic people used the animals for meat and milk but the demand of the trade in later period made many animals as beast of burden. The use of horses and camels for the purposes of riding as well as packing has been noted from the copper Age levels in Persia, Egypt and Turkey.
Trade not only started on land but also on water. Picture of boats and sails on Egyptian vases denote the presence of water transport before 3000BC. Instead of raft and canoe (used in fishing and crossing a river), man became more dependent on boats for carrying goods from place to place up the river.
Various occupational groups came into existence but all of them were not the producer of food. The non-producer groups gathered in cities and for the difference of wealth and trade, stratification was created within the society. Therefore, in contrast to Neolithic Age, towns and cities were found to be grown in Copper Age.
The appearance of mere copper could not bring an occasion of revolution. It started to change the established order of the things but very slowly. In the early stage tools and weapons were scarce because of the rarity of copper. The forms were copied from the flint implements by using Stone Age methods. When the metallurgy became established in the mining countries, the commercial relations started. Using of stone was reduced metals became a substitute material of stone.
But no where the appearance of copper could change the customs and usage of Neolithic people nor it persisted for a definite span of time. In fact, the non-technological cultural activities – social, political and ideological activities remained unchanged. This is the reason for which the Italian archaeologists liked to designate this phase as Aeneolithic.
By the term Aeneolithrc they wanted to mean a phase of culture at the dawn of Metal Age (instead of Copper Age). Some other scholars regard the phase as chalcolithic (Greek word chalkos means copper and lithos means stone). The propounders of the term chalcolithic perceived the Copper Age as Stone-Bronze transition where metal was creeping but in a subsidiary fashion. Another name, cyprolithic is also found for the Copper Age as most of the raw copper used in antiquity came from the Isle of Cyprus.
Recent radio-carbon dating suggests that an independent metallurgy in the Balkan started prior to 4000BC. In East Yugoslavia mines with a depth about 20m to 25m have been found. Tools of smelted copper from West Russia are contemporary to the earliest open moulds recovered from Bulgaria and Russia. Both can be dated as 4000BC. But stone continued to be the basic raw material until the spread of bronze.
2. Bronze Age: Alloying as a higher metal working technique appeared at the end of the Copper Age. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. In contrast to copper, the malleable soft metal, bronze possesses a superior quality of hardness. Tin has to be mixed with copper in a proportion of about one-tenth to produce bronze. A higher percentage of tin renders the alloy increasingly brittle. However, bronze predominated between the Copper Age and the Iron Age and therefore this particular period has been referred as Bronze Age.
Several types of bronze were found in the Bronze Age. Everywhere copper was the principal material. A small admixture of tin, phosphorous, arsenic or even sometimes the gold or silver is used with it. Copper-tin mixtures were found most widespread. Some good quality of bronze appeared in the Early Dynastic period in Egypt, close to 3000BC.
Some of the pre-historians believe that the entire bronze technique was percolated from outside, probably being cultivated by the people of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor and Armenia who later came to Egypt in search of raw materials. But the fact is far from proved to everyone’s satisfaction. Those who believe bronze ted in South Russia around 3000BC, advocated a rapid spread to East Europe, Near East and North India by 2500BC. Whatever may be, once the invention occurred, it was utilized effectively in different adjacent regions.
Since the copper-bearing strata are much more widely spread over the surface of the globe than those bearing tin, copper was discovered first and then tin. Archaeologists debate as to whether bronze was prepared by measuring out the proportion of the two elements in the metallic state or whether the ores were mixed up before putting them into the furnace.
By these hypotheses they wanted to explain the notable differences in the quality of the bronze arising from difference of tin content in the bronze. Not only the tin, a very small proportion of arsenic, antimony or zinc can modify the molecular shape of copper.
Ancient metal workers through their experience understood the varied properties of amalgamated metals. Because they found some copper ores produced a metal that cast better and naturally that particular kind of metal made better and harder implements than others. Thus the early workers became conscious about the nature of the ores.
Gradually they understood that copper as a metal is rarely available in the natural state but abundantly found in various ores being mixed with rocks and other metals as copper sulphides, copper oxides, copper carbonates, etc. The metallic copper in ores is formed as a result of a prolonged contact of the outcropping copper veins and lodes with the atmosphere.
The most common compound is the copper carbonate (malachite). It was often grounded up to use as a green paint and regarded as the best source of metallic copper. Another kind of copper carbonate, which gave the blue colour, is called azurite. Besides, there are two forms of copper oxide—cuprite and melacouite and many sulpides of copper. As sulphide ores occur in deep veins and hard to find out, early people did not use them much. They have been the chief source of the metal only in recent days.
Early men first picked up the nodules of native copper either to get paint or to make an ornament. Primitive metal workers never went in search of great, concentrated deposits, not even in the period of Bronze Age when industrial use of the copper reached to the peak. However, there were many surface deposits throughout Asia and the mountainous regions of the Near East.
In Europe also, they were abundant. But the best sources are believed to be situated in Cyprus, Hungary and Spain. In Africa, the largest number of deposits is scattered in the Katanga region of the Belgian Congo and it is not known that whether they were worked before the Middle Ages.
The Tin which is essentially required for bronze, was not readily available in past. Tin-bearing strata are actually rare as well as limited to a few localities. Tin ores occur in the original deposits in veins and in the form of small crystals in the crystalline rocks known as granulite’s; it is always an oxide called cassiterite and never found as a native metal.
Moreover, as cassiterite looks like a heavy dark sand, it does not seem to be a metallic substance and so very difficult to be identified. Small and moderate deposits occur in Armenia, Syria, North-West Persia and Bengal. Large deposits are only found in Malay Peninsula, in South-East Africa and China. The principal European sources are Bohemia, Spain and the British Isles. In Africa, same old tin mines have been reported from the Northern Nigeria and Transvaal but their age is not certain.
The attrition of rock-matrices and outcropping veins by atmospheric agencies produced alluvial formations in which stream-tin occurs in the form of sand. It is only necessary to wash this alluvium in order to extract the cassiterite. This method was used in the exploitation of tin in Malaya, at Brangka, Perak, etc. places. The first metallurgists found the beds of copper and tin in a virgin state. They simply dealt with oxides and used a reducing fire of charcoal to separate the metal. This metallurgical process is still utilized in Malay with the primitive furnaces or smelting hearths.
Cassiterite is always found in a siliceous gangue, which flakes in the fire. As for the carbonates of copper, the gangue is either calcareous or siliceous; it splits with the heat. From the very early times fire was used for the disaggregation of rocks containing metals.
It is held that man discovered the alloy of these two metals by chance of favoring circumstances, which played an important role in the history of mankind. In the closed moulds, not only the bronze, but any alloy was found suitable. Most copper ores contained other metals such as nickel, lead, phosphorus, antimony, arsenic etc. as natural impurities. Presence of these different metals produced good effects on the casting process and the products.
For instance:
(a) The manufactured object if contains arsenic with copper becomes harder than pure copper and provide a more durable cutting edge. It attains a property similar to bronze objects. Warriors with bronze weapons have always found their advantage over the enemies having copper or stone weapons.
(b) When metals with a lower melting point remain mixed with copper ore, the melting point for the whole alloy automatically comes down. This property provided a great convenience to the early metal workers who worked on primitive furnaces. The melting point of pure Copper is about 1085°C whereas for Antimony it is 630°C, for Lead 327°C and for Tin 232°C.
(c) The greatest advantage is found in the process of casting. In a closed mould, it is very difficult to cast copper because explosions or cracking of the moulds often take place. But the presence of other metal with copper minimizes this difficulty.
For successful casting 10 per cent to 12 per cent tin was mixed with 90 per cent to 88 per cent copper. All weapons and tools were made with this percentage. Since the addition of higher tin percentage renders the material increasingly brittle, a content of 30% of tin was used to produce a very fragile white metal which had been very popular as mirror in that olden time.
Bronze Age has been divided into four sub-periods by the early archaeologists. They attempted to classify the objects of each period on the basis of their size, shape, tangs, sockets, blades and ornamentation. It was especially significant in reference to the site of Montelius in France.
But more and more excavations throughout the Old World exhibited that the sequences for the development of Bronze Age cultures are not similar in all places. Some types, which occurred earlier in some places, found from a later period in other places. Influences passed forward and backward in the adjacent areas but the main trend went outward from the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Prof V. Gordon Childe forwarded a new classification on the basis of usage of the metal. His classification had an academic support as he collected more evidences before presenting the classification.
He made three stages like:
(a) When the metal was used for making weapons and ornaments only.
(b) When the metal made tools for using them in various crafts and skilled trades.
(c) When the metal came into use in agriculture and rough work.
The Bronze was seldom used at the beginning for the difficulty of mining, smelting and working. It served as weapon, tool and ornaments of the wealthy people. The mass population, especially in ore-less regions, treated a bronze-piece as treasure.
It took several centuries for this new metal to diffuse from the upper classes to farmers and carpenters. Though stone tools were replaced gradually by bronze in Western Asia and parts of Europe, in China it remained confined to the limit of rich and powerful.
Bronze proved itself better for the most purposes than the materials like stone, bone, wood and shell. Different tasks like ploughing the field, felling of trees, harvesting of crop, building of houses became easy as well as quick with the help of hard metal (bronze) tools. Some Bronze implements also stood unquestionable for the domestic uses.
Numerous bronze razors indicate that the shaving of men became quite popular during this period. Vessels had been made of bronze and bronze ornaments for personal adornments also appeared in this time. Elegant bracelets and necklaces were most notable; safety pins out of bronze became plenty for the use of both men and women. A great variety of weapons developed at the same time.
Most of them began to outgrow from an old form but with time they took a distinct form. For example, the bronze Celt at the beginning was very simple; wings and flanges were added later and finally the wings had grown so large that they met to form a complete socket. Such a transformation of a Celt to an axe was complete at the last phase of the Bronze Age. In the same way, long swords grew out of the chipped-stone dagger.
In the early Bronze Age these swords were very simple in type but in the late Bronze Age they were converted into broad-bladed double-edged sword. Neolithic polished stone axe with the haft hole gave rise to beautiful decorative battle-axe. Bronze spearheads developed out of flint spearheads. Although bronze arrowheads were not absent, but the scarcity of this weapon indicates that bow and arrow lost its popularity.
In the Bronze Age, pottery became a more developed craft of skill; different local styles were evolved. But the decorative art found on jewelry, tool or pottery was not considered as pure art. Megalithic monuments continued to be built in the Bronze Age, but the practice seemed to decline, as burial in cysts became popular.
At the late phase, cremation became fashionable. In Bronze Age we further find the sea-going boats which replaced the dugout canoe in order to carry a large number of passengers. Commerce therefore got a chance to be flourished through the river ways.
Weapons made of bronze altered the warfare strategy. But it is sure that the life was not peaceful. The nature as well as the number of weapons suggests that the people preferred face to face combat with hand. Villages were like fortified camps and men used to keep arms with them.
However, the intelligence of man lifted them up from their lethal capacities. They invented defensive devices against each killing tool. Therefore, shields, helmets, cuirass etc. were built during this period. Chiefs or kings were in the habit of using the precious bronze armours. Larger settlements were grown in general; in the advanced centers of civilization great palaces of stone and plaster were found to be built.
The use of bronze in almost all countries succeeded the use of pure copper. Neolithic stone implements disappeared slowly. The copper age towns, by the processes of cultural development, invention, diffusion (trade) and migration, gradually turned into Bronze Age cities and new ones were also built. In Mesopotamia, on the agriculturally rich Tigris-Euphrates valley, Sumerian cities grew up in the place of Copper Age settlements like Sumer, Ur, Layash, Erech and Eridu.
The Sumerian culture afterwards spread to the North upto Khabur and also to the vicinity of Baghdad. Archaeologists have divided it into two phases, the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr; the names were derived from two important sites. Parallel Bronze Age cities sprang up along the river Nile in Egypt. Bronze Age cities of Egypt are better known than their Copper Age predecessors.
Bronze Age cities grew up more or less at the same time in India on the Indus River valley and its tributaries in the Punjab. Those people knew carts and the potter’s wheel and also the bronze making techniques. Some of their techniques were found identical with the Mesopotamian techniques.
The evidences of trade can be traced between Indus and Tigris-Euphrates. Bronze Age influences spread from Egypt and the Syrian coast to Cyprus, Troy and other cities in Asia Minor and also to the Greek islands and mainland where the classic Mediterranean civilizations arose. In the next phase, Bronze Age culture advanced westward through Italy towards Europe. Trade routes were maintained both in land and sea. Thus, Bronze Age spread eastern, western and central Europe and from those areas to Gaul and Britain, and finally to Germany and Scandinavia.
It is difficult to be precise about the date of the inception of bronze industry in different lands and different localities. In the ancient centers like Chaldea and Egypt it existed towards the end of the fifth millennium before the present era; in the Eastern Mediterranean it would be about third millennium before the present era. Perhaps in Gaul it reached around 200BC and in the North of Persia and Caucasus only a thousand years earlier. Nevertheless, all these estimates are merely approximate and unfortunately the documentation is not as perfect as to establish a chronology with absolute certainty.
Copper phase was not a universal phenomenon in prehistory, nor it lasted more than a few centuries. Copper Age appeared largely in those places where the natural distribution of copper nuggets was accidentally found. As soon as the use of copper was established, the discovery of bronze was followed in rapid pace. However, the copper producing zones can be distinguished into two groups.
The group in which the metallurgical knowledge had been originated by itself and the other group which gained this knowledge from foreign source. To begin with, the two Americas were ruled out. According to archaeological testimony, neither Algeria, Spain, France, the British Isles and Scandinavia, nor the Central Europe saw the Separation of first copper ingot from its gangue.
Europe witnessed a brief and fleeting era of copper. The Aegean islands Western Asia and Egypt were left. Among them, Egypt can be expelled from the group of copper-producing countries because this country probably got the knowledge of copper from Asia. The Altai and the Pamirs are equally rich in copper but the antiquity of metallurgy in both the regions does not seem to go very far. In all probability, it was the north of Western Asia where the metallurgic knowledge was first discovered.
Thereafter the knowledge, in a rudimentary state, would have gone down into Chaldea with the men who first went there to establish their settlements. Then it would have passed over to Egypt, the Phoenician Coasts and the Aegean islands i.e. the centers from which the knowledge spreaded to Europe.
Indo-china and China were favoured by nature for the discovery of bronze as plenty of cupriferous ore and Stanniferous ore were found there. But we should restrain our pen from drawing any inference until the Central Asia and China are better explored.
Although the social effect of the copper was almost nil, the full-fledged bronze technology influenced the entire culture as well as the structure of the society. As the craft of extracting ores and working with bronze required special skills, the labourers like smiths, artisans and the miners came into being. Each of them assumed a vital role in the society.
Miners and particularly the bronze-founders tended to become a set-off caste with hereditary trade secrets. So class divisions appeared in the society. Not only that, advent of agriculture itself sowed the seeds of social inequality and class-distinctions. Since all soils had not same amount of productive power, it was very likely that some particular families might produce much more crops in the field than others might.
Naturally the classification like rich and poor was already in vogue. This inequality increased sharply in the Bronze Age. Different classes like rulers, the nobles, the traders or businessmen, the artisan, the farmers and slaves came into existence. Emergence of cities was found in this Age; the copper Age towns by the process of cultural development grew up into cities.
Apart from the farmers, all other people used to live in the towns. Increase in the production of crops generated surplus food which was enough to foster the town-dwellers. The rulers and nobles living in the town accumulated much wealth in their hands and they often used to employ the bronze- smiths to acquire the products such as weapons, armour and various kinds of tools made of bronze.
As none of them produced food-grains, they were in the habit of taking crops from the farmers of the village. In lieu, they supplied the farmers some necessary things like tools, sickles, Celts, etc. This period can be said as the germination period of trade and commerce. The exchange of goods was done exclusively by barter. However, the people who lived in town had various occupations. So they had different interest as well.
The necessity of an organization was felt at this time to regulate and control the urban life. This necessity gave the rise to state. With the rise of city-states, the kingdoms became widespread; the political and economic system came into existence. Kings and priests achieved the status like God. These kings along with the priestly class were found to rule the society.
Some monumental temples were built to house the kings and priests, and all their works and wealth including the images of Gods and Goddesses. These monuments were built of stone, brick or wood, or by the combinations of these materials, depending on their availability in the locality. The commerce flowed in and out of the so-called temples.
Old barter systems was no more found suitable for active and complicated trading, so money economy was invented and great wealth was accumulated within the cities. With the increased scope of leisure and wealth, man’s intelligence flourished in different directions; art, architecture, commerce, craft, script etc. all developed at a time.
Foundation of our modern science was also laid down during this period. The knowledge of arithmetic and geometry facilitated in dealing with weights and measurements; lunar or solar calendars contributed to human attributes. On the whole Bronze Age brought revolutionary changes in the growth of cities, of states and kings, of social classes, of enduring structures, monuments and writing. All new developments were interconnected with copper-bronze metallurgy.
Bronze Age in Europe:
The European Bronze Age poses interesting features. There are no Bronze Age cities in Europe no known political unification, no writing; even the potter’s wheels were not adopted until about 1000BC when the Bronze Age was ending in Asia. Actually Bronze Age Europe continued like Neolithic Europe with a peasant – culture. But there were communal undertakings large structures, and presence of chiefs resembling the Megalithic period of late Neolithic.
A class of bronze-working smiths obviously appeared at that time but the rest of the people were the farmers. The reason for all these is that the infiltration of bronze took place in Europe after an expectable lag. In fact bronze crept to Hungary around 1900 BC, Czechoslovakia, Central Germany and Italy around 1800 BC; the Rhine, France and Britain around 1700 BC and lastly to the Baltic Shores and Scandmavia around 1500 BC.
3. Iron Age: Iron is the other metal, which gained supreme industrial importance in history. It stood as wonderful material for tools and weapons for its considerable hardness. Its standard was proved higher than the bronze and eventually the materials like stone, bone, wood and shell did not come in comparison. The second advantage was that, it could be found almost everywhere.
The sources of iron on earth are as follows:
(i) The earth’s surface contains 4 per cent to 5 per cent of iron.
(ii) There are several iron ores, which offer metallic iron in the form of iron oxides, hematite, limonite, magnetite and siderites.
(iii) Small particles of pure iron are found in the basalt rock, though they cannot be used for practical purposes.
(iv) The meteorites, which drop on the earth from the sky, also hold a large quantity of iron.
The nature of these sources indicated that except from the meteorites, iron is never available in pure state Even the meteoric iron contains 5% to 25% of nickel for which the implements escape from rust. However, the first iron objects made by man were of meteoric origin. Because, the early men could easily pick up such iron lumps. In quality, this iron is very tough but malleable.
Like bronze, iron made its appearance at different dates in different countries. But the history of iron began with the Hittites of Anatolia in the Near East. By 1000BC it spread out in all directions and became a metal for general use in Western Asia, Egypt, South Eastern and Central Europe.
Therefore it is seen that iron came into use about two thousand years or more later than bronze and in no country the passage from a bronze to an iron industry did not occur suddenly. Since iron ores were more abundant than that of copper and infinitely greater than the tin ores, a natural question came to the mind that why Iron Age appeared so late! There are several views in this respect.
Some scholars argue that the people of Near East region knew the working of iron by 3000BC, i.e. as early as bronze. But the iron objects of that era were very few and most of them were made of meteoric iron. It is still not clear that whether all iron objects came from Near East before 1500BC were made of meteoric iron or some of them were made of iron extracted from ore. If all of them were made of meteoric iron, why people of that place took so much time to learn smelting of iron ores while they made themselves easily versed to smelt copper, lead and several other ores?
Even if some of these early iron objects were found to be made of iron extracted from ore, the same question comes again. Why the general use of iron was delayed for about 1500 to 2000 years? This late coming of iron can be partially explained by its high melting point.
The melting point of iron is 1530° C which is about 500° C above than that of the copper or gold. Early metal workers were not capable of producing this high temperature; nor were they acquainted with the chemistry of iron. Moreover, for a long time they failed to recognize the spongy mass or wrought iron as a useful metal.
There were other reasons too. The bronze-workers who extended their skill to smelt iron in later period did not foresee any profit at first. Secondly, there was limitation with the softness of pre-steel iron. Thirdly, iron could not supersede the prestige value of bronze for which bronze was considered as a symbol of high rank and treated as a sacred metal.
The smelting technology of iron was much complex than copper. Furthermore, like ‘native copper’, no native iron could be obtained merely by heating. To obtain metallic iron from the ores, at first it is necessary to get rid of the oxygen or the carbonic acid with which it is generally combined.
The silica and other rocks, which form a part of the ore, have to be separated also. For this, the ore must be heated in a charcoal fire. The charcoal takes up the oxygen from the ore (in case of an oxide ore) and passes off as carbon-dioxide. On the other hand, silica gets combined with a part of the iron and goes off as slag. Rest of the iron is left as a pasty, sponge-like mass, known as ‘bloom’.
The slag generally contains the ferrous silicate but may show considerable variation for the presence of other rocks in the ore. However, it plays an important part in the technical process because as a scum it floats on the surface of the liquid iron and prevents deoxidizing which takes place in contact with air.
The slag is no longer needed after this and so a method of elimination is followed. The spongy mass is heated and hammered repeatedly until the whole slag runs out and iron forms an ingot – a solid mass. The heating and beating of the spongy lump is called forging.
Iron may be obtained in three forms:
(i) The solid mass of iron as available in the above-mentioned process is called ‘wrought iron’. It includes a little or no carbon at all. In this state, iron remains relatively soft and further malleable, so can easily be worked.
(ii) If the heat of the furnace increases more than the required temperature, instead of forming a spongy mass, the iron melts completely and flows off. Iron in this state possesses some carbon in it.
(iii) If the percentage of carbon is excessively high, the iron becomes hard but brittle. In this state the iron is called ‘cast iron’.
Primitive smelting of iron did not produce the bright liquid needed for casting. Rather it produced a dirty spongy mass with slag in it, which can then be beaten into a desired shape. The fully molten iron for casting, which needs a higher temperature, was first utilized in China, long after the beginning of the Christian era. In between, the process of carburizing (steeling) was invented around 1500BC in the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountain, not far from the area where first invention of bronze had taken place. In forging a bar of wrought iron, constant reheating was required.
If the smith reheated the bar by thrusting it into the heart of a charcoal fire and if the heat was more than sufficient, the outer surface of the bar would became carburized to a depth proportionate to the length of the treatment and heat of the fire. Therefore the surface of the bar became steel and this hardness increased the efficiency of iron.
The regions namely Near East, India and Far East are still considered rich in iron. India seems to have a tradition of early iron working as it appeared in megalithic graves. Huge forged column up to 42 feet high, weighing about ten tons are found in the North. But unfortunately no archaeological or historical evidence justifies the fact that iron has been in India from before the beginning of Christian era Iron Age reached its peak in the great classical civilizations of Greece, Rome, China and India.
In Europe, Iron Age culture appeared in 650BC where the first phase is known as Hallstalt A or Hallstalt I named after a famous cemetery site in the Austrian Alps. But the arms and implements of Bronze Age continued to be used long after the Hallstalt forms came in. Superiority of the Hallstalt models was recognized and so their forms were copied in copper alloys.
Objects of Iron Age comprises of long, slender daggers and swords made of iron which occur along with lance and bow-arrow. The iron swords and daggers are remarkable for the shape of their hilts, which often have horns, and a conical pommel of characteristic appearance.
The celts and scythes are the other propagators of iron industry. Iron objects and implements of a later date have been found from Italy, Spain and Central Europe. They exhibited considerable change and modifications resulting from the influence spread out through Eastern Mediterranean. In the New World, in Oceania, in Polynesia and also among the Tribes of Siberia, the appearance of iron is quite recent.
No compulsive stages have been identified in the succession of stone, copper, bronze or iron, for example, Negro Africa and Japan have skipped the Bronze Age altogether and passed directly from Stone Age to Iron Age. The works of Negro blacksmiths are so great that some scholars think that iron work may have begun in Africa a long time ago. Some old mines are also present there. But it is a matter of disgrace that no archaeological proof exists in this respect.
It is also believed that a camel was brought to Northwest Africa from the desert of Sahara by trade about some centuries after the birth of Christ. Iron presumably reached to Negro Africa after this event. Although the most primitive method of securing the metal is still practised among the African Negroes, but nearly all peoples of Negro Africa use iron. Some scholars argue that the Negroes of Africa developed the art of iron-working quite independently.
The discovery of iron opened a new horizon xo man. As a hard metal it became very useful in cultivation; agriculture could not make expected headway with the soft metals like copper and bronze. The discovery of iron supplemented the handicaps of the ‘copper-bronze’ Age.
As a matter of fact, iron brought about many changes in the methods of production and increased the yield of crops. As iron was easily available at a cheap price, any peasant could afford iron implements necessary for his agricultural work. Besides, iron led to the manufacture of different vehicles and vessels, which facilitated communication with foreign lands through trade and commerce. As a result, the civilization of Iron Age spread much more widely and over a much vaster area than that of the ‘copper-bronze’ Age. Types of industries increased in number and workshops became larger, employing more and more men.
The growth was linked up in a chain. Introduction of the cheap iron plough paved the way for extensive cultivation that yielded a higher food-crop. This increase led the population to grow very fast into the hundreds of thousands. As a consequence, cities began to increase in size with many acres of parks and gardens.
New empires and trading groups arose. Society became further divided into certain classes as the aristocrats, the middle-class people, the peasants and the slaves. The big landowners were the aristocrats; the middle-class people of those days were comprised of traders or businessmen and the craftsmen. The peasants still used to live and cultivate in the villages with cheap iron implements.
The slaves belonged to the lower rung of the social ladder; slavery as a system was widely known in this age. On the other hand, the issues of conflict increased a lot. The need of powerful ruler was felt to prevent the situation and therefore kingship made its appearance.
The invention of true alphabets in the Iron Age brought the possibility of literacy to all classes. In the Bronze Age, the literacy was confined to the priests, officials and clerks only. The arrival of the alphabet instead of hieroglyphic or cuneiform scripts made it possible for all to receive at least elementary education with minimum effort.
Side by side, stamped coins of standard type was invented. This replaced the use of silver-bar, which seemed to be awkward to handle and difficult to manipulate for purposes of fraud. The development of coined money though could not improve the financial condition of the poor but it undoubtedly signified a better medium of exchange useful for minor transactions at the market places.
A peasant hereby could earn money by selling his surplus foodstuff and purchase any commodity after his liking. Increased production, transport facilities and invention of coin – all contributed to the improvement of trade and industry. Thus, man marched gradually towards the higher civilization.
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