Book burning

On Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy
Reich in Denmark, Atomic Accidents, Bomb Tests & Weather, Cloudbusting in Israel & Namibia, Summerhill School ... Report on FDA Burning of Reich's Books

http://www.orgonelab.org/cart/xdemeo.htm#ONWR&ORG
C
ontains original articles by James DeMeo, R. D. Laing, Lois Wyvell, Victor Sobey, Ellen Siersted and others, on the subjects of bioelectricity, bion-biogenesis research, the jailing of Reich and burning of his books, cloudbusting in Israel, and other reports.

http://www.orgonelab.org/cart/xdemeo.htm#ORACIT

Bandito e Bruciato dall’FDA!  “L’energia orgonica non esiste” dichiarò nel 1954 un giudice americano della corte federale basandosi sulle calunnie dei giornalisti e dell’FDA, ordinando la distruzione di tutte le pubblicazioni che contenevano la parola proibita “orgone”. In seguito il dottor Reich fu trascinato in prigione, dove morì. Uno scandalo peggiore dello “Scope Monkey Trial” (Processo delle scimmie) mentre i fatti che riguardano Reich vengono ancora oggi celati o travisati. In questo libro, l’ex professore universitario e scienziato naturale James DeMeo attinge alle sue vaste indagini e sperimentazioni per presentare i risultati concreti riguardo alle scoperte di Reich, focalizzandosi in modo particolare sul controverso Accumulatore di Energia Orgonica, che è una forma affidabile di Medicina Energetica usata in tutto il mondo. Qui il lettore imparerà a costruire e usare in modo sicuro le coperte e gli accumulatori orgonici; in più troverà ulteriori dettagli sulle Acque Vitali cariche di orgone tipiche delle sorgenti calde naturali e delle acque termali terapeutiche, e molte altre questioni correlate. Imparate a concentrare e adoperare l’energia orgonica (vitale), caratterizzata da un bagliore blu, usando dei materiali semplici e prontamente disponibili. Una quantità illimitata è liberamente disponibile nell’atmosfera. Nel manuale sono incluse diverse fotografie e diagrammi, più un articolo di ricerca in appendice, la bibliografia, l’indice e i riferimenti a svariati link.

The object of firing in a kiln system is to convert the latent heat in the fuel to free heat and to transfer this heat to the material to form clinker.

The fuel fired in a rotary kiln must not only provide the necessary amount of heat in terms of calories but also release the heat at a temperature sufficiently high for the clinker formation process, as a temperature above 1400°C is required to finish these chemical reactions.
 
Also the flame must be shaped to acquire low kiln shell temperature and maintain long refractory lifetime.

This article examines how historians use evidence when explaining the destruction by fire and explosion of Ireland’s national archive in 1922. At the commencement of the Irish Civil War in late June 1922, some historians attribute responsibility for Ireland Public Record Office’s (PRO) destruction to the IRA faction then occupying the Dublin Four Courts of Justice (then encompassing the PRO). Problems arise when it is acknowledged no credible evidence has come to light to support these interpretations. The article argues, interpretations of the PRO’s destruction as a premeditated act of IRA cultural vandalism form part of a historiography associating Irish republicanism with fascistic values among them, ethnic violence, including ‘ethnic cleansing’, sexual violence, anti-democracy, criminality and book burning. Where little or no evidence exists to these support polemic interpretations, some historians may resort to what Bernard Lewis calls ‘invented history’. Lewis’ invented history involves abandoning any strictly empirical methodology (i.e. historical research), when interpreting the past. Instead, invented history enhances stories deemed useful in the present. For example, republicanism in Ireland historically has been a species of fascism. But these enhancements often demand a creative approach to the use of sources repugnant to historical research. Simply put, invented history does not let the evidence get in the way of a ‘good story’. Rather, it demands evidence selection bias and in some extreme cases the fabrication of sources.

This chapter examines the homophobic underpinnings of the Nazi attack against Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexual Science and its reception. It considers why and how some papers and objects –notably a collection of questionnaires and a bronze statue – survived the events of May 1933. Arguing that the materiality of the objects under attack influenced how they were handled, the chapter demonstrates that the targeting and handling of the sexological texts at the Institute of Sexual Sciences reveal deeply entrenched cultural fantasies about homosexuality and a ‘tradition of homophobia’ that would retain currency far beyond the Nazi regime.

Cardenal Cisneros, Queen Isabela's confessor, publicly burned about 5000 manuscripts in Arabic in recently-conquered Granada, as many as could be found, except those dealing with medicine. This act of weakness largely wiped out the sophisticated culture of  Nasrid (Islamic) Granada.

El Cardenal Cisneros, en 1500 reunió todos los manuscritos árabes que pudo encontrar en Granada, y con excepción de los de contenido médico (que están en El Escorial), los quemó en la Plaza de Bibarambla. Se perdió casi toda la cultura nazarí: poesía, historia, coranes.

This paper aims to critically analyse the testimonies concerning Athenian impiety trials of the classical period. First, it reaffirms the arguments that some of them must have been an invention of Hellenistic and later authors. Second, it presents a likely political background behind the historical cases. Third, it discusses a number of legal issues, along with new arguments concerning the procedures employed. Finally, it examines some less well-known material from the fourth century BCE. Overall, it seeks to provide a possibly coherent and comprehensive framework of Athenian impiety trials based on their shared characteristics.

This article analyses the involvement of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de
Cisneros in certain of the cultural changes that took place while he was Archbishop of Toledo. It focuses above all on Alcalá de Henares and the University he founded there. Three aspects receive particular attention: 1) the administrative improvements brought about by the use of writing, including bureaucratic practices and the emergence of an archival culture; 2) the use of writing for ideological and propagandistic purposes, especially the burning of Islamic texts in Granada in 1500 and the diffusion of humanistic texts; and 3) policies to do with printing and publishing linked to the creation of the university College of St. Ildefonso and the creation of its library.

Public book burning was the most dramatic method of post-publication censorship in early modern England. As an aspect of legislation designed to regulate the press it worked in concert with Parliamentary efforts to suppress religious dissent through the Committee of Examinations, the Committee for Plundered Ministers, the ordinance of 2 May 1648 for punishing blasphemies and heresies and the act of 9 August 1650 against the same offence. Together these measures created a climate in certain circles conducive to self-censorship. There are numerous instances of authors not putting their names to inflammatory printed works. Printers, publishers and booksellers were even more cautious. Even when these risks were run by committed individuals printing remained an expensive business. It did not become more affordable in the 1640s and 1650s for it seems that only the rich or those with wealthy benefactors or organized group support had the means to publish their writings. Moreover, the 1630s had seen a sudden and sharp rise in book prices and, if the complaints of stationers are to be believed, prices remained high in the succeeding two decades. If this was an age of freedom, it was a strictly limited one.

Previously published in The Book Out of Bounds: Essays Presented to Lars Ole Sauerberg, "You Can't Burn Books" reviews the history, theory and practice of book burning. Taking a pragmatic and very realistic view of the life-cycle of cultural artifacts in late-modern digital society, it warns against automatic condemnations of the burning of books in the name of a cultural taboo.

Wilhelm Reich wurde eines der Opfer des gemeinschaftlichen Feldzuges von Wissenschaft und Medizin gegen unliebsame Entdeckungen und alternative Heilmethoden, der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts in den Vereinigten Staaten einsetzte. Hierbei spielten gewisse gesellschaftliche Kräfte eine maßgebliche Rolle, auch wenn die »politisch korrekte« Geschichtsschreibung dies gerne verschweigt. Seit seinem Tod haben zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen die irrige Darstellung verbreitet, Reich sei vom amerikanischen Konservativismus zerstört worden, in einer rechtslastigen Hetzkampagne im »McCarthy-Stil«. Neuere Forschungsergebnisse haben dies als Unsinn entlarvt.

The early modern period is characterized by a lively culture of written and printed participation that almost constantly stimulated new streams of commenting, correcting, answering and observing (paper-based) media in extenso. However, at the other end of the increased use of publications we see censoring activities like book burnings aimed to punish certain „unwanted“ voices. This article deals with the material problems of these public book burning ceremonies. Missing books, very small books, reduced numbers of books available, or books subjected to limiting-quotas, and, in general, too fast burning paper made these events to happenings of shortage. Through the use of additional ceremonial aspects, the organizers of book burnings tried to solve the shortages. In so doing, it was almost always the case that the less paper was available, the more effort was exerted in the rituals. As is demonstrated by eighteenth-century Frankfurt (Main), Cologne, Hamburg and Rome, the situations of shortage motivated the organizers to extend the ceremonial procedure by either ripping the publication to pieces before burning or often using gallows or pillories in order to make the ceremony happen at all.


Zusammenfassung
Die europäische Epoche der Frühen Neuzeit ist maßgeblich gekennzeichnet durch eine Publikationsfreudigkeit: Beobachtungen, Meinungen, Widerlegungen, Korrekturen, Anmerkungen oder Antworten auf vorherig Publiziertes führten zu immer neuen Akten der Verschriftlichung und Drucklegung. Am anderen Ende der epochentypischen Publizität stand, wie schon in Antike und im Mittelalter, die zensural-motivierte Verbrennung ausgewählter Publikationen als "ungewollte" Stimmen. In diesem Aufsatz geht es um die typischen materiellen Probleme dieser als Strafe konzipierten und zeremoniell inszenierten Bücherverbrennungen, die sich im Modus des öffentlichen Spektakels vollzogen. Absentes, reduziertes, kontingentiertes oder zu flüchtig verbrennendes (bedrucktes) Papier machte diese symbolisch aufgeladenen Ereignisse nämlich zu Veranstaltungen im Zeichen des Mangels. Mittels zusätzlicher inszenatorischer bzw. zeremonieller Aspekte versuchten die Ausrichter das Problem kompensatorisch zu lösen: Tendenziell galt hierbei, je weniger Papier verfügbar war, desto mehr Aufwand musste betrieben werden. Fallbeispiele aus Frankfurt am Main, Köln, Hamburg und Rom zeigen die Logik des materiellen Mangels in Zeremonie-Verlängerungen (durch separates Zerreißen von Publikationen), Zeremonie-Ausweitungen (durch Galgen- oder Prangernutzung) sowie in angesammelten kollektiven Buchverbrennungen, um überhaupt eine Zeremonie gewährleisten zu können.

The rhetorical significance of sacred books in the North African controversy between Caecilianists and Donatists remains underexplained. In this article I situate the act of traditio in its historical context by employing insights from the study of material texts. The Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs, the arguments of Augustine and Optatus, and even apotropaic practices reveal a social logic in which the physical book does more than transmit text. I argue that this theology of the book provides a richer account of traditio than the economic and sociological explanations in current scholarship on the North African controversy. The sacred book functions as a metonym for Christian confession, an avatar of divine presence, and a powerful agent of healing. To hand over the sacred books for destruction was thus to destroy objects which embodied divine truth, presence, and power.

In Life Advice from Below, Eric C. Hendriks offers the first systematic, comparative study of the globalization of American-style self-help culture and the cultural conflicts this creates in different national contexts. The self-help guru is an archetypical American figure associated with individualism, materialism and the American Dream. Nonetheless, the self-help industry is spreading globally, thriving in China and other seemingly unlikely places. Controversy follows in its wake, as the self-help industry, operating outside of formal education and state institutions, outflanks philosophical, religious and political elites who have their own visions of the Good Life. Through a comparison of Germany and China, Hendriks analyzes how the competition between self-help gurus and institutional authorities unfolds under radically different politico-cultural regimes.

“This witty book charms its way through a very serious sociology of the seriously quirky field of self-help books. Read it for its fascinating pop-culture insights and you’ll come away with a deep understanding of contemporary sociological theory. Highly recommended.” - Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney

“Hendriks’ finding that Germany rather than China is more resistant to self-help gurus offers a powerful corrective to the assumption in much of the globalization literature that the greatest cultural divide is between the Anglo-Western European sphere and the rest of the globe.” - Rodney Benson, New York University

Reviewers can contact reviews@brill.com for free full copies

In this Article I briefly outline the chronicles of forbidden books, in particular the history of burning books, as reflected in nineteenth century Jewish literature. As is true of any chronicle, this is not a clear historical portrait, and it is difficult to highlight a clear list of forbidden books, although certain historians have attempted to do so. In this chronicle truth and fiction have become intertwined and images have been subsumed into scholarly literature, in some cases becoming historical facts. I would like to focus briefly on the variety of images in a number of texts by Galician maskilim (in particular works by Josef Perl) which raise the issue of forbidden books and book burning, since they reflect the foundations on which contemporary researchers have based their assumptions. This will provide a window onto a wider world which still awaits full scholarly attention.

What historians chose to write about is often informed not just by their intellectual interests, but also by present-day concerns. Sometimes those connections are drawn subtly. But on occasion they are blatant. Whether it’s the link between the study of women in the past and the modern struggle for sexual equality, interest in advances in medical knowledge prompted by fear of deadly epidemic disease, or sensitivity to changing attitudes to the natural world motivated by justifiable alarm of impending environmental catastrophe, the present is in constant dialogue with the past. Historical discussion of book burning is no different.

It’s no coincidence that ground-breaking works dealing with the subject were published during the early 1930s – just as the Nazis were burning books in Germany. Here, at a moment when Internet censorship is being imposed by certain governments, when even a British journalist feels compelled to provocatively say that you can’t read his book, it seems appropriate to talk briefly about my own area of expertise. That is, book burnings in revolutionary England from 1641 to 1660.

Exercising censorship through book burning – even if not always successful – was an aspect of European ecclesiastical and civil policy for several centuries. It’s a common misconception, however, to think of public book burnings only in terms of censorship. That’s because when performed before large crowds they were simultaneously spectacles with a message. And, despite changing contexts and different audiences, that message remained essentially unchanged: authority’s displeasure with texts that were considered to represent serious challenges to its dominance. In other words, public book burnings were as much about legitimating power through dramatic rituals as maintaining it by suppressing dissenting ideas and scandalous statements.

En este artículo estudiamos las distintas formas de aniquilación de libros y de textos literarios en las obras del escritor colombiano Héctor Abad Faciolince (Medellín, 1958), deteniéndonos en los posibles significados que cada una de ellas comporta y atendiendo a los modos de representación de esa pulsión biblioclasta en novelas como Angosta (2004) o Basura (2000); unas veces será fruto del vandalismo más salvaje, pero otras será más bien consecuencia directa de la reflexión crítica por parte de autores poco satisfechos o críticos literarios. A la vez, analizamos algunos de los vínculos de este autor con la obra de Cervantes, una huella especialmente visible y relevante en las novelas comentadas.

A summary of the origins and development of the NZ National and Parliamentary Libraries from 1856 until November 29 2021. This will be of interest to anyone following the attempts of the NZ National Library to destroy or rid themselves of 660,000 volumes of research, history and literature in all disciplines.

Cesarz Dioklecjan, według późnoantycznych przekazów, miał nakazać zniszczenie egipskich ksiąg (al)chemicznych. Do dziś, w publikacjach dotyczących historii alchemii, wydarzenie to zajmuje poczesne miejsce, mając stanowić ważną cezurę w dziejach tej nauki. Według części uczonych, począwszy od fundamentalnych prac Berthelota, Dioklecjanowi mamy zawdzięczać przepadnięcie najdawniejszych pism alchemicznych.
W swoim wystąpieniu spróbuję udowodnić, że „chemia” w pismach późnoantycznych historyków, nie ma nic wspólnego z nowożytną, ezoteryczną nauką, a Dioklecjan w rzeczywistości walczył
z fałszowaniem złota i srebra. Postaram się również przedstawić, jak nakaz spalenia pism (al)chemicznych mieścił się w ideologii oraz znanej nam działalności tego władcy.

En el capítulo VI del Quijote, a la quema de libros por una censura no tanto ideológica como artística, la precede el donoso y grande escrutinio, una ocasión aprovechada por Cervantes para la crítica literaria y que ya constituye uno de los tópicos más celebrados en la historia de la literatura. Cervantes, remedando la inclemente actividad inquisitorial, incorpora el motivo del fuego purificador, pero con diferente intención; si bien la actitud de la sobrina o del ama podría vincularse con prejuicios relacionados con la ortodoxia religiosa, lo cierto es que no se termina quemando lo pernicioso desde el punto de vista moral o ideológico, sino más bien lo torcido estéticamente, mostrando de este modo el autor algunas de sus preferencias literarias. Cervantes se hace eco de los criterios de los moralistas del XVI, que llegaron a ser más estrictos incluso que la misma Inquisición, por cuanto conocían la tendencia del vulgo a la lectura literal de los textos de ficción, tendencia que se vio reforzada por ese aire de realismo que desprendían las obras caballerescas. Con ellos coincide la sobrina, cuando se muestra temerosa de que, abandonada la manía caballeresca, su tío deviniese pastor o poeta; en este sentido, la actitud del cura es mucho más permisiva, pues no censura esas obras que son libros de entretenimiento sin perjuicio de tercero.
Proponemos un estudio crítico del motivo de la quema de libros en la obra Angosta del escritor colombiano Héctor Abad Faciolince porque si bien Angosta tiene otras muchas lecturas y habla también de miserias cotidianas y otros infortunios de nuestro tiempo, es sobre todo una historia de libros. Las llamas que devoran La Cuña reproducen metonímicamente ese averno en que se ha convertido Angosta y del que tenemos noticia por un libro: La capital de este curioso lugar de la tierra se llama Angosta. Salvo el clima, que es perfecto, todo en Angosta está mal. Podría ser el paraíso, pero se ha convertido en un infierno. Angosta, un trasunto de Colombia y del mundo actual, con sus fronteras, segregaciones y jerarquías artificiales, remedo de la angostura mental de aquellos iletrados que asesinan con la misma soltura con que chamuscan letras y nos conducen al abismo.

This article examines the book culture of the Jesuit mission to Ethiopia (1557–1632). Combining archival and field research, it considers the composition of the mission’s now-lost libraries, the use of books as tools of conversion, book production, and missionary engagement with Ethiopian Orthodox book culture. Furthermore, it illuminates the Jesuit reliance upon Ethiopian collaborators both to understand Orthodox texts and to produce Catholic manuscripts in the absence of a printing press. Using the personal libraries of Pedro Páez, S.J. and Afonso Mendes, S.J. as case studies, it posits that the gradual acceleration of acts performed by Jesuits upon Orthodox books—including collecting, translating, editing, and destroying—paralleled the rising aggression and cultural intolerance of the mission. Ultimately, this resulted in the expulsion and murder of the Jesuits, and the destruction of their libraries in a series of state-sanctioned book burnings that permitted a revival of Ethiopian Orthodoxy.

Religious and secular communities ritualize some books in one, two, or three dimensions. They ritualize the dimension of semantic interpretation through teaching, preaching, and scholarly commentary. This dimension receives almost all the attention of academic scholars. Communities also ritualize a text’s expressive dimension through public reading, recitation, and song, and also by reproducing its contents in art, theatre and film. This dimension is receiving increasing scholarly attention, especially in religious studies and anthropology. A third textual dimension, the iconic dimension, gets ritualized by manipulating the physical text, decorating it, and displaying it. This dimension has received almost no academic attention, yet features prominently in the most common news stories about books, whether about e-books, academic libraries, rare manuscript discoveries, or scripture desecrations. By calling attention to the iconic dimension of books, James Watts argues that we can better understand how physical books mediate social value and power within and between religious communities, nations, academic disciplines, and societies both ancient and modern.

Writer though he was, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was nevertheless one of the greatest heralds of anti-literature. He even somehow advocated for book-burning. Here is how and why.
(Extract from ‘The Hatred of Literature’, tr. Nicholas Elliott, Harvard University Press, 2018.)

in: "UNGLEICHHEITEN" - 47. Deutschen Historikertag, Dresden, September 30 - October 03, 2008, TU Dresden.
Gefördert durch die Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten aus Mitteln des Sächsischen Staatsministeriums für Wissenschaft und Kunst.
Wissenschaftliche Beratung: Dr. Norbert Haase
Projektorganisation: Henriette Kunz, Isabel Schellenberger
Projektmitarbeiter: Beatrice Meier, Matthias Rekow, Annika Radtke, Tina Trompler
Sprecher: Martin Schneider, Sophia Wetzke

This paper aims at solving a minor puzzle in the interpretation of David Hume's Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding (1748).* Its object is no more than an anecdote, but it involves a more general and ambitious suggestion about a possible way of handling meaning in past philosophical texts. I present it as an exercise in a (so far) embryonic discipline: the cultural history of philosophy. For a start, I must introduce a little philosophy. All human knowledge, we find in Hume's Enquiry, is based either on a priori 'relations of ideas', as in mathematics, which consists of abstract reasonings concerning objects independent of experience such as quantity and number; or on a posteriori 'matters of fact', as, for example, induction and all our reasonings concerning causation, which are based on experience. The main object of the book is, as is well known, the treatment of this latter kind of 'probable' knowledge. The textual side of my puzzle is to be found in the conclusion of the Enquiry, and refers back to this original distinction between 'relations of ideas' and 'matters of fact'. If all knowledge must consist of either relations of ideas, or matters of fact, books containing neither are totally pointless so when we get into a library 'what havoc must we make?', Hume wonders with some scorn. And he goes on, in a passage which is among the most quoted, discussed and famous in western philosophy: