The Hidden Language Of Graphic Signs

This book zeroes in on hidden writing and alternative systems of graphic notation, exploring writings that deflect attention from language.

Traditionally, writing--a graphic, multidimensional form of communication--has been approached as a vehicle for representing, and therefore conveying, the spoken word. Moving beyond this manner of analysis, this volume interrogates writing as a medium that is not simply a handmaiden to oral and aural exchange but a communication system that is richly layered and experienced. To exploit this aspect of visual code, scholars from the fields of Egyptology, Sinology, Hittitology, and Assyriology, together with Mesoamericanists, art historians, and a sign language specialist, are brought together in this volume. In its pages, these contributors incorporate into their analyses methods more commonly used in linguistics and semiotics, communication studies, art historical analysis, and traditional philology to new ends in order to form original trajectories of inquiry. Each contribution either lays bare explicit exploitation of visuality in scribal production as a means to cement power, reveal the mystical, induce humor, or expose clandestine views or it locates implicit knowledge schemes and cultural maps underlying and informing these same productions. The pioneering investigations presented in Seen Not Heard reveal that although writing may be heard, the fact that it can also be seen affects its reception and therefore the meaning of any transported phonological units.

This volume illustrates how the epigraphic habit is ubiquitous but variously expressed. Inscriptions become part of the fabric of Greek and Roman culture.

Dealing specifically with the origins and development of human language, this book is based on a selection of materials from a recent international conference held at the Center of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. The significance of the volume is that it testifies to paradigmatic changes currently in progress. The changes are from the typical emphasis on the syntactic properties of language and cognition to an analysis of biological and cultural factors which make these formal properties possible. The chapters provide in-depth coverage of such topics as new theoretical foundations for cognitive research, phylogenetic prerequisites and ontogenesis of language, and environmental and cultural forces of development. Some of the arguments and lines of research are relatively well-known; others deal with completely new interdisciplinary approaches. As a result, some of the authors' conclusions are in part, rather counterintuitive, such as the hypothesis that language as a system of formal symbolic transformations may be in fact a very late phenomenon located in the sphere of socio-cultural and not biological development. While highly debatable, this and other hypotheses of the book may well define research questions for the future.

Papers in this issue by: Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan (pp. 1-17); Diana Fauzia Sari & Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf (pp. 18-36); P. Lindhout, G.J. Teunissen & M.P. Lindhout (pp. 37-56); Jiemin Bu (pp. 57-80); Noparat Tananuraksakul (pp. 81-98); Yasunari Fujii (pp. 99-126); and Azizeh Chalak (pp. 127-136)

Tracing Memory provides a systematic inventory of African graphic signs, revealing their creative force of analogy in thought and perception. For the people who use them, they represent a gift from God -- tools to disclose hidden thoughts. Tracing Memory promotes a new way of looking at Africa, its cultures, and its spirituality.

This is the somewhat controversial, third volume of The Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky which was published by Annie Besant after Blavatsky's death. Chapters include: Modern Criticism and the Ancients; The Origin of Magic; The Secresy of Initiates; Some Reasons for Secresy; The Dangers of Practical Magicl Old Wine in New Bottles; The Book of Enoch the Origin and the Foundation of Christianity; Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines; Various Occult Systems of Interpretations of Alphabets and Numerals; The Hexagon with the Central Point, or the Seventh Key; The Duty of the True Occultist toward Religions; Post-Christian Adepts and their Doctrines; Simon and his Biographer Hippolytus; St. Paul the real Founder of present Christianity; Peter a Jewish Kabalist, not an Initiate; Apollonius of Tyana; Facts underlying Adept Biographies; St. Cyprian of Antioch; The Eastern Gupta Vidya & the Kabalah; Hebrew Allegories; The Zohar on Creation and the Elohim; What the Occultists and Kabalists have to say; Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy; Eastern and Western Occultism; The Idols and the Teraphim; Egyptian Magic; The Origin of the Mysteries; The Trial of the Sun Initiate; The Mystery Sun of Initiation; The Objects of the Mysteries; Traces of the Mysteries; The Last of the Mysteries in Europe; The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries; Symbolism of Sun and Stars; Pagan Sidereal Worship, or Astrology; The Souls of the Stars—Universal Heliolatry; Astrology and Astrolatry; Cycles and Avataras; Secret Cycles; The Doctrine of Avataras; The Seven Principles' The Mystery of Buddha' Reincarnations of Buddha; An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha; Nirvana-Moksha; The Secret Books of Lam-Rin and Dzyan; Amita Buddha Kwan-Shai-yin, and Kwan-yin.—What the Book of Dzyan and the Lamaseries of Tsong-Kha-pa say; Tsong-Kha-pa.—Lohans in China; A few more Misconceptions Corrected; The Doctrine of the Eye & the Doctrine of the Heart, or the Heart's Seal; and, Some Papers On The Bearing Of Occult Philosophy On Life.

This eBook edition of "The Secret Doctrine" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Secret Doctrine is one of the most influential esoteric and occult books of all time. In the first part of the book the author explains the origin and evolution of the universe itself, in terms derived from the Hindu concept of cyclical development. While in the second part she describes the origins of humanity through an account of "Root Races" said to date back millions of years.