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If you read a book, say by Hemingway, and a gun is mentioned in the first few pages we can surmise that someone will die by the end of the story. It's foreshadowing, and authors have a host of means to hint at or foreshadow the death of their characters.
Life, however, isn't usually so tidy as a novel. Which hasn't stopped people from arranging a host of superstitions which foreshadow the death of someone near or within the family. Take, for example, the Irish Banshee, the sight or sound of which foretells the death of someone near and dear. Or the Barguest, who if he doesn't directly cause your death may foreshadow it. Then there are the hosts of superstitions (some actually remarkably commonsensical) that virtually guarantee that no death goes unforshadowed. A few of which I've listed below:
- A live adder on the doorstep (I'd argue this is common sense, get rid of the adder and you'll probably live longer)
- If your dog becomes rabid it foretells the death of someone in your family (if your rabid dog bites someone it almost guarantees it)
- Fleas leaving a body foreshadow the death of the host (possibly a sign of ill health)
- Rats leaving your house (someone inside will die)
- 3 knocks heard on the door, then when answered no one is there (Usually means someone close to you has already died)
- A beetle walking over your shoe (foretells your own death)
- A broken clock suddenly chimes
- A single magpie circling the house, a dove circling, an eagles cry or a jackdaw settling on the house are all omens of death
- A bird (especially a robin) flies into the house (foreshadows death in the household)
- A Nightjar or Whippoorwill heard after dark foreshadows death
- A dog howling three times in the night or early morning
- To dream of birth or hares foreshadows death
- A white moth in the house or trying to enter or to see a butterfly at night foreshadows impending death
- If 13 sit at a table, one will be dead before the year is out
- If there is a corpse in the house all mirrors should be covered, otherwise anyone who views himself in one will die
- To point at a funeral will cause one to die within a month
- A funeral on a Friday will mean there's another death within the family before the year is out
There are of course many, many more and this is but the briefest of lists.
Read more here or start here on Wikipedia (sorry, they're not so tidily arranged but a bit of searching will lead you to a few).
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I suspect my interest in the subject stems from the numerous recommendations I've received ..... "You really should go to ...".
Being an agnostic and all I don't credit Hell, or the conventional images thereof, greatly. But I find them interesting nonetheless.
Examine, for example, the Greek Hades, not a Hell per se, but hardly a place one would want to spend an eternity. Compare it to the Christian Hell, the punishment for an unproductive life, a life led as a sinner, as a non-believer, a place where anyone who thought differently than they did was sure to end up. A hell filled with fire and brimstone, the sulfurous hell of Satan and his attendant demons. And contrast it with the Buddhist Hell, similar in it's appeal, but there's the underlying belief or knowledge (??) that everything is an illusion, a projection of one's own consciousness, hence whatever your own hell contains it's of your own imagining. And the philosophy of reincarnation, which rewards or punishes you depending on your life's Karma.
Or the Chinese Hell, one filled with the conventional pleasantries, but to add to the pleasure there's an infinite number of weary and dysfunctional bureaucrats, so paralleling life on earth that it's necessary to forward one's ancestors "Bribes" or "Hell Money" so that they can make their way through with a minimal of discomfort.
Follow any of the links above to continue your investigations; this post is purposely brief to inspire your imagination. The illustrations are all by Gustave Doré, whose images of a frozen hell as a child terrified me....
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Now I get these emails all the time, promising to help me to optimize my website so I'm highly visible to all the search engines and #1 in search results related to me. I didn't think I was doing so bad, when I search for me I come up #1 for Rod Boyle and #3 for Rod's Blog, but I shouldn't let it go to my head. I can do better.
I mean, it's #1 out of about 1,550,000 results, most of which have nothing to do with me, and if I put quotes about my name I'm #1 out of about 6,580 results, most of which have nothing to do with me but it's still something, although no great shakes.
If I changed my name to something like "Augustus Cervantes Diablo Boyle" I could be the #1 and only, which would be good, but a lot of people would just end up searching for "Augustus Boyle" and I'd be back down in the rankings again, so there's really no point.
What would I want to be #1 at anyways? Maybe "Artist". That would be good, type in Art or Artist or Genius or Writer or Literature or F. Scott Fitzgerald, and have me come in at #1.
Sex would also be good. I'd pay to be the #1 thing people see, think and/or imagine when they search for sex.
But do you know what would be better? I mean, the above, I could work on the site in that direction and sooner or later I might actually get there, but there's something I'm not sure about. What if I wanted to be #1 for the search word "Google"? That would be worth paying for. People search for "Google" and the first thing they see is me. Then I'd know I'd made it. Next time I get an email offering to maximize my site for the keywords I choose I'm going to ask to be #1 for Google and see how much they'll charge.
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The evolution of ideas..
The Ishango bone, various theories surrounding it's purpose the most persuasive of which imply that the people who created it had some knowledge or understanding of prime numbers.
Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishango_bone or read up on prime numbers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number. More interesting links from the Wiki.
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A couple of interesting articles on "Numbers Stations", short-wave radio stations that broadcast strings of numbers, presumably to be decoded by spies in the field.
Link: NPR - 2010 & NPR 2000