The Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1945, fascinated the entire world. Unlike the Gospels of the Bible or the apocryphal ones, it does not relate the life of Jesus Christ, but it is a collection of sayings, from Greek sing. Logion – pl. Logia, assigned to him.


This gospel was known before its effective discovery, because many other antic writings referred to it. Hippolytus, in “Refutatio” (wrote between 226 – 235 A.C.) assigned this writing to a sect, and used one of its Logion to fight back their learning. In the first homily about Luke, Origen classifies the gospel as heterodox. In 323, Eusebius of Caesarea mentioned it as one of the works wrote by the heretics under the name of an Apostle. From this moment on, the Church will consider it as a heretic text.

The origin of the writing remains unknown. It seems clear that Logion were added during the centuries, between the second part of the first century and the end of the third century. The found manuscripts were written in Greek and Coptic, and the Coptic text had been transcript between 350 – 400 A.C. So the text results anyway previously wrote.

In the beginning of the book there is said: “These are the hidden words spoke by The Alive Jesus and wrote by Didim Juda Thomas”. Didim and Juda are actually synonyms, both meaning “twin” in Greek and Aramaic. The use of both names is specific for Syria, were Saint Thomas was very popular. So we can assume that the language in which the text was originally written was Syrian.

One of the controversies this gospel creates is the belonging to a certain religion. May it be considered Christian? May it be considered Gnostic or Judeo – Christian? Is it heretic? The Christian dogma was formed, as rules, ideas, only after the Council of Chalcedon, that took place in 451, so the books wrote before did not had a clarified dogma. So the different elements interfere, belonging to many religions of today. The message arrives codified, apparently addressed only to the initiated. The Bible stands for a “popular” meaning for the learning of Jesus, expressed in parables. But even in the Bible is mentioned a certain type of learning destined only to the Apostles, and the Orthodox steel keep during the sermon the formula: “The called ones, get out!”, addressed to the catechumen, the one without baptize. So the next part of the sermon speaks only for the baptized ones, meaning initiated in Christ.

The conclusion: certain parts of the Gospel can be easily considered Gnostic, or Judeo – Christian, or Christian, or other, but the book, globally, cannot be assigned to only one religion. One of the causes is the fact that it is not the work of one inspired writer, but a collection of sayings, surely inherited orally, for a few centuries. Regarding the heretical quality, in that period the Christian dogma was not clarified yet, so a wrong meaning can be discovered only if we judge it with the eyes of the Christian of today, without considering the historical period when it was wrote.



Biography:” Evanghelia după Toma”, ed Polirom, 2003, Romania

Sun Tzu - The Art of War

In the XX-th century, the occidentals got to know one of the most important books of the Chinese culture, called “Sun Tzu – The Art of War”. The book is a treaty of strategy, talking about how should behave the state and it’s generals in case of war, involving Chinese values, but applying conceptions that became valid for the occidental world in domains like marketing, negotiation, communication, etc, meaning in the competitive situations. It continued to influence the military strategies, being included in the libraries of every single unity, by the Government of the United States of America, for a continuous formation.


It is believed that Sun Tzu lived between the VI-th and the V-th century B.C. (or between 400 – 320) and he was a great general, strategist, and philosopher. The book became noted in China in a moment of crisis, when the governments were raising and falling, and had the purpose to maintain order in a moment of chaos. Although the teachings in the book are associated to the same general, they say the book was wrote by four of his officials, which knew by close the ideas of the legendary strategist.

The main idea of the book is that in a war the most important thing is winning, and the winner will be that who will plan his battles in order to obtain the best results in a shorter time with a minimum of losses, and the greatest winning of all is winning without fighting, because is the perfect way to respect the initial conditions: the time involved is minimum and the human losses don’t exist. The spies have an important part, because they allow you to know the moves that your adversary make, in the same time they offer him false information about your own moves. During war, the most important thing is being unpredictable and careful.

Sun Tzu does not promote only courage, but most of all the wisdom of the generals and of the officials on the battlefield, their capacity of training the troupes and make them respond to the orders. The orders must be clear, concise, understood by everyone, but the general will have the right to not respond to all of his king’s orders, if he considers them harmful for his troupes or for winning the battle. A general that commands the withdrawing of his troupes is not considered to be a coward, if he had good reasons of strategy for taking that decision.

For downloading the book in PDF format

The first genocide committed by the humans

In the last century, the idea of war, crime, and fight for supremacy has become a social state of spirit. The genocide organized by the Nazis during the Second World War still torments us and we avoid the movies, the books that tell about the human tragedy unfortunately created always by the people that maybe never deserved the appellation of “human”.

Another reason for us to be ashamed of is the fact that the Jaws were not the first victims of the human nature’s evilness. Let’s remember the Spanish conquistadors who exterminated the local cultures from South America, in the name of the gold. So, which was the first genocide, the first masse crime the man committed? (As far as the history can remember, of course)

Although the opinion is not unanimously shared, the major number of the paleoanthropologists considers that between 40.000 and 27.000 years ago, Homo Sapiens committed the first genocide, exterminating the only species on the planet having the same genetic heritage, the Neanderthal.

The Neanderthal was having a totally different aspect confronting the Homo Sapiens. Although the DNA of the two species was coinciding 99.5%, the missing 0.5% created essential differences. First of all, the brain of the Neanderthal was 10% BIGGER than ours. Then, the frontal bone had a double arcade, ditched on center. The mandible was very prominent, and the chin was totally missing. Another characteristic was the existence of the chignon occipital, a specific prominence, and the existence of the triangular prominences from the nasal cavity. Talking about his body, it is considered that the muscular masse of the Neanderthal was at least 30% greater that the Homo Sapiens’s muscular masse.

The man gained since historical times his supremacy on the planet killing in masse, exterminating his own relatives.

Book of reference: Robert J. Sawer, "La genesi della specie", Fanucci Editore, Roma, 2004 - the winner of the Hugo Prize, 2003

Who wrote the Old Testament? The 480 years of Kingdom of the Davidic dynasty

This really frequent question rarely finds an appropriate explication. In Laurence Gardner’s book, “Lost secrets of the sacred ark”, the story of the Old Testament is told looking through the eye of the objective historian, with a great reputation and credibility in his domain.

The Old Testament was written by the Hebrew scribes during the Babylonian captivity, starting with 586 B.C. As a landmark, the Hebrews’ escape from Egypt under the guidance of Moose, a very important episode from the Bible, took place during the kingdom of the pharaoh Ramses I, who ruled for only one year. He died at a short time after his becoming a pharaoh, moment that coincides with the biblical story of the death of the pharaoh who started chasing the chosen people, at the time already out of Egypt. These facts took place around 1335 BC. more than 1250 years before the Hebrew scribes wrote the story.

One of the biggest problems the scribes had been the missing historical notes for at least four centuries, so they established a standard period of kingdom of 40 years for every king belonging to the Davidic dynasty. This is the reason why David and Solomon have ruled, according to the Biblical story, the same time period. So the time of 480 years of kingdom that in the Bible belongs to the Davidic dynasty is a very discussible and relative fact.

Pareto principle: the results are not always a mirror of our efforts

The 19th century was a period of illumination, regarding the discoveries that followed in the 20th century. One of the most important rules in economy, but also in the daily life, is the Pareto principle. An Italian economist from the 19th century, Vilfredo Pareto, established that 80% of the fortunes are in the possession of 20% of the population. Since then, the ratio 80/20 has become famous and the direct observation proved that it applies in most cases. It also has been proved that 80% of the results are obtained with 20% of effort.

Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was born at Paris on the 15th on Julie, 1848, and he died on the 19th of August, 1923. He was an Italian sociologist, economist and engineer. His father was also an Italian engineer, expulsed on politic reasons, and his mother was French. In 1858 the entire family moved again on the Italian ground, at Torino.

Pareto Principle is also called the curve of the distribution of the incomings. This concept is an extrapolation made by Pareto of the fact that nut just the number of persons with a medium incoming is much bigger than the number of persons with a really big or really little incoming, but also of the fact that as the average value of the incomings increases, the number of those who receive an incoming decreases, so in general is almost the same in all countries and in all times.

France: The teachers will learn how to handle the undisciplined pupils

In France, from this year, the teachers can inscribe them at “a course of authority”, to learn how to handle the undisciplined students. The Ministry of Education had already agreed on a first series of 10 lessons in some schools from the Parisian region. The objective: to obtain some respect from the pupils, to establish the behavior to be maintained in a classroom, to know how to spread a good education. The initiative arrived from a professor who teaches in a “banlieue”, a typically popular neighborhood from the periphery of Paris.

Article published by the ”Acqua e Sapone” magazine, nr. from January, 2010

Translation: Anca-Elena Balan

Tell me what you’re listening, and I’ll tell you who you are

The music, seen as light for our souls, we’re listening according to our personality. This fact was proved by Adrian North, a professor at Heriot – Watt University, Edinburg, who made an elaborated study, on 36.000 subjects from the entire world, to see which the connections between personality and musical tastes are, more exactly,. And he truly proved that, if we tell what kind of music we like, we actually tell who we are.

This study is a lot of help in the marketing camp and in the industry of sales, because it offers a portrait of the music listener. Now, the target public can be better pictured and it can save the producers from the crisis. The product can be shaped on the personality of the client.

It this study true? This depends n how well the results of the test are shaping on us. Adrian North counts the connections between the musical types and personalities, as in the list that follows:

BLUES – o good opinion about themselves, creative, sociable, gentle, detached
JAZZ – a good opinion about themselves, creative, sociable, detached
CLASSIC MUSIC – a good opinion about themselves, creative, introverted, detached
RAP – a good opinion about themselves, sociable
OPERA – a good opinion about themselves, creative, gentle
COUNTRY and WESTERN – good workers, sociable
REGGAE – a good opinion about themselves, creative, though lazy, sociable, gentle, detached
DANCE – creative, sociable, but not gentle at all
INDIE – a bad opinion about themselves, creative, pretty lazy, not gentle at all
ROCK/HEAVY METAL – no trust in themselves, creative, pretty lazy, not sociable at all, gentle, detached
POP – a bad opinion about themselves, not creative at all, good workers, sociable, gentle, not detached
SOUL – a bad opinion about themselves, creative, sociable, gentle, detached

Source: Curiozități - Enciclopedie online

The 13th zodiacal sign: Ophiuchus

The zodiac is, in spite of its relativity, one of the most read articles on the pages of journals or on the Internet. The horoscope is based on the constellations from the sky, reported to the rotation of the Earth around the sun.

The modern zodiac has now 13 zodiacal signs. Ofiuco, with its Latin name of Ophiuchus, the one who carries the snake, is one of the 88 modern constellations, discovered after recent searching, but is also one of the 48 constellations called by Ptolemy. The 13th zodiacal sign, Ophiuchus, or The Snake Carrier was discovered by an Australian researcher.

In the Greek mythology. Ophiuchus was identified with Asclepio, the god of the medicine. This had not only the power to heal, but also the gift of bringing the dead back to life. The legend says that a long time ago, in Creta, Glauton, the child of the king Minuses, felled in a recipient full of honey and drowned to death. Asclepius wanted to analyze the body of the child, when a snake suddenly appeared. Scared, Asclepius killed the snake, but after it came another one, carrying in its mouth some green, and put it to the body of the snake. This came back to life, thanks to the magic power of the green. Then, Asclepius took the same green and put it to the body of the dead child, who, through the magic of the plant, came back to life.

The zodiacal sign is between the 30th of November and the 18th of January, between the sign of the Scorpion and of the Sagittarius, because of a deviation of the trajectory of the Earth around the Sun. This is a solar sign, full of energy and light.

The atomic bomb: the most powerful bomb ever launched

The explosion of the bombs from Nagasaki and Hiroshima remained in history not just as a catastrophe, but as well as a proof of the atomic power. But the bomb that exploded at Nagasaki is not even far from being the most powerful atomic bomb ever launched.

In 1961, the lab group of Andrej Dmitrievič Sakharov built in The Soviet Union the bomb called the Tsar Bomb, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested. The bomb was built in less than six weeks and its code name was Ivan.

On the 30th of October, in 1961, the bomb was launched over the Novaia Zemila island from the Arctic Ocean, in the bath of Mitjušicha, at north of the Polar Arctic Circle, north Russia. Although the initial force of the bomb was 100 megatons of TNT, it was limited for reducing the quantity of resulting radioactive residuum. The force of the bomb was of approximately 57 megatons of TNT, although unauthorized voices claim that the real force was between 62 and 97 megatons, meaning almost 5000 times powerful than the Nagasaki Bomb.

On the European territory, it was calculated that if the bomb would have been launched at London, it would have killed all the Londoners and it would have caused fires all the way to Oxford, meaning on a ray of 90 km from the explosion.

On the day of the explosion, although the sky was cloudy, the light caused by the explosion was seen from 1000 km away.

Misterul numerelor/ The mistery of the numbers/ Il mistero dei numeri

Cuvintele nu au nici un rost, cifrele vorbesc de la sine...
The words have no point, the numbers speak for themselves...
Le parole non valgono niente, le cifre parlano per loro stesse...

11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10 = 1111111111

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

Sursa/Source/Fonte: Stiati-Ca

The new year – between pagan and Christian

The celebration of the New Year is maybe the oldest feast in the world, his origins rising since the old Babylon, now more than 2000 years before the birth of Christ. The Christians boycotted it and considered it being pagan, the day of its celebrated changed a great number of times, but through the millenniums, the celebration still exists and it is a symbol of life, of the rebirth of nature, of the victory of light over dark. And all this because time needs to be helped to flow.

For centuries, the day when the New Year began was coinciding with the day of Christmas. So, the religious feast of the birth of God was mixing up with the pagan feast of the New Year. There were the Romans who instituted the day of the first of January as the beginning of the New Year. Before that, on the entire empire, this feast was celebrated on the 25th of March.

The Christianize spread more and more on the entire surface of the Roman Empire and not only. Little by little, the feast of Christmas and that of the New Year started to mix together, to become more alike. The New Year was now celebrated by praying and refusing all kind of meals, just as a religious feast. The New Year had more days when he was celebrated, varied in time between the days of Christmas, the day Of Easter, the first of March or the 25th of March. The day of the first of January is quite recent: there are 400 years to separate us from its consecration on a large scale.

The orthodox countries were the last to accept the new feast, especially for its pagan character, without connection to the religious calendar. For more than a millennium, the Christians celebrated the New Year in the day of Christmas. In Italy, in was celebrated until the 13th century, in Russia until the reign of the Great Peter, and in Romania until the end of the 19th century. For this particular reason, in some regions, the New Year is called The Little Christmas.

The stories of Santa Clause

All children received presents from him, under the decorated fir tree. During the night of Christmas Eve he sneaks, by magic, through the chimneys of the houses and lives presents for the god children, the toys they always wanted. Santa Clause comes to announce the birth of The Son of God by the maiden Maria.

Santa Clause lives in Lapland and comes with his magic sleight, dragged by reindeer. Rudolph, the reindeer with a red nose like a star, is the first in line to drag the sleight. The first Santa was called in a different way and lived in Turkey, at Mira. In the fourth century, a very wealthy Christian bishop was giving gifts to the god children and to the naughty children he was giving a birch. In the Christian celebrations, this tag is done by Saint Nicholas, on the sixth of December, every year. The story of the behavior of the bishop became known in the entire Europe and later, once with the immigrants, it arrived in America.

The United States of America –the native home of the good Santa
In December, year 1862, Thomas Nast, a caricaturist at the new-Yorker newspaper Harper’s Illustrated Weekly, drew Santa Clause, spreading the news that he lives at the North Pole and, helped by his elves, makes the entire year toys, for all the children, to give them for Christmas. But then, as the geographic discoveries evolved and attested that at the North Pole the reindeer would starve, Santa moved in Lapland. The story started to fill the imagination of all children and to council the adults to offer to the little ones happiness. So the American pastor Clement Clark Moore wrote a poem in which the Santa, fatty, with a white beard and all dressed in red, became the main subject.


The Christian Santa
The Christian story says that the wife of Santa received Virgin Mary to born in her stable, without announcing her husband. As a punishment, this man cut her hands off, but the Maiden put them back where they were, using the power of miracles. Seeing the miracle, Santa became a Christian and, felling happiness for the miracle that corrected his mean behavior toward his wife; he made a great fire, with some fir trees, and initiated sing around it, making gifts to everyone. His songs became with the passing of time the traditional Christmas songs.

The old toymaker
An old man, at the periphery of the city, was making toys the entire year, all beautiful and unique. For Christmas, he went to the market and sold then for little money, for the joy of making smiling the children. One year, he finished all his toys, but at the window of a poor family he saw that the children will receive nothing, because they were having no money. So, rummaging, gave them a soldier.

The old man became sad, because he could not make a toy for every child in the world, especially for the poor ones. On his way home, he saw in the snow an injured hart, which he felt petty for, curing him as well as he could. As a present for his kindness, the animal fulfilled his most strong wish: to make a present for every child.

In the same instant, a magic sleight appeared, dragged by reindeers, which took the old man in a magic place, far, far away. His poor clothes became some beautiful red clothes, and in his new home were living a lot of goblins, ready to make all together toys. So, every year, they made more and more toys and much beautiful, one for every baby, according to his wishes.


Letters for Santa Clause
All the children write this wonderful letters for Santa. The girls write them a bit longer, to make them nicer to Santa, and the boys are shorter, but decided, regarding the present they want. Most of the letters full of our wishes are sent through the mail box, to be delivered in Lapland. The Scandinavians burn them, being convinced their wishes arrive to Santa through the smoke that rises to the sky. Certainly, we all wrote letters for Santa and maybe we still write him. Patient, he reads all and fulfills our wishes!!



Marry Christmas!

The Christmas Eve: the Christmas tree

The Christmas is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of the son of God. The feast lasts since the 4th century in West Europe and since the 5th century in East Europe and for centuries it was celebrated on the 6th of January, that nowadays is celebrated in East as the day of the baptize of Jesus.

The Gnostics from Egypt, a Christian sect unrecognized by the canonic Christians, were celebrating since the second century the day of the 6th of January as the day when Jesus showed himself as the sun of God, at the baptize.

“The story of a saving god borne by a maiden on the 6th of January or on the 25th on December was not new at all, most of the pagan cults adoring a god of this typology. So, on the 6th of January, the day of the Egyptian solstice, was celebrated the overflowing of the waters of Nil and in the local “cult of mystery” the birth of the “eon” from the maiden. Epifaniu, a Christian writer, speaks in his work about the ritual of the celebration from the 6th of January and its meaning at the Egyptians and at the Arabians from “Petra” (Eleusa)”, where was celebrated the birth of the baby-god Dusares by a maiden. Another Christian writer, Ipolit, describes how at Eleusis, in Greece, was celebrated in the same day the Feast of mystery, when the priest was proclaiming the birth of the sacred baby: “The maiden was pregnant; she conceived and gave birth to a son!” On the 6th of January the Greece were also celebrating the birth of the god Dionis, the god that, just as Jesus, was transforming the water into wine.” (Source: Wikipedia)


The Christmas tree
The tradition of decorating the fir tree comes from the Germans, who, for Christmas, were decorating their houses with fir trees full of decorations. In the West Europe, this fir was decorated for the arrival of the New Year, and not as a symbol of Christmas. Even the Nordic people were having the tradition of decorating their houses with braches of fir and mistletoe. After the World War I, this tradition spread in all Europe.

In the Romanian tradition, the decorated fir tree appears in two capital moments from the human life: at weddings, when the fir tree symbolizes a life full of abundance and happiness, but it plays also the part of a fertilizing tree. The second moment is at the funeral of the young people, women or men, when the fir tree is a judgment tree and a dole tree, for the souls that left for the other world.

In the Scandinavian tradition, the always-green-trees were decorated. According to the story, the tree from Wotan was burned in the night of the 25th of December, the day of the winter solstice, as a symbol of the triumph of light over dark, the triumph of live over death and the beginning of a new year, meaning a new cycle, a new phase of life.

The pagans were considering the days since the 25th of December until the 6th of January as being the “odd nights”, and, for protection, they were decorating their houses with branches of fir tree ornate with lighting candles.

Rome: The Romanian children had their Christmas festivity

The Romanian children from Rome gathered together to sing the traditional songs from home. In front of their parents, in the Aula Magna from the school Circolo Didattico “Alfredo Bajocco”, the children recited poetries in Romanian and sang the traditional Romanian songs for Christmas. The little ones come from all the parts of their mother country and are having the ages between six and eleven years old. They all read the story of the first flake of snow, to show to their parents now they read in Romanian.


The children follow the course of Romanian Language, Culture and Civilization (LCCR), supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth, in collaboration with the Institute of the Romanian Language. In Italy, the project activates in the regions Lazio, Umbria, Lombardy, Piemonte and Veneto. At the school “Alfredo Bajocco”, the children learn the Romanian language under the supervision of the teacher Carmen Detrimona Balan, who also teaches at Viterbo and Orvieto. “The Romanian language is the most beautiful gift you give to your children. We must give them roots and wings”, started Carmen Detrimona Balan the festivity. Among t he little singers, there was an Italian child, Alessandro, who wanted to join the classes of this course. “He was going to the pool, but he wanted no more, he wanted to come here”, said smiling the grandmother of Alessandro. Full of pride, the little boy counts to ten in Romanian, and then he joins the group, to sing the traditional songs. The song “Mos Craciun cu plete dalbe” (Santa Clause with long white hair) was sang by all the parents, with the children, applauding for a long time. At the end of the festivity, “because we are all in Italy”, as the teacher Carmen Detrimona Balan said, parents and children together sang the Italian song “A Natale puoi” (When it is Christmas, you can).

The Italian teachers do not see the Romanian children as a problem. “The Italian language is very difficult; it has a lot of rules. As a behavior, the Romanian children are better than others. They are involving with a lot of seriousness in learning the Italian, they are really hard workers, and maybe the culture they are coming from made them be this way. But it would help also another course, to help the children who came in Italy since little time to learn the Italian.” said the teacher Patrizia Palombo, who taught religion to “a lot of Romanian children”. The Romanian children, according to their parents, made it through the integration in schools and in the society. “The Romanian looses ground, and the Italian becomes dominating. Look, the colors, when she speaks, she tells them in Italian, because she has just Italian friends and she almost uses no more the Romanian words”, tells a mother, whose daughter has come in Italy two years ago.

The festivity of the Romanian children took place yesterday, the 17th December of 2009, and the chorus was formed by 12 children of the 15 children that are usually frequenting the course at the school “Alfredo Bajocco”. Their little show lasted for an hour, after that the children went home to wait for the old Santa Clause.

Written By: Anca Elena Balan

Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof: 150 years from his birth

Today, the 15th December of 2009, we celebrate 150 years since the birth of Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, the inventor of the artificial language cold Esperanto. According to the Romanian Explanatory Dictionary since 1998, Esperanto is “an artificial language, formed by elements of vocabulary and grammar barrowed from the most popular European languages, created with the purpose of becoming an international language. – From fr. Espèranto”.



The language Esperanto was developed between the years 1872 – 1887, by the polish oculist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, joining to the category of the other auxiliary international languages created already. The name of the language was given by the nickname of its creator, meaning “the one who hopes”.


The language contains a set of rules, considered to be easy to be retained, and that were taken over from different languages, not just from the European languages, but from the entire world. The rules are chosen so that they would be easy to retain and would offer to the language the same expressivity as a living language, called also ethnic language.


Zamenhof was 19 when he elaborated his first project, about the creation of a universal language, and when he was 28, in 1887, he published his first paper work, under the nickname of Doktor Esperanto.

Morgan le Fay: the magic of the Celtic legend

The magic always was a world from beyond, full of mystery and beauty, governed by the laws of the tails and covered by the fog of the unknown. The famous characters of the history have always crossed to the territory of the legend, where their beauty and their bravery are getting more alike with those of gods. Morgan le Fay, or Morgana, is one of the most famous fairies in history, beside Mafalda. But who was Morgana, the one who had the power to change shape and to create optical illusions?




Morgan le Fay: the step sister of the king Arthur

The legend of Morgan le Fay has its roots in the Celtic tradition, in the myths connected to Avalon. In these legends, the character of Morgana is presented in antagonism with the king Arthur, so she is an enemy of Ginevra, the wife of the king. In the tails about the life of Merlin the Sorcerer, the strongest wizard ever existed, Morgan was the eldest of the nine sisters that were leading the Avalon, the island of the sorcerers and of the world of legends.



The most known powers Morgan had were the power of healing and the capacity of changing shape. According to the legend, she was Arthur’s step sister, the daughter of Lady Igraine and of her first husband, Gorlois, so the child inherited the miraculous powers of her mother. In this version of the legend, Morgan le Fay had two elder sisters. The number three is a fatidic number in the Celtic mythology, as in the Balkan fairytales and in the stories from the Vest Europe. The myth of the three brothers or sisters always presents the same conclusions: the youngest brother is always the strongest and the wisest.



Morgana was brought up according to the tradition of Avalon, by Vivian, the Mother-Priest from Avalon, having the purpose to let her place to the child. Arthur also received the same old education and he received the mission to unite the England. A confusing character is Mordred, the evil sun of Morgan le Fay and Arthur, whose existence was totally ignored by the king. But in the older stories, the evil part played by this baby of incest was played by one of the sisters.



Some legends present Morgan as the pupil of Merlin, who became his enemy. The fairy gave her name to an optical phenomenon, characterized by the creation of an optical illusion, having in common with the sorcerer the propriety of changing forms. This phenomenon scarcely met in desert, because of the extremely warm weather, is more common on seas, as a consequence of the evaporation of water. It Italy, its appearance was proved in the Strait of Messina.



Avalon: the place where all legends meet

The island of Avalon became a magic place in the Celtic legends and not only. The Orthodoxy borrowed a part of the mystery carried along by this English island. According to the tradition, Jesus himself visited this island that became the home for the Saint Grail, the goblet Jesus drank with at the Last Supper. In Avalon were also buried the lifeless bodies of Arthur, Ginevra and Morgan le Fay. During his reign, the king Enrick II searches the island and, five meters underground, he discovers two coffins: one unscripted with the name of the King Arthur, where was found the skeleton of a man incredible high, about 2.30 meters, and the second, where was buried a minion woman even for that period, the coffin of Ginevra.



Avalon is also known as the place where Merlin the Sorcerer was buried, the strongest sorcerer of all times, but also the place where the Excalibur sword is hidden, full of magic and power, after what a dragon breathed over it.

Hitler – a football coach at Auschwitz

The day when the First World War ended, 11 November 1918, is kept in our memory as a reason to celebrate. The Erskine Association decided to make a study, for the anniversary from 2010, in which they should ask the kids from The Great Britain about the characters from The World War II. Said and done, the study was made on 2000 kids, with the ages between nine and 15 years old. The greatest part of them, 77%, knew that Hitler was the leader of the German party. But the others chose to guess the answer.




Hitler – a younger Isaac Newton

More than one of eight children, more exactly 13.5%, believe that Adolf Hitler discovered the concept of gravity in 1650. What luck with that apple that, according to the legend, hit the young Isaac Newton in his head and made him understand that the force of gravity is the same thing with the gravity of the sky!

Isaac Newton truly lived in that century, since 1642 until 1727, but at the age of eight he did not finish his studies and did not begin the period of his discoveries. His first discovery was made in 1665 and it is called the binomial theory.



Hitler – wrong century again

One of eight children thinks that Hitler was the coach of the national football team of Germany. Starting with the year 1908, the coaches Germany had were: Otto Nerz, Sepp Herberger, Helmut Schön, Jupp Derwall, Franz Beckenbauer, Berti Vogts, Erich Ribbeck, Rudi Völler, Jürgen and Joachim Böw. Where should we put Hitler in the list?



Mistakes were made at many questions connected to the World War II. If you handle reading Italian, you should read the entire article with the results at this study. If you don’t speak Italian, you must trust my when I say that the most macabre answer was given at the question: “What is Auschwitz?” 15% of the children think that Auschwitz is a playing ground.

The Buddhism and the Shinto’s: the spiritual symbiosis from Japan

The mystery of the oriental world always attracted the imagination and the interest of the occident, which watches fascinated toward the temples, the traditions and the east cultures. Japan, that kept its doors closed to the external societies for centuries, often was the base of the European stories and myths. In 1638, Japan enters in the era of the economy with the closed gates, that will be preserved for more than 200 years. But in the 19th Century, because of the International context of the World Wars, the external politic of Japan starts to change.


The Japanese spirituality was often a source of stories. The fights between samurais, their style of dressing, the power of sacrifice and the Asian sense of duty are legendary. Honor, responsibility and duty are the rules of the Asian world. Their religions, deeply rooted in tradition, have an unique spirituality.

The principles of the religion from Japan are the Buddhism and the Shinto, but most Japanese combine, through the syncretism, the learning of the two religions with the normal life. The quotidian and the religion are deeply interfering, marking every step of the Asian existence. The religion has become another level of the normal life, and the rituals of the two parts interfered and almost became the same.



The Buddhism: the awake of the prophet

Buddha really existed! The mythological character with a biography presented by Asvaghosha in Buddhacarita (the eldest story of the prophet’s life) abundant in fantastic and legendary elements, was Gautama Buddha, who lived between 623-543 BC, according to the Buddhist tradition from Birmania and Thailand, 560-480 BC according to the modern historians. The Buddhists think that the prince Gautama Siddhartha was born in Lumbini and was brought up in Kapilavastu, near the actual frontier between India and Nepal. According to the tradition, the Buddha’s father was the leader of a tribal formation called Sakya.

The prophet gets his “awake” (bodhi can be translated as “Illumination”) at the age of 35, becoming known as “Buddha” (the illuminated) or “Gautama Buddha”. Encouraged by the god Brahma, Buddha spends 45 years teaching about dharma and founds the Buddhism. Gautama Buddha died when he was about 80 years old, cause of disease.

The Buddhism spread in the entire Indian subcontinent and in the closed countries like Sri lanka during five centuries, after the death of Buddha. In the next two millenniums, it diffused in Asia and in all the other continents. The Japanese Buddhism is called east - Asian.



The Shinto: the foundation of the Japanese spirituality

The Shinto represents the eldest Japanese fundament. The Japanese religious fundament had three historical stages. The first, “the beginnings”, comprise the period until the 6th century before Christ, and represents the old Shinto. The second period, during since the 6th century BC until the 17th century AC is characterized by the fusion with the Buddhism. The third period, since the 17th century until present, corresponds to the period of solidification of Shinto, when it was declared national religion.

The roots of Shinto are deeply buried in time, probably somewhere in the Stone Age. The Shinto divines the Kami, the equipollent of the gods, the divinities, but it can simply mean a spiritual presence.

Number two: the entire and the half

Two represents a magical number, full of profound meanings. The lovers became one and the same, a heart and a soul in two persons, in two minds, but representing an entire. Inside the couple, a micro cosmos is being created, where the entire represented by two becomes a personal divinity.

In lots of cases, when “two” is used in a relationship, might mean the need of being protected, the innocence of the feminine, the fragile.



The magic number two

In magic, the meanings of the number two are deeply alike with what the number transmits in the regular life. Number two represents the kindness, the equilibrium, the tact and, of course, the duality. But number two force us to make choices: the plans are premeditated with a great power of judgment. The magic of the number two also suggests the changelings with the others, in a climate of partnership, through the power of communication



The parents: number two in Buddhism

In Buddhism, just like in magic, number two symbolizes the pair, the mother and the father in union. But this perspective is shadowed by a discriminatory wisdom inside the couple.

Looking from an opposite perspective, the number two symbolizes as well the halves. An old Tibetan saying says that “the earth is half grass and half water” and it is used for the broken up couples: if the partner has left, then this proverb remembers that there is someone for everyone, the important thing is to recognize the opportunities.

The last perspective of the number two in Buddhism is that of the entire. Tantra has two stages: first are the regeneration and then the completion.

The romanticism: lasting for a relationship

The romanticism is, maybe, the most beautiful experience in a relationship and the emotion we fell loosing with the passing of time. Contrary to our fears, the scientist Bianca P. Acevendo, from the University of California, observed that the romanticism is actually the main factor of the happiness of the couples, regarding the long time relations as well as the short time ones.



According to a recent study, published by the American Psychological Association, the romanticism in a relationship is not a variable, but a constant, a factor that must evolve with the two partners. The romanticism is responsible of the understanding between the partners, of their happiness, because the life characterized by romance does not have an obsessive component.


So watch out! The romanticism and love are the first elements to be taken care of, if we want to characterize our intimate life as being full of accomplishment and happiness! Contrary to our fears, both can last for a life time, the time does not necessarily have to deteriorate them.

source: StiintaAzi