Natwerk Designs

Can somebody suggest me good sites that have tons of pictures for home designs/interiors? Please dont suggest me hgtv! Also that I dont need to register with .Thanks!

I need 1000 pictures of all types of furniture and interior designs ? where can i find them over internet ? I need 1000 pictures and photos of all types of home furniture and interior designs ? where can i find them online. Is there a free catalog ? preferable indian designs ? please help asap..

i want to find a site which has pictures of famouse modern architects home designs? i need pictures of interior spases of mies van der rohe's home designs

Does anyone know great websites that have contemporary interior design tips like Extreme Home Makeover? I am looking for a website that has a lot of "how to" tips on how to decorate the interior of homes. Lots of pictures of rooms, paint color options that look good together, etc. On the line of design... such as that of Pottery Barn or like that of how they design on the show Extreme Home Makeovers. I am sick of looking at white walls. I like contemporary, unique and cozy. We are a young couple, so we would like our home to look cool. I live in a small town, so the closest store for decorating is Walmart. I need something that will help me add style and coordinate. Otherwise I buy a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I can never come up with any colors I like, that I won't want to change! Please help!

Is there a website where real people can show off pictures of their home decorating or apt.? i was hoping that i could find a community or even a website where you can get some decorating ideas for someone my age, 25. i want to redecorate my home and remodel it. if anyone has any good home interior design websites where real people can show off their decorating please let me know. thanks. a good one i know of is designspongeonline.com

Help in home interior designs!? I need a house that is in the forest. To make it not Twilighty, I don't want it to be a modern house, but it has to be pretty large, basically the same size as the Cullens' place. Anyway, I've looked around on Google images and found nothing. Can anybody help me find a perfect house interior/exterior in the forest? In the house, I would like a black glossy couch and a large television, that's pretty much all that is needed. Uh...please, if you can, NOT have it be a log cabin. Pictures would be great! But if you have something in your head, please explain some details that I can base it off of. I've thought about it for sooo long, and came up with nothing! Please make the house have color, not just black and white. That's it. Thanks so much!!! Actually, there doesn't have to be a black couch. And if you could, give me some ideas on a master bedroom and two bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom....and stairs!! But I think I can base everything off the living room if you just give me details on that. Thanks again!! The house of my dreams IS the Cullen house... :( And I'm not looking to buy a house!

Website's with floor plans/home design plans? I'm looking for some websites which contain some kind of home design plans or floor plans. Also anything with interior design pictures showing materials used and things. I'm just looking for some ideas while I design my own house. Thanks!

I'm looking for a good home interior design website.? I'd like a website that has alot of colour pictures.

I'm looking for a RV. Where can I find a Motor Home with a modern interior design? Hey maybe you guys know where is possible to find pictures and information about luxury Recreational Vehicle - like motor home - with modern interiors. Something to proud of, motor home with taste.

Best home interiors' pictures needed?!? I'm constructing my house from the scratch and i want huge bedrooms so basically im taking up the spaces of two bedrooms for one. Could you guys please help me with some latest contemporary designs for bedrooms, walk-in closets, bathrooms (preferably small), classy powder rooms, living room and kitchen? Anything will work pictures, websites etc. and some pointers (to keep in mind while construction) are most welcomed. This would literally mean the WORLD to me. Thank you sooo much!

Do you think Interior design consulting would be a good business in Austin? I would like to do Interior design consulting from home but not sure how good of a response I would receive in Austin. My plan would be to be primarily internet based. Send a picture of your space and I consult for a set fee per room. What do you think?

Is it possible to ask people I dont know if I can take pictures of their houses for my interior design blog? I want to start a blog on interior design. However, I don't know a lot of people who have nice houses. Would it be possible if I ask people I don't know if I can take pictures of their spaces? Of course, I will write a formal letter of request and explain to them that I will feature their home in my blog. Is this acceptable in Filipino culture? I want to start a blog on interior design. However, I don't know a lot of people who have nice houses. Would it be possible if I ask people I don't know if I can take pictures of their spaces? Of course, I will write a formal letter of request and explain to them that I will feature their home in my blog. Is this acceptable in Filipino culture? I just want everyone to know that what I meant is just rooms, decor. I wouldn't show the outside of the house, doors, windows. But model houses are a good idea! I'm just concerned that there aren't that many of them.

What's a good magazine that shows NORMAL homes for decorations and interior design? All the mags i see always feature million dollar homes with celebrities. I'm looking for a magazine that shows how to decorate a tract house that don't have 30 ft tall ceilings, and overlooks the beach. A mag with a lot of pictures and ideas. Like a crate and barrel catalog or ??

where can I find home design ideas (exterior)? I have a site of land which I have just been told I can build on. Before I go to see an architect to draw up plans etc I want to bring some pictures and ideas of what I'd like (something rural -uk) home design magazines are really expensive so i wondered if there are any good websites with home design images? I only ever seem to find interior ideas. Thanks

Im looking into interior design and my inspiration is blair waldorfs penthouse, i need help with pictures...? either screen caps, pics, or products from the set(or similar) her home is victorian, but also modernn..with lots of details ie crown molding

please help, how to graphically design a home using a computer? please help me find a program that i can graphically design houses and interiors other than the sims. i would like one similar to these pictures: http://www.1021.co.za/arhitectural.html what is the name of this program? i want to download it please help me search for a good graphic home design program i can download to use. thank you

Interior Design Help Please - Window Treatment needed!? The focal point of our home has a big design flaw! The windows/doors if you notice in the pictures follow a bay style - however the top windows the cement was poured straight (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/expatingreece/slideshow?.dir=/ad78scd&.src=ph). We were able to get windows installed and the aluminum conformed to follow the bay style and it works well. Now I need to think about window cover because the afternoon sun comes in and really heats up the house. We brought an awning/canvas guy and he wanted to install all this iron extending way beyond the window so that it can cover the sides where bay goes in. Many have said to put the window treatment on outside instead of inside to prevent the heat from entering into the house in the first place. I'm up for that but I really don't want anything too big that would distract from the look. No designs, frills, and I do like the light coming in without the heat... Any ideas??? thanks! If link does not work below here are the pics: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/expatingreece/album?.dir=ad78scd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/expatingreece/my_photos

Home designing software? i need something online (not to download) that i can just design the interior of a house. Just to get an idea of what i should do mine in. Everything from Furniture, to TV's, to wall decorations, to pictures. Including Bathroom countertops and paint. Carpet and wood flooring. can ANYONE help me? please and thank you

wallpaper designs and ideas? Hi i am doing my room up and trying to look for the perfect wall paper just for one wall (themes wall behind my bed) i want it black with silver grey pattern on it, i don't want the patter to small or close together and don't really want floral pattern (had loads of samples and most are floral) http://homes-designing.com/interior/bathroom/fresh-ideas-for-bathroom/ this would be my ideal wallpaper (scroll down its the 3rd picture down, the black and white bathroom) i love that print and if any1 can find one close i'd be so happy or other prints you think would look nice :) (also cheapish please nothing on the lines of £80 as more on the lines of £25 or cheaper) thanks :) also please send links with pictures.

Contemporary/Modern Interior Design? Anyone has any websites where i can find pictures of contemporary/modern bedrooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. ... i'm trying to design my new home and i want ideas... thank you

How much would it cost to have an interior desighner design this house? picture it without the furniture this is a model home and it's the only picture i have of the house ten points to the best answer! http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/tour.asp?t=439093

Interior design ideas PLEASE? looking to paint in our new 1st home. Are there any websites where I can browse pictures of paint ideas & or decorations? Do interior designers usually so complimentary consults? Thank you!

is it ok if I use my own pictures? I have some of my own pictures, like my baby, me. can i use this pictures to draw them for my portfolio for college admission, is it ok if I draw my baby, with the picture that i took. I love that picture she's naked there :)... so cute. I should tell you where I'm applying, I'm applying for interior design at FIT. and I have to do a portfolio for admission, and they sent the letter that I should prepare a Portfolio, with the best drawings, I have to have like 20 to 30 Pisces of art (examples: sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textile design, photography, computer graphics, etc.) and a home test with interior drawings. so what do you think would that do. If you have any opinion, or suggestion please fell free to throw it at me. Thank you, god bless

Is it ok if I use my own pictures? I have some of my own pictures, like my baby, me. can i use this pictures to draw them for my portfolio for college admission, is it ok if I draw my baby, with the picture that i took. I love that picture she's naked there :)... so cute. I should tell you where I'm applying, I'm applying for interior design at FIT. and I have to do a portfolio for admission, and they sent the letter that I should prepare a Portfolio, with the best drawings, I have to have like 20 to 30 Pisces of art (examples: sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textile design, photography, computer graphics, etc.) and a home test with interior drawings. so what do you think would that do. If you have any opinion, or suggestion please fell free to throw it at me. Thank you, god bless

Painting my kitchen hot green....anyone know about interior design? I love bright colors. I want to paint my kitchen bright green. Kind of a lighter bright green...almost like the yahoo answers bars, haha! The problem is I don't know how to transition to the living room and hallway which attach to the kitchen. I don't want the entire house bright green...though I do love a bright, beachy, fun look all over the house. I need suggestions of how to make the whole house look good and bright and fun but not overwhelming. The kitchen is the biggest room in our small ranch style home. Help please!?! Pictures would really help me too~ I'm painting myself and plan on making a home depot trip today or tomorrow. Thanks for the help! Really, Luke? No green? This is the pic I was liking: http://www.lavenderlotusdesign.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/domino-green-kitchen.jpg

Interior design for a teen room? I am a 15--almost 16 year old, girl. I will be moving soon to a new home and I'm looking for some cool bedspreds and ideas for interior design. I love the idea of a casual and fun beach theme. I want something that doesn't look too child-ish though. In particular, I'm looking for bed spreds and lamps. I already have multi-colored stripped sheets. I want something that can work with them.. For the lamp, I'd prefer something plain-but cute. Pictures and links would be greatly appreciated. I'm deciding between wall colors as well. I love the colors blue, red and yellow. Get creative! I would love some help with this:)

Does anyone know where the "proper" place is to hang a family oil portait in a home? My beloved father is deceased, and I inherited the portait we had painted of him in 1987. I love the picture, and want to place it in the most appropriate room in the house. Are these more frequently hung in the dining room, the hall way, the livingroom, or in a bedroom? I don't know anyone who has one, nor have seen one in a friend's home! The size is 27 inches across by 32 inches high. Perhaps there are some studied design persons out there that could save me from an interior blunder! Hope so!!! Thanks!

What are these curtains called and how to sew them? I found these gorgeous curtains, and I really wish to sew something similar for my apartment. The thing is that I don't know how to achieve that special draping, and I could not find a tutorial as I don't know what the curtains are called. I would really appreciate if someone could tell me how to sew such curtains or help me find some kind of tutorial. Thanks in advance! http://homes-designing.com/furniture/category/bedroom-interior/ (Scroll down to the 19th picture)

careers in art (graphic design/interior designer)? soo im a junior in HS and im thinking this would be a cool job and id enjoy it..but the thing is i'm not that involved with art in school....i like art and use photo editing at home for like MY pictures and stuff.. but the only classes i've taken for art is advertising, photography, and general art. I don't have a portfolio and don't know what to put in one. Am i too late to start thinking about all this for a career? id like to make things for magazines...cd's etc.. also would i have a better chance of making a better salary if i moved to a larger city?? thanks

home work help .... help? 1. This is an applied art that creates the form of manufactured products. film production mass-production industrial design interior design 2. This is a distinguishing characteristic or personality of an individual. self-portrait motif identity principal 3. This is a series of photographs of a moving subject taken a very short time apart and flashed onto a screen. surrealism principal photography motion pictures digital photography 4. This is NOT a major stage of film production. pre-production post-production principal photography principal screenwriting 5. This is NOT a question a good industrial designer asks when designing a product? Is it functional? Is it usable? Is it attractive? Is it available? 6. Many of Frida Kahlo's paintings are based on this subject. her identity her pets her fashion her hometown 7. This is a traditional Japanese emblem. motif monsho coat of arms surrealism 8. Editing a motion picture occurs in this major stage of its production. pre-production principal photography post-production screenwriting 9. These are the elements of Mexican culture Kahlo included in her artworks. symbolism and light colors symbolism and bright colors literalism and bright colors capitalism and light colors 10. This person is in charge of the business end of making a movie. director producer cinematographer screenwriter

Random survey/quiz?!? What did you eat today for breakfast? cereal with blueberries lunch? bran bar, apple, long carrot, juice box dinner? 4 cottage cheese balls with vanilla yogurt. snacks? 10 smarties. what did you do today? i went to school and learned, tried out for the basketball team do you hold your sneeze in or let it out when its quiet in your classroom? let it out! do you have a cell phone? yahh do you use a walkmen still? nahh if not, what do you use to listen to music? my ipod and my laptop what time do you wake up for school? 6:30 am what time do you wake up for work? dont work (i added this question for ppl who are older and who dont go to school) to be honest, do you actually eat a full meal for lunch when your at school/work? YUPPP!! i never skip when you turn the tv on, what Chanel do you check first to see whats on? 46 :P HGTV im very into that home and interior designing thing. name 3 things you would put on a collage to describe you? my bracelet from when i got my surgery operation, my ticket to Hungary, and and a picture of me modeling. write three things that best describe's you? adventurous, active, a good friend. im just bored and i like doing these kinds of random surveys:P tell me if you liked it, and what didn't you like about it?

Can I be an Interior Designer/Consultant in Dallas? I am wondering if I have good enough ideas to be an interior designer or consultant in Dallas. I am in graduate school, but have always loved to decorate. I have worked in home decor stores in the past, and know how to assemble the most daunting of pieces, even Ikea. I don't want to be professional, but I can see myself shopping with clients and helping them with ideas or looking at homes, rooms, and designing concepts on my own. I just am not sure what would be the best way to go about it, or even if I have ideas and taste enough to be desired by others. I made a post on Craigslist, and will put a link so you can see the pictures of some of my work. I just don't know the best avenue. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks. http://dallas.craigslist.org/hss/652652416.html

Teen Bedroom Interior Design Help? I am a sixteen year old girl and I need help designing my room! I purchased a colorful quilt and lamp shades from Anthropologie and am centering my room around those. I am going for the Anthropologie feel, sophisticated, vintage, and moroccan. I DO NOT want to grow out of this room soon, so I need mature pieces. My bedroom is fairly small, so I don't want furniture that will overpower it. I am looking for a queen sized bed, a vanity/desk, and bedside table, and lamp stands. I love this vanity from PB teen, but I am not sure if the white looks too little girly. Also would white, dark wood, and an iron bed look wierd together? What do you think? Where is a quality store to buy sophisticated furniture from? I want my room to be relaxing and mellow, but still fun. I have pictured some of my ideas below, and would love some input. Thanks!! - Zoe Already purchased: http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=993009&parentid=HOME-BEDDING&pushId=HOME-BEDDING&popId=HOME&sortProperties=&navCount=35&navAction=top&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=pin&colorName=PINK&isSubcategory= Ideas: http://www.pbteen.com/products/p3894/?pkey=cvanity-furniture http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p957/index.cfm?pkey=cmetal%2Dbeds%2Dheadboards http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p9494/index.cfm?pkey=cbedside%2Dtables http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p7300/index.cfm?pkey=cbedside%2Dtables

When should I start seriously considering my career? I know I am young. I'm only 13 years old. I'm going to college early, at around 16 or 17 years old, due to how fast I'm progressing in my home school education. I've gone through many different stages of things I'd like to do, but I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down. I recently discovered I have a really good knack for photography. I'm actually quite talented with a camera. I absolutely love editing pictures. Then I thought about interior design. But I think it's the actual looking for things to piece together and the actual decorating process, but, I feel stronger towards photography. I have considered setting up a business. The whole thing confuses me, with business making. I understand that I can't plan out a future; Things will go off course, sometimes. But I've really thought about it. It is not like I haven't just enjoyed life as a 13 year old girl. I'm still young and shouldn't think too hard about my future. But it's going by faster than I thought it would, being home schooled now. Anyways, I have planned out the following: At 16, I will become a preschool teacher assistant. My aunt is a preschool teacher, so I will most likely help her with that. I already help her now, but I can not legally be paid until I am of working age. While I am assisting her, I will be getting the education( which takes about a year or two) to become a preschool teacher, so I can make better money and be more productive rather than working at Food Lion, or McDonald's, and such. At 18, I'll become the preschool teacher. You have to be 18 years old to be one. I'll still be doing college throughout my teaching. After college, I'll quit preschool teaching. I want to go and buy a decent sized building, and start my own photography business. I have absolutely no clue how it works though. And there is another problem. I'm not sure that I'm really into the science with lighting. I'm not sure, but what do you study in college for photography? What is it like and how do you start a business? What do you need in order to be a photographer? How many years does it take? Excuse me. I'm sorry, but I wasn't asking for a lecture. Why would I be serious about something that I wouldn't love doing?

Help me plan my dream house? So real estate is a bit of a guilty pleasure and so is interior design. I love pretending I'm a millionaire and driving in areas with fancy houses (such as Ocean Drive in Newport RI) and imagining how I would design my own if I had the means. I've started to make a digital folder of images I like, like a shoebox collection but on my laptop. Does anyone know any good sites where I can see beautiful homes that I can steal pictures from? At the moment I use the Home and Garden magazine site but I'm looking to for like unrealistic amazing lol. Outdoor living is my fav : ) No let me explain better lol, I don't want to hire anyone and I can't afford to actually build a house right now I'm 20 lol. I just like pictures of nice house and rooms and stuff so I can be inspired and have an image in my head when the day comes that I could ever afford this

University in New York? I'm looking at Universities in New York where you can major in buisiness, history, interior design, and languages (major or minor) Something not too far away from NYC (less than a 2 hour drive) and with a nice campus. where you can see pictures of the dorm rooms, and where the campus can fell like home, but all the buildings aren't just like 1-2 story buildings (yes, i have seen places like that). Any ideas please, i need some help here, i can't find anything!

Need help summarizing this article up? Work, Family… Together? Picture this: You're sitting with your spouse, and the two of you are talking about starting a company that manufactures and sells organic children's clothing. Your husband will handle the business side -- he has an MBA -- while you, whose hand-sewn outfits are the envy of neighborhood moms, will focus on product design, production and promotion. But should you work together? There are certainly advantages to running a family business, including a built-in sense of loyalty and a shared investment and commitment. "There is a higher trust level involved when people know each other so well, and this essentially lowers the cost of capital for the business," says Andrew Keyt, executive director of the Loyola University Family Business Center. He says family businesses also tend to carry less debt. Family vs. Business Issues Of course, there are some real disadvantages. Family members who are also business partners often have difficulty separating their personal and professional agendas. They can find it hard to make business decisions independent of the relationship. "The intensity of family members working closely together creates strain," says Mr. Keyt. And there can be spillover from home that hurts the business. "Unaddressed family issues can distract partners from coping effectively with important business challenges." Jim Grosspietsch and his wife, Tracy, run an interior-design firm together and have experienced both the pros and the cons. "As a designer, Tracy guides the mission and vision for the firm, while I manage all of our business functions," says Mr. Grosspietsch. "We work from home on flexible schedules and share household roles." On the other hand, balancing the needs of business and family and cash flow are twin challenges, they say. And while finances are a major cause of stress for most married couples, "it's much worse when you manage a business with your spouse," he says. Long Odds for Success Despite the fact that family businesses encompass 85% of all American businesses and generate over 60% of the gross national product, a startling one-third of small businesses -- including family-owned firms -- fail in the first year. But there are ways to increase your chances of success. The first step is to be honest with yourself. Do you and your family member already have a strong relationship that includes healthy communication and mutual respect? Are your work ethics similar, and do you share goals, expectations and a passion for the business? The answer to both should be yes, or close to it. Then, before you launch, consult an attorney and set up a formal plan of operations similar to the sort you'd do with a non-family partner. "Be sure to have well-defined roles in the organization so you don't step on each other," says Mr. Grosspietsch. "Each partner needs a set of activities to oversee." You also need to think about the worst-case scenario. "Start by creating your exit plan," adds Mr. Keyt. "Ask the question: 'If things aren't going well, how can we recognize this and leave the business in a way that preserves our family relationships?' "

Will I be able to run Company of Heroes on full graphics? The computer im going to buy has these specs: Product Features AMD dual-core technology enables you to work or play with multiple programs without impacting performance; AMD64 technology provides simultaneous support for 32-bit and 64-bit computing; 512KB + 512KB L2 cache memory for efficient processing 15.4" WXGA high-definition widescreen display with BrightView technology and 1280 x 800 resolution 160GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm) NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA) graphics with up to 559MB total available graphics memory; S-video TV-out QuickPlay touch-sensitive music and DVD controls; HP mobile remote and ear bud headphones included Built-in HP Web cam and integrated microphone make it easy to chat with family and friends 5-in-1 digital media reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Card IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; 56 Kbps high-speed modem; Expansion Port 3 connector Weighs 6.8 lbs. and measures just 1.6" thin for portable power; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter Long-lasting HP imprint high-gloss finish and silver interior with inlaid wave design; backlit media control panel Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition operating system preinstalled; software package included with HP Photosmart Essentials, muvee autoProducer DVD Basic Edition, Roxio Creator 9 Basic and more Learn more about Windows Vista AMD, AMD Arrow logo, AMD Turion, AMD PowerNow!, HyperTransport and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. *Model number indicates relative mobility and performance among this AMD processor class. **AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection provides additional protection against buffer overflow viruses. AMD and its partners strongly recommend you continue to use third-party anti-virus software as part of your total security solution. Product Details Warranty Terms - Parts 1 year limited Warranty Terms - Labor 1 year limited Product Height 1.6" Product Width 14.1" Product Weight 6.8 lbs. Product Depth 10.1" Processor Brand AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2 Processor Speed 1.8GHz Display Type WXGA high-definition widescreen with BrightView technology (1280 x 800) Screen Size 15.4" System Bus Up to 1600MHz Cache Memory 512KB + 512KB on die Level 2 System Memory (RAM) 2GB System Memory (RAM) Expandable To Nonexpandable Type of Memory (RAM) DDR2 Hard Drive Type SATA (5400 rpm) Hard Drive Size 160GB Optical Drive Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Optical Drive Speeds Drive speeds not available Direct-Disc Labeling No Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, digital media card reader Diskette Drive No Graphics NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA) Video Memory Up to 559MB total available graphics memory Personal Video Recorder (PVR) No TV Tuner No MPEG Yes Modem 56 Kbps* *Capable of receiving 56 Kbps downloads. However, current regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps. Networking Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector) Wireless Networking Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g) S-Video Outputs 1 Additional Audio/Video Connectors 1 SPDIF digital audio out Audio Altec Lansing PCMCIA Slots 1 ExpressCard 34/54 USB 2.0 Ports 3 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports 1 Parallel Ports None Serial Ports None Game Ports None Notebook Weight Standard (more than 6 lbs.) Battery Type Lithium-ion Pointing Device Touchpad with on/off and dedicated vertical scroll up/down pad Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium Included Software Microsoft Works; Adobe Acrobat Reader; Hewlett-Packard QuickPlay, Photosmart Essentials; muvee autoProducer Basic Edition; Roxio Creator 9 Basic and more Included Accessories HP mobile remote, ear bud headphones

Can you be Artistic but not decorative? I'm a poet and very creative person. I have a relative that draws and is very into interior decorating. She watches all these tv shows and duplicates much of it in her home. I'm aesthetically aware and have a vision of how I would like my home to be but I'm poor at the moment. because I can't decorate my home the way I want to, I just let it go and have nothing going on at the moment. everytime this relative visits, she has some sort of advice. I have told her I have a vision and her remark to me is "you call yourself an artist? If you were a true artist, you'd have your house decorated and wouldn't have issues hanging pictures, etc." Is this true? I'm very creative but haven't found anything that matches the visual picture in my head. I'm not one to put a picture up to cover a bare space. everything I have has to mean something. Are there other artists like myself who don't pay much attention to such things or is interior designing a mark of a true artist?

I Need Useless Tags for a Video Related to UFOs, anybody have any? You know what i mean? activism, advertising, alcohol, alternative-news, ancient-history, animals, animation, anime, architecture, arts, astronomy, atheist, bizarre, blogs, books, buddhism, business, cars, cartoons, cats, celebrities, christianity, classic-rock, clothing, comedy-movies, comics, computer-graphics, computer-hardware, computers, cooking, crafts, crime, cyberculture, dogs, drawing, drugs, ecommerce, environment, fashion, fine-arts, firefox, geography, graphic-design, guitar, guns, hacking, health, history, humor, illusions, interior-design, internet, internet-tools, iraq, liberal-politics, liberties, linguistics, linux, literature, mac-os, mathematics, movies, multimedia, music, nature, network-security, news, online-games, open-source, painting, philosophy, photography, physics, poetry, politics, programming, psychology, quizzes, relationships, religion, satire, science, science-fiction, self-improvement, shopping, software, space-exploration, stumblers, stumbleupon, tattoos, travel, tv, video, video-games, web-design, windows, writing, actors, america, apple, art, aviation, blog, blogging, bush, california, car, cartoon, cat, celebrity, charity, children, climate-change, college, comedy, comic, community, dance, death, debate, design, diet, diy, dog, economy, election, elections, energy, entertainment, exercise, facebook, film, finance, flash, flowers, food, football, funny, gadgets, game, games, gaming, global-warming, god, google, graffiti, green, home, humour, illustration, images, internet-marketing, life, living, love, mac, marriage, math, media, medicine, microsoft, money, music-video, obama, oil, online, paintings, pakistan, peace, photo, photos, photoshop, pictures, pirates, president, quotes, recipe, recipes, republican, rock, sculpture, security, social-media, social-networking, society, space, star-wars, tech, technology, television, tips, tools, tutorials, ubuntu, vegan, video, videos, vintage, war, water, web, web-development, weird, wordpress, youtube, sex, sexy, hot, love, porn, president, 2008, 2009, winter, secret, omg, no, way, amplafitesttag, art, arts, bank, barackobama, bi, bisexual, blues, broadway, business, c, canvass, children, classical, college, comedy, community, communityservice, concert, conference, convention, country, county, dance, debatewatchparty, design, development, drive, election, election08, entrepreneur, event, events, fair, family, festival, field, filmfest, florida, football, for, free, fun, fundraising, halloween, haunted, indie, iowavoteearlyforchangeweekofac, jazz, kids, league, live, local, localfieldoffice, london, management, marketing, media, meeting, music, musicals, mybo, national, networking, new, nfl, nyc, obama, of, office, organizing, party, performance, phone, phonebank, pop, pride, prideevent, pridefest, registration, rock, service, show, shows, social, sport, sports, startup, technology, theater, tour, voter, voterregistrationdrive, w, web, western, women, women for obama, workshop, , free, money, cash, movie, download Something like that but maybe related to aliens ufos and space? Thanks I really appreciate the help

Wallpaper at Starbucks...? I saw some wallpaper at a Starbucks near me a few weeks ago that I think would look awesome in my home. I took a picture of it with my phone, but I don't think I can upload it here unfortunately. It was kind of a silvery highlights with lots of black and it looked like there were mermaids in the pattern (hence it being in Starbucks, like their logo, which features a mermaid). I was wondering if anyone knows if Starbucks uses a certain interior design firm, or where I might be able to find this wallpaper? I can't stop thinking about how great it looked. Thanks for your help!

Can I run Age of Empires 3 Full Graphics? The computer im going to buy has these specs: Product Features AMD dual-core technology enables you to work or play with multiple programs without impacting performance; AMD64 technology provides simultaneous support for 32-bit and 64-bit computing; 512KB + 512KB L2 cache memory for efficient processing 15.4" WXGA high-definition widescreen display with BrightView technology and 1280 x 800 resolution 160GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm) NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA) graphics with up to 559MB total available graphics memory; S-video TV-out QuickPlay touch-sensitive music and DVD controls; HP mobile remote and ear bud headphones included Built-in HP Web cam and integrated microphone make it easy to chat with family and friends 5-in-1 digital media reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Card IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; 56 Kbps high-speed modem; Expansion Port 3 connector Weighs 6.8 lbs. and measures just 1.6" thin for portable power; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter Long-lasting HP imprint high-gloss finish and silver interior with inlaid wave design; backlit media control panel Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition operating system preinstalled; software package included with HP Photosmart Essentials, muvee autoProducer DVD Basic Edition, Roxio Creator 9 Basic and more Learn more about Windows Vista AMD, AMD Arrow logo, AMD Turion, AMD PowerNow!, HyperTransport and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. *Model number indicates relative mobility and performance among this AMD processor class. **AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection provides additional protection against buffer overflow viruses. AMD and its partners strongly recommend you continue to use third-party anti-virus software as part of your total security solution. Product Details Warranty Terms - Parts 1 year limited Warranty Terms - Labor 1 year limited Product Height 1.6" Product Width 14.1" Product Weight 6.8 lbs. Product Depth 10.1" Processor Brand AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2 Processor Speed 1.8GHz Display Type WXGA high-definition widescreen with BrightView technology (1280 x 800) Screen Size 15.4" System Bus Up to 1600MHz Cache Memory 512KB + 512KB on die Level 2 System Memory (RAM) 2GB System Memory (RAM) Expandable To Nonexpandable Type of Memory (RAM) DDR2 Hard Drive Type SATA (5400 rpm) Hard Drive Size 160GB Optical Drive Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Optical Drive Speeds Drive speeds not available Direct-Disc Labeling No Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, digital media card reader Diskette Drive No Graphics NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA) Video Memory Up to 559MB total available graphics memory Personal Video Recorder (PVR) No TV Tuner No MPEG Yes Modem 56 Kbps* *Capable of receiving 56 Kbps downloads. However, current regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps. Networking Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector) Wireless Networking Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g) S-Video Outputs 1 Additional Audio/Video Connectors 1 SPDIF digital audio out Audio Altec Lansing PCMCIA Slots 1 ExpressCard 34/54 USB 2.0 Ports 3 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports 1 Parallel Ports None Serial Ports None Game Ports None Notebook Weight Standard (more than 6 lbs.) Battery Type Lithium-ion Pointing Device Touchpad with on/off and dedicated vertical scroll up/down pad Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium Included Software Microsoft Works; Adobe Acrobat Reader; Hewlett-Packard QuickPlay, Photosmart Essentials; muvee autoProducer Basic Edition; Roxio Creator 9 Basic and more Included Accessories HP mobile remote, ear bud headphones

What do you think? The word "Afro-Hungarian" means nothing for me, as it's just an expression. ? My name is Klara Orsolya Eme Bassey. I was born in Budapest in 1983 February 2nd. So now I'm 24. After High School, I tried a University (Eötvós Lorand Tudomány Egyetem) but I left before the first exams. It turned out quite early that I've got nothing to do with teacher's classess neither the library sciences. After a year of thinking, being confused, and having a serious nervous break down, I went to School of Design. Decoration, Interior and Outer shop design (visual merchandising) became my trade. This course only gave me mid-level certification. During this two years I studied in Pannonia Animation film studio. I learned how to make animated cartoons manually and some animated film history. After Design school, I still didn't feel talented enough to go to the University of Applied Arts so I started another two-year course, but didn't finish. Actually I didn't know what to do with myself. Finally, one of my best friends found me a job where I work as a decorator. Funny, isn't it? During school years I used to be a dancer at Tunde Komolafe's group—the Bongo Men. I also did some hostess as well as waitress jobs, which I disliked later. My main job is decoration. With the B.O Decoration Corporation we are working for the Pafumeria Douglas. I have been doing this for almost two years, and in spite of my interest in textile designing, I couldn’t make up my mind what to do with my talent. Though I consider my talent in drawing and fashion designing as hobbies, I would like to make it bigger. On the other hand, I really want to be a mother soon. But this does not depend on me alone. Anyway, I think it's quite clear that I do not know where I am going in general. So I don't want to act as if I knew something special about life. I could describe only one thing as my practical ambition: I'd like to do my best at whatever I do. In an abstract meaning, my ambition is to give fashion a new base. I would like people to see beauty in a compact way. I have had enough of men with perfect bodies, and girls with ill-looking slim frames! Let beauty be more than that. The other thing I'd like to change is the picture people have about eroticism. It's ugly and flat to advertise everything with naked women. Sex is something discreet; should stay between two people. If we consider the truth that eroticism has a wider meaning than sex, then we could exchange nakedness with mystery, which I think could give more than the 'pure facts' of a body! I would design not only clothes but styles and general effect of pictures. After making my own trade mark, building up a style empire, then I could find that utopistic colony where homeless people would find a new home; a new chance to recover like getting new trades, jobs, and a new life entirely. Do you feel African or European? Please be honest It's a good question but the answer won't be that simple. I am an African European. As a child I was brought up to be a Hungarian girl, though I wasn't really. I know about my Nigerian root. I know my father’s home town. Yet I've always felt myself European, and it's how I think because of the kind of education I received. The history of arts and the history I studied so hard—all determined my person as European. But the most important subject (from this point of view) was the literature. How could I tell anyone what language means to me, though I am the visual type. If I summarise what I've told you so far, then it even changes the question. I don’t even feel European because I'm Hungarian. The word "Afro-Hungarian" means nothing for me, as it's just an expression. At the moment it doesn't cover any homogeneous communities. We're just finding our cultural and social base. It's very exciting on one hand, but brings a lot of responsibilities and problems. We (the 1st and 2nd generations of Afro-Hungarian) should not act as many of us do now. I have experienced snobbishness and prissiness that I could not identify myself with. Of course many white Hungarians behave likewise, but I see this type of behaviour more in Afro-Hungarians. We should be much more careful because it's obvious that the minorities are always under heavy criticism. Well, I know why it is so. I mean it's hard to be African Hungarian here without own culture. We have no clear root or past to guide us through the challenges of life. Many do not even know their fathers. That's why they use their exotic look as a weapon and act like a conqueror, criticizing anything Hungarian and glorifying everything African. I'm not saying this in order to hurt anybody's feelings. And of course I might be wrong. Anyway, I'm sure things would be better in a few years. In our life many changes come. Hungarian borders have opened up a bit, and that gives new opportunities and widens people's horizons. Would you have preferred your parents to be from the same race? It is out of question. Of course had they been from the same race, I wouldn't have become who I am

Which HDTV LCD Should I Buy It's Christmas Gift? Philips 42PF7321D/37 42” HDTV Plasma with Tuner, Stand and Speakers Experience the superior picture quality of this excellent Flat TV with the latest Plasma technology and Pixel Plus. It's packed into a stunning design that will complement your interior. Share music and photos via the built-in USB. This state-of-the-art plasma screen technology gives you widescreen HD resolution of up to 1024 x 768p pixels and contrast of 10,000:1. It produces brilliant flicker-free progressive scan pictures with optimum brightness and superb colors. This vibrant and sharp image will provide you with an enhanced viewing experience. The built-in HDTV tuner that receives and displays terrestrial ATSC and unscrambled cable (64/256 QAM) signals. LG 42PX3DCV 42” EDTV Plasma with Tuner, Stand and Speakers LG Electronics is one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers, producing a large range of consumer electronics and IT products. LG has created reputation for progressive technology and innovation with the latest technological developments in consumer electronics, home appliances and IT products. PRODUCT FEATURES: 852 x 480p Resolution; 10, 000:1 Contrast Ratio; 1500 cd/m2 High Brightness; Image Sticking Minimization, Pixel Orbitor, and White Wash Features; Aspect Ratio Correction; RS-232 Control and Discrete IR Controls; Fan-Free Operation; Faroudja DCDi; XD Engine; Front Panel Control; Side Video/Audio Inputs; Integrated ATSC/NTSC/Open Cable Tuner; Integrated Speakers.

can anyone revise this essay and add little more details if u want.. please...? In today’s world, people have access to more information than at any other time in history. The latest news can be updated on website in less than one minute. It is faster than any other sources such as radio, television or newspaper. Online news and cell news provide customers with fast updates, cell phone access and interactive programs. Customers and readers now have opportunities to comment on some of these news programs through text messages and emails. The most developed and interesting features for news are Google News, Yahoo News, and MSN News. They all try their best to provide international, local, national, weather, economic, entertainment, sports news etc. It is hard to choose which one is better because they are superior in different ways. I think Google News is superior compare to Yahoo News and MSN News because it has news in many different languages; it provides news more rapidly than Yahoo or MSN; it is more popular in the world due to relevant news for larger group of audience. Yahoo news is more about entertainment, sports and miscellaneous events. As an example, headline for yahoo news is more likely about sports or entertainment. MSN news is more about financial and economic issue. Google news is designed for Common news readers who are looking for over all general news, a bit of everything. People who are seeking the option for news papers find Google news more convince. Google use about four thousand five hundred sources to update the news continuously and fast. Secondly the home page for Google news is much more descriptive than yahoo news or msn news’s homepage. Home page of yahoo news and msn is more visual effects and pictures while Google news is concerned about textual news. As newspaper shows a little part of article on first page and shows the rest on interior page, Google mostly include all news headlines on home page and than direct the rest part of the headlines in their category sections. Yahoo news and MSN news include only main news on their main pages. Finally, the data is shown that Google accounted about 71% US searches (www.webanalyticsworld.net). Google’s search engine has been first choice of users with 89% hit compare to all other search engine, according to data shown onhttp://search.sys-con.com/node/166698). This is a main factor of popularity of Google news. Because Google news is linked to the Google search engine box, it is easy to trick people to get in the Google news. Online news should not focus on particular area or region such as USA or Canada. It supposes to design for world wide audience. In this case, google have branches in many countries that represent news of their nations. This also makes Google popular everywhere in the world compare to Yahoo news and MSN news. As an example, when I was in India, I had never used or heard about MSN news or even had never seen a friend using it. Everybody isn’t familiar with English and Spanish languages in the world, especially populated countries like China, Argentina, and India etc. Yahoo and MSN don’t offer variety of languages for news so people who are not familiar with English can’t take advantage of Yahoo or MSN, because they don’t offer as much languages as Google news. In this case, Google prove to be superior with more than forty different languages for news. In addition, Google news is more rapid than yahoo news. As an example, news posted on google, “ Cassel , Morris lead Pats to 41-7 win over Broncos.” By HOWARD ULMAN – 39 minutes ago. The same news by same author was posted after nineteen minutes on yahoo news, “Cassel, Morris lead Pats to 41-7 win over Broncos.” By HOWARD ULMAN, AP sports writer – 20 minutes ago. In conclusion, popularity of search engine, keep Google News on the top. Simple and focused news also attract the people. The data shows that the hits and the numbers of users for Google is way ahead compare to Yahoo news and MSN news.

Websites that sell furniture like the W Hotels? Hi, My friends and I are putting together a display of a "dream home" for a back-to-school summer art project. We've got most of the design together but we were looking for inspiration on the interior. We found the W Hotels around the world and we loved the modern/club/night life atmosphere of it :) we saved those pictures and such in our project. Now we've been looking for websites that possibly sell, or at least have pictures, of similar furniture. Can anyone help us please? And no need to worry about money either. This is just a school project ;) Thanks a ton!

DOES executive experience, or GENERAL experience matter? Forgive the length of this question, but I want to make sure everyone understands the question. I'd also like to know not just WHO you'd hire, but WHY. JUSTIFY you answer, please. Picture this. You're building a 7,500 sq.ft. custom home. It is going to cost you 1/2 a MILLION dollars, and is going to house your entire home. You and your spouse, your children and grandchildren, and has a pair of 2,500 sq.ft. inlaw suites for yours and your spouse's parents. AND, don't forget the family pet. Now, after weeding through the chaff, you have whittled down your choices for a home builder down to two choices. One, is an old guy, who's been in business for 40 years. The other is a relative newcomer, who is young, hip, inspiring, and has a lot of really novel ideas for decorations and a flair for design. The old guy, is surrounded by a staff of loyal supporters who have helped him build fine homes for royalty and dignitaries the world over, is one of the world's most celebrated designers and archetects, and has established one of the world's most highly respected construction companies, utilizing time proven techniques combined with groundbreaking new technologies. While the other guy, though younger, with a definate flare for the dramaitc, with grand,sweeping entrances and can draw a really pretty picture, only has experience in hiring a couple decent crews for assembling some decks, playground equipment, and has organized the construction of a few habitat for humanity houses. Since graduating college with a degree in something or other, with a minor in construction engineering, he's not even built a deck onto his own house with his own tools and knowledge. Yet the old guy, has not only built magnificient homes for decades, he has gone into urban areas and saved condemned buildings, built multi cultural and multi ethnic housing and gathering places, and has worked with a group of fine craftsmen to save buildings that were on the verge of falling, full of people, showing great heroic prowess and the ability to operate under the highest degree of stress imaginable. While it can be said that either man is competent for the job, it can also be said that one has earned the right to do the job, and proven his ability through experience and hands on knowledge of the job at hand. And the other guy, while he may posess the knowledge to do the job, may not, because he is a virtual unknown entity, with questionable knowledge and experience, because he hasn't HAD the experience and hasn't had the opportunities to prove himself in this arena. And while I'd not take away his education or his desire and drive, nor would I just overlook his design ideas out of hand, I WOULD greatly suspect his abilities to actually oversee a project of this magnitude. After all, my ENTIRE extended family is going to reside in this home, and I intend to leave it to my heirs one day. I know which guy I'm going to hire for the job already. Which guy would YOU hire for the job if you had it to do? Because people, you DO have the job to do, and the responsibility to hire the right guy. You had better get it right. You have to live in that house. So tell me....Who are you going to hire? The flashy new guy with a lot of un-proven ideas, or the experienced hero in the field, who while traditional, uses leading edge technology to give the house the best that there is to give. Not to mention, the old guy has recently hired the best interior decorator on the PLANET to complement him, while the young guy, for all of his forward thinking, recently hired an old fashioned decorator who hasn't had an original idea since the 1970's, and decorates in the style of 1970-80's Soviet bloc. Who would you hire for this job???

My friend's mom got into a mess....HELP!? Hi. I'm on my moms account. Here's the problem- This guy (let's call him Jim) asked if he could take pictures of my friend's moms work (for his new book) on people homes, like their living room. (She's a interior designer) She said yes, but only if she got credit. He asked the neighbors, and they said the same thing. BUT they didn't get it in writing. So this guy publishes his book, and acts like he designed every. single. detail. of. those. rooms. And her name isn't mentioned ONCE. How can she prove that she designed these rooms and get credit? Thank you

Creating my own King size headboard...HELP!>? I would like to create my own King Size headboard for our bed. I've been shopping for new bedroom sets and nothing is quite what I am looking for. I seen an episode of that home make over show and there was one where they made a headboard. I'm going to have it against a red wall and my theme is contemporary, black white red. The picture in my head is black... with button stitches... or dark wood black, with a red centered (not sure the word I am looking for) pudgy, pillowing kinda part that has the cris cross stitching with button accents... I am probably not explaining it right... Any idea where to start and how to go about this project? My husband is a general contractor and thinks I am nuts and just wants me to go buy one.... Any other ideas of how to create a headboard? I was also thinking of no head board and simply hanging like a black panel against the wall and draping it to look like a headboard......I am no interior designer thats for sure but I am looking for the cheapest, best looking design, and original!! Definately original.. Again, furniture is black (dressors, night stands.. etc... bedding is black white, with red accents... room walls are white with the exception of the red wall the bed will sit against (headboard sits against)... anyway...looking for some ideas on how to make this work...any other tips or recommendations for the layout or decorating.. please share!

interior design web resources? (wanna see some pretty pictures for home renovation ideas)? i'm going to renovate my home (a small downtown apartment). wanna see some pictures for ideas. thanks.

could anyone suggest me good interior designing website with good pictures & great ideas for home decorations? i want to decorate my house & make some changes at the garden as well...... the website can also suggest me some great decor pieces & information about where to buy all those stuff cheap..... Specially in india........ northern in india punjab, himachal etc....

does anyone know some websites for ideas for home decor and interior design?i need websites that provide like? online catalogs with pictures,not just articles. thank you so much :D

where can you find interior home decorating tools? set ups( picture mock up) to design a room

Does anyone know a good source for basic supplies for interior design projects? I am looking for a resource that sells great nails, wire, picture hanging hooks, rope, basic tools, etc. I have looked at our local hardware stores and Lowes and Home Depot and can't find anything decorative that looks into the spaces I am working on. I am particularly interested in copper and pewter finishes.

i have question about 2 careers i want to go into? 1.i want to go into interior design but have my own little business from for hospitality work.im taking some classes in college right now they say you need a bachelor's degree in the arts.so how would i start my own business from home in interior design i dont even have any experience yet? 2.my main career would be photojournalism.i love to write and i love to take pictures,people say im good at photography and i'm taking a photography class now.what other classes do i need to take?what do i need to get there?how can i get experience with it when i dont have any experience in the job?

Is interior and fabric design in demand in Vancouver? Hi, Is interior and fabric (curtains, bedspreads, pillows etc.) design in demand in Vancouver? Other words, do people in Vancouver really care about how their homes look like? I don't want to offend anyone but I've heard that in North America and particularly Canada people generally care less about such things than in Europe. Just want to get an answer from locals to get a REAL picture. Thanks a lot!

picture over fireplace? I have a question for anyone who is involved in interior decorating or design. I recently purchased an electric fireplace for my new (older) home. I later chose a picture to have framed to hang over my fireplace - however, I hadn't measured before choosing the matting and frame and well - my fireplace is 36" wide and my picture is 38" wide. So I was wondering if this is something you've seen before - or if pictures hung above fireplaces are typically smaller. Will it seem unbalanced?

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How many of you can't read this? The Unthinkable Thought "Jesus said, 'It is to those who are worthy of my Mysteries that I tell my Mysteries.'" The Gospel of Thomas On the site where the Vatican now stands there once stood a Pagan temple. Here Pagan priests observed sacred ceremonies which early Christians found so disturbing that they tried to erase all evidence of them ever having been practised. What were these shocking Pagan rites? Gruesome sacrifices or obscene orgies perhaps. This is what we have been led to believe. But the truth is far stranger than this fiction. Where today the gathered faithful revere their Lord Jesus Christ, the ancients worshipped another godman who, like Jesus, had been miraculously born on 25 December before three shepherds. In this ancient sanctuary Pagan congregations once glorified a Pagan redeemer who, like lesus, was said to have ascended to heaven and to have promised to come again at the end of time to judge the quick and the dead. On the same spot where the Pope celebrates the Catholic mass, Pagan priests also celebrated a symbolic meal of bread and wine in memory of their saviour who, just like Tesus, had declared: "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation." When we began to uncover such extraordinary similarities between the story of Jesus and Pagan myth we were stunned. We had been brought up in a culture which portrays Paganism and Christianity as entirely antagonistic religious perspectives. How could such astonishing resemblances be explained? We were intrigued and began to search further. The more we looked, the more resemblances we found. To account for the wealth of evidence we were unearthing we felt compelled to completely review our understanding of the relationship between Paganism and Christianity, to question beliefs that we previously regarded as unquestionable and to imagine possibilities which at first seemed impossible. Some readers will find our conclusions shocking and others heretical, but for us they are merely the simplest and most obvious way of accounting for the evidence we have amassed. We have become convinced that the story of Jesus is not the biography of an historical Messiah, but a myth based on perennial Pagan stories. Christianity was not a new and unique revelation but actually a Jewish adaptation of the ancient Pagan Mystery religion. This is what we have called 'the Jesus Mysteries Thesis.' It may sound farfetched at first, just as it did initially to us. There is, after all, a great deal of unsubstantiated nonsense written about the 'real' Jesus, so any revolutionary theory should be approached with a healthy dose of scepticism. But although this book makes extraordinary claims, it is not just entertaining fantasy or sensational speculation. It is firmly based upon the available historical sources and the latest scholarly research. Whilst we hope to have made it accessible to the general reader, we have also included copious notes giving sources, references and greater detail for those who wish to analyse our arguments more thoroughly. Although still radical and challenging today, many of the ideas we explore are actually far from new. As long ago as the Renaissance, mystics and scholars saw the origins of christianity in the ancient Egyptian religion. Visionary scholars at the turn of the nineteenth century also made com-paxable conjectures to our own. In recent decades, modern academics have repeatedly pointed towards the possibilities we consider. Yet few have dared to boldly state the obvious conclusions which we have drawn. Why? Because to do so is taboo. For 2,000 years the West has been dominated by the idea that Christianity is sacred and unique, whilst Paganism is primitive and the work of the Devil. To even consider that they could be parts of the same tradition has been simply unthinkable. Therefore, although the true origins of Christianity have been obvious all along, few have been able to see them, because to do so requires a radical break with the conditioning of our culture. Our contribution has been to dare to think the unthinkable and to present our conclusions in a popular book rather than some dry academic tome. This is certainly not the last word on this complex subject, but we hope it may be a significant call for a complete reappraisal of the origins of Christianity. THE PAGAN MYSTERIES In Greek tragedies the chorus reveals the fate of the protagonists before the play begins. Sometimes it is easier to understand the journey if one is already aware of the destination and the terrain to be covered. Before diving deeper into detail, therefore, we would like to retrace our process of discovery and so provide a brief overview of the book. We had shared an obsession with world mysticism all our lives which recently had led us to explore spirituality in the ancient world. Popular understanding inevtitably lags a long way behind the cutting edge of scholarly research and, like most people, we initially had an inaccurate and out-dated view of Paganism. We had been taught to imagine a primitive superstition which indulged in idol worship and bloody sacrifice, and dry philosophers wearing togas stumbling blindly towards what we today call 'science.' We were familiar with various Greek myths which showed the partisan and capricious nature of the Olympian gods and goddesses. All in all, Paganism seemed primitive and fundamentally alien. After many years of study, however, our understanding has been transformed. Pagan spirituality was actually the sophisticated product of a highly developed culture. The state religions, such as the Greek worship of the Olympian gods, were little more than outer pomp and ceremony. The real spirituality of the people expressed itself through the vibrant and mystical 'Mystery religions.' At first underground and heretical movements, these Mysteries spread and flourished throughout the ancient Mediterranean, inspiring the greatest minds of the Pagan world, who regarded them as the very source of civilization. Each Mystery tradition had exoteric Outer Mysteries, consisting of myths which were common knowledge and rituals which were open to anyone who wanted to participate. There were also esoteric Inner Mysteries, which were a sacred secret only known to those who had undergone a powerful process of initiation. Initiates of the Inner Mysteries had the mystical meaning of the rituals and myths of the Outer Mysteries revealed to them, a process which brought about personal transformation and spiritual enlightenment. The philosophers of the ancient world were the spiritual masters of the Inner Mysteries. They were mystics and miracle-workers, more comparable to Hindu gurus than dusty academics. The great Greek philosopher Pythagoras, for example, is remembered today for his mathematical theorem, but few people picture him as he actually was a flamboyant sage who was believed to be able to miraculously still the winds and raise the dead. At the heart of the Mysteries were myths concerning a dying and resurrecting godman, who was known by many different names. In Egyp he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysus, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. Fundamentally all these godmen are the same mythical being. As was the practice from as early as the third century BCE, in this book we will use the combined name "Osiris-Dionysus" to denote his universal and composite nature, and his particular names when referring to a specific Mystery tradition. From the fifth century BCE philosophers such as Xenophanes and Empedocles had ridiculed taking the stories of the gods and goddesses literally. They viewed them as allegories of human spiritual experience. The myths of Osiris-Dionysus should not be understood as just intriguing tales, therefore, but as a symbolic language which encodes the mystical teachings of the Inner Mysteries. Because of this, although the details were developed and adapted over time by different cultures, the myth of Osiris-Dionysus has remained essentially the same. The various myths of the different godmen of the Mysteries share what the great mythologist Joseph Campbell called 'the same anatomy', just as every human is physically unique yet it is possible to talk of the general anatomy of the human body, so with these different myths it is possible to see both their uniqueness and fundamental sameness. A helpful comparison may be the relationship between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Bernstein's West Side Story. One is a sixteenth-century English tragedy about wealthy Italian families, whilst the other is a twentieth-century American musical about street gangs. On the face of it they look very different, yet they are essentially the same story. Similarly, the tales told about the godmen of the Pagan Mysteries are essentially the same, although they take different forms. The more we studied the various versions of the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, the more it became obvious that the story of Jesus had all the characteristics of this perennial tale. Event by event, we found we were able to construct Jesus' supposed biography from mythic motifs previousl3 relating to Osiris-Dionysus: - Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the saviour and 'Son of God'. - His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin. - He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on 25 December before three shepherds. - He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites ot baptism. - He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. - He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honour him. - He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. - After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory. - His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days. - His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood. These are just some of the motifs shared between the tales of Osiris-Dionysus and the 'biography' of Jesus. Why are these remarkable similarities not common knowledge? Because, as we were to discover later, the early Roman Church did everything in its power to prevent us perceiving them. It systematically destroyed Pagan sacred literature in a brutal programme of eradicating the Mysteries -- a task it performed so completely that today Paganism is regarded as a 'dead' religion. Although surprising to us now, to writers of the first few centuries CE these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious. Pagan critics of Christianity, such as the satirist Celsus, complained that this recent religion was nothing more than a pale reflection of their own ancient teachings. Early 'Church fathers,' such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed and resorted to the desperate claim that these similarities were the result of 'diabolical mimicry.' Using one of the most absurd arguments ever advanced, they accused the Devil of 'plagiarism by anticipation,' of deviously copying the true story of Jesus before it had actually happened in an attempt to mislead the gullible! These Church fathers struck us as no less devious than the Devil they hoped to incriminate. Other Christian commentators have claimed that the myths of the Mysteries were like pre-echoes of the literal coming of Jesus, somewhat like premonitions or prophecies. This is a more generous version of the'diabolical mimicry' theory, but seemed no less ridiculous to us. There was nothing other than cultural prejudice to make us see the Jesus story as the literal culmination of its many mythical precursors. Viewed impartially, it appeared to be just another version of the same basic story. The obvious explanation is that as early Christianity became the dominant power in the previously Pagan world, popular motifs from Pagan mythology became grafted onto the biography of Jesus. This is a possibility that is even put forward by many Christian theologians. The virgin birth, for example, is often regarded as an extraneous later addition that should not be understood literally. Such motifs were 'borrowed' from Paganism in the same way that Pagan festivals were adopted as Christian saints' days. This theory is common amongst those who go looking for the 'real' Jesus hidden under the weight of accumulated mythological debris. Attractive as it appears at first, to us this explanarion seemed inadequate.We had collated such a comprehensive body of similarities that there remained hardly any significant elements in the biography of Jesus that we did not find prefigured by the Mysteries. On top of this, we discovered that even Jesus' teachings were not original, but had been anticipated by the Pagan sages! If there was a 'real' Jesus somewhere underneath all this, we would have to acknowledge that we could know absolutely nothing about him, for all that remained for us was later Pagan accretions! Such a position seemed absurd. Surely there was a more elegant solution to this conundrum. THE GNOSTICS Whilst we were puzzling over these discoveries, we began to question the received picture of the early Church and have a look at the evidence for ourselves. We discovered that far from being the united congregation of saints and martyrs that traditiona! history would have us believe, the early Christian community was actually made up of a whole spectrum of different groups. These can be broadly categorized into two different schools. On the one hand there were those we will call 'Literalists', because what defines them is that they take the Jesus story as a literal account of historical events. It was this school of Christianity that was adopted by the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, becoming Roman Catholicism and all its subsequent offshoots. On the other hand, however, there were also radically diffejent Christians known as 'Gnostics.' These forgotten Christians were later persecuted out of existence by the Literalist Roman Church with such thoroughness that until recently we knew little about them except through the writings of their detractors. Only a handful of original Gnostic texts survived, none of which were published before the nineteenth century. This situation changed dramatically, however, with a remarkable discovery in 1945 when an Arab peasant stumbled upon a whole library of Gnostic gospels hidden in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This gave scholars access to many texts which were in wide circulation amongst early Christians, but which were deliberately excluded from the canon of the New Testament -- gospels attributed to Thomas and Philip, texts recording the acts of Peter and the 12 disciples, apocalypses attributed to Paul and James, and so on. It seemed to us extraordinary that a whole library of early Christian documents could be discovered, containing what purport to be the teachings of Christ and his disciples, and yet so few modem followers of Jesus should even know of their existence. Why hasn't every Christian rushed out to read these newly discovered words of the Master? What keeps them confined to the small number of gospels selected for inclusion in the New Testament? It seems that even though 2,000 years have passed since the Gnostics were purged, during which time the Roman Church has split into Protestantism and thousands of other alternative groups, the Gnostics are still not regarded as a legitimate voice of Christianity. Those who do explore the Gnostic gospels discover a form of Christianity quite alien to the religion with which they are familiar. We found ourselves studying strange esoteric tracts with titles such as Hypostasis of the Archons and The Thought of Norea. It felt as if we were in an episode of Star Trek -- and in a way we were. The Gnostics truly were 'psychonauts' who boldly explored the final frontiers of inner space, searching for the origins and meaning of life. These people were mystics and creative free-thinkers. It was obvious to us why they were so hated by the bishops of the Literalist Church hierarchy. To Literalists, the Gnostics were dangerous heretics. In volumes of anti-Gnostic works -- an unintentional testimony to the power and influence of Gnosticism within early Christianity -- they painted them as Christians who had 'gone native.' They claimed they had become contaminated by the Paganism that surrounded them and had abandoned the purity of the true faith. The Gnostics, on the other hand, saw themselves as the authentic Christian tradition and the orthodox bishops as an 'imitation church.' They claimed to know the secret Inner Mysteries of Christianity which the Literslists did not possess. As we explored the beliefs and practices of the Gnostics we became convinced that the Literalists had at least been right about one thing: the Gnostics were little different from Pagans. Like the philosophers of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed in reincarnation, honoured the goddess Sophia, and were immersed in the mystical Greek philosophy of Plato. 'Gnostics' means 'Knowers', a name they acquired because, like the initiates of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed that their secret teachings had the power to impart 'Gnosis' -- direct experiential 'Knowledge of God.' Just as the goal of a Pagan initiate was to become a god, so for the Gnostics the goal of the Christian initiate was to become a Christ. What particularly struck us was that the Gnostics were not concerned with the historical Jesus. They viewed the Jesus story in the same way that the Pagan philosophers viewed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus -- as an allegory which encoded secret mystical teachings. This insight crystallized for us a remarkable possibility. Perhaps the explanation for the similarities between Pagan myths and the biography of Jesus had been staring us in the face the whole time, but we had been so caught up with traditional ways of thinking that we had been unable to see it. THE JESUS MYSTERIES THESIS The traditional version of history bequeathed to us by the authorities of the Roman Church is that Christianity developed from the teachings of a Jewish Messiah and that Gnosticism was a later deviation. What would happen, we wondered if the picture were reversed and Gnosticism viewed as the authentic Christianity, just as the Gnostics themselves claimed? Could it be that orthodox Christianity was a later deviation from Gnosticism and that Gnosticism was a synthesis of Judaism and the Pagan Mystery religion? This was the beginning of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. Boldly stated, the picture that emerged for us was as follows. We knew that most ancient Mediterranean cultures had adopted the ancient Mysteries, adapting them to their own national tastes and creating their own version of the myth of the dying and resurrecting godman. Perhaps some of the Jews had likewise adopted the Pagan Mysteries and created their own version of the Mysteries which we now know as Gnosticism. Perhaps initiates of the Jewish Mysteries had adapted the potent symbolism of the Osiris-Dionysus myths into a myth of their own, the hero of which was the Jewish dying and ~surreeting godman Jesus. If this was so, then the Jesus story was not a biography at all but a consciously crafted vehicle for encoded spiritual teachings created by Jewish Gnostics. As in the Pagan Mysteries, initiation into the Inner Mysteries would reveal the myth's allegorical meaning. Perhaps those uninitiated into the Inner Mysteries had mistakenly come to regard the Jesus myth as historical fact and in this way Literalist Christianity had been created. Perhaps the Inner Mysteries of Christianity, which the Gnostics taught but which the Literalists denied existed, revealed that the Jesus story was not a factual account of God's one and only visit to planet Earth, but a mystical teaching story designed to help each one of us become a Christ. The Jesus story does have all the hallmarks of a myth, so could it be that that is exactly what it is? After all, no one has read the newly discovered Gnostic gospels and taken their fantastic stories as literally true; they are readily seen as myths. It is only familiarity and cultural prejudice which prevent us from seeing tlae New Testament gospels in the same light. If those gospels had also been lost to us and only recently discovered, who would read these tales for the first time and believe they were historical accounts of a man born of a virgin, who had walked on water and returned from the dead? Why should we consider the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Mithras and the other Pagan Mystery saviours as fables, yet come across essentially the same story told in a Jewish context and believe it to be the biography of a carpenter from Bethlehem? We had both been raised as Christians and were surprised to find that, despite years of open-minded spiritual exploration, it still felt somehow dangerous to even dare think such thoughts. Early indoctrination reaches very deep. We were in effect saying that Jesus was a Pagan god and that Christianity was a heretical product of Paganism! It seemed outrageous. Yet this theory explained the similarities between the stories of Osiris-Dionysus and Jesus Christ in a simple and elegant way. They are parts of one developing mythos. The Jesus Mysteries Thesis answered many puzzling questions, yet it also opened up new dilemmas. Isn't there indisputable historical evidence for the existence of Jesus the man? And how could Gnosticism be the original Christianity when St Paul, the earliest Christian we know about, is so vociferously anti-Gnostic? And is it really credible that such an insular and anti-Pagan people as the Jews could have adopted the Pagan Mysteries? And how could it have happened that a consciously created myth came to be believed as history? And if Gnosticism represents genuine Christianity, why was it Literalist Christianity that came to dominate the world as the most influential religion of all time? All of these difficult questions would have to be satisfactorily answered before we could wholeheartedly accept such a radical theory as the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. THE GREAT COVER UP Our new account of the origins of Christianity only seemed improbable because it contradicted the received view. As we pushed further with our research, the traditional picture began to completely unravel all around us. We found ourselves embroiled in a world of schism and power straggles, of forged documents and false identities, of letters that had been edited and added to, and of the wholesale destruction of historical evidence. We focused forensically on the few facts we could be confident of, as if we were detectives on the verge of cracking a sensational 'whodunnit', or perhaps more accurately as if we were uncovering an ancient and unacknowledged miscarriage of justice. For, time and again, when we critically examined what genuine evidence remained, we found that the history of Christianity bqueathed to us by the Roman Church was a gross distortion of the truth. Actually the evidence completely endorsed the Jesus Mysteries Thesis! It was becoming increasingly obvious that we had been deliberately deceived, that the Gnostics were indeed the original Christians, and that their anarchic mysticism had been hijacked by an authoritarian institution which had created from it a dogmatic religion - and then brutally enforced the greatest cover-up in history. One of the major players in this cover-up operation was a character called Eusebius, who, at the beginning of the fourth century, compiled from legends, fabrications and his own imagination the only early history of Christianity that still exists today. All subsequent histories have been forced to base themselves on Eusebins' dubious claims, because there has been little other information to draw on. All those with a different perspective on Christianity were branded as heretics and eradicated. In this way falsehoods compiled in the fourth century have come down to us as established facts. Eusebius was employed by the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion of the Empire and gave Literalist Christianity the power it needed to begin the final eradication of Paganism and Gnosticism. Constantine wanted 'one God, one religion' to consolidate his claim of 'one Empire, one Emperor.' He oversaw the creation of the Nicene creed -- the article of faith repeated in churches to this day -- and christians who refused to assent to this creed were banished from the Empire or otherwise silenced. This 'Christian' Emperor then returned home from Nicaea and had his wife suffocated and his son murdered. He deliberately remained unbaptized until his deathbed so that he could continue his atrocities and still receive forgiveness of sins and a guaranteed place in heaven by being baptized at the last moment. Although he had his 'spin doctor' Eusebius compose a suitably obsequious biography for him, he was actually a monster -- just like many Roman Emperors before him. Is it really at all surprising that a 'history' of the origins of Christianity created by an employee in the service of a Roman tyrant should turn out to be a pack of lies? Elaine PageIs, one of the foremost academic authorities on early Christianity, writes: "It is the winners who write history -- their way. No wonder, then, that the traditional accounts of the origins of Christianity first defined the terms (naming themselves "orthodox" and their opponents "heretics"); then they proceeded to demonstrate -- at least to their own satisfaction -- that their triumph was historically inevitable, or, in religious terms, "guided by the Holy Spirit." But the discoveries [of the Gnostic gospels] at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions." History is indeed written by the victors. The creation of an appropriate history has always been part of the arsenal of political manipulation. The Roman Church created a history of the triumph of Literalist Christianity in much the same partisan way that, two millennia later, Hollywood created tales of 'cowboys and Indians' to relate 'how the West was won' not 'how the West was lost.' History is not simply related, it is created. Ideally, the motivation is to explain historical evidence and come to an accurate understanding of how the present has been created by the past. All too often, however, it is simply to glorify and justify the status quo. Such histories conceal as much as they reveal. To dare to question a received history is not easy. It is difficult to believe that something which you have been told is true from childhood could actually be a product of falsification and fantasy. It must have been hard for those Russians brought up on tales of kindly 'Uncle Joe' Stalin to accept that he was actually responsible for the deaths of millions. It must have strained credibility when those opposing his regime claimed that he had in fact murdered many of the heroes of the Russian revolution. It must have seemed ridiculous when they asserted that he had even had the images of his rivals removed from photographs and completely fabricated historical events. Yet all these things are true. It is easy to believe that something must be true because everyone else believes it. But the truth often only comes to light by daring to question the unquestionable, by doubting notions which are so commonly believed that they are taken for granted. The Jesus Mysteries Thesis is the product of such an openness of mind. When it first occurred to us, it seemed absurd and impossible. Now it seems obvious and ordinary. The Vatican was constructed upon the site of an ancient Pagan sanctuary because the new is always built upon the old. In the same way Christianity itself has as its foundations the Pagan spirituality that preceded it. What is more plausible than to posit the gradual evolution of spiritual ideas, with Christianity emerging from the ancient Pagan Mysteries in a seamless historical continuum? It is only because the conventional history has been so widely believed for so long that this idea could be seen as heretical and shocking. RECOVERING MYSTICAL CHRISTIANITY As the final pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, we came across a small picture tucked away in the appendices of an old academic book. It was a drawing of a third-century CE amulet. We have used it as the cover of this book. It shows a crucified figure which most people would immediately recognize as Jesus. Yet the Greek words name the figure 'Orpheus Bacchus,' one of the pseudonyms of Osiris-Dionysus. To the author of the book in which we found the picture, this amulet was an anomaly. Who could it have possibly belonged to? Was it a crucified Pagan deity or some sort of Gnostic synthesis of Paganism and Christianity? Either way it was deeply puzzling. For us, however, this amulet was perfectly understandable. It was an unexpected confirmation of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. The image could be that of either Jesus or Osiris-Dionysus. To the initiated, these were both names for essentially the same figure. The 'chance' discovery of this amulet made us feel as though the universe itself was encouraging us to make our findings public. In different ways the Jesus Mysteries Thesis has been proposed by mystics and scholars for centuries, but has always ended up being ignored. It now felt like an idea whose moment had come. We did, however, have misgivings about writing this book. We knew that it would inevitably upset certain Christians, something which we had no desire to do. Certainly it has been hard to be constantly surrounded by lies and injustices without experiencing a certain amount of outrage at the negative misrepresentation of the Gnostics, and to have become aware of the great riches of Pagan culture without feeling grief that they were so wantonly destroyed. Yet we do not have some sort of anti-Christian agenda. Far from it. Those who have read our other works will know that our interest is not in further division, but in acknowledging the unity that lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions -- and this present book is no exception. Early Literalist Christians mistakenly believed that the Jesus story was different from other stories of Osiris-Dionysus because Jesus alone had been an historical rather than a mythical figure. This has left Christians feeling that their faith is in opposition to all others -- which it is not. We hope that by understanding its true origins in the ongoing evolution of a universal human spirituality, Christianity may be able to free itself from this self-imposed isolation. Whilst the Jesus Mysteries Thesis clearly rewrites history, we do not see it as undermining the Christian faith, but as suggesting that Christianity is in fact richer than we previously imagined. The Jesus story is a perennial myth with the power to impart the saving Gnosis which can transform each one of us into a Christ, not merely a history of events that happened to someone else 2,000 years ago. Belief in the Jesus story was originally the first step in Christian spirituality -- the Outer Mysteries. Its significance was to be explained by an enlightened teacher when the seeker was spiritually ripe. These Inner Mysteries imparted a mystical Knowledge of God beyond mere belief in dogmas. Although many inspired Christian mystics throughout history have intuitively seen through to this deeper symbolic level of understanding, as a culture we have inherited only the Outer Mysteries of Christianity. We have kept the form, but lost the inner meaning. Our hope is that this book can play some small part in reclaiming the true mystical Christian inheritance. The Pagan Mysteries "Blest is the happy man Who knows the Mysteries the gods ordain, And sanctifies his life, Joins soul with soul in mystic unity, And, by due ritual made pure Enters the ecstasy of mountain solitudes; Who observes the mystic rites Made lawful by the Great Mother; Who crowns his head with ivy, And shakes his wand in worship ot Dionysus." Euripides Paganism is a 'dead' religion -- or more accurately an 'exterminated' religion· It did not simply fade away into oblivion. It was actively suppressed and annihilated, its temples and shrines desecrated and demolished, and its great sacred books thrown onto bonfires. No living lineage has been left to explain its ancient beliefs. So, the Pagan worldview has to be reconstructed from the archaeological evidence and texts that have survived, like some giant metaphysical jigsaw puzzle. 'Pagan' was originally a derogatory term meaning 'country-dweller,' used by Christians to infer that the spirituality of the ancients was some primitive rural superstition. But this is not true. Paganism was the spirituality which inspired the unequalled magnificence of the Giza pyramids, the exquisite architecture of the Parthenon, the legendary sculptures of Phideas, the powerful plays of Euripides and Sophocles, and the sublime philosophy of Socrates and Plato. Pagan civilization built vast libraries to house hundreds of thousands of works of literary and scientific genius. Its natural philosophers speculated that human beings had evolved from animals. Its astronomers knew the Earth was a sphere which, along with the planets, revolves around the sun. They had even estimated its circumference to within one degree of accuracy? The ancient Pagan world sustained a population not matched again in Europe until the eighteenth century. In Greece, Pagan culture gave birth to the concepts of democracy, rational philosophy, public libraries, theatre and the Olympic Games, creating a blueprint for our modern world. What was the spirituality that inspired these momentous cultural achievements? Most people associate Paganism with either rustic witchcraft or the myths of the gods of Olympus as recorded by Hesiod and Homer. Pagan spirituality did indeed embrace both. The country people practised their traditional shamanic nature worship to maintain the fertility of the land and the city authorities propped up formal state religions, such as the worship of the Olympian gods, to maintain the power of the status quo. It was, however, a third, more mystical, expression of the Pagan spirit which inspired the great minds of the ancient world. The thinkers, artists and innovators of antiquity were initiates of various religions known as 'Mysteries.' These remarkable men and women held the Mysteries to be the heart and soul of their culture. The Greek historian Zosimos writes that without the Mysteries "life for the Greeks would be unlivable" for "the sacred Mysteries hold the whole human race together." The eminent Roman statesman Cicero enthuses: "These Mysteries have brought us from rustic savagery to a cultivated and refined civilisation. The rites of the Mysteries are called "initiations" and in truth we have learned trom them the first principles of life. We have gained the understanding not only to live happily but also to die with better hope." Unlike the traditional rituals of the official state religions, which were designed to aid social cohesion, the mysteries were an individualistic form of.spirituality which offered mystical visions and personal enlightenment. Initiates underwent a secret process of initiation which profoundly trans-r formed their state of consciousness. The poet Pindar reveals that an initiate into the Mysteries "knows the end of life and its God-given beginning." Lucius Apuleius, a poet-philosopher, writes of his experience of initiation as a spiritual rebirth which he celebrated as his birthday, an experience for which he felt a "debt of gratitude" that he "could never hope to repay." Plato, the most influential philosopher of all time, relates: "We beheld the beatific visions and were initiated into the Mystery which may be truly called blessed, celebrated by us in a state of innocence. We beheld calm, happy, simple, eternal visions, resplendent in pure light." The great Pagan philosophers were the enlightened masters of the Mysteries. Although they are often portrayed today as dry 'academic' intellectuals, they were actually enigmatic 'gurus.' Empedocles, like his master Pythagoras, was a charismatic miracle-worker. Socrates was an eccentric mystic prone to being suddenly overcome by states of rapture during which his friends would discover him staring off into space for hours. Heraclitus was asked by the citizens of Ephesus to become a lawmaker, but turned the offer down so that he could continue playing with the children in the temple. Anaxagoras shocked ordinary citizens by completely abandoning his farm to fully devote his life to "the higher philosophy." Diogenes owned nothing and lived in a jar at the entrance of a temple. The inspired playwright Euripides wrote his greatest tragedies during solitary retreats in an isolated cave. All of these idiosyncratic sages were steeped in the mysticism of the Mysteries, which they expressed in their philosophy. Olympiodorus, a follower of Plato, tells us that his master paraphrased the Mysteries everywhere. The works of Heraclitus were renowned even in ancient times for being obscure and impenetrable, yet Diogenes explains that they are crystal clear to an initiate of the Mysteries. Of studying Heraclitus he writes: "It is a hard road to follow, filled with darkness and gloom; but if an initiate leads you on the way, it becomes brighter than the radiance of the sun." At the heart of Pagan philosophy is an understanding that all things are One. The Mysteries aimed at awakening within the initiate a sublime experience of this Oneness. Sallustius declares: "Every initiation aims at uniting us with the World and with the Deity." Plotinus describes the initiate transcending his limited sense of himself as a separate ego and experiencing mystical union with God: "As if borne away, or possessed by a god, he attains to solitude in untroubled stillness, nowhere deflected in his being and unbusied with self, utterly at rest and become very rest. He does not converse with a statue or image but with Godhead itself. And this is no object of vision, but another mode of seeing, a detachment from self, a simplification and surrender of self, a yearning for contact, and a stillness and meditation directed towards transformation. Whoever sees himself in this way has attained likeness to God; let him abandon himself and find the end of his journeying ." No wonder the initiate Sopatros poertcally mused, "I came out of the Mystery Hall feeling like a stranger to myself." THE SACRED SPECTACLE AT ELEUSIS What were these ancient Mysteries that could inspire such reverent awe and heartfelt appreciation? The Mystery religion was practised for thousands of years, during which time it spread throughout the ancient worid, taking on many different forms. Some were frenzied and others meditative. Some involved bloody animal sacrifice, while others were presided over by strict vegetarians, At certain moments in history the Mysteries were openly practised by whole populations and were endorsed, or at least tolerated, by the state. At other times they were a small-scale and secretive affair, for fear of persecution by unsympathetic authorities. Central toall of these forms qf the Mysteries, however, was the myth of a dying and resurrecting godman. The Greek Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis in honour of the Great Mother goddess and the godman Dionysus were the most famous of all the Mystery cults. The sanctuary of Eleusis was finally destroyed by bands of fanatical Christian monks in 396 CE, but up until this tragic act of vandalism the Mysteries had been celebrated there for over 11 centuries. At the height of their popularity people were coming from all over the then known world to be initiated: men and women, rich and poor, slaves and emperors -- even a Brahmin priest from India. Each year some 30,000 Athenian citizens embarked on a 30-kilometre barefoot pilgrimage to the sacred site of Eleusis on the coast to celebrate the autumn Mysteries of Dionysus. For days they would have been preparing for this important religious event by fasting, offering sacrifices and undergoing ritual purification. As those about to be initiated danced along the 'Sacred Way' to Eleusis, accompanied by the frenzied beat of cymbals and tambourines, they were accosted by masked men who abused and insulted them, while others beat them with sticks. At the head of the procession was carried the statue of Dionysus himself, leading them ever onward. After ritual naked bathing in the sea and other purification ceremonies the crowd reached the great doors of the Telesterion, a huge purpose-built initiation hall. Only the chosen few who were already initiated or about to be initiated into the secret Mysteries could enter here. What awesome ceremony was held behind these closed doors that touched the great philosophers, artists, statesmen and scientists of the ancient world so deeply? All initiates were sworn to secrecy and held the Mysteries so sacred that they kept this oath. From large numbers of hints and clues, however, we know that they witnessed a sublime theatrical spectacle. They were awed by sounds and dazzled by lights. They were bathed in the blaze of a huge fire and trembled to the nerve-shattering reverberations of a mighty gong. The Hierophant, the high priest of the Mysteries, was quite literally a 'showman' who orchestrated a terrifyingly transformative dramatic reenactment of sacred myth. He himself was dressed as the central character - the godman Dionysus. A modern scholar writes: "A Mystery Religion was thus a divine drama which portrayed before the wondering eyes of the privileged observers the story of the struggles, sufferings, and victory of a patron deity, the travail of nature in which life ultimately triumphs over death, and joy is born of pain. The whole ritual of the Mysteries aimed especially at quickening the emotional life. No means of exciting the emotions was neglected in the passion-play, either by way of inducing careful predispositions or of supplying external stimulus. Tense mental anticipations heightened by a period of abstinence, hushed silences, imposing processions and elaborate pageantry, music loud and violent or soft and enthralling, delirious dances, the drinking of spirituous liquors, physical macerations, alternations of dense darkness and dazzling light, the sight of gorgeous ceremonial vestments, the handling of holy emblems, auto-suggestion and the promptings of the Hierophant -- these and many secrets of emotional exaltation were in vogue." This dramatization of the myth of Dionysus is the origin of tragedy and theatre. But the initiates were not a passive audience. They were participants who shared in the passion of the godman whose death and rebirth symbolically represented the death and spiritual rebirth of each one of them. As a modern authority explains: "Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate." By witnessing the awesome tragedy of Dionysus, the initiates at Eleusis shared in his suffering, death and resurrection, and so experienced a spiritual purification known as 'catharsis.' The Mysteries did not offer religious dogmas to simply be believed, but a myth to be entered into. Initiation was not about learning something, but about experiencing an altered state of awareness. Plutarch, a Pagan high priest, confesses that those who had been initiated could produce no proof of the beliefs that they acquired. Aristotle maintains, "It is not necessary for the initiated to learn anything, but to receive impressions and to be put in a certain frame of mind." The philosopher Produs talks of the Mysteries as evoking a "sympathy of the soul with the ritual in a way that is unintelligible to us and divine, so that some of the initiates axe stricken with panic, being filled with divine awe; others assimilate themselves to the holy symbols, leave their own identity, become at home with the gods, affd experience divine possession." Why did the myth enacted by the Mysteries have such a profound effect? ENCODED SECRET TEACHINGS In antiquity the word mythos did not mean something 'untrue't as it does ( for us today. Superficially a myth was an entertaining story, but to the initiated it was a sacred code that contained profound spiritual teachings. Plato comments, "It looks as if those also who established rites of initiation for us were no fools, but that there is a hidden meaning in their teachings." He explains that it is "those who have given their lives to true philosophy" who will grasp the "hidden meaning" encoded in the Mystery myths, and so become completely identified with the godman in an experience of mystical enlightenment. The ancient philosophers were not so foolish as to believe that the Mystery myths were literally true, but wise enough to recognize that they were an easy introduction to the profound mystical philosophy at the heart of the Mysteries. Sallustius writes: "To wish to teach all men the truth of the gods causes the foolish to despise, because they cannot learn, and the good to be slothful, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the former from despising philosophy and compels the latter to study it." It was the role of the priests and philosophers of the Mysteries to decode the hidden depths of spiritual meaning contained within the Mystery myths. Heliodorus, a priest of the Mysteries, explains: "Philosophers and theologians do not disclose the meanings embedded in these stories to laymen but simply give them preliminary instruction in the form of a myth. But those who have reached the higher grades of the Mysteries they initiate into clear knowledge in the privacy of the holy shrine, in the light cast by the blazing torch of truth." The Mysteries were divided into various levels of initiation, which led an initiate step by step through ever deepening levels of understanding. The number of levels of initiation varied in different Mystery traditions, but essentially the initiate was led from the Outer Mysteries, in which the myths were understood superficially as religious stories, to the Inner Mysteries, in which the myths were revealed as spiritual allegories. First the initiate was ritually purified. Then they were taught the secret teachings on a one-to-one basis. The highest stage was when the initiate understood the true meaning of the teachings and finally experienced what Theon of Smyrna calls "friendship and interior communion with God." THE INTERNATIONAL MYSTERIES The Mysteries dominated the Pagan world. No other deity is represented on the monuments of ancient Greece and Italy as much as Dionysus, godman of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He is a deity with many names: Iacchos, Bassareus, Bromios, Euios, Sabazius, Zagreus, Yhyoneus, Lenaios, Eleuthereus, and so the list goes on. But these are just some of his Greek names! The godman is an omnipresent mythic figure throughout the ancient Mediterranean, known in different ways by many cultures. Five centuries before the birth of Christ, the Greek historian Herodotus, known as 'the father of history', discovered this when he travelled to Egypt. On the shores of a sacred lake in the Nile delta he witnessed an enormous festival, held every year, in which the Egyptians performed a dramatic spectacle before "tens of thousands of men and women," representing the death and resurrection of Osiris. Herodotus was an initiate into the Greek Mysteries and recognized that what he calls "the Passion of Osiris" was the very same drama that initiates saw enacted before them at Eleusis as the Passion of Dionysus. The Egyptian myth of Osiris is the primal myth of the Mystery godman and reaches back to prehistory. His story is so ancient that it can be found in pyramid texts written over 4,500 years ago! In travelling to Egypt Herodotus was following in the footsteps of another great Greek. Before 670 BCE Egypt had been a closed country, in the manner of Tibet, or Japan more recently, but in this year she opened her borders and one of the first Greeks who travelled there in search of ancient wisdom was Pythagoras. History remembers Pythagoras as the first 'scientist' of the Western world, but although it is true that he brought back many mathmatical theories to Greece from Egypt, to his contemporaries he would have seemed anything but 'scientific' in the modern sense. A wandering charismatic sage dressed in white robes and crowned with a gold coronet, Pythagoras was part scientist, part priest and part magician. He spent 22 years in the temples of Egypt, becoming an initiate of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries. On returning to Greece he began to preach the wisdom he had learned, performing miracles, raising the dead and giving oracles. Inspired by Pythagoras, his disciples created a Greek Mystery religion modelled on the Egyptian Mysteries. They took the indigenous wine god Dionysus, who was a minor deity all but ignored by Hesiod and Homer, and transformed him into a Greek version of the mighty Egyptian Osiris, godman of the Mysteries. This initiated a religious and cultural revolution that was to transform Athens into the centre of the civilized world. The followers of Pythagoras were models of virtue and learning, regarded as puritans by their neighbours. Strict vegetarians, they preached non-violence towards all living things and shunned the temple cults that practised the sacrifice of animals. This made it impossible for them to participate in the traditional Olympian religion of Athens. Forced to live on the fringes of acceptability, they often organized themselves into communities that shared all possessions in common, leaving them free to devote themselves to their mystical studies of mathematics, music, astronomy and philosophy. Nevertheless, the Mystery religion spread quickly amongst the ordinary people and within a few generations the Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris, now the Mysteries of Dionysus, inspired the glory of Classical Athens. In the same way that Osiris was synthesized by the Greeks with their indigenous god Dionysus to create the Greek Mysteries, other Mediterranean cultures which adopted the Mystery religion also transformed one of their indigenous deities into the dying and resurrecting Mystery godman. So, the deity who was known as Osiris in Egypt and became Dionysus in Greece was called Attis in Asia Minor, Adonis in Syria, Bacchus in Italy, Mithras in Persia, and so on. His forms were many, but essentially he was the same perennial figure, whose collective identity was referred to as Osiris-Dionysus. Because the ancients recognized that all the various Mystery godmen were essentially the same mythic being, elements from different myths and rites were continually combined and recombined to create new forms of the Mysteries. In Alexandria, for example, a charismatic sage called Timotheus consciously fused Osiris and Dionysus to produce a new deity for the city callled Serapis. He also gave an elaborate account of the myth of the Mystery godman Attis. Lucius Apuleius received his initiation into theMysteries from a high priest named after the Persian godman Mithras. Coins were minted with Dionysus represented on one side and Mithras on the other? One modern authority tells us that "possessed by the knowledge of his own secret rites," the initiate of the Mysteries "found no difficulty in conforming to any religion in vogue." Like the Christian religion which superseded it, the Mysteries reached across national boundaries, offering a spirituality which was relevant to all human beings, regardless of their racial origins or social status. Even as early as the fifth century CE philosophers such as Diogenes and Socrates called themselves "cosmopolitans' -- "citizens of the cosmos" -- rather than of any particular country or culture, which is testimony to the international nature of the Mysteries. One modern scholar, commenting on the merging and combining of different mystery traditions, writes: "This went a long way towards weaning the minds of men from the idea of separate gods from the different nations, and towards teaching them that all national and local deities were but different forms of one great Power. But for the rise of Christianity and other religions, there can be little doubt but that the whole of the Graeco-Roman deities would continually have merged into Dionysus." OSIRIS-DIONYSUS AND JESUS CHRIST Osiris-Dionysus had such universal appeal because he was seen as an 'Everyman' figure who symbolically represented each initiate. Through understanding the allegorical myth of the Mystery godman, initiates could become aware that, like Osiris-Dionysus, they were also 'God made flesh.' They too were immortal Spirit trapped within a physical body. Through sharing in the death of Osiris-Dionysus initiates symbolically 'died' to their lower earthly nature. Through sharing in his resurrection they were spiritually reborn and experienced their eternal and divine essence. This was the profound mystical teaching that the myth of Osiris-Dionysus encoded for those initiated into the Inner Mysteries, the truth of which initiates directly experienced for themselves. Writing of the Egyptian Mystery godman Osiris, Sir Wallis Budge, who was keeper of antiquities in the British Museum, explains: "The Egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the power of evil, that after great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous might also conquer death. "He represented to men the idea of a man who was both God and man, and he typified to the Egyptians in all ages the being who by reason of his sufferings and death as a man could sympathise with them in their own sickness and death. The idea of his human personality also satisfied their cravings and yearnings for communion with a being who, though he was partly divine, yet had much in common with themselves. Originally they looked upon Osiris as a man who lived on the earth as they lived, who ate and drank, who suffered a cruel death, who by help of certain gods triumphed over death, and attained unto everlasting life. But what Osiris did they could also do." These are the key motifs that characterize the myths of all the Mystery godmen. What Budge writes of Osiris could equally be said of Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Mithras and the rest. It also describes the Jewish dying and resurrecting godman Jesus Christ. Like Osiris-Dionysus, he is also God Incarnate and God of the Resurrection. He also promises his followers spiritual rebirth through sharing in his divine Passion. CONCLUSION The Mysteries were clearly an extremely powerful force in the ancient world. Let's review what we've discovered about them: - The Pagan Mysteries inspired the greatest minds of the ancient world. - They were practised in different forms by nearly every culture in the Mediterranean. - They comprised Outer Mysteries which were open to all and secret Inner Mysteries known only to those who had undergone a powerful process of mystical initiation. - At the heart of the Mysteries was the myth of a dying and resurrecting godman - Osiris-Dionysus. - The Inner Mysteries revealed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus to be spiritual allegories encoding spiritual teachings. The question which intrigued us was whether the Mysteries could have somehow influenced and shaped what we have inherited as the "biography" of Jesus? Unlike the various Pagan Mystery godmen, Jesus is traditionally viewed as an historical rather than a mythical figure, literally a man who was an incarnation of God, who suffered, died and resurrected to bring salvation to all humankind. But could these elements of the Jesus story actually be mythical stories inherited from the Pagan Mysteries? We began investigating the myths of Osiris-Dionysus more closely, searching for resemblances with the Jesus story. We were not prepared for the overwhelming number of similarities that we uncovered. Diabolical Mimicry "Having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, the wicked spirits put forward many to be called Sons of God, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things that were said with regard to Christ were merely marvellous tales, like the things that were said by the poets." Justin Martyr Although the remarkable similarities between the myths of Osiris-Dionysus agd the supposed "biography" of Jesus Christ are generally unknown today, in the first few centuries CE they were obvious to Pagans and Christians alike. The Pagan philosopher and satirist Celsus criticized Christians for tryingto pass off the Jesus story as a new revelation when it was actually an inferior imitation of Pagan myths. He asks: "Are these distinctive happenings unique to the Christians -- and if so, how are they unique? Or are ours to be accounted myths and theirs believed? What reasons do the Christians give for the distinctiveness of their beliefs? In truth there is nothing at all unusual about what the Christians believe, except that they believe it to the exclusion of more comprehensive truths about God." The early Christians were painfully aware of such criticisms. How could Pagan myths which predated Christianity by hundreds of years have so much in common with the biography of the one and only saviour Jesus? Desperate to come up with an explanation, the Church fathers resorted to one of the most absurd theories ever advanced. From the time of Justin Martyr in the second century onwards, they declared that the Devil had plagiarized Christianity by anticipation in order to lead people astray? Knowing that the true Son of God was to literally come and walk the Earth, the Devil had copied the story of his life in advance of it happening and created the myths of Osiris-Dionysus. The Church father Tertullian writes of the Devil's "diabolical mimicry" in creating the Mysteries of Mithras: "The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments. He baptises his believers and promises forgiveness of sins from the Sacred Fount, and thereby initiates them into the religion of Mithras. Thus he celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of the resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copies certain things of those that be Divine." Studying the myths of the Mysteries it becomes obvious why these early Christians resorted to such a desperate explanation. Although no single Pagan myth completely parallels the story of Jesus, the mythic motifs which make up the story of the Jewish godman had already existed for centuries in the various stories told of Osiris-Dionysus and his greatest prophets. Let's make a journey through the 'biography' of Jesus and explore some of these extraordinary similarities. SON OF GOD Despite Christianity's claim that Jesus is the "only begotten Son of God." Osiris-Dionysus, in all his many forms, is also hailed as the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God, yet equal with the Father. Dionysus is the "Son of Zeus, in his full nature God, most terrible, although most gentle to mankind." Jesus is "Very God of Very God." Dionysus is "Lord God of God born." Jesus is God in human form. St John writes of Jesus as "the Word made flesh." St. Paul explains that "God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh? Dionysus was also known as Bacchus, hence the title of Euripides' play The Bacchae, in which Dionysus is the central character. In this play, Dionysus explains that he has veiled his "Godhead in a mortal shape" in order to make it "manifest to mortal men.. He tells his disciples, "That is why I have changed my immortal form and taken the likeness of man." Like Jesus, in many of his myths the Pagan godman is born of a mortal virgin mother. In Asia Minor, Attis' mother is the virgin Cybele. In Syria, Adonis' virgin mother is called Myrrh. In Alexandria, Aion is born of the virgin Kore. In Greece, Dionysus is born of a mortal virgin Semele who wishes to see Zeus in all his glory and is mysteriously impregnated by one of his bolts of lightning. It was a popular tradition, recorded in the most quoted non-canonical text of early Christianity, that Jesus spent only seven months in Mary's womb. The Pagan historian Diodorus relates that Dionysus' mother Semele likewise was said to have also had only a seven-month pregnancy. Justin Martyr acknowledges the similarities between Jesus' virgin birth and Pagan mythology, writing: "In saying that the Word was born for us without sexual union as Jesus Christ our teacher, we introduce nothing beyond what is said of those called the Sons of Zeus." Nowhere was the myth of the 'Son of God' more developed than in Egypt, the ancient home of the Mysteries. Even the Christian Lactantius acknowledged that the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus had "arrived in some way at the truth, for on God the Father he had said everything, and on the Son." In Egypt, the Pharaoh had for thousands of years been regarded as an embodiment of the godman Osiris and praised in hymns as the Son of God. As an eminent Egyptologist writes, "Every Pharaoh had to be the Son of God and a human mother in order that he should be the Incarnate God, the Giver of Fertility to his country and people." In many legends the great prophets of Osiris-Dionysus are also portrayed as saviours and sons of God. Pythagoras was said to be the son of Apollo and a mortal woman called Parthenis, whose name derives from the word parthenos, meaning "virgin." Plato was also posthumously believed to be the son of Apollo. Philostratus relates in his biography of Apollonius that the great Pagan sage was regarded as the "Son of Zeus." Empedocles was thought to be a godman and saviour who had come down to this world to help confused souls, becoming "like a madman, calling out to people at the top of his voice and urging them to reject this realm and what is in it and go back to their own original, sublime, and noble word." Mythic motifs from the Mysteries even became associated with Roman Emperors who, for political reasons, cultivated legends about their divine nature which would link them to Osiris-Dionysus. Julius Caesar, who did not himself even believe in personal immortality, was hailed as "God made manifest, the common saviour of human life." His successor, Augustus, was likewise the "saviour of the universal human race." and even the tyrannical Nero is addressed on an altar piece as "God the deliverer for ever." In 40 BCE, drawing on Mystery myths, the Roman poet and initiate Virgil wrote a mystical 'prophesy' that a virgin would give birth to a divine child. In the fourth century CE Literalist Christians would claim that it foretold the coming of ]esus, but at the time this myth was interpreted as referring to Augustus, said to be the "Son of Apollo," preordained to rule the Earth and bring peace and prosperity. In his biography of Augustus, Suetonius offers a cluster of 'signs' that indicated the Emperor's divine nature. One modern authority writes: &am

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