Podcasts about Great Seal

The story of July 4, 1776, is both fact and myth. It is the day Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence despite the fact that not every signature was obtained that day. Many forget about the significance of April 19, 1775, or the start of the Revolution, which until that point had been about resolving issues of rights and liberties within the British Empire. The idea behind the Revolution itself is oversimplified, and had a lot more to do with guns and money than taxes and tea. These stories are a mixture of truth and myth, and they are necessary to found civilization. As Joseph Campbell wrote: “Whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.” The myths of the United States' founding are so monumental, including mysterious figures who supposedly designed the Great Seal and flag, visions by George Brinton McClellan and George Washington, and even a mystery person who swayed the signers of the Declaration of Independence, that they made it across the ocean to the far east. One Japanese book depicts the likes of George Washington fighting alongside the American goddess in one image and punching a tiger in another, while John Adams summons a giant eagle and kills an enormous snake. These depictions remind us of Apollo killing the python, archangel Michael stabbing the serpent satan, Siegfried killing a dragon, or the Japanese Susanoo killing Yamata no Orochi. The power of myth sometimes shapes historical events as great cataclysms, while other times the latter shape great events. Kingdoms rise and fall in relation to the stars, a comet, an astrological alignment, etc., while omens about natural disasters are explainable by science but confined to the realm of myth, which as Campbell notes, is the “substance of dreams.” Some things, however, are not myths, including how James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all died on the Fourth of July. And the odd synchronicities between Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy. *The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, you can subscribe below underneath the show description.-FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKWEBSITECashApp: $rdgable EMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-secret-teachings--5328407/support.

So many deaths have taken place at the Adolphus Hotel that it should be nicknamed "The Death Hotel." This historic luxury hotel in Dallas was named for a beer magnate and was once one of the grandest hotels in the Southwest. The entertainment hosted here was top tier with a long list of popular entertainers from various eras. And the Adolphus had the honor of hosting Queen Elizabeth II in the 1990s. The hotel today is still a luxury hotel located in the heart of downtown Dallas that has great food, drinks, a spa and...a few ghosts. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Adolphus Hotel! The Moment in Oddity features Frank Lentini and This Month in History features the adoption of the Great Seal of the Unites States. Our location was suggested by Lori Gunter.   Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Show notes can be found here: https://historygoesbump.blogspot.com/2025/06/hgb-ep-592-adolphus-hotel.html    Become an Executive Producer: http://patreon.com/historygoesbump Music used in this episode:  Main Theme: Lurking in the Dark by Muse Music with Groove Studios (Moment in Oddity) "Vanishing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (This Month in History) "In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro Music: Happy Fun Punk by Muse Music with Groove Studios Other music used in this episode: Music: Silent Movie 46 by Sascha Ende Link: https://ende.app/en/song/12464-silent-movie-46

A MONK, A SHAMAN, AND A SCIENTIST WALK INTO A BAR AT THE EDGE OF THE APOCALYPSE...Layman sits down with meditation and planetary dharma teacher, John Churchill, to enjoy a Double Venti Alchemist's Elixir and a rich, wide-ranging conversation exploring the shape of emergent integrative spiritualities at the edge of the Apocalypse.Born in London, Dr. Churchill's interest in psycho-spiritual development, Integral theory, Contemplative studies, Western Esotericism, and Mahayana Buddhism began in his adolescence, eventually leading him to spend several years as a Buddhist monk at Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. During this time, John received the esoteric Planetary Dharma transmissions that would in time unfold as his contribution to a planetary fourth turning teaching. Dr. Churchill spent 15 years training and teaching “Great Seal” meditation in an Indo-Tibetan Mahayana lineage under the mentorship of the late senior Western teacher, translator, respected author, and clinical psychologist Dr. Daniel P. Brown. He is also a founding member of the Integral Institute led by esteemed Transpersonal/Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber.Planetary Dharma websitehttps://www.planetarydharma.com/

On 6th March 1547, Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton and former Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, suffered a dramatic fall from power, losing the Great Seal of his Lord Chancellorship. But was this really about his overreach, or was it part of a larger power struggle?   Wriothesley had been one of Henry VIII's most trusted advisors. He played a key role in major Tudor events, including Catherine Howard's downfall, Anne Askew's trial, and Henry VIII's final days. Yet, his opposition to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, sealed his fate.   Join me as I explore the life, power, and downfall of this controversial Tudor figure.   #TudorHistory #HenryVIII #ThomasWriothesley #WolfHall #AnneBoleynFiles #OnThisDay #HistoryLovers #Tudors #BritishHistory #RenaissanceHistory #HouseOfTudor

The word E Pluribus Unum appear on The Great Seal of the United States. Until 1956, E Pluribus Enum was the unofficial motto of the United States. In 1956, the official motto of the United States became In God We Trust. E Pluribus Unum, while not the official motto of our nation, still appears on our Great Seal and on other currencies and documents produced by our government.   E Pluribus Unum is a Latin phrase which means “out of many, one,” or “one from many.” This phrase pictures the United States as a melting pot. It envisions our nation as one nation, made up of many individuals. While there is diversity and division among the people that make up the United States of America, at the end of the day, we are all still Americans. Regardless of the country of our origin, the color of our skin, the type of politics we embrace, or where we stand on many social issues, we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The United States is a unity made possible by, and in spite of, great diversity.   I want you to see that the phrase “out of many, one” could also be applied to the church. Paul has just told us that we are one on the Lord. That we stand together as one in the Lord. We are in the same body. We are indwelled by the same Spirit. We share the same hope. We serve the same Lord. We believe the same faith. We have experienced the same baptism. And, we are children of the same Heavenly Father.   As I mentioned when I preached from verses 4-6, we are made one through our relationship to the members of the Holy Trinity. The same Spirit lives in each of us. The same Lord died to save each of us. The same God has saved us and brought us into His family. We are on in Him!   Yet, as the first word of verse 7 points out, we may be one, but we are still many. The word “but” in this verse is more than a simple conjunction. It literally means “in spite of that,” or “on the other hand.” The idea is that, while we may be united in Jesus, but we are still expected to be different people. We are expected to be individuals for the glory of God. We may be commanded to do everything in our power to maintain the unity of the body of Christ, v. 2-3, but, at the same time, we are to celebrate the diversity that makes our unity possible.  

astro-theology, precession of the equinox, the wobble, synchronicities related to the wobble, Golden Apples, Hespereides, Polaris, Golden Apples as Polaris, Golden Apples as magic mushrooms, overlap between astro-theology & psychedelics, the Garden of Eden as astro/psychedelic allegory, Jonah & the Whale as astro-theology, astrology in the Bible, astro-theology in the Goldie Locks tale, Vega, Lira, the Great Seal of the United States, Atlantis, Plato, America's destiny, the length of America's existence, how music relates to the Zodiac, Robin Armstrong, Algol's role in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump, manipulation of astrology for political purposes, the looming chaos of 2025Music by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1st, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark Gunmen killed Columbian pastor and two family members Armed gunmen killed a Protestant pastor and two of his family members in northern Colombia on Sunday. The attackers killed Pastor Marlon Lora, his wife Yorley Rincon, and his daughter Ángela. His son Santiago was severely injured. The family was having lunch after attending church. Pastor Lora led the Prince of Peace Villaparaguay Church and oversaw 35 urban and rural churches.  The South American country's human rights office has warned of the rise of religious freedom violations against religious leaders. Such incidents rose 31% between January and September of last year. Anna Lee Stangl with Christian Solidarity Worldwide said, “Despite the grave dangers faced by religious leaders, the Colombian government has stripped them of their status within the National Protection System. … We urge the government to … ensure protection for religious leaders, who remain at risk of violence and intimidation because of their role as peacemakers in their communities.” In Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Brazilian government censors pro-life speech Five lawmakers in Brazil are challenging their government before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The lawmakers accuse the government of censoring pro-life speech during the South American country's 2022 election cycle.  Senator Eduardo Girão is one of the lawmakers in the case. He warned, “Brazil is facing a very serious censorship problem. While our constitution protects our rights to speak and express ourselves freely as citizens of Brazil, Brazilians throughout the country are afraid to share their beliefs for fear of persecution and punishment.” World population hits 8 billion The U.S. Census Bureau released a report on Monday, estimating the world's population to reach 8.09 billion people. That would be an increase of 71 million people during 2024, a growth rate of just under one percent. India is the most populated country in the world followed by China and the United States. The report estimates the U.S. population to be over 341 million today, an increase of 2.6 million people during 2024. Trump strongly endorses House Speaker Mike Johnson to stay in leadership President-elect Donald Trump supported Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to continue his leadership role in Congress. In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump wrote, “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.” The House of Representatives will vote on a speaker this Friday. However, not all Republicans support Johnson to continue in the position, citing too much cooperation with Democrats. Free speech on college campus under attack in 2024 The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reports 2024 was the worst year on record for free speech on college campuses. During 2023, there were over 150 attempts to cancel speech at colleges like disinviting speakers, canceling performances, and preventing the screening of films. This year, there were over 160 such attempts.  The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also reports that 35% of faculty at major colleges self-censor their own speech. That's up from about 9% in the 1950s. 8 encouraging trends in global Christianity for 2024 Lifeway Research shared their top 10 articles from last year. One of them was an article entitled, “8 Encouraging Trends in Global Christianity for 2024.” The study noted Christianity is expected to continue growing, reaching 2.63 billion people last year. Groups with the fastest growth include Protestants, independents, Evangelicals, and Pentecostal/charismatics. The fastest growing areas for Christianity are in the global south, like Asia and Africa. Last year also continued the trend of more and more missionaries being sent and churches being planted than ever before. Psalm 22:27 says, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.”  Bald eagle becomes official American national bird And finally, the bald eagle officially became the national bird of the United States just last Tuesday. The designation became official after President Joe Biden signed legislation passed by Congress. The bald eagle has appeared on the Great Seal of the United States since 1782. Congress designated the bird as the national emblem at the time. Jack Davis, co-chair of the National Bird Initiative for the National Eagle Center, said, “For nearly 250 years, we called the bald eagle the national bird when it wasn't. But now the title is official, and no bird is more deserving.” The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs notes, “Bald eagles, like other eagles worldwide, had been seen by many as symbols of strength, courage, freedom and immortality for generations. And, unlike other eagles, the bald eagle was indigenous only to North America.” Close And that's The Worldview on this New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1st, in the year of our Lord 2025. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Happy holidays! This is a rebroadcast of our chilly Season 7 episode, The Great Seal Count. How do you count the cutest seals on the planet? With the help from thousands of people around the world! Conservation scientist Leo Salas explains the story behind the first-ever global count of Weddell seals in Antarctica. Plus, you'll find out what counting seals shares with searching for ancient tombs! Learn more about Weddell seals in our special bonus episode with Dr. Leo Salas, available to Tumble Patrons who pledge just $1 or more a month - along with an ad-free episode feed! Support us today at patreon.com/tumblepodcast. We'll have free resources to learn more about Weddell seals (or the ‘widdle Weddells') on the blog on our website, sciencepodcastforkids.com. Do you speak Spanish, or are you a Spanish language learner? Subscribe to Tumble En Español to listen to episodes adapted to Spanish!  Weddell seal recordings in this episode were obtained under NMFS Permit No. 1032-1917.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #068 - Friends of Thomas Jefferson, Part 2, Section 1 - Charles Thomson   Charles Thomson was the man who knew where all the bodies were buried.  During his 15 years as Secretary of the Continental Congress, he quietly ran the colonies and the country efficiently and effectively, and kept meticulous notes, which he later destroyed.  He designed the Great Seal of the United States and personally notified George Washington that he had been elected President.  His late-life dementia horrified Jefferson and others who had seen him function at his peak.

Charles Thomson was the Founding Father who served as secretary of the Continental Congress during its 15 years.  Along with John Hancock, his signature graced the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.  Thomson also designed the Great Seal of the United States.  After his initial burial at the family homestead Harriton in Bryn Mawr, his remains were transferred to Laurel Hill.    Thomas McKean served multiple roles in colonial days – president of Delaware, Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, President of the United States Congress, and Governor of Pennsylvania, among others.  Although his efforts in 1776 were what made the Declaration unanimous, he was the last man to sign that historic document.   Thomas Leiper was a successful tobacco importer who built the first railroad in Pennsylvania on his property at Nether Township.  As a founding member of the First City Troop, he fought with the Patriots at the Battles of Princeton, Trenton, Germantown, and Brandywine.  His personal wealth helped to subsidize the siege of Yorktown.  He and Thomas Jefferson exchanged hundreds of letters.  All three of these men died before Laurel Hill opened in 1836, but they were all friends of Thomas Jefferson who eventually ended up at Laurel Hill Cemetery.  I did the research on Thomson & McKean, while the script for Thomas Leiper was written by fellow tour guide Peter Howell.  

In this transformative episode, we embark on a deep exploration of planetary dharma and human consciousness with Dr. John Churchill, a leading voice in spiritual evolution and heart-centred awareness. Dr. Churchill unravels the profound connection between personal growth and the Earth’s healing process, offering a powerful lens into how humanity’s consciousness is intertwined with planetary well-being. Through his teachings on the “Fourth Turning,” he explains how moving beyond ego-driven behaviours and into heart-centred awareness allows for greater coherence, both within ourselves and in our relationship with the planet. This episode invites listeners to embrace their planetary dharma, heal generational trauma, and journey into a future led by compassion and heart intelligence. Perfect for anyone seeking to align personal and collective evolution with the Earth's spiritual wisdom. About Dr. John Churchill Dr. John Churchill's journey into psycho-spiritual development began in his adolescence in London, where his passion for Integral theory, Western Esotericism, and Mahayana Buddhism first took root. This path led him to become a Buddhist monk at Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland, where he received the esoteric Planetary Dharma transmissions that later inspired his groundbreaking Fourth Turning teachings. With 15 years of training in “Great Seal” meditation under Dr. Daniel P. Brown, John has also gained expertise in attachment therapy, hypnosis, and peak performance psychology. A founding member of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, John developed the somatically based contemplative practice Embodying the Open Ground, which integrates psychodynamic healing, adult development, and meditation. He holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine, blending ancient wisdom with modern psychology for transformative planetary awakening. You can watch the video of the interview on YouTube Find Out More About Dr. John Churchill Visit the Karuna Mandala Website The Fourth Turning Dharma Studies – Planetary Dharma Follow Dr. John Churchill on Instagram @planetarydharma

After years of effort, Congress adopts the Great Seal in the summer of 1782. It also debates what to do about Vermont. French Minister Luzerne throws a huge party in Philadelphia to help with Franco-American relations in light of continuing money problems. George Washington adopts new badges for the army, including the Purple Heart. Blog https://blog.AmRevPodcast.com includes a complete transcript, as well as pictures, and links related to this week's episode. Book Recommendation of the Week: The Eagle and the Shield: A History of the Great Seal of the United States, by Richard S Patterson & Richardson Dougall (also available on Archive.org). Online Recommendation of the Week: Great Seal: greatseal.com Join American Revolution Podcast on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmRevPodcast Ask your American Revolution Podcast questions on Quora: https://amrevpod.quora.com Join the Facebook group, American Revolution Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132651894048271 Follow the podcast on Twitter @AmRevPodcast Join the podcast mail list: https://mailchi.mp/d3445a9cd244/american-revolution-podcast-by-michael-troy  ARP T-shirts and other merch: http://tee.pub/lic/AmRevPodcast Support this podcast on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/AmRevPodcast or via PayPal http://paypal.me/AmRevPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parsha "Bechukotai" (Leviticus 26:2 through the end of the Book) contains one of the two most dramatic sets of 'blessings and cursings,' but particularly cursings, in all of Scripture. And it is, as Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa demonstrates, utterly relevant now. First, the Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SSM-5-31-24-Bechukotai-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 The Sabbath Day midrash starts with a reminder: We are NOT in the land; we're in exile. But America's Founding Fathers knew that. In August, 1776, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were tasked with coming up with a suggested design for the Great Seal of the united States. Both Franklin and Jefferson wanted a depiction of then-Israel from the Exodus. Ben Franklin described a scene from the 'parting of the Red Sea,' with the inscription, later adopted, that "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." Yet they also clearly understood what was at the heart of the message of Leviticus chapter 26: "IF you will walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments," you will be blessed. They believed that in this New land, there was a Covenant to be kept. But now, what is beyond doubt is not merely that it has been broken, but that what He says in verse 15 is true: That this has become a nation, and a world, that rejects His statutes, and has a soul which abhors His laws. And, evidently as a direct result, "those that hate you," do "rule over you?" And what, exactly, does it look like when YHVH Himself "appoints terror over you?" Mark Call, of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship, observes that we are about to find out. But do we consent to that "other master?" Bechukotai: The Covenant is clearly broken - so Where Are We in Those Curses?" https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/WT-CooH-6-1-24-Bechukotai-ITs-WAY-too-Late-Unless-podcast-xxxx.mp3 The combined two-part teaching is here:

We talk an inaugural address, reactions to that address and more. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

[originally published on Patreon Jun 30, 2023] Today I'm rejoined by Monty (@MontyBaby7) to ratchet up the weirdness. We continue our discussion of Freemasonry. We talk about the role of Freemasonry in the French Revolution, various bourgeois revolutions, and its role in the United States. We talk about Washington DC architecture and so forth. We explore the idea of Freemasonry's ties to the British empire. Then we get into Albert Pike's life and times. To our great surprise, Albert Pike was not what we thought he would be. We're talking about his weird early life, his time in the Civil War, the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Klu Klux Klan, and his post-war career. We go through his ideas as presented in his book, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Then we explore the Orange Order, Job's Daughters, the Order of DeMolay, and various other historical groups. Relatedly, we raise the prospect of connections between Freemasonry and espionage. [Note 1: Monty and I raise the question of the Great Seal on US currency and express ignorance of its history; we now know who added it and why] A Message to You Rudy by the Specials Ghost of Albert Pike by the Elders of Zion the Old Orange Flute covered by the Clancy Brothers Power by Young Thug

Tracking the third segment of the Key to Time, the Fourth Doctor, Romana, and K9 arrive in modern-day Cornwall. They meet Professor Emilia Rumford and her friend Vivien Fay, studying the "Nine Travellers"--standing stones in Boscombe Moor. Their work is disrupted by a Druidic sect that worships the Cailleach, the Druidic goddess of war and magic, led by de Vries. De Vries and the sect are hostile to the newcomers, but the Doctor later finds the sect killed by mobile stones similar to those of the Nine Travellers and determines the stones must be alien beings that feed on blood. He and Emilia find evidence that suggests Vivien is older than she looks. Meanwhile, Romana catches Vivien awakening more stones with blood, and Vivien uses a device to send her to a spacecraft in hyperspace. When the Doctor and Emilia arrive, Vivien tells them that Romana will be safe before disappearing herself. The Doctor recognises the stones as Ogri, a life form from the planet Ogros. The Doctor constructs a projector to cross into hyperspace, leaving Emilia and K9 to guard it. On the spacecraft, the Doctor determines it is a prison ship, and inadvertently releases two floating globes called Megara that serve as justice machines. They accuse the Doctor of breaking a seal on the ship and prepare to put him on trial. Elsewhere, Vivien finds the Doctor's presence, and returns to Earth, awakening one of the Ogri and damages the Doctor's projector, but sparing Emilia's life as a friend. She and the Ogri return to the craft to attend the Doctor's trial. K9 guides Emilia in repairing the projector, allowing them to bring back Romana, along with an Ogri. They are pursued by the Ogri, leading them back to Vivien's cottage. There, Romana discovers an alien device that proves Vivien is not human. They lure the Ogri back to the projector, and she and the Ogri return to the spacecraft. On the ship, the Doctor learns the Megara are seeking a criminal known as Cessair, who had stolen the Great Seal of the planet Diplos, which grants its bearer great powers. The Doctor suspects Vivien is Cessair, and attempts to force the Megara to question her, but their law prevents such intervention. Having decided the Doctor's guilt, they fire an energy weapon at him, but at the last moment, the Doctor drags Vivien into the shot. The Megara immediately stop their attack and scan Vivien to see if she is unharmed, but instead discover that she is Cessair. Romana arrives with the additional evidence, and the Megara pass judgement on her. They return her to Earth and transform her into a standing stone in the moor, but not before the Doctor recovers the Great Seal which she wore. The Megara are about to pass judgment on the Doctor when they're forced to return to their ship and depart to Diplos. The Doctor had set the controls of the ship before leaving, and he affirms the Great Seal is the third segment of the Key, and he, Romana, and K9 thank Emilia for her assistance before they leave in the TARDIS. She smiles as she now has a new stone in the circle to study.

Originally released 5/23/22. In 1945, a wooden plaque of the "Great Seal" was given to the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union. It hung on the wall by his desk for years until it was discovered in 1951 to be a secret Soviet listening device. In this episode, we tell the story of "The Thing" or "The Great Seal Bug" and how it came to be. Then we chat with musician Daniel Malone! Review this podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-says-it-s-true/id1530853589 Bonus episodes and content available at http://Patreon.com/MichaelKent For special discounts and links to our sponsors, visit http://theinternetsaysitstrue.com/deals

Andrew For America talks about the phrase on the Great Seal of the United States on the back of the American dollar bill, "Novus Ordo Seclorum" and its meaning. He talks about the United Nations, WEF, WHO, and the plan by these international groups to create a "new order of the ages." Andrew also plays clips from the recent WEF meetings in Davos, specifically President of Argentina Javier Milei explaining the tenets of libertarianism, Albert Borla of Pfizer on his companies "bright future," and others...as well as clips from Julian Assange, Bret Weinstein on Tucker Carlson, and comedians Theo Von and Shane Gillis. The song selection is the song, "Cages" by the band Strung Out! Visit allegedlyrecords.com and check out all of the amazing punk rock artists! Visit soundcloud.com/andrewforamerica1984 to check out Andrew's music! Like and Follow The Politics & Punk Rock Podcast PLAYLIST on Spotify!!! Check it out here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Y4rumioeqvHfaUgRnRxsy... politicsandpunkrockpodcast.com https://linktr.ee/andrewforamerica --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andrew-foramerica/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andrew-foramerica/support

The Dudes dive into the non-fiction book, Hope of the Wicked: The Master Plan to Rule the World by author Ted Flynn. This book is 550 pages of information about the multi-century development of the politically charged and often cited New World Order. There is a spiritual battle going on throughout our world that has been happening since the dawn of time and is culminating in our global political theater. In Chapter 7, The Dudes explore the historic, somewhat dark roots of Freemasonry in America. The subject of Freemasonry spreads its wings wide and includes Albert Pike, the 33rd Degree and the Phoenix, the Great Seal of the United States of America, the Pyramid and other symbolism in our Great Seal. We touch on Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, The Statue of Liberty and the Secret Plan to rewrite the history of the USA.The Ryan Samuels ShowModern-day politics discussion and analysis. Conservative Political Commentator Ryan...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifyFollow us on Social Media! Like/Subscribe/Share!MerchandiseSponsor: Warriors for Freedom[INTRO/OUTRO]“Stomp It Away” by Silent Partner is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.5“Ever Felt pt 2” by Otis McDonald is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.5

PEI didn't even know it was at war when the American fleet appeared. The invaders went house to house stealing clothes, carpets, and curtains ... and their Great Seal. However, one Islander who was taken captive went on to become an important spy...    

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin once proposed that a turkey should represent the United States on our national seal? Most Americans are probably grateful that instead, in 1782, the bald eagle was selected to adorn the Great Seal. The eagle has been a symbol of power and strength from ancient times. In Exodus 19, we read about another nation, Israel, that arrived at Mount Sinai. In this important passage, God summarizes the covenant relationship into which He was inviting Israel to enter with Him. He reminds Israel what He had done: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings” (v. 4). Here God compares His actions in the Exodus story to an eagle, symbolizing the speed and power of His deliverance. God makes an important point about why He delivered Israel. He did it not only to save Israel from slavery but also to bring them to Himself (v. 4). He desired to be in a close relationship with them. When we think about our salvation, it is important to remember the same truth. God delivered us not only to save us from sin and judgment but also to bring us into a relationship with Him (1 Cor. 1:9). In the remainder of the passage, God outlines His purpose for calling Israel. He called Israel to be His special people so they would be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (v. 6). They were not to ignore the rest of the world but represent God to them. They could do this through example, witness, and by keeping and proclaiming God's Word. >> We are grateful that our God has brought salvation for His people. As those who hope in Him, we can claim this promise: “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:31).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin once proposed that a turkey should represent the United States on our national seal? Most Americans are probably grateful that instead, in 1782, the bald eagle was selected to adorn the Great Seal. The eagle has been a symbol of power and strength from ancient times. In Exodus 19, we read about another nation, Israel, that arrived at Mount Sinai. In this important passage, God summarizes the covenant relationship into which He was inviting Israel to enter with Him. He reminds Israel what He had done: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings” (v. 4). Here God compares His actions in the Exodus story to an eagle, symbolizing the speed and power of His deliverance. God makes an important point about why He delivered Israel. He did it not only to save Israel from slavery but also to bring them to Himself (v. 4). He desired to be in a close relationship with them. When we think about our salvation, it is important to remember the same truth. God delivered us not only to save us from sin and judgment but also to bring us into a relationship with Him (1 Cor. 1:9). In the remainder of the passage, God outlines His purpose for calling Israel. He called Israel to be His special people so they would be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (v. 6). They were not to ignore the rest of the world but represent God to them. They could do this through example, witness, and by keeping and proclaiming God’s Word. >> We are grateful that our God has brought salvation for His people. As those who hope in Him, we can claim this promise: “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:31).

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When people think of the U.S. flag design, they often think of Betsy Ross...but not Francis Hopkinson. Hear how this Founder with artistic skills encountered a major bureaucratic obstacle in the young Congress and how his writing analogized the patriot cause of the American Revolution.Support the showNEW! Visit georgewashingtoninstitute.org for the one-stop shop of all things Friends & Fellow Citizens and George Washington Institute!JOIN as a Patreon supporter and receive a FREE Friends & Fellow Citizens mug at the $10 membership level or higher!SUBSCRIBE to our e-mail list for the latest news and updates from Friends & Fellow Citizens!NOTE: All views expressed by the host are presented in his personal capacity and do not officially represent the views of any affiliated organizations. All guests on interview episodes are solely those of the interviewees and may or may not reflect the views of the host or Friends & Fellow Citizens.

Julie dissects the background of the U.S. one dollar bill. Topics include: an estimated 12-13 billion $1 notes are currently in circulation; Washington first appeared on the $1 bill in 1869; 90% of US money has cocaine residue on it; examining its design… both sides of the Great Seal, the significance of 13, and some little known facts.Please take our survey: https://lp.juliehartmanshow.com/survey/Don't forget to like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and ring the notification bell so you never miss a future upload!  Check out other Julie Hartman videos: https://www.youtube.com/@juliehartman Follow Julie Hartman on social media: Website: https://juliehartmanshow.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julierhartman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulieRHartman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timelesswithjuliehartmanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People with their bare butt showing is a trend that needs to go away, at least that's what host Jon Rawl thinks. Find out about the Great Seal of the United States, Confederate Gen. Stand Watie, and the reason behind Juneteenth in "Southern History Showcase." Also, former Oklahoma State golfer Wyndham Clark wins his first major with a 1-stroke victory at the 123rd U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club.

This is a little different style of episode. I recently ran The Buck Fifty, a 150 mile relay race around Southern Ohio. There are 5 person and 10 person teams and all the money raised for the event helps the a local chapter of Drug Free Club of America. The local area has been featured in documentaries on the opioid epidemic. So local youth and race organizers wanted to stop the problem before it started. The local community buy-in and involvement in this race is phenomenal and the volunteers are top-notch. What is also unique is that the relay race inspires the team to dig deep for their 4-7 miles legs for the race that runs around Ross County including three state parks: Great Seal, Tar Hollow, and Scioto Trails. And it would not be an episode of Weathering The Run without weather getting involved and this race delivered some very wet weather for all of the 87 teams. So I sat down with the race director to talk about this year's event, that I took part in. The race had a lightning delay because of very strong storms that went through the area along with some hail and rain that lasted for hours. After talking with Dave Huggins, the race director I catch up with the B-TEAM. This was the 5 person relay team that I was on and it was a great experience. To find out more about the race, visit their website: https://www.thebuckfifty.com/

--{ "Money, Symbology and the Occult"}-- Curating Alan Watt's Audio Archives; Redux - Censorship; Unauthorized Voices - Running Behind on Emails - Original Interview Nov. 26, 2006 - Minting Coin, World Bank, Federal Reserve, Karl Marx, Rothschild Family, US Flag, The Great Seal, Symbols of the Kabbalah, Pre-Revolutionary Masonic Money, the Eye of Horus, Telepathic Transmission, Shamanistic Training, Naming the Deity, the Good Shepherd, Spoken Word, Hillary Rodham, the Hermaphrodite God, Age of Aquarius, Shakespeare, King James Bible, Neo-Linguistic Language Creation, Hermetic Sciences, Casting Spells, Gaelic, Linguistic Minimalism.

Join Larry Spargimino and Dr. Thomas Horn as they reveal who the “God” on America's Great Seal and US one dollar bill really is, why 72 pentagrams in the Capitol Dome are used to control the ancient kosmokrators who rule the nations, the Coming Incarnation of Antichrist AND MUCH MUCH MORE! Secret Destiny of America DVD by Tom Horn is available HERE https://www.swrc.com/the-secret-destiny-of-america.html

Join Larry Spargimino and Dr. Thomas Horn as they reveal who the “God” on America's Great Seal and US one dollar bill really is, why 72 pentagrams in the Capitol Dome are used to control the ancient kosmokrators who rule the nations, the Coming Incarnation of Antichrist AND MUCH MUCH MORE! Secret Destiny of America DVD by Tom Horn is available HERE https://www.swrc.com/the-secret-destiny-of-america.html

Dr. John Churchill spent 15 years training and teaching “Great Seal” meditation in an Indo-Tibetan lineage and is a founding member of the Integral Institute led by the well-known philosopher, Ken Wilber. Over the last 25 years, John has developed his style of practice — an integrated Fourth Turning path — that weaves together somatically based contemplative practices that integrate psychodynamic healing, adult development, and meditation.  This was an incredible conversation that touched on how 'trauma fuses our awareness to our attentional system', his views on how to integrate plant medicines and psychedelics into this work and what he calls the 'fundamental interior science breakthroughs'.

Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Los servicios secretos de la Unión Soviética pudieron acceder a las conversaciones del embajador estadounidense durante años. Es algo sorprendente si contamos con que los norteamericanos podían detectar cualquier micrófono o dispositivo electrónico que pudiesen haber puesto los soviéticos.... Pero no contaron con "La Cosa". Y para hablar de esta misteriosa 'Cosa', también llamado "the Great Seal bug" o "The Lost", que mejor que nuestro podcaster encubierto 🕵️ Antonio Gómez y su grupo de Jóvenes Pioneros de la Unión Soviética. 💥 Si quieres acceder a programas como estos, 👉 a + de 500 programas exclusivos de Historia Bélica, 👉 a un nuevo programas CB FANS cada viernes, 👉 a escuchar todos los programas de Casus Belli sin publicidad y contribuir a que el proyecto continúe, puedes apoyarnos por menos de lo que cuestan dos cafés ☕+☕. Solo has de pulsar el botón de ▶️APOYAR. ¿QUIERES ANUNCIARTE en este Podcast, Esponsorizar un episodio o contratar una mini serie? Hazlo a través de 👉 https://www.advoices.com/casus-belli-podcast-historia ARMAS-10 es un programa de Casus Belli Podcast. Casus Belli Podcast pertenece a 🏭 Factoría Casus Belli. Casus Belli Podcast forma parte de 📀 Ivoox Originals. 📚 Zeppelin Books zeppelinbooks.com es un sello editorial de la 🏭 Factoría Casus Belli. 👉https://podcastcasusbelli.com 👉En Facebook, nuestra página es @casusbellipodcast https://www.facebook.com/CasusBelliPodcast 👉En Instagram estamos como @casusbellipodcast https://www.instagram.com/casusbellipodcast 👉En Twitter estamos como @casusbellipod @CasusBelliPod 👉Telegram, nuestro canal es @casusbellipodcast https://t.me/casusbellipodcast 👨💻Nuestro chat del canal es https://t.me/aviones10 ⚛️ El logotipo de Carros 10 y de la Factoría Casus Belli están diseñados por Publicidad Fabián publicidadfabian@yahoo.es 🎵 La música incluida en el programa es Freedom Soldiers de Gregory Lourme bajo licencia CC. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ El resto de música es bajo licencia privada de Epidemic Music, Jamendo Music o SGAE. de Ivoox. 📧¿Queréis contarnos algo? También puedes escribirnos a casus.belli.pod@gmail.com Si te ha gustado, y crees que nos lo merecemos, nos sirve mucho que nos des un like, ya que nos da mucha visibilidad. Muchas gracias por escucharnos, y hasta la próxima. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Born in London, Dr. Churchill's interest in psycho-spiritual development, Integral theory, Contemplative studies, Western Esotericism, and Mahayana Buddhism began in his adolescence,. During this time, John received the esoteric Planetary Dharma transmissions that would in time unfold as his contribution to a planetary fourth turning teaching. Dr. Churchill spent 15 years training and teaching “Great Seal” meditation in an Indo-Tibetan Mahayana lineage under the mentorship of the late senior Western teacher, translator, respected author, and clinical psychologist Dr. Daniel P. Brown. He is also a founding member of the Integral Institute led by esteemed Transpersonal/Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber. John has received advanced training in: attachment therapy, hypnosis, positive psychology for peak performance, and the “Pointing Out” style of Mahamudra meditation. For the last 25 years, John has developed a a Fourth Turning Planetary Dharma practice which includes the somatically based contemplative practice path; Embodying the Open Ground, that integrates psychodynamic healing, adult development and meditation. John holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from William James College, and is a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Married to his partner, Nicole since 2000, they are Co-Founders of Samadhi Integral, and Co-Directors of Karuna Mandala. Book: Becoming Buddha: Buddhist Contemplative Psychology in a Western Context Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group Transcript of this interview Interview recorded January 29, 2023. Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

At the time of the American founding, celebrations of Christmas in America varied widely, from Puritans and Quakers who shunned or ignored it, to other Protestants and Catholics who honored it in their own Christian ways, to those who spent the day in “riot and dissipation,” like an ancient Roman Saturnalia. But E Pluribus Unum—out of many one—was the American motto on the Great Seal, and over the generations, out of many ways of celebrating or ignoring Christmas, came a recognizably American way.

In today's episode, I'm going to introduce the founding fathers who approved the design of the Great Seal of the United States, which can be found right on the back of the one dollar bill. I think you're going to be blown away by the meaning of these symbols, which point to what a certain famous freemason called, "the Secret Destiny of America". If you'd like to support the podcast, consider becoming a listener supporter -OR- head over to my website and become a member to access the notes from today's episode. We also have a community on Facebook! www.facebook.com/groups/ancientconspiracies⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠www.ancientconspiracies.net⁠⁠ Offer support for $1/month: ⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ancient-conspiracies/support⁠⁠ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ancient-conspiracies/support

For the holiday season, Monticello guide Kyle Chattleton dispels a myth involving Benjamin Franklin and dives into the more complicated history surrounding it.

For the holiday season, Monticello guide Kyle Chattleton dispels a myth involving Benjamin Franklin and dives into the more complicated history surrounding it.

Welcome back to Season 5 of the Hashtag59 Podcast! Mike R & Jill G are sharing ways to experience outdoor adventures in the Midwest in Season 5. In this episode Mike R & Jill G head to Great Seal State Park to participate in a HARD trail run/race. Links for this episode: 1. Great Seal State Park: https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/great-seal-state-park 2. The Buck Fifty: www.TheBuckFifty.com 3. Tar Hollow State Park: https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/tar-hollow-state-park 4. Hopewell Mound Group: https://www.nps.gov/hocu/learn/historyculture/hopewell-mound-group.htm Thanks for listening to episode fifteen of our Midwest Adventures during Season 5 of our podcast. If you don't already, make sure you subscribe to our podcast by searching "Hashtag 59" on your podcasts app! Keep in touch with us on our website www.Hashtag59.com for our latest podcast episodes, blogs, go on an Unordinary Adventure with us, and find out about our latest trash cleanup events! #Hashtag59

This episode was first released May 23, 2022. In 1945, a wooden plaque of the "Great Seal" was given to the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union. It hung on the wall by his desk for years until it was discovered in 1951 to be a secret Soviet listening device. In this episode, we tell the story of "The Thing" or "The Great Seal Bug" and how it came to be. Then we chat with musician Daniel Malone! Review this podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-says-it-s-true/id1530853589 Bonus episodes and content available at http://Patreon.com/MichaelKent For special discounts and links to our sponsors, visit http://theinternetsaysitstrue.com/deals

Everyone knows Chris Scott. And, if you haven't met him, you probably know his booming voice, which has served as the narrator of many of an event in Ross County through the years. After a long career in sales, Chris latched on with Best Version Media and began producing Great Seal Living, a family-friendly magazine focused on Chillicothe and Ross County information. GSL was the fastest starting publication in BVM's portfolio and helped to birth Great Seal Sports, another locally focused magazine, this time on sports. But Chris is also a huge part of bringing the Drug Free Clubs of America to Ross County schools, funded by The Buck Fifty. Chris shares with us the future DFCA in the region and also how the race fits into that strategy.  He's working hard to make Chillicothe a better place to live.(BTW, here's a link to the video from Gone:The Forgotten Women of Ohio that Mike and Chris talk about in the episode.)Feels Like Home Podcast is powered by Horizon,  Greater Things are Coming! Bringing fiber to the home service in Chillicothe, Circleville and more new cities coming soon! Call Horizon today to get the fastest, most reliable, and the only 100% fiber-optic Internet service in the area. As always, thanks for listening to Feels Like Home. Send us feedback at feelslikehomepod@gmail.com. Hit that subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast site and give us a review! Let your friends and fellow podcast listeners about us. Special thanks to Buzzsprout, our podcast hosting service.Follow and interact with us on Facebook and Twitter. Feels Like Home theme song is provided by our great friend, Cory Breth.  Check out his music and merchandise here: https://www.corybrethofficial.comPowered by Horizon The fastest, most reliable, and the only 100% fiber optic Internet service in the area. 

Jack E. Davis is a history professor at the University of Florida, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, and the author, most recently, of The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird. In this episode, Davis explains how the Bald Eagle ended up on the Great Seal of the United States, its near-extinction due to hunting and DDT, its role as a “spirit bird” for Native Americans and Anglos alike, and why its recovery is a “great American conservation success story.”

The Great Seal of the United States was commissioned by Congress in order to represent in visual form the foundational principles of the American Republic. In this presentation which I gave in the historic Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh for a group of CEOs hosted by the Young President's Organization, we unpack the meaning of the various images which can be found on the back on any U.S. Dollar Bill.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FOR SEVEN YEARS, SOVIET AGENTS SPIED ON THE AMERICAN EMBASSY UNDETECTED In 1945, Soviet children presented the ambassador with a gift to commemorate the friendship of the US and the Soviet Union. A hand-carved wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States. The ambassador was so pleased with the carving that he hung it in his office at the official ambassador residence in Moscow: the Spaso house. But the wooden carving was more than just a decoration. Now hanging on the wall, just behind the ambassador's desk was a state of the art, high-frequency listening device that was completely undetectable. The intelligence community called the device "The Thing". And The Thing was on the office wall of five different ambassadors over 7 years. This was an electronic listening device that -- didn't require electricity. Let's find out why.

Bad predictions, chilling answers and extradition approved + this day in history w/the Great Seal of America and our song of the day by Five Times August on your #MorningMonarchy for June 20, 2022.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1536143322854694915 - Play entire clip Wise words from our commander in chief Joe Biden, who apparently doesn’t know if he’s coming or going, and more today on this CrossPolitic Daily News Brief… More from him later. You know, Biden may not know whether he’s coming or going, but I know you do… You already know that you’re coming to our Fight Laugh Feast Conference in Knoxville TN, October 6-8th right? You’re just putting off signing up for it… believe me I get it… but don’t put it off for too long! We’ve extended our early bird pricing to the end of June, so go sign up now! flfnetwork.com/knoxville2022/, and by the way, if you’re a club member, hey, that’s $100 off right there… so sign up for a club membership too while you’re at it, over at flfnetwork.com. Alright, so on to the news: Truckers warn skyrocketing diesel prices are making US supply-chain and trucking industry unsustainable https://www.businessinsider.com/truckers-warn-skyrocketing-diesel-prices-impact-industry-2022-6 A Facebook post from the owner of a Texas trucking company went viral last week after he warned that skyrocketing diesel prices could have longterm consequences for the US supply-chain. Austin Smith, owner of Iron River Express, said it has cost him over $20,000 a week to keep his three trucks running. "If something drastic doesn't change in the next few weeks/months, I promise you, you'll see empty shelves everywhere you look," Smith wrote in a post that was shared nearly 290,000 times. "You'll see chaos as people fight for the basic necessities of everyday life." Insider spoke with five truckers who warned that the industry could be at a breaking point. The drivers say they've had to get creative in recent months as they work to turn a profit while spending thousands at the pump. Richard Resek, a trucker based out of ports in New York and New Jersey, told Insider he's turning off his truck and rolling down his window instead of using air conditioning during long summer nights. He also plots out gas stations with the cheapest fuel prices. Diesel prices have surged over 76% in the past year. Last month, Insider reported that the diesel market is facing its worst crisis since the 1970s. Prices are at a record $5.75, according to data from AAA. For truckers like Resek, that means they're spending as much as $1,700 refueling their trucks each day. Nick, a trucker who owns a small carrier in Maryland, told Insider he's had to take loads at a loss. "I have the option not to run my fleet at all, but I care more about keeping my drivers busy," said Nick, who prefers to go only by his first name due to a pending lawsuit. "Drivers are the most important asset and sometimes that means I have to accept loads that are not in my favor." Nick also detailed an instance in April when he woke to find that thieves had siphoned over $1,000 worth of fuel out of his truck. The trucking industry offsets diesel prices through a fuel surcharge, which is calculated through a base rate that is usually added to a shipper's freight bill. But, Resek said drivers typically never sees a breakdown of the costs from brokers or carriers — meaning there are instances when companies keep the fuel surcharge for themselves. Shauntai Robinson, the owner of Mid-Carolina Transportation, told Insider that the elevated fuel prices will likely push new business owners out of the industry after a record numbers of trucking companies opened in 2021. Earlier this year, CEO of the American Trucking Association Chris Spear said the industry is facing a "chronic" shortage of about 81,000 drivers. Insider has previously reported that experts say notions of a trucker shortage are overblown. Wow… Sounds like things could be getting worse on the economy side of things, and I’m doubtful that inflation is what experts say it is… I think it’s probably higher. Biden points blame for record oil prices: 'Exxon made more money than God this year' https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-record-oil-prices-exxon-money-god During a speech in Los Angeles Friday, President Joe Biden blamed record gas prices on the oil industry and said that U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp were raking in massive profits this past year. "Exxon made more money than God this year," the Catholic president told union representatives at the Port of Los Angeles as the national average price of gas is $4.99 per gallon. In 19 states the price of a gallon of gas is over $5, according to the motorist group AAA. Biden also accused the largest U.S. oil company of spending their profits on stock purchases, rather than using it to drill and produce more oil. "Why aren't they drilling? Because they make more money not producing more oil," the president said. "Exxon, start investing and start paying your taxes." Here’s the president on Jimmy Kimmel talking about those evil oil companies: https://youtu.be/ZEtPV-qvLe8 - Play 13:33-14:08 Telling people what the facts are huh? He knows that we can just google this right? Well here are some facts for you fine folks: The average price per gallon was $2.40 on Jan. 20, 2021, based on an average of the leading fuel-monitoring services. The average price on Friday was $4.78 and market analysts expected it to tick up at least 2 cents over the weekend. That was a week ago. By the way, the price of gas was already going up before Russia started a war with Ukraine… Biden loves to point the finger at Putin for everything, but here are some startling statistics for you: Inflation just hit a NEW 40-year high. Overall CPI or inflation report: +8.6% since last year (and it’s probably higher than that.) Gas: +48.7% Fuel Oil: +106.7% Meat, Poultry, & Fish: +13.1% Milk: +15.9% Eggs: +32.2% Coffee: +15.3% Used Cars: +16.1% Airline Fares: +37.8% Real Average Hourly Earnings: -3% Whatever the excuse is, you know Joe Biden misses the good old days when he could just blame every policy disagreement on racism. It’s worth noting, the midterm elections are on November 8, 2022. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? The Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. This past year, the Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. Starbucks May End Open-to-All Bathroom Policy Due to Safety Concerns, CEO says https://www.theepochtimes.com/starbucks-may-end-open-to-all-bathroom-policy-due-to-safety-concerns-ceo-says_4528150.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport Starbucks is reconsidering its open-to-all bathroom policy because worsening mental health problems among the public are posing a threat to employees and customers. Howard Schultz, the CEO of the coffee shop chain, indicated during a New York Times DealBook forum on Thursday that the company may once again reserve the bathrooms for paying customers. “We serve 100 million people at Starbucks,” Schultz said in a conversation about mental health, which he described as the “No.1 issue” his company is dealing with. “There is an issue of just safety in our stores in terms of people coming in who use our stores as a public bathroom, and we have to provide a safe environment for our people and our customers. “The mental health crisis in this country is severe, acute, and getting worse,” he told the NY Times, adding that Starbucks is providing better training and “hardening our stores” in response to the mental health challenges. When asked exactly what “hardening the stores” means, Schultz replied that this could mean the end of free bathroom access for non-customers. Starbucks opened its bathrooms to the public in 2018 following an incident in which two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia store. The store’s manager insisted that they make a purchase in order to use the bathroom, and eventually called the police on them for trespassing. Following a backlash, Starbucks settled with the men for an undisclosed amount of money. It also told all stores in the United States that “any person who enters our spaces, including patios, cafes and restrooms, regardless of whether they make a purchase, is considered a customer.” Schultz agreed that undoing the 2018 decision would be “a significant culture shift,” as noted by The NY Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin. According to a study (pdf) published in 2019 by the business schools at the University of Texas at Dallas and Boston College, visits to Starbucks dropped by 6.8 percent following the company’s adoption of the open-to-all bathroom policy. The researchers collaborated with data company SafeGraph and examined cellphone location data from more than 10 million devices between January 2017 and October 2018, which covers a period before and after Starbucks’ bathroom policy shift. When measuring the data against cafe shops located near about 10,800 Starbucks stores across the United States, the researchers found that Starbucks suffered “large and significant” customer traffic decline compared with rivals. The traffic dip was 84 percent higher for Starbucks stores that were close to a homeless shelter, according to the study. In addition, the average income of Starbucks’ customers has dropped compared with that of visitors of other nearby coffee shops. “This would be consistent with them being more sensitive to crowding and the new visitors brought in by the bathroom policy,” the researchers wrote. Starbucks disagreed with those findings, saying at that time the alleged decline in traffic didn’t actually translate to a loss of revenue. Now, before we go, I wanted to take a stroll through my segment of, on this day in history! On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-14/#:~:text=Since%201916%2C%20when%20President%20Woodrow,parades%2C%20and%20other%20patriotic%20observances. Since 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14, Americans have commemorated the adoption of the Stars and Stripes in many ways–displaying the flag in the front of their homes, parades, and other patriotic observances. Prior to 1916, many localities and a few states had been celebrating the day for years. Congressional legislation designating that date as the national Flag Day was signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1949; the legislation also called upon the president to issue a flag day proclamation every year. According to legend, in 1776, George Washington commissioned Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross to create a flag for the new nation. Scholars, however, credit the flag’s design to Francis Hopkinson, who also designed the Great Seal and first coin of the United States. Even so, Ross most likely met Washington and certainly sewed early American flags in her family’s Philadelphia upholstery shop. To date, there have been twenty-seven official versions of the flag, but the arrangement of the stars varied according to the flag-makers’ preferences until 1912 when President Taft standardized the then-new flag’s forty-eight stars into six rows of eight. The forty-nine-star flag (1959-60), as well as the fifty-star flag, also have standardized star patterns. The current version of the flag dates to July 4, 1960, after Hawaii became the fiftieth state on August 21, 1959. Thanks for listening to this iteration of the CrossPolitic Daily News Brief… if you liked the show, or any other show on our network for that matter, share it! As sharing one of our shows is like currency for us. If you like us so much, that you’re ready to take the plunge into club membership, you can sign up now at flf.com/membership, and as always, if you want to talk about becoming a corporate partner with CrossPolitic, you should email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News, I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great day, and Lord bless.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1536143322854694915 - Play entire clip Wise words from our commander in chief Joe Biden, who apparently doesn’t know if he’s coming or going, and more today on this CrossPolitic Daily News Brief… More from him later. You know, Biden may not know whether he’s coming or going, but I know you do… You already know that you’re coming to our Fight Laugh Feast Conference in Knoxville TN, October 6-8th right? You’re just putting off signing up for it… believe me I get it… but don’t put it off for too long! We’ve extended our early bird pricing to the end of June, so go sign up now! flfnetwork.com/knoxville2022/, and by the way, if you’re a club member, hey, that’s $100 off right there… so sign up for a club membership too while you’re at it, over at flfnetwork.com. Alright, so on to the news: Truckers warn skyrocketing diesel prices are making US supply-chain and trucking industry unsustainable https://www.businessinsider.com/truckers-warn-skyrocketing-diesel-prices-impact-industry-2022-6 A Facebook post from the owner of a Texas trucking company went viral last week after he warned that skyrocketing diesel prices could have longterm consequences for the US supply-chain. Austin Smith, owner of Iron River Express, said it has cost him over $20,000 a week to keep his three trucks running. "If something drastic doesn't change in the next few weeks/months, I promise you, you'll see empty shelves everywhere you look," Smith wrote in a post that was shared nearly 290,000 times. "You'll see chaos as people fight for the basic necessities of everyday life." Insider spoke with five truckers who warned that the industry could be at a breaking point. The drivers say they've had to get creative in recent months as they work to turn a profit while spending thousands at the pump. Richard Resek, a trucker based out of ports in New York and New Jersey, told Insider he's turning off his truck and rolling down his window instead of using air conditioning during long summer nights. He also plots out gas stations with the cheapest fuel prices. Diesel prices have surged over 76% in the past year. Last month, Insider reported that the diesel market is facing its worst crisis since the 1970s. Prices are at a record $5.75, according to data from AAA. For truckers like Resek, that means they're spending as much as $1,700 refueling their trucks each day. Nick, a trucker who owns a small carrier in Maryland, told Insider he's had to take loads at a loss. "I have the option not to run my fleet at all, but I care more about keeping my drivers busy," said Nick, who prefers to go only by his first name due to a pending lawsuit. "Drivers are the most important asset and sometimes that means I have to accept loads that are not in my favor." Nick also detailed an instance in April when he woke to find that thieves had siphoned over $1,000 worth of fuel out of his truck. The trucking industry offsets diesel prices through a fuel surcharge, which is calculated through a base rate that is usually added to a shipper's freight bill. But, Resek said drivers typically never sees a breakdown of the costs from brokers or carriers — meaning there are instances when companies keep the fuel surcharge for themselves. Shauntai Robinson, the owner of Mid-Carolina Transportation, told Insider that the elevated fuel prices will likely push new business owners out of the industry after a record numbers of trucking companies opened in 2021. Earlier this year, CEO of the American Trucking Association Chris Spear said the industry is facing a "chronic" shortage of about 81,000 drivers. Insider has previously reported that experts say notions of a trucker shortage are overblown. Wow… Sounds like things could be getting worse on the economy side of things, and I’m doubtful that inflation is what experts say it is… I think it’s probably higher. Biden points blame for record oil prices: 'Exxon made more money than God this year' https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-record-oil-prices-exxon-money-god During a speech in Los Angeles Friday, President Joe Biden blamed record gas prices on the oil industry and said that U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp were raking in massive profits this past year. "Exxon made more money than God this year," the Catholic president told union representatives at the Port of Los Angeles as the national average price of gas is $4.99 per gallon. In 19 states the price of a gallon of gas is over $5, according to the motorist group AAA. Biden also accused the largest U.S. oil company of spending their profits on stock purchases, rather than using it to drill and produce more oil. "Why aren't they drilling? Because they make more money not producing more oil," the president said. "Exxon, start investing and start paying your taxes." Here’s the president on Jimmy Kimmel talking about those evil oil companies: https://youtu.be/ZEtPV-qvLe8 - Play 13:33-14:08 Telling people what the facts are huh? He knows that we can just google this right? Well here are some facts for you fine folks: The average price per gallon was $2.40 on Jan. 20, 2021, based on an average of the leading fuel-monitoring services. The average price on Friday was $4.78 and market analysts expected it to tick up at least 2 cents over the weekend. That was a week ago. By the way, the price of gas was already going up before Russia started a war with Ukraine… Biden loves to point the finger at Putin for everything, but here are some startling statistics for you: Inflation just hit a NEW 40-year high. Overall CPI or inflation report: +8.6% since last year (and it’s probably higher than that.) Gas: +48.7% Fuel Oil: +106.7% Meat, Poultry, & Fish: +13.1% Milk: +15.9% Eggs: +32.2% Coffee: +15.3% Used Cars: +16.1% Airline Fares: +37.8% Real Average Hourly Earnings: -3% Whatever the excuse is, you know Joe Biden misses the good old days when he could just blame every policy disagreement on racism. It’s worth noting, the midterm elections are on November 8, 2022. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? The Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. This past year, the Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. Starbucks May End Open-to-All Bathroom Policy Due to Safety Concerns, CEO says https://www.theepochtimes.com/starbucks-may-end-open-to-all-bathroom-policy-due-to-safety-concerns-ceo-says_4528150.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport Starbucks is reconsidering its open-to-all bathroom policy because worsening mental health problems among the public are posing a threat to employees and customers. Howard Schultz, the CEO of the coffee shop chain, indicated during a New York Times DealBook forum on Thursday that the company may once again reserve the bathrooms for paying customers. “We serve 100 million people at Starbucks,” Schultz said in a conversation about mental health, which he described as the “No.1 issue” his company is dealing with. “There is an issue of just safety in our stores in terms of people coming in who use our stores as a public bathroom, and we have to provide a safe environment for our people and our customers. “The mental health crisis in this country is severe, acute, and getting worse,” he told the NY Times, adding that Starbucks is providing better training and “hardening our stores” in response to the mental health challenges. When asked exactly what “hardening the stores” means, Schultz replied that this could mean the end of free bathroom access for non-customers. Starbucks opened its bathrooms to the public in 2018 following an incident in which two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia store. The store’s manager insisted that they make a purchase in order to use the bathroom, and eventually called the police on them for trespassing. Following a backlash, Starbucks settled with the men for an undisclosed amount of money. It also told all stores in the United States that “any person who enters our spaces, including patios, cafes and restrooms, regardless of whether they make a purchase, is considered a customer.” Schultz agreed that undoing the 2018 decision would be “a significant culture shift,” as noted by The NY Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin. According to a study (pdf) published in 2019 by the business schools at the University of Texas at Dallas and Boston College, visits to Starbucks dropped by 6.8 percent following the company’s adoption of the open-to-all bathroom policy. The researchers collaborated with data company SafeGraph and examined cellphone location data from more than 10 million devices between January 2017 and October 2018, which covers a period before and after Starbucks’ bathroom policy shift. When measuring the data against cafe shops located near about 10,800 Starbucks stores across the United States, the researchers found that Starbucks suffered “large and significant” customer traffic decline compared with rivals. The traffic dip was 84 percent higher for Starbucks stores that were close to a homeless shelter, according to the study. In addition, the average income of Starbucks’ customers has dropped compared with that of visitors of other nearby coffee shops. “This would be consistent with them being more sensitive to crowding and the new visitors brought in by the bathroom policy,” the researchers wrote. Starbucks disagreed with those findings, saying at that time the alleged decline in traffic didn’t actually translate to a loss of revenue. Now, before we go, I wanted to take a stroll through my segment of, on this day in history! On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-14/#:~:text=Since%201916%2C%20when%20President%20Woodrow,parades%2C%20and%20other%20patriotic%20observances. Since 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14, Americans have commemorated the adoption of the Stars and Stripes in many ways–displaying the flag in the front of their homes, parades, and other patriotic observances. Prior to 1916, many localities and a few states had been celebrating the day for years. Congressional legislation designating that date as the national Flag Day was signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1949; the legislation also called upon the president to issue a flag day proclamation every year. According to legend, in 1776, George Washington commissioned Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross to create a flag for the new nation. Scholars, however, credit the flag’s design to Francis Hopkinson, who also designed the Great Seal and first coin of the United States. Even so, Ross most likely met Washington and certainly sewed early American flags in her family’s Philadelphia upholstery shop. To date, there have been twenty-seven official versions of the flag, but the arrangement of the stars varied according to the flag-makers’ preferences until 1912 when President Taft standardized the then-new flag’s forty-eight stars into six rows of eight. The forty-nine-star flag (1959-60), as well as the fifty-star flag, also have standardized star patterns. The current version of the flag dates to July 4, 1960, after Hawaii became the fiftieth state on August 21, 1959. Thanks for listening to this iteration of the CrossPolitic Daily News Brief… if you liked the show, or any other show on our network for that matter, share it! As sharing one of our shows is like currency for us. If you like us so much, that you’re ready to take the plunge into club membership, you can sign up now at flf.com/membership, and as always, if you want to talk about becoming a corporate partner with CrossPolitic, you should email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News, I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great day, and Lord bless.

In 1945, a wooden plaque of the "Great Seal" was given to the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union. It hung on the wall by his desk for years until it was discovered in 1951 to be a secret Soviet listening device. In this episode, we tell the story of "The Thing" or "The Great Seal Bug" and how it came to be. Then we chat with musician Daniel Malone! Review this podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-says-it-s-true/id1530853589 Bonus episodes and content available at http://Patreon.com/MichaelKent For special discounts and links to our sponsors, visit http://theinternetsaysitstrue.com/deals

Is the greatest economy in the world designed to produce economic freedom or is it part of a sinister masterplan designed to ensnare the peoples of the world in one of the most diabolical forms of slavery known to man? We talk about that and much more, including: is America a Christian nation, how some of the key Founding Fathers viewed the Bible and Jesus Christ, the Great Seal of the United States, decoding the US Dollar Bill and its hidden prophetic message, the backstory and tactics of the Rothschild Illuminati bloodline, the Federal Reserve system, and whether or not all wars are bankers wars? Buckle up and get ready, because this show is lit! Show Notes and Additional Resources: https://truthfullyarmed.com/the-new-world-order-part-3-babylonian-money-magic/ Connect With Us Facebook Instagram Twitter

Our buddy and owner of Hills Before the Hustle (HBTH), Adam Kohler stopped by to chat with the Chubbies. We dive into Great Seal of Ohio, Sevierville, getting bit by the Mountain Bike Bug, the Dangers of Moutain Biking, and how Adam got started by biking before work. More to come on this one, Chubbies! If you are interested in supporting Adam and HBTH you can visit https://www.hillsbeforethehustle.com/ to purchase some sweet merch! #biking #mountainbiking #hustle #outdoor #lifestyle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support Our Sponsors: • Gillum Insurance: https://bit.ly/3GaBfZU • AP Prep: https://bit.ly/34i4ooL • McDonald's of Jackson and Vinton Counties: https://bit.ly/3KNoisG • Geiger Brothers: https://bit.ly/3IHNUFB • Brian Dulaney Excavating: 740-418-6994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHUBBY CONNECT: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chubbyguyspodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_chubby_guys_podcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chubbyguysspodcast Website: https://www.chubbyguyspodcast.com/

Episode one hundred and forty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, and the history of the theremin. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "You're Gonna Miss Me" by the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There is no Mixcloud this week, because there were too many Beach Boys songs in the episode. I used many resources for this episode, most of which will be used in future Beach Boys episodes too. It's difficult to enumerate everything here, because I have been an active member of the Beach Boys fan community for twenty-four years, and have at times just used my accumulated knowledge for this. But the resources I list here are ones I've checked for specific things. Stephen McParland has published many, many books on the California surf and hot-rod music scenes, including several on both the Beach Boys and Gary Usher.  His books can be found at https://payhip.com/CMusicBooks Andrew Doe's Bellagio 10452 site is an invaluable resource. Jon Stebbins' The Beach Boys FAQ is a good balance between accuracy and readability. And Philip Lambert's Inside the Music of Brian Wilson is an excellent, though sadly out of print, musicological analysis of Wilson's music from 1962 through 67. I have also referred to Brian Wilson's autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson, and to Mike Love's, Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy. As a good starting point for the Beach Boys' music in general, I would recommend this budget-priced three-CD set, which has a surprisingly good selection of their material on it, including the single version of "Good Vibrations". Oddly, the single version of "Good Vibrations" is not on the The Smile Sessions box set. But an entire CD of outtakes of the track is, and that was the source for the session excerpts here. Information on Lev Termen comes from Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage by Albert Glinsky Transcript In ancient Greece, the god Hermes was a god of many things, as all the Greek gods were. Among those things, he was the god of diplomacy, he was a trickster god, a god of thieves, and he was a messenger god, who conveyed messages between realms. He was also a god of secret knowledge. In short, he was the kind of god who would have made a perfect spy. But he was also an inventor. In particular he was credited in Greek myth as having invented the lyre, an instrument somewhat similar to a guitar, harp, or zither, and as having used it to create beautiful sounds. But while Hermes the trickster god invented the lyre, in Greek myth it was a mortal man, Orpheus, who raised the instrument to perfection. Orpheus was a legendary figure, the greatest poet and musician of pre-Homeric Greece, and all sorts of things were attributed to him, some of which might even have been things that a real man of that name once did. He is credited with the "Orphic tripod" -- the classification of the elements into earth, water, and fire -- and with a collection of poems called the Rhapsodiae. The word Rhapsodiae comes from the Greek words rhaptein, meaning to stitch or sew, and ōidē, meaning song -- the word from which we get our word "ode", and  originally a rhapsōdos was someone who "stitched songs together" -- a reciter of long epic poems composed of several shorter pieces that the rhapsōdos would weave into one continuous piece. It's from that that we get the English word "rhapsody", which in the sixteenth century, when it was introduced into the language, meant a literary work that was a disjointed collection of patchwork bits, stitched together without much thought as to structure, but which now means a piece of music in one movement, but which has several distinct sections. Those sections may seem unrelated, and the piece may have an improvisatory feel, but a closer look will usually reveal relationships between the sections, and the piece as a whole will have a sense of unity. When Orpheus' love, Eurydice, died, he went down into Hades, the underworld where the souls of the dead lived, and played music so beautiful, so profound and moving, that the gods agreed that Orpheus could bring the soul of his love back to the land of the living. But there was one condition -- all he had to do was keep looking forward until they were both back on Earth. If he turned around before both of them were back in the mortal realm, she would disappear forever, never to be recovered. But of course, as you all surely know, and would almost certainly have guessed even if you didn't know because you know how stories work, once Orpheus made it back to our world he turned around and looked, because he lost his nerve and didn't believe he had really achieved his goal. And Eurydice, just a few steps away from her freedom, vanished back into the underworld, this time forever. [Excerpt: Blake Jones and the Trike Shop: "Mr. Theremin's Miserlou"] Lev Sergeyevich Termen was born in St. Petersburg, in what was then the Russian Empire, on the fifteenth of August 1896, by the calendar in use in Russia at that time -- the Russian Empire was still using the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian calendar used in most of the rest of the world, and in the Western world the same day was the twenty-seventh of August. Young Lev was fascinated both by science and the arts. He was trained as a cellist from an early age, but while he loved music, he found the process of playing the music cumbersome -- or so he would say later. He was always irritated by the fact that the instrument is a barrier between the idea in the musician's head and the sound -- that it requires training to play. As he would say later "I realised there was a gap between music itself and its mechanical production, and I wanted to unite both of them." Music was one of his big loves, but he was also very interested in physics, and was inspired by a lecture he saw from the physicist Abram Ioffe, who for the first time showed him that physics was about real, practical, things, about the movements of atoms and fields that really existed, not just about abstractions and ideals. When Termen went to university, he studied physics -- but he specifically wanted to be an experimental physicist, not a theoretician. He wanted to do stuff involving the real world. Of course, as someone who had the misfortune to be born in the late 1890s, Termen was the right age to be drafted when World War I started, but luckily for him the Russian Army desperately needed people with experience in the new invention that was radio, which was vital for wartime communications, and he spent the war in the Army radio engineering department, erecting radio transmitters and teaching other people how to erect them, rather than on the front lines, and he managed not only to get his degree in physics but also a diploma in music. But he was also becoming more and more of a Marxist sympathiser, even though he came from a relatively affluent background, and after the Russian Revolution he stayed in what was now the Red Army, at least for a time. Once Termen's Army service was over, he started working under Ioffe, working with him on practical applications of the audion, the first amplifying vacuum tube. The first one he found was that the natural capacitance of a human body when standing near a circuit can change the capacity of the circuit. He used that to create an invisible burglar alarm -- there was an antenna sending out radio waves, and if someone came within the transmitting field of the antenna, that would cause a switch to flip and a noise to be sounded. He was then asked to create a device for measuring the density of gases, outputting a different frequency for different densities. Because gas density can have lots of minor fluctuations because of air currents and so forth, he built a circuit that would cut out all the many harmonics from the audions he was using and give just the main frequency as a single pure tone, which he could listen to with headphones. That way,  slight changes in density would show up as a slight change in the tone he heard. But he noticed that again when he moved near the circuit, that changed the capacitance of the circuit and changed the tone he was hearing. He started moving his hand around near the circuit and getting different tones. The closer his hand got to the capacitor, the higher the note sounded. And if he shook his hand a little, he could get a vibrato, just like when he shook his hand while playing the cello. He got Ioffe to come and listen to him, and Ioffe said "That's an electronic Orpheus' lament!" [Excerpt: Blake Jones and the Trike Shop, "Mr. Theremin's Miserlou"] Termen figured out how to play Massenet's "Elegy" and Saint-Saens' "The Swan" using this system. Soon the students were all fascinated, telling each other "Termen plays Gluck on a voltmeter!" He soon figured out various refinements -- by combining two circuits, using the heterodyne principle, he could allow for far finer control. He added a second antenna, for volume control, to be used by the left hand -- the right hand would choose the notes, while the left hand would change the volume, meaning the instrument could be played without touching it at all. He called the instrument the "etherphone",  but other people started calling it the termenvox -- "Termen's voice". Termen's instrument was an immediate sensation, as was his automatic burglar alarm, and he was invited to demonstrate both of them to Lenin. Lenin was very impressed by Termen -- he wrote to Trotsky later talking about Termen's inventions, and how the automatic burglar alarm might reduce the number of guards needed to guard a perimeter. But he was also impressed by Termen's musical invention. Termen held his hands to play through the first half of a melody, before leaving the Russian leader to play the second half by himself -- apparently he made quite a good job of it. Because of Lenin's advocacy for his work, Termen was sent around the Soviet Union on a propaganda tour -- what was known as an "agitprop tour", in the familiar Soviet way of creating portmanteau words. In 1923 the first piece of music written specially for the instrument was performed by Termen himself with the Leningrad Philharmonic, Andrey Paschenko's Symphonic Mystery for Termenvox and Orchestra. The score for that was later lost, but has been reconstructed, and the piece was given a "second premiere" in 2020 [Excerpt: Andrey Paschenko, "Symphonic Mystery for Termenvox and Orchestra" ] But the musical instrument wasn't the only scientific innovation that Termen was working on. He thought he could reverse death itself, and bring the dead back to life.  He was inspired in this by the way that dead organisms could be perfectly preserved in the Siberian permafrost. He thought that if he could only freeze a dead person in the permafrost, he could then revive them later -- basically the same idea as the later idea of cryogenics, although Termen seems to have thought from the accounts I've read that all it would take would be to freeze and then thaw them, and not to have considered the other things that would be necessary to bring them back to life. Termen made two attempts to actually do this, or at least made preliminary moves in that direction. The first came when his assistant, a twenty-year-old woman, died of pneumonia. Termen was heartbroken at the death of someone so young, who he'd liked a great deal, and was convinced that if he could just freeze her body for a while he could soon revive her. He talked with Ioffe about this -- Ioffe was friends with the girl's family -- and Ioffe told him that he thought that he was probably right and probably could revive her. But he also thought that it would be cruel to distress the girl's parents further by discussing it with them, and so Termen didn't get his chance to experiment. He was even keener on trying his technique shortly afterwards, when Lenin died. Termen was a fervent supporter of the Revolution, and thought Lenin was a great man whose leadership was still needed -- and he had contacts within the top echelons of the Kremlin. He got in touch with them as soon as he heard of Lenin's death, in an attempt to get the opportunity to cryopreserve his corpse and revive him. Sadly, by this time it was too late. Lenin's brain had been pickled, and so the opportunity to resurrect him as a zombie Lenin was denied forever. Termen was desperately interested in the idea of bringing people back from the dead, and he wanted to pursue it further with his lab, but he was also being pushed to give demonstrations of his music, as well as doing security work -- Ioffe, it turned out, was also working as a secret agent, making various research trips to Germany that were also intended to foment Communist revolution. For now, Termen was doing more normal security work -- his burglar alarms were being used to guard bank vaults and the like, but this was at the order of the security state. But while Termen was working on his burglar alarms and musical instruments and attempts to revive dead dictators, his main project was his doctoral work, which was on the TV. We've said before in this podcast that there's no first anything, and that goes just as much for inventions as it does for music. Most inventions build on work done by others, which builds on work done by others, and so there were a lot of people building prototype TVs at this point. In Britain we tend to say "the inventor of the TV" was John Logie Baird, but Baird was working at the same time as people like the American Charles Francis Jenkins and the Japanese inventor Kenjiro Takayanagi, all of them building on earlier work by people like Archibald Low. Termen's prototype TV, the first one in Russia, came slightly later than any of those people, but was created more or less independently, and was more advanced in several ways, with a bigger screen and better resolution. Shortly after Lenin's death, Termen was invited to demonstrate his invention to Stalin, who professed himself amazed at the "magic mirror". [Excerpt: Blake Jones and the Trike Shop, "Astronauts in Trouble"] Termen was sent off to tour Europe giving demonstrations of his inventions, particularly his musical instrument. It was on this trip that he started using the Romanisation "Leon Theremin", and this is how Western media invariably referred to him. Rather than transliterate the Cyrillic spelling of his birth name, he used the French spelling his Huguenot ancestors had used before they emigrated to Russia, and called himself Leo or Leon rather than Lev. He was known throughout his life by both names, but said to a journalist in 1928 "First of all, I am not Tair-uh-MEEN. I wrote my name with French letters for French pronunciation. I am Lev Sergeyevich Tair-MEN.". We will continue to call him Termen, partly because he expressed that mild preference (though again, he definitely went by both names through choice) but also to distinguish him from the instrument, because while his invention remained known in Russia as the termenvox, in the rest of the world it became known as the theremin. He performed at the Paris Opera, and the New York Times printed a review saying "Some musicians were extremely pessimistic about the possibilities of the device, because at times M. Theremin played lamentably out of tune. But the finest Stradivarius, in the hands of a tyro, can give forth frightful sounds. The fact that the inventor was able to perform certain pieces with absolute precision proves that there remains to be solved only questions of practice and technique." Termen also came to the UK, where he performed in front of an audience including George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, Henry Wood and others. Arnold Bennett was astonished, but Bernard Shaw, who had very strong opinions about music, as anyone who has read his criticism will be aware, compared the sound unfavourably to that of a comb and paper. After performing in Europe, Termen made his way to the US, to continue his work of performance, propagandising for the Soviet Revolution, and trying to license the patents for his inventions, to bring money both to him and to the Soviet state. He entered the US on a six-month visitor's visa, but stayed there for eleven years, renewing the visa every six months. His initial tour was a success, though at least one open-air concert had to be cancelled because, as the Communist newspaper the Daily Worker put it, "the weather on Saturday took such a counter-revolutionary turn". Nicolas Slonimsky, the musicologist we've encountered several times before, and who would become part of Termen's circle in the US, reviewed one of the performances, and described the peculiar audiences that Termen was getting -- "a considerable crop of ladies and gentlemen engaged in earnest exploration of the Great Beyond...the mental processes peculiar to believers in cosmic vibrations imparted a beatific look to some of the listeners. Boston is a seat of scientific religion; before he knows it Professor Theremin may be proclaimed Krishnamurti and sanctified as a new deity". Termen licensed his patents on the invention to RCA, who in 1929 started mass-producing the first ever theremins for general use. Termen also started working with the conductor Leopold Stokowski, including developing a new kind of theremin for Stokowski's orchestra to use, one with a fingerboard played like a cello. Stokowski said "I believe we shall have orchestras of these electric instruments. Thus will begin a new era in music history, just as modern materials and methods of construction have produced a new era of architecture." Possibly of more interest to the wider public, Lennington Sherwell, the son of an RCA salesman, took up the theremin professionally, and joined the band of Rudy Vallee, one of the most popular singers of the period. Vallee was someone who constantly experimented with new sounds, and has for example been named as the first band leader to use an electric banjo, and Vallee liked the sound of the theremin so much he ordered a custom-built left-handed one for himself. Sherwell stayed in Vallee's band for quite a while, and performed with him on the radio and in recording sessions, but it's very difficult to hear him in any of the recordings -- the recording equipment in use in 1930 was very primitive, and Vallee had a very big band with a lot of string and horn players, and his arrangements tended to have lots of instruments playing in unison rather than playing individual lines that are easy to differentiate. On top of that, the fashion at the time when playing the instrument was to try and have it sound as much like other instruments as possible -- to duplicate the sound of a cello or violin or clarinet, rather than to lean in to the instrument's own idiosyncracies. I *think* though that I can hear Sherwell's playing in the instrumental break of Vallee's big hit "You're Driving Me Crazy" -- certainly it was recorded at the time that Sherwell was in the band, and there's an instrument in there with a very pure tone, but quite a lot of vibrato, in the mid range, that seems only to be playing in the break and not the rest of the song. I'm not saying this is *definitely* a theremin solo on one of the biggest hits of 1930, but I'm not saying it's not, either: [Excerpt: Rudy Vallee, "You're Driving Me Crazy" ] Termen also invented a light show to go along with his instrument -- the illumovox, which had a light shining through a strip of gelatin of different colours, which would be rotated depending on the pitch of the theremin, so that lower notes would cause the light to shine a deep red, while the highest notes would make it shine a light blue, with different shades in between. By 1930, though, Termen's fortunes had started to turn slightly. Stokowski kept using theremins in the orchestra for a while, especially the fingerboard models to reinforce the bass, but they caused problems. As Slonimsky said "The infrasonic vibrations were so powerful...that they hit the stomach physically, causing near-nausea in the double-bass section of the orchestra". Fairly soon, the Theremin was overtaken by other instruments, like the ondes martenot, an instrument very similar to the theremin but with more precise control, and with a wider range of available timbres. And in 1931, RCA was sued by another company for patent infringement with regard to the Theremin -- the De Forest Radio Company had patents around the use of vacuum tubes in music, and they claimed damages of six thousand dollars, plus RCA had to stop making theremins. Since at the time, RCA had only made an initial batch of five hundred instruments total, and had sold 485 of them, many of them as promotional loss-leaders for future batches, they had actually made a loss of three hundred dollars even before the six thousand dollar damages, and decided not to renew their option on Termen's patents. But Termen was still working on his musical ideas. Slonimsky also introduced Termen to the avant-garde composer and theosophist Henry Cowell, who was interested in experimental sounds, and used to do things like play the strings inside the piano to get a different tone: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] Cowell was part of a circle of composers and musicologists that included Edgard Varese, Charles Ives, and Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford, who Cowell would introduce to each other. Crawford would later marry Seeger, and they would have several children together, including the folk singer Peggy Seeger, and Crawford would also adopt Seeger's son Pete. Cowell and Termen would together invent the rhythmicon, the first ever drum machine, though the rhythmicon could play notes as well as rhythms. Only two rhythmicons were made while Termen was in the US. The first was owned by Cowell. The second, improved, model was bought by Charles Ives, but bought as a gift for Cowell and Slonimsky to use in their compositions. Sadly, both rhythmicons eventually broke down, and no recording of either is known to exist. Termen started to get further and further into debt, especially as the Great Depression started to hit, and he also had a personal loss -- he'd been training a student and had fallen in love with her, although he was married. But when she married herself, he cut off all ties with her, though Clara Rockmore would become one of the few people to use the instrument seriously and become a real virtuoso on it. He moved into other fields, all loosely based around the same basic ideas of detecting someone's distance from an object. He built electronic gun detectors for Alcatraz and Sing-Sing prisons, and he came up with an altimeter for aeroplanes. There was also a "magic mirror" -- glass that appeared like a mirror until it was backlit, at which point it became transparent. This was put into shop windows along with a proximity detector -- every time someone stepped close to look at their reflection, the reflection would disappear and be replaced with the objects behind the mirror. He was also by this point having to spy for the USSR on a more regular basis. Every week he would meet up in a cafe with two diplomats from the Russian embassy, who would order him to drink several shots of vodka -- the idea was that they would loosen his inhibitions enough that he would not be able to hide things from them -- before he related various bits of industrial espionage he'd done for them. Having inventions of his own meant he was able to talk with engineers in the aerospace industry and get all sorts of bits of information that would otherwise not have been available, and he fed this back to Moscow. He eventually divorced his first wife, and remarried -- a Black American dancer many years his junior named Lavinia Williams, who would be the great love of his life. This caused some scandal in his social circle, more because of her race than the age gap. But by 1938 he had to leave the US. He'd been there on a six-month visa, which had been renewed every six months for more than a decade, and he'd also not been paying income tax and was massively in debt. He smuggled himself back to the USSR, but his wife was, at the last minute, not allowed on to the ship with him. He'd had to make the arrangements in secret, and hadn't even told her of the plans, so the first she knew was when he disappeared. He would later claim that the Soviets had told him she would be sent for two weeks later, but she had no knowledge of any of this. For decades, Lavinia would not even know if her husband was dead or alive. [Excerpt: Blake Jones and the Trike Shop, "Astronauts in Trouble"] When Termen got back to the USSR, he found it had changed beyond recognition. Stalin's reign of terror was now well underway, and not only could he not find a job, most of the people who he'd been in contact with at the top of the Kremlin had been purged. Termen was himself arrested and tortured into signing a false confession to counter-revolutionary activities and membership of fascist organisations. He was sentenced to eight years in a forced labour camp, which in reality was a death sentence -- it was expected that workers there would work themselves to death on starvation rations long before their sentences were up -- but relatively quickly he was transferred to a special prison where people with experience of aeronautical design were working. He was still a prisoner, but in conditions not too far removed from normal civilian life, and allowed to do scientific and technical work with some of the greatest experts in the field -- almost all of whom had also been arrested in one purge or another. One of the pieces of work Termen did was at the direct order of Laventy Beria, Stalin's right-hand man and the architect of most of the terrors of the Stalinist regime. In Spring 1945, while the USA and USSR were still supposed to be allies in World War II, Beria wanted to bug the residence of the US ambassador, and got Termen to design a bug that would get past all the normal screenings. The bug that Termen designed was entirely passive and unpowered -- it did nothing unless a microwave beam of a precise frequency was beamed at it, and only then did it start transmitting. It was placed in a wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States, presented to the ambassador by a troupe of scouts as a gesture of friendship between the two countries. The wood in the eagle's beak was thin enough to let the sound through. It remained there for seven years, through the tenures of four ambassadors, only being unmasked when a British radio operator accidentally tuned to the frequency it was transmitting on and was horrified to hear secret diplomatic conversations. Upon its discovery, the US couldn't figure out how it worked, and eventually shared the information with MI5, who took eighteen months to reverse-engineer Termen's bug and come up with their own, which remained the standard bug in use for about a decade. The CIA's own attempts to reverse-engineer it failed altogether. It was also Termen who came up with that well-known bit of spycraft -- focussing an infra-red beam on a window pane, to use it to pick up the sound of conversations happening in the room behind it. Beria was so pleased with Termen's inventions that he got Termen to start bugging Stalin himself, so Beria would be able to keep track of Stalin's whims. Termen performed such great services for Beria that Beria actually allowed him to go free not long after his sentence was served. Not only that, but Beria nominated Termen for the Stalin Award, Class II, for his espionage work -- and Stalin, not realising that Termen had been bugging *him* as well as foreign powers, actually upgraded that to a Class I, the highest honour the Soviet state gave. While Termen was free, he found himself at a loose end, and ended up volunteering to work for the organisation he had been working for -- which went by many names but became known as the KGB from the 1950s onwards. He tried to persuade the government to let Lavinia, who he hadn't seen in eight years, come over and join him, but they wouldn't even allow him to contact her, and he eventually remarried. Meanwhile, after Stalin's death, Beria was arrested for his crimes, and charged under the same law that he had had Termen convicted under. Beria wasn't as lucky as Termen, though, and was executed. By 1964, Termen had had enough of the KGB, because they wanted him to investigate obvious pseudoscience -- they wanted him to look into aliens, UFOs, ESP... and telepathy. [Excerpt, The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations (early version)" "She's already working on my brain"] He quit and went back to civilian life.  He started working in the acoustics lab in Moscow Conservatory, although he had to start at the bottom because everything he'd been doing for more than a quarter of a century was classified. He also wrote a short book on electronic music. In the late sixties an article on him was published in the US -- the first sign any of his old friends had that he'd not  died nearly thirty years earlier. They started corresponding with him, and he became a minor celebrity again, but this was disapproved of by the Soviet government -- electronic music was still considered bourgeois decadence and not suitable for the Soviet Union, and all his instruments were smashed and he was sacked from the conservatory. He continued working in various technical jobs until the 1980s, and still continued inventing refinements of the theremin, although he never had any official support for his work. In the eighties, a writer tried to get him some sort of official recognition -- the Stalin Prize was secret -- and the university at which he was working sent a reply saying, in part, "L.S. Termen took part in research conducted by the department as an ordinary worker and he did not show enough creative activity, nor does he have any achievements on the basis of which he could be recommended for a Government decoration." By this time he was living in shared accommodation with a bunch of other people, one room to himself and using a shared bathroom, kitchen, and so on. After Glasnost he did some interviews and was asked about this, and said "I never wanted to make demands and don't want to now. I phoned the housing department about three months ago and inquired about my turn to have a new flat. The woman told me that my turn would come in five or six years. Not a very reassuring answer if one is ninety-two years old." In 1989 he was finally allowed out of the USSR again, for the first time in fifty-one years, to attend a UNESCO sponsored symposium on electronic music. Among other things, he was given, forty-eight years late, a letter that his old colleague Edgard Varese had sent about his composition Ecuatorial, which had originally been written for theremin. Varese had wanted to revise the work, and had wanted to get modified theremins that could do what he wanted, and had asked the inventor for help, but the letter had been suppressed by the Soviet government. When he got no reply, Varese had switched to using ondes martenot instead. [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ecuatorial"] In the 1970s, after the death of his third wife, Termen had started an occasional correspondence with his second wife, Lavinia, the one who had not been able to come with him to the USSR and hadn't known if he was alive for so many decades. She was now a prominent activist in Haiti, having established dance schools in many Caribbean countries, and Termen still held out hope that they could be reunited, even writing her a letter in 1988 proposing remarriage. But sadly, less than a month after Termen's first trip outside the USSR, she died -- officially of a heart attack or food poisoning, but there's a strong suspicion that she was murdered by the military dictatorship for her closeness to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the pro-democracy activist who later became President of Haiti. Termen was finally allowed to join the Communist Party in the spring of 1991, just before the USSR finally dissolved -- he'd been forbidden up to that point because of his conviction for counter-revolutionary crimes. He was asked by a Western friend why he'd done that when everyone else was trying to *leave* the Communist Party, and he explained that he'd made a promise to Lenin. In his final years he was researching immortality, going back to the work he had done in his youth, working with biologists, trying to find a way to restore elderly bodies to youthful vigour. But sadly he died in 1993, aged ninety-seven, before he achieved his goal. On one of his last trips outside the USSR, in 1991, he visited the US, and in California he finally got to hear the song that most people associate with his invention, even though it didn't actually feature a theremin: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations"] Back in the 1930s, when he was working with Slonimsky and Varese and Ives and the rest, Termen had set up the Theremin Studio, a sort of experimental arts lab, and in 1931 he had invited the musicologist, composer, and theoretician Joseph Schillinger to become a lecturer there. Schillinger had been one of the first composers to be really interested in the theremin, and had composed a very early piece written specifically for the instrument, the First Airphonic Suite: [Excerpt: Joseph Schillinger, "First Airphonic Suite"] But he was most influential as a theoretician. Schillinger believed that all of the arts were susceptible to rigorous mathematical analysis, and that you could use that analysis to generate new art according to mathematical principles, art that would be perfect. Schillinger planned to work with Termen to try to invent a machine that could compose, perform, and transmit music. The idea was that someone would be able to tune in a radio and listen to a piece of music in real time as it was being algorithmically composed and transmitted. The two men never achieved this, but Schillinger became very, very, respected as someone with a rigorous theory of musical structure -- though reading his magnum opus, the Schillinger System of Musical Composition, is frankly like wading through treacle. I'll read a short excerpt just to give an idea of his thinking: "On the receiving end, phasic stimuli produced by instruments encounter a metamorphic auditory integrator. This integrator represents the auditory apparatus as a whole and is a complex interdependent system. It consists of two receivers (ears), transmitters, auditory nerves, and a transformer, the auditory braincenter.  The response to a stimulus is integrated both quantitatively and selectively. The neuronic energy of response becomes the psychonic energy of auditory image. The response to stimuli and the process of integration are functional operations and, as such, can be described in mathematical terms , i.e., as  synchronization, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. But these integrative processes alone do not constitute the material of orchestration either.  The auditory image, whether resulting from phasic stimuli of an excitor or from selfstimulation of the auditory brain-center, can be described only in Psychological terms, of loudness, pitch, quality, etc. This leads us to the conclusion that the material of orchestration can be defined only as a group of conditions under which an integrated image results from a sonic stimulus subjected to an auditory response.  This constitutes an interdependent tripartite system, in which the existence of one component necessitates the existence of two others. The composer can imagine an integrated sonic form, yet he cannot transmit it to the auditor (unless telepathicaliy) without sonic stimulus and hearing apparatus." That's Schillinger's way of saying that if a composer wants someone to hear the music they've written, the composer needs a musical instrument and the listener needs ears and a brain. This kind of revolutionary insight made Schillinger immensely sought after in the early 1930s, and among his pupils were the swing bandleaders Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, and the songwriter George Gershwin, who turned to Schillinger for advice when he was writing his opera Porgy and Bess: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, "Here Come De Honey Man"] Another of his pupils was the trombonist and arranger Glenn Miller, who at that time was a session player working in pickup studio bands for people like Red Nichols. Miller spent some time studying with him in the early thirties, and applied those lessons when given the job of putting together arrangements for Ray Noble, his first prominent job. In 1938 Glenn Miller walked into a strip joint to see a nineteen-year-old he'd been told to take a look at. This was another trombonist, Paul Tanner, who was at the time working as a backing musician for the strippers. Miller had recently broken up his first big band, after a complete lack of success, and was looking to put together a new big band, to play arrangements in the style he had worked out while working for Noble. As Tanner later put it "he said, `Well, how soon can you come with me?' I said, `I can come right now.' I told him I was all packed, I had my toothbrush in my pocket and everything. And so I went with him that night, and I stayed with him until he broke the band up in September 1942." The new band spent a few months playing the kind of gigs that an unknown band can get, but they soon had a massive success with a song Miller had originally written as an arranging exercise set for him by Schillinger, a song that started out under the title "Miller's Tune", but soon became known worldwide as "Moonlight Serenade": [Excerpt: Glenn Miller, "Moonlight Serenade"] The Miller band had a lot of lineup changes in the four and a bit years it was together, but other than Miller himself there were only four members who were with that group throughout its career, from the early dates opening for  Freddie Fisher and His Schnickelfritzers right through to its end as the most popular band in America. They were piano player Chummy MacGregor, clarinet player Wilbur Schwartz, tenor sax player Tex Beneke, and Tanner. They played on all of Miller's big hits, like "In the Mood" and "Chattanooga Choo-Choo": [Excerpt: Glenn Miller, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo"] But in September 1942, the band broke up as the members entered the armed forces, and Tanner found himself in the Army while Miller was in the Air Force, so while both played in military bands, they weren't playing together, and Miller disappeared over the Channel, presumed dead, in 1944. Tanner became a session trombonist, based in LA, and in 1958 he found himself on a session for a film soundtrack with Dr. Samuel Hoffman. I haven't been able to discover for sure which film this was for, but the only film on which Hoffman has an IMDB credit for that year is that American International Pictures classic, Earth Vs The Spider: [Excerpt: Earth Vs The Spider trailer] Hoffman was a chiropodist, and that was how he made most of his living, but as a teenager in the 1930s he had been a professional violin player under the name Hal Hope. One of the bands he played in was led by a man named Jolly Coburn, who had seen Rudy Vallee's band with their theremin and decided to take it up himself. Hoffman had then also got a theremin, and started his own all-electronic trio, with a Hammond organ player, and with a cello-style fingerboard theremin played by William Schuman, the future Pulitzer Prize winning composer. By the 1940s, Hoffman was a full-time doctor, but he'd retained his Musicians' Union card just in case the odd gig came along, and then in 1945 he received a call from Miklos Rozsa, who was working on the soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock's new film, Spellbound. Rozsa had tried to get Clara Rockmore, the one true virtuoso on the theremin playing at the time, to play on the soundtrack, but she'd refused -- she didn't do film soundtrack work, because in her experience they only wanted her to play on films about ghosts or aliens, and she thought it damaged the dignity of the instrument. Rozsa turned to the American Federation of Musicians, who as it turned out had precisely one theremin player who could read music and wasn't called Clara Rockmore on their books. So Dr. Samuel Hoffman, chiropodist, suddenly found himself playing on one of the most highly regarded soundtracks of one of the most successful films of the forties: [Excerpt: Miklos Rozsa, "Spellbound"] Rozsa soon asked Hoffman to play on another soundtrack, for the Billy Wilder film The Lost Weekend, another of the great classics of late forties cinema. Both films' soundtracks were nominated for the Oscar, and Spellbound's won, and Hoffman soon found himself in demand as a session player. Hoffman didn't have any of Rockmore's qualms about playing on science fiction and horror films, and anyone with any love of the genre will have heard his playing on genre classics like The Five Thousand Fingers of Dr T, The Thing From Another World, It Came From Outer Space, and of course Bernard Hermann's score for The Day The Earth Stood Still: [Excerpt: The Day The Earth Stood Still score] As well as on such less-than-classics as The Devil's Weed, Voodoo Island, The Mad Magician, and of course Billy The Kid Vs Dracula. Hoffman became something of a celebrity, and also recorded several albums of lounge music with a band led by Les Baxter, like the massive hit Music Out Of The Moon, featuring tracks like “Lunar Rhapsody”: [Excerpt: Samuel Hoffman, "Lunar Rhapsody”] [Excerpt: Neil Armstrong] That voice you heard there was Neil Armstrong, on Apollo 11 on its way back from the moon. He took a tape of Hoffman's album with him. But while Hoffman was something of a celebrity in the fifties, the work dried up almost overnight in 1958 when he worked at that session with Paul Tanner. The theremin is a very difficult instrument to play, and while Hoffman was a good player, he wasn't a great one -- he was getting the work because he was the best in a very small pool of players, not because he was objectively the best there could be. Tanner noticed that Hoffman was having quite some difficulty getting the pitching right in the session, and realised that the theremin must be a very difficult instrument to play because it had no markings at all. So he decided to build an instrument that had the same sound, but that was more sensibly controlled than just waving your hands near it. He built his own invention, the electrotheremin, in less than a week, despite never before having had any experience in electrical engineering. He built it using an oscillator, a length of piano wire and a contact switch that could be slid up and down the wire, changing the pitch. Two days after he finished building it, he was in the studio, cutting his own equivalent of Hoffman's forties albums, Music For Heavenly Bodies, including a new exotica version of "Moonlight Serenade", the song that Glenn Miller had written decades earlier as an exercise for Schillinger: [Excerpt: Paul Tanner, "Moonlight Serenade"] Not only could the electrotheremin let the player control the pitch more accurately, but it could also do staccato notes easily -- something that's almost impossible with an actual theremin. And, on top of that, Tanner was cheaper than Hoffman. An instrumentalist hired to play two instruments is paid extra, but not as much extra as paying for another musician to come to the session, and since Tanner was a first-call trombone player who was likely to be at the session *anyway*, you might as well hire him if you want a theremin sound, rather than paying for Hoffman. Tanner was an excellent musician -- he was a professor of music at UCLA as well as being a session player, and he authored one of the standard textbooks on jazz -- and soon he had cornered the market, leaving Hoffman with only the occasional gig. We will actually be seeing Hoffman again, playing on a session for an artist we're going to look at in a couple of months, but in LA in the early sixties, if you wanted a theremin sound, you didn't hire a theremin player, you hired Paul Tanner to play his electrotheremin -- though the instrument was so obscure that many people didn't realise he wasn't actually playing a theremin. Certainly Brian Wilson seems to have thought he was when he hired him for "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times"] We talked briefly about that track back in the episode on "God Only Knows",   but three days after recording that, Tanner was called back into the studio for another session on which Brian Wilson wanted a theremin sound. This was a song titled "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", and it was inspired by a conversation he'd had with his mother as a child. He'd asked her why dogs bark at some people and not at others, and she'd said that dogs could sense vibrations that people sent out, and some people had bad vibrations and some had good ones. It's possible that this came back to mind as he was planning the Pet Sounds album, which of course ends with the sound of his own dogs barking. It's also possible that he was thinking more generally about ideas like telepathy -- he had been starting to experiment with acid by this point, and was hanging around with a crowd of people who were proto-hippies, and reading up on a lot of the mystical ideas that were shared by those people. As we saw in the last episode, there was a huge crossover between people who were being influenced by drugs, people who were interested in Eastern religion, and people who were interested in what we now might think of as pseudo-science but at the time seemed to have a reasonable amount of validity, things like telepathy and remote viewing. Wilson had also had exposure from an early age to people claiming psychic powers. Jo Ann Marks, the Wilson family's neighbour and the mother of former Beach Boy David Marks, later had something of a minor career as a psychic to the stars (at least according to obituaries posted by her son) and she would often talk about being able to sense "vibrations". The record Wilson started out making in February 1966 with the Wrecking Crew was intended as an R&B single, and was also intended to sound *strange*: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: Gold Star 1966-02-18"] At this stage, the song he was working on was a very straightforward verse-chorus structure, and it was going to be an altogether conventional pop song. The verses -- which actually ended up used in the final single, are dominated by organ and Ray Pohlman's bass: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: Gold Star 1966-02-18"] These bear a strong resemblance to the verses of "Here Today", on the Pet Sounds album which the Beach Boys were still in the middle of making: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Here Today (instrumental)"] But the chorus had far more of an R&B feel than anything the Beach Boys had done before: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: Gold Star 1966-02-18"] It did, though, have precedent. The origins of the chorus feel come from "Can I Get a Witness?", a Holland-Dozier-Holland song that had been a hit for Marvin Gaye in 1963: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Can I Get a Witness?"] The Beach Boys had picked up on that, and also on its similarity to the feel of Lonnie Mack's instrumental cover version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee", which, retitled "Memphis", had also been a hit in 1963, and in 1964 they recorded an instrumental which they called "Memphis Beach" while they were recording it but later retitled "Carl's Big Chance", which was credited to Brian and Carl Wilson, but was basically just playing the "Can I Get a Witness" riff over twelve-bar blues changes, with Carl doing some surf guitar over the top: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Carl's Big Chance"] The "Can I Get a Witness" feel had quickly become a standard piece of the musical toolkit – you might notice the resemblance between that riff and the “talking 'bout my generation” backing vocals on “My Generation” by the Who, for example. It was also used on "The Boy From New York City", a hit on Red Bird Records by the Ad-Libs: [Excerpt: The Ad-Libs, "The Boy From New York City"] The Beach Boys had definitely been aware of that record -- on their 1965 album Summer Days... And Summer Nights! they recorded an answer song to it, "The Girl From New York City": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "The Girl From New York City"] And you can see how influenced Brian was by the Ad-Libs record by laying the early instrumental takes of the "Good Vibrations" chorus from this February session under the vocal intro of "The Boy From New York City". It's not a perfect match, but you can definitely hear that there's an influence there: [Excerpt: "The Boy From New York City"/"Good Vibrations"] A few days later, Brian had Carl Wilson overdub some extra bass, got a musician in to do a jaw harp overdub, and they also did a guide vocal, which I've sometimes seen credited to Brian and sometimes Carl, and can hear as both of them depending on what I'm listening for. This guide vocal used a set of placeholder lyrics written by Brian's collaborator Tony Asher, which weren't intended to be a final lyric: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations (first version)"] Brian then put the track away for a month, while he continued work on the Pet Sounds album. At this point, as best we can gather, he was thinking of it as something of a failed experiment. In the first of the two autobiographies credited to Brian (one whose authenticity is dubious, as it was largely put together by a ghostwriter and Brian later said he'd never even read it) he talks about how he was actually planning to give the song to Wilson Pickett rather than keep it for the Beach Boys, and one can definitely imagine a Wilson Pickett version of the song as it was at this point. But Brian's friend Danny Hutton, at that time still a minor session singer who had not yet gone on to form the group that would become Three Dog Night, asked Brian if *he* could have the song if Brian wasn't going to use it. And this seems to have spurred Brian into rethinking the whole song. And in doing so he was inspired by his very first ever musical memory. Brian has talked a lot about how the first record he remembers hearing was when he was two years old, at his maternal grandmother's house, where he heard the Glenn Miller version of "Rhapsody in Blue", a three-minute cut-down version of Gershwin's masterpiece, on which Paul Tanner had of course coincidentally played: [Excerpt: The Glenn Miller Orchestra, "Rhapsody in Blue"] Hearing that music, which Brian's mother also played for him a lot as a child, was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of Brian's young life, and "Rhapsody in Blue" has become one of those touchstone pieces that he returns to again and again. He has recorded studio versions of it twice, in the mid-nineties with Van Dyke Parks: [Excerpt: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, "Rhapsody in Blue"] and in 2010 with his solo band, as the intro and outro of an album of Gershwin covers: [Excerpt: Brian Wilson, "Rhapsody in Blue"] You'll also often see clips of him playing "Rhapsody in Blue" when sat at the piano -- it's one of his go-to songs. So he decided he was going to come up with a song that was structured like "Rhapsody in Blue" -- what publicist Derek Taylor would later describe as a "pocket symphony", but "pocket rhapsody" would possibly be a better term for it. It was going to be one continuous song, but in different sections that would have different instrumentation and different feelings to them -- he'd even record them in different studios to get different sounds for them, though he would still often have the musicians run through the whole song in each studio. He would mix and match the sections in the edit. His second attempt to record the whole track, at the start of April, gave a sign of what he was attempting, though he would not end up using any of the material from this session: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: Gold Star 1966-04-09" around 02:34] Nearly a month later, on the fourth of May, he was back in the studio -- this time in Western Studios rather than Gold Star where the previous sessions had been held, with yet another selection of musicians from the Wrecking Crew, plus Tanner, to record another version. This time, part of the session was used for the bridge for the eventual single: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys: "Good Vibrations: Western 1966-05-04 Second Chorus and Fade"] On the twenty-fourth of May the Wrecking Crew, with Carl Wilson on Fender bass (while Lyle Ritz continued to play string bass, and Carol Kaye, who didn't end up on the finished record at all, but who was on many of the unused sessions, played Danelectro), had another attempt at the track, this time in Sunset Studios: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys: "Good Vibrations: Sunset Sound 1966-05-24 (Parts 2&3)"] Three days later, another group of musicians, with Carl now switched to rhythm guitar, were back in Western Studios recording this: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys: "Good Vibrations: Western 1966-05-27 Part C" from 2:52] The fade from that session was used in the final track. A few days later they were in the studio again, a smaller group of people with Carl on guitar and Brian on piano, along with Don Randi on electric harpsichord, Bill Pitman on electric bass, Lyle Ritz on string bass and Hal Blaine on drums. This time there seems to have been another inspiration, though I've never heard it mentioned as an influence. In March, a band called The Association, who were friends with the Beach Boys, had released their single "Along Comes Mary", and by June it had become a big hit: [Excerpt: The Association, "Along Comes Mary"] Now the fuzz bass part they were using on the session on the second of June sounds to my ears very, very, like that intro: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations (Inspiration) Western 1966-06-02" from 01:47] That session produced the basic track that was used for the choruses on the final single, onto which the electrotheremin was later overdubbed as Tanner wasn't at that session. Some time around this point, someone suggested to Brian that they should use a cello along with the electrotheremin in the choruses, playing triplets on the low notes. Brian has usually said that this was Carl's idea, while Brian's friend Van Dyke Parks has always said that he gave Brian the idea. Both seem quite certain of this, and neither has any reason to lie, so I suspect what might have happened is that Parks gave Brian the initial idea to have a cello on the track, while Carl in the studio suggested having it specifically play triplets. Either way, a cello part by Jesse Erlich was added to those choruses. There were more sessions in June, but everything from those sessions was scrapped. At some point around this time, Mike Love came up with a bass vocal lyric, which he sang along with the bass in the choruses in a group vocal session. On August the twenty-fourth, two months after what one would think at this point was the final instrumental session, a rough edit of the track was pulled together. By this point the chorus had altered quite a bit. It had originally just been eight bars of G-flat, four bars of B-flat, then four more bars of G-flat. But now Brian had decided to rework an idea he had used in "California Girls". In that song, each repetition of the line "I wish they all could be California" starts a tone lower than the one before. Here, after the bass hook line is repeated, everything moves up a step, repeats the line, and then moves up another step: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: [Alternate Edit] 1966-08-24"] But Brian was dissatisfied with this version of the track. The lyrics obviously still needed rewriting, but more than that, there was a section he thought needed totally rerecording -- this bit: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations: [Alternate Edit] 1966-08-24"] So on the first of September, six and a half months after the first instrumental session for the song, the final one took place. This had Dennis Wilson on organ, Tommy Morgan on harmonicas, Lyle Ritz on string bass, and Hal Blaine and Carl Wilson on percussion, and replaced that with a new, gentler, version: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys: "Good Vibrations (Western 1966-09-01) [New Bridge]"] Well, that was almost the final instrumental session -- they called Paul Tanner in to a vocal overdub session to redo some of the electrotheremin parts, but that was basically it. Now all they had to do was do the final vocals. Oh, and they needed some proper lyrics. By this point Brian was no longer working with Tony Asher. He'd started working with Van Dyke Parks on some songs, but Parks wasn't interested in stepping into a track that had already been worked on so long, so Brian eventually turned to Mike Love, who'd already come up with the bass vocal hook, to write the lyrics. Love wrote them in the car, on the way to the studio, dictating them to his wife as he drove, and they're actually some of his best work. The first verse grounds everything in the sensory, in the earthy. He makes a song originally about *extra* -sensory perception into one about sensory perception -- the first verse covers sight, sound, and smell: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations"] Carl Wilson was chosen to sing the lead vocal, but you'll notice a slight change in timbre on the line "I hear the sound of a" -- that's Brian stepping into double him on the high notes. Listen again: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations"] For the second verse, Love's lyric moves from the sensory grounding of the first verse to the extrasensory perception that the song has always been about, with the protagonist knowing things about the woman who's the object of the song without directly perceiving them. The record is one of those where I wish I was able to play the whole thing for you, because it's a masterpiece of structure, and of editing, and of dynamics. It's also a record that even now is impossible to replicate properly on stage, though both its writers in their live performances come very close. But while someone in the audience for either the current touring Beach Boys led by Mike Love or for Brian Wilson's solo shows might come away thinking "that sounded just like the record", both have radically different interpretations of it even while sticking close to the original arrangement. The touring Beach Boys' version is all throbbing strangeness, almost garage-rock, emphasising the psychedelia of the track: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations (live 2014)"] While Brian Wilson's live version is more meditative, emphasising the gentle aspects: [Excerpt Brian Wilson, "Good Vibrations (live at the Roxy)"] But back in 1966, there was definitely no way to reproduce it live with a five-person band. According to Tanner, they actually asked him if he would tour with them, but he refused -- his touring days were over, and also he felt he would look ridiculous, a middle-aged man on stage with a bunch of young rock and roll stars, though apparently they offered to buy him a wig so he wouldn't look so out of place. When he wouldn't tour with them, they asked him where they could get a theremin, and he pointed them in the direction of Robert Moog. Moog -- whose name is spelled M-o-o-g and often mispronounced "moog", had been a teenager in 1949, when he'd seen a schematic for a theremin in an electronic hobbyist magazine, after Samuel Hoffman had brought the instrument back into the limelight. He'd built his own, and started building others to sell to other hobbyists, and had also started branching out into other electronic instruments by the mid-sixties. His small company was the only one still manufacturing actual theremins, but when the Beach Boys came to him and asked him for one, they found it very difficult to control, and asked him if he could do anything simpler. He came up with a ribbon-controlled oscillator, on the same principle as Tanner's electro-theremin, but even simpler to operate, and the Beach Boys bought it and gave it to Mike Love to play on stage. All he had to do was run his finger up and down a metallic ribbon, with the positions of the notes marked on it, and it would come up with a good approximation of the electro-theremin sound. Love played this "woo-woo machine" as he referred to it, on stage for several years: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations (live in Hawaii 8/26/67)"] Moog was at the time starting to build his first synthesisers, and having developed that ribbon-control mechanism he decided to include it in the early models as one of several different methods of controlling the Moog synthesiser, the instrument that became synonymous with the synthesiser in the late sixties and early seventies: [Excerpt: Gershon Kingsley and Leonid Hambro, "Rhapsody in Blue" from Switched-On Gershwin] "Good Vibrations" became the Beach Boys' biggest ever hit -- their third US number one, and their first to make number one in the UK. Brian Wilson had managed, with the help of his collaborators, to make something that combined avant-garde psychedelic music and catchy pop hooks, a truly experimental record that was also a genuine pop classic. To this day, it's often cited as the greatest single of all time. But Brian knew he could do better. He could be even more progressive. He could make an entire album using the same techniques as "Good Vibrations", one where themes could recur, where sections could be edited together and songs could be constructed in the edit. Instead of a pocket symphony, he could make a full-blown teenage symphony to God. All he had to do was to keep looking forward, believe he could achieve his goal, and whatever happened, not lose his nerve and turn back. [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Smile Promo" ]