Applied Daimonology. Principles and essays, a Kindle ebook that contains various texts on the origin and evolution of the Daimon and Daimonology. The book also contains many motivational and inspirational aphorisms, as well as the aphoristic foundations of the daimonological methodology.

There is no better practice than a good theory.
Kurt Lewin

“Ethos anthropoi Daimon” (character is destiny), said Heraclitus. Our life is linked to our behavior, our thoughts, our ideas, our culture, our knowledge, and many other variables …
Carl William Brown

Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal Daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.
James Hillman

Wherever I go, I find that a poet has already been there before me.
Sigmund Freud

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
Jean de La Fontaine

Each life has a creative mind originated by its genius, a unique Daimon!
Carl William Brown

Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.
Immanuel Kant

First of all let’s get rid of some banal, but permissible, misunderstandings: this book is not about strange demons, magical practices, or even the devil and his adventures, or saints and other spiritual deities, but as the title itself says, it refers to something much more pragmatic, although certainly metaphorical, literary, philosophical and experimental.

Expressing myself in another way, I could say that just as applied science is the use of the scientific method and the knowledge obtained through the conclusions of the method to achieve practical goals, also applied Daimonology is essentially a teaching methodology that is based on a wide range of disciplines and procedures, often even in contrast with basic science, which focuses on the advancement of scientific theories and laws that explain and predict events in the natural world.

We can also add that inside the book you will not find any divinatory activity, as Apuleius used to do, who relied on the intermediary role of the “Daimones” according to his Platonic views, as attested in On the God of Socrates. Apuleius described two types of divinatory rituals in which a child was used as a medium. The following terminology was introduced to describe these types of practices as “active” or “passive” child divination.

The first referred to divinatory rituals in which the demonic soul of the medium left the body and then retold what had been contemplated while dwelling in the extracorporeal realm; the second described rituals in which the medium was temporarily possessed by a divine demonic being, who pronounced the oracle. Apuleius in fact conceived of knowledge and divination as two interdependent systems and shed further light on these divinatory practices, showing the circulation of comparable ideas among Platonists, theurgists and practitioners of magic.

The main purpose of this book is cultural, philosophical, psychological, inspirational and motivational. In practice, Daimonology is based on the concept of Daimon, or the genius that is in each of us, because as living creatures we are by nature intrinsically creative and artistic, in different ways and degrees, but precisely because we are in the world we certainly have abilities that must be cultivated.

Therefore we can say in summary that the founding core of this entire book lies in the following principle: an individual must search for, identify and follow his genius, his passion, his profession, his ideals; once he has found his own inclination, metaphorically speaking his own Daimon, he must develop and improve his skills and knowledge through a lifelong and as interdisciplinary as possible education, trying to do what he does in the best possible way; finally he must apply the right measure, which is according to Aristotle, an excellent virtue, throughout his journey, trying to avoid any excess, and maintaining a sense of limit and moderation throughout his life.

This text therefore contains all the articles that I have written over the years of my cultural and teaching activity, with the addition of other works by the main philosophers who originally dealt with these topics, and here I refer in particular to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus and Epicurus.

Therefore we have articles that explain the meaning of the term Daimon, or various philosophical reflections and aphorisms, continuing we then find the history, strategy, and mission of the Daimon Club, an association founded by me in 1997, and precisely following this activity of mine of research, dissemination and promotion of the name itself as a true “brand” through the creation of the International Daimon Directory, we arrive at the founding nucleus of this Applied Daimonology that I have developed, that is, the one hundred synthetic and sometimes enigmatic principles, expressed in aphoristic form, which contain the guidelines for pursuing the care of one’s own and, why not, other people’s genius, or Daimon, or genius if you prefer.

To conclude the book we will also have a collection of inspirational and motivational aphorisms that can help in the intent and lastly, as usual in the books of this series, you will find my literary testament with the legacies of the Daimon club, to reiterate as usual the importance of reading, commitment, the diffusion of knowledge and the importance of the aphorism as a literary, scientific and philosophical genre.

To anticipate the discussion a little, let us say that by adapting some features of Empedocleian Daimonology, Plato formulated a more rigorous theory of Daimonification through virtue. He Daimonified the soldiers of his ideal republic for their courage and he Daimonified the rulers (“guardians”) for their wisdom. In his Cratylus, Plato guaranteed the Daimonification of all people who were noble and wise. Plato’s Timaeus introduced the definitive democratic principle of Daimonification by identifying its guardian Daimon with the higher consciousness (or nous) of humanity.

To delve a little deeper into the subject in this preface, we must also say that the matter is not simple, and life is not either. In fact, there is no term, other than Daimon, in the religious and philosophical language of the Greeks that is more complex, whose interpretation depends more on a particular environment, period or system. The Daimon could in fact refer to a guiding spirit, to an intermediate divinity, or demon, who lived within individuals, or to the reason that guides our actions and shapes our behavior, or as a source of guidance and wisdom within our mind, in any case it was an entity to be nourished, questioned, and cultivated in order to live a life as virtuous as possible and therefore also peaceful, possibly autonomous, perhaps a little happy which therefore tends towards euDaimonia, or happiness as a purpose of life and ethical foundation.

EuDaimonia undoubtedly requires high doses of courage. However, if we do not dare to listen to our inner voice, that same Daimon, restless and impatient to act, will end up punishing us. As Carl Jung reminds us, if we are not capable of listening to the needs of our Daimon, our soul becomes ill. Going against our desires and motivations leads to unhappiness. The etymology of this term, from the Greek euDaimonìa “happiness, well-being”, composed of eu “good” and Daimon “genius, demon” is not simple happiness. It is happiness understood as the purpose of life, and as the foundation of ethics. In other words, it is a happiness that is given a precise role in directing one’s conduct, a basis and beacon, without remaining a contingent condition that emerges and disappears like good weather.

It is a concept that has crossed ancient philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Aristotle, and in this path, in which the difference with the pursuit of pleasure and the connection with virtue are marked, its changing nature is evident: it is good to place happiness as the purpose of life and moral fulcrum, but the small detail of what happiness is remains to be understood. In fact, it is one of the most difficult definitions to give, given the vagueness and subjectivity of its consideration: dig and dig, everyone has their own, and abstraction ends up making us lose the contours of what it means. Defining it as serenity and fulfillment is incredibly reductive: in the room of the tongue, it remains the most beautiful chimera.

Precisely for this reason, eudaemonia reveals itself to be an interesting resource: it does not focus so much on the elusive content of happiness, but on its position and its orientation. It leaves in a rich, convergent silence what it means and gives it to us as a practical value. It is in the realization of a shared eudaemonia that Faust, in the end, redeems himself; embracing eudemonia can lift us up after the tragic event; and the living eudemonia of the distant place we visited during the journey makes us return home with a bigger heart and clearer ideas. After all, the most incisive and eloquent wonder that lies in this word is its etymology: eudemonia is being possessed by the good demon.

But that’s the problem. As Jean de La Fontaine said, “A person often meets his destiny on the road he has taken to avoid it.” It’s essentially about not coming into the world at the wrong time, in the wrong place, surrounded by the wrong number of malicious people. This is actually a thought-provoking reflection on fate and the unpredictable nature of life. It suggests that in our efforts to avoid certain outcomes or situations, we may inadvertently head toward them, or find ourselves immersed in an unfavorable environment, to use a rather light-hearted phrase.

This idea resonates with the concept of inevitability, or how fate often works in mysterious, dramatic, tragic, and often even ironic or sarcastic ways. For example, someone who is afraid of failure may avoid taking risks, only to find that this caution limits their growth and leads to missed opportunities. Likewise, avoiding emotional vulnerability in relationships to protect yourself from heartbreak may lead to loneliness, the very outcome you were hoping to escape. While we can plan and act with intention, life often unfolds in ways that are beyond our comprehension.

This does not mean that efforts to shape our paths are futile, but rather that we must accept a certain degree of unpredictability. Sometimes the best approach is to embrace the challenges, trusting that the journey itself can teach us something, and in any case, understanding our motivations can help us navigate life with greater authenticity and awareness, allowing us to face our “destiny” with open hearts instead of avoiding it.

To conclude this preface, which is also intended to be a small introduction to the book, I can say that through this text on applied Daimonology, I intend to propose both a study on the topic from a historical and philosophical point of view, and a new interpretation of the term through a series of synthetic principles, in practice one hundred aphorisms, which aim to improve human thought and behavior in a global way.

Daimonology therefore becomes a real didactic, eclectic and methodological discipline that combines various fields of human knowledge, from philosophy to pedagogy, with the aim of developing creativity and individual intelligence, as well as social and collective intelligence. It should be clearly reiterated that one of the fundamental principles of Daimonology is that it does not represent a religion, but rather a methodological and pedagogical guide that values the creative art and innate genius of the individual.

That is why Daimonology recognizes the importance of a complete training that includes both education and experience, and considers chaos and universal anarchy as natural elements of human existence, from which one can draw inspiration and wisdom. Finally, we must also add that another crucial aspect of Daimonology is the critical and skeptical approach towards the structures of power and authority, as well as the denunciation of human stupidity as a perennial and universal phenomenon. The discipline encourages the use of reason combined with passion, promoting a balance between emotions and rationality in order to be able to move, thanks to ingenious and independent guides, without creating too much damage, within the complex dynamics of our mysterious, and not always idyllic, reality.

To find out more you can read the whole book:

Applied Daimonology. Aphorisms, principles and essays. Kindle ebook available on Amazon. It also includes all the realities in the world that are linked, in one way or another, to the creativity and brand of the Daimon.

For those wishing to learn more about the topic, I also suggest the following articles:

Introduction to Daimonology

Daimon origin and meanings

Principi sintetici di Daimonologia

The teachings of Plato

Plato complete works

Great philosophy quotes

Platone e il mito di Er

Carl William Brown

Il testamento di C.W. Brown

Daimon Club organization

Essays with quotes

Quotes by authors

Quotes by arguments

Thoughts and reflections

News and events

Holocaust Remembrance Day, an article with texts, images and quotes that is taken from an online exhibition and from an Italian English e-book (Free) made at school.

What happened cannot be undone, but it can be prevented from happening again.
Anne Frank

Whoever listens to a survivor of the Holocaust becomes in his turn a witness.
Elie Wiesel

I will never forget that night, the first night in the camp, which made my life a long night and seven times barred. I will never forget that smoke. I will never forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I had seen transform into curls of smoke under a silent sky. I will never forget those flames that consumed my Faith forever. I will never forget that nocturnal silence that took away from me the desire to live for eternity. I will never forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul, and my dreams, which took on the face of the desert. I will never forget all this, even if I were condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.
Elie Wiesel

Cold-blooded murder and culture are not mutually exclusive. If the Holocaust has shown us anything, it’s that a person can love poetry and still kill children.
Elie Wiesel

Take a stand. Neutrality always favors the oppressor, not the victim. Silence always encourages the torturer, never the tortured.
Elie Wiesel

A besieged city where people wander around like ghosts, students don’t go to school and teachers have nothing to teach. People don’t know where to meet: the night comes too early and the dawn too late.
Elie Wiesel

They wanted to kill the last Jew on the planet at any cost. Today we might ask: why memory, why remember, why inflict such pain? After all, it’s late for the dead but not for the living. If the torment cannot be eliminated, one can instead hope, reflect, become aware.
Elie Wiesel

The belly is still pregnant with monsters. Do you see this filthy puppet? He was there to take over the world. The peoples have won the house painter and his whole regime has gone to the bottom. But now he doesn’t rest on your laurels and don’t just think about your own business. The womb he came out of, it is still pregnant with monsters.
Bertolt Brecht

It wasn’t Hitler or Himmler who deported me, beat me, killed my family. They were the milkman, the neighbor, the shoemaker, the doctor, who was given a uniform and believed that they were the superior race.
Karel Stojka, survivor of Auschwitz

Auschwitz was a tragedy. It was a tragedy that the world turned to the other way. But as a matter of fact it is, on many occasions, what still happens today.
Carl William Brown

“It did not start with the gas chambers. It did not start with the crematoria. It did not start with the concentration and extermination camps. It didn’t start with the 6 million Jews who lost their lives. Nor did it begin with the other 10 million people who died, including Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Yugoslavs, Italians, the disabled, political dissidents, prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals.

It began with politicians dividing people between “us” and “them”. It began with speeches of hatred and intolerance, in the streets and through the media. It began with promises and propaganda, aimed only at increasing consensus. It began with laws that distinguished people by “race” and skin color. It began with the children expelled from school, because they were children of people of another religion. It began with people deprived of their possessions, their affections, their homes, their dignity. It began with the filing of intellectuals. It began with ghettoization and deportation.

It began when people stopped caring, when people became numb, obedient and blind, with the belief that all this was “normal”. “
Primo Levi

Several years ago, on the occasion of the Day of Memory, within the artistic section of the Daimon Club, I published an online exhibition, with the support and photographic material of David Cirese, a photographer in Rome, professor at the Higher Institute of Photography of the same city, and Webmaster of Netart. After a few years an e-book retraces that event.

The theme of this exhibition is of sure interest to everyone, today more than ever, starting from the world of education to get to that of politics and administration, passing through the reality of industry to arrive at that of art and literature.

I had chosen this topic to create the first online exhibition of the club because I have always written against the power and authority of stupidity and reminding me of the passion with which my teacher of Italian in middle school explained to me the resistance and the drama of the holocaust, when I saw David Cirese’s photographs on Auschwitz on the Internet, I realized that I should have done something and thus contribute to the preservation of memory and the dissemination of sacrosanct historical information.

Carl William Brown

Anti-Semitism. Pre-World War II Persecution of German Jews

Holocaust (Greek holo, “whole”; caustos, “burned”), originally, a religious rite in which an offering was entirely consumed by fire. In current usage, holocaust refers to any widespread human disaster, but when written Holocaust, its special meaning is the almost complete destruction of the Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany.

During the 19th century, European Jewry was being emancipated, and, in most European countries, Jews achieved some equality of status with non-Jews. Nonetheless, at times Jews were vilified and harassed by anti-Semitic groups. Indeed, some anti-Semites believed that Jewry was an alien “race” not assimilable into a European culture, but they did not formulate any coherent anti-Semitic campaign. (See also POGROM.)

When the Nazi regime came to power in Germany in January 1933, it immediately began to take systematic measures against the Jews. One early decree was a definition of the term Jew. Crucial in that determination was the religion of one’s grandparents. Anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was automatically a Jew, regardless of whether that individual was a member of the Jewish community. Half-Jews were considered Jewish only if they themselves belonged to the Jewish religion or were married to a Jewish person. All other half-Jews, and persons who had one Jewish grandparent, were styled Mischlinge (half-breeds). Jews and Mischlinge were “non-Aryans.” In Nazi doctrine, such emphasis on descent was regarded as an affirmation of “race,” but the principal purpose of these categorizations was the clear delimitation of a target for discriminatory laws and directives.

The “Aryanization” of Businesses

From 1933 to 1939, concerted efforts were made by the Nazi party, agencies of the government, banks, and business enterprises to eliminate Jews from economic life. Non-Aryans were dismissed from civil service positions, and Jewish lawyers and doctors lost their Aryan clients. Jewish firms were either liquidated and their inventory disposed of, or they were purchased for much less than their full value by companies that were not owned or operated by Jews. The contractual transfer of Jewish enterprises to new German owners was called “Aryanization.” The proceeds of any sales, as well as Jewish savings, were subjected to special property taxes. The Jewish employees of liquidated or Aryanized firms lost their jobs.

The Night of Broken Glass

The proclaimed objective of the Nazi regime was Jewish emigration. In November 1938, following the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Jew, all synagogues in Germany were set on fire, windows of Jewish shops were smashed, and thousands of Jews were arrested. This “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) was a signal to Jews in Germany and Austria to leave as soon as possible. Several hundred thousand people were able to find refuge in other countries, but a similar number, including many who were old or poor, stayed to face an uncertain fate.

The Occupation of Poland

When World War II began in September 1939, the German army occupied the western half of Poland and thereby added almost 2 million Jews to the German power sphere. Restrictions placed on Polish Jewry were much harsher than those in Germany. The Polish Jews were forced to move into ghettos surrounded by walls and barbed wire. The ghettos were like captive city-states. Each ghetto had a Jewish council that was responsible for housing, sanitation, and production. Food and coal were to be shipped in and manufactured products sent out. The food supply allowed by the Germans, however, consisted mainly of grains and such vegetables as turnips, carrots, and beets. In the Warsaw ghetto, the official ration provided barely 1200 calories to each inhabitant. Some black-market food, smuggled into the ghettos, was sold at high prices, but unemployment and poverty were widespread. Housing was overcrowded, with six to seven people to a room, and typhus was common.

Invasion of the USSR

At the time of ghettoization in Poland, a drastic undertaking was launched farther to the east. In June 1941, German armies invaded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and at the same time the Reich Security Main Office – an agency of the police and the Nazi party guard, known as the SS-dispatched 3000 men in special units to newly occupied Soviet territories to kill all Jews on the spot. These mobile detachments, known as Einsatzgruppen (action squads), were soon engaged in incessant shootings. The massacres usually took place in ditches or ravines near cities and towns. Occasionally, they were witnessed by soldiers or local residents. Before long, rumors of the killings were heard in several capitals of the world.

The “Final Solution”

A month after the beginning of mobile operations in the occupied USSR, the second in command of Nazi Germany, Hermann Goring, sent a directive to the chief of the Reich Security Main Office, Reinhard Heydrich, charging him with the task of organizing a “final solution to the Jewish question” in all of German-dominated Europe. By September 1941, the Jews of Germany were forced to wear badges or armbands marked wth a yellow star. In the following months, tens of thousands were deported to ghettos in Poland and to cities wrested from the USSR. Even as that movement was under way, the stage was set for another innovation: the death camp.

Concentration Camp

Camps equipped with facilities for gassing people were erected on the soil of occupied Poland. Most prospective victims were to be deported to these killing centers from ghettos nearby. From the Warsaw ghetto alone, more than 300,000 were removed. The first transports were usually filled with women, children, or older men, who could not work; Jews capable of labor were retained in shops or plants, but they too were eventually killed. The heaviest deportations occurred in the summer and fall of 1942. The destinations of the transports were not disclosed to the Jewish communities, but reports of mass deaths eventually reached the surviving Jews, as well as the governments of the United States and Great Britain. In April 1943, the 65,000 remaining Jews of Warsaw offered resistance to German police who entered the ghetto in a final roundup. The battle was fought for three weeks.

Deportations

Throughout Europe, the deportations generated a host of political and administrative problems. In Germany itself, extensive discussions were held about the Mischlinge, and eventually they were exempted. In countries allied with Germany, such as the satellite states of Slovakia and Croatia, diplomatic negotiations were conducted to bring about deportations. The government of Vichy France, which had already extended its anti-Semitic laws, began imprisoning Jews before Germany’s request to do so.

The Italian Fascist government refused to cooperate with Nazi Germany until after Italy was occupied by German forces in September 1943, and the Hungarian government was similarly reluctant to give up its Jews until after German troops entered Hungary in March 1944. Although the Romanian government had been responsible for several large-scale massacres of Jews in the occupied USSR, Romania also declined to deliver its Jews to the Germans. In occupied Denmark, Danes from all walks of life resolved to save that country’s Jews from certain death, ferrying thousands of them in small boats to neutral Sweden.

Wherever possible, the Germans collected the belongings of the deportees. In Germany, bank accounts and the contents of apartments were confiscated, and from occupied France, Belgium, and Holland (see NETHERLANDS) furniture was shipped to Germany for distribution to bombed-out persons.
Transportation of victims to the death camps was generally by rail, and the police had to pay the German state railways a one-way third-class passenger fare for each deportee. When as many as 1000 persons were loaded on a train, a group rate that was half the normal tariff was allowed. The trains, consisting of freight cars, moved slowly on special schedules to their destinations. Often, the sick and the elderly died en route.

The Death Camps

The arrival points in Poland were Kulmhof (Chelmno), Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Lublin (Maydanek), and Auschwitz (Oßwiécim). Kulmhof, northwest of the Lódz ghetto, was supplied with gas vans, and its death toll was 150,000. Belzec had carbon monoxide gas chambers in which 600,000 Jews, mostly from the populous Galician area, were killed. Sobibor’s gas chambers accounted for 250,000 dead and Treblinka’s for 700,000 to 800,000. At Lublin, some 50,000 were gassed or shot; in Auschwitz, the Jewish dead totaled more than 1 million.

Auschwitz, near Kraków, was the largest death camp. Unlike the others, it used quick-working hydrogen cyanide for the gassings. The victims of Auschwitz came from all over Europe: Norway, France, the Low Countries, Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. A large inmate population, Jewish and non-Jewish, was employed by industry; some prisoners were subjected to medical experiments, particularly sterilizations. Although only Jews and Gypsies were gassed routinely, several hundred thousand other Auschwitz inmates died from starvation, disease, or shooting. To erase the traces of destruction, large crematories were constructed so that the bodies of the gassed could be incinerated. In 1944 the camp was photographed by Allied reconnaissance aircraft in search of industrial targets; its factories, but not its gas chambers, were bombed.

Results of the Holocaust

When the war ended, millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, and others targeted by the Nazis, had died in the Holocaust. The Jewish dead numbered more than 5 million: about 3 million in killing centers and other camps, 1.4 million in shooting operations, and more than 600,000 in ghettos. (Traditional estimates are closer to 6 million.) Heavy pressure was placed on the victorious powers to establish a permanent haven in Palestine for Jewish survivors. The establishment of Israel three years after Germany’s defeat was thus an aftereffect of the Holocaust.

Raul Hilberg

Concentration Camp

A prisonlike place created to confine selected groups of people, usually for political reasons. It differs from a regular prison in three ways: (1) men, women, and children are confined without normal judicial trials; (2) the period of confinement is indeterminate; and (3) camp authorities exercise unlimited, arbitrary power. Although many kinds of facilities have served as concentration camps, they usually consist of barracks, huts, or tents, surrounded by watchtowers and barbed wire. Concentration camps are also known by various other names such as corrective labor camps, relocation centers, and reception centers.

Western Camps

Modern concentration camps appeared at the end of the 19th century. The Spaniards used them in Cuba during the Spanish-American War (1898), and the British established them for thousands of women and children during the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa. In the West camps have been created several times during periods of war and national emergency. In France the government committed Spanish Republican refugees to reception centers in 1938 and added Jewish and other anti-Nazi refugees the following year. In Great Britain the government used Defense Regulation 18B in 1939 to send potentially disloyal citizens and refugees from enemy countries to internment camps. In the U.S., Executive Orders 9066 and 9102, later upheld by the Supreme Court, empowered the military to transport 70,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and 42,000 Japanese resident aliens from the West Coast to relocation centers in the interior.

Soviet Camps

In Russia the Bolsheviks established concentration camps for suspected counterrevolutionaries in 1918. During the 1920s, “class enemies” and criminals were confined in the Northern Special Purpose Camps on the Solovetskiye Islands in the White Sea and near Arkhangelsk on the mainland. In the 1930s and ’40s, a system of corrective labor camps covered most of the Soviet Union and received millions of prisoners in successive waves of mass arrests: independent farmers (kulaks); victims of the great purges; populations deported from the Polish and Baltic territories annexed in 1939; groups such as the Volga Germans considered potentially disloyal during World War II; Axis prisoners of war; and Russians returning from German captivity. After the death of Joseph Stalin (1953), when many inmates received amnesty and were released, the camps continued on a smaller scale.

In 1919 the Russian secret police, then known as the Cheka and later under successive other names (see KGB), was empowered to arrest “class enemies.” Commitment to a camp usually followed a hearing by the Judicial Collegium of the secret police, using elastic paragraphs of the criminal code to sentence defendants who had neither the right to be present nor to defend themselves. During the 1920s the camps were administered by various agencies, including the People’s Commissariat of Justice. In 1930 control over all camps was assumed by the Chief Administration of Camps (Glavnoye uptavlenie lagetov, or GULAG) in the People’s Commissariat of the Interior (Natodny kommissariat vnutrennikh dyel, or NKVD).

Millions of camp inmates worked as forced laborers on numerous projects essential to the Soviet economy. Some of these, such as the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the Moscow-Volga Canal, claimed innumerable lives. Other projects – such as the coal mines and oil wells near Vorkuta and the gold mines on the Kolyma River—exploited the mineral wealth in the Soviet Arctic. Eventually, five major camp systems existed: (1) the Yagry near Arkhangelsk; (2) the Pechora, including Kotlas and Vorkuta; (3) the Karaganda in Kazakhstan; (4) the Tayshet-Komsomolsk in the Lake Baykal-Amur River region; and (5) the Dalstroy in the Magadan-Kolyma region.

Nazi Camps

In Germany, the Nazis established concentration camps almost immediately after assuming power on January 30, 1933. A decree in February removed the constitutional protection against arbitrary arrest. The security police had the authority to arrest anyone and to commit that person to a camp for an indefinite period. The political police, known as the Gestapo, imposed “protective custody” on a wide variety of political opponents: Communists, socialists, religious dissenters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jews. The criminal police, known as the Kripo, imposed “preventive arrest” on professional criminals and numerous groups of so-called asocials: Gypsies, homosexuals, prostitutes, and shirkers.

The SS (Schutzstaffel, or protective units) operated the camps with brutal military discipline. During the 1930s six major camps were established: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, and, for women, Ravensbrück. In 1939 these camps held about 25,000 prisoners. During World War II the camps increased in size and number. Important new ones included Auschwitz-Birkenau, Natzweiler, Neuengamme, Gross Rosen, Stutthof, Lublin-Maidanek, Hinzert, Vught, Dora, and Bergen-Belsen. Millions of prisoners entered these camps from every occupied country of Europe: Jews, partisans, Soviet prisoners of war, and impressed foreign laborers.

Early in 1942 the SS Central Office for Economy and Administration (Wirtschafts-Verwaltungehauptamt, or WVHA) assumed operational control of the concentration camps, and inmates were exploited as forced laborers in industrial production. In addition to the central camps, the WVHA operated hundreds of subsidiary camps, and local offices of the security police in the occupied territories maintained large numbers of forced labor camps. Inmates were worked to death in industries such as the I. G. Farben chemical works and the V-2 rocket factories. Those no longer able to work were killed by gassing, shooting, or fatal injections. Inmates were also used for “medical experiments.” Early in 1945 the camp population exceeded 700,000.

During World War II the Nazis also established extermination centers to kill entire populations. There the SS systematically gassed millions of Jews and thousands of Gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war. Two extermination centers operated in concentration camps under the authority of the WVHA: Auschwitz-Birkenau and Lublin-Maidanek. Five operated in camps established by regional SS and police leaders: Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka in eastern Poland; Kulmhof (Chelmno) in western Poland; and Semlin outside Belgrade, in Serbia. More than 4 million persons, the majority of whom were Jews, perished in the Nazi camps. (Millions of Jews were also exterminated outside the camps.)

Other Camps

Since World War II numerous repressive regimes have established concentration camps. Thus, Communist regimes in Asia have used reeducation camps to detain vast numbers of men, women, and children. In the 1950s the British established emergency detention camps in Kenya; in the 1960s the government of Indonesia placed opponents in island camps; and in the 1970s the military regime in Argentina operated secret detention camps.

Henry Friedlander

At the following links you can see the original work:

Daimon Art Exhibition with David Cirese photographs on Auschwitz

Giornata della memoria, an article with almost all the photos in Italian

The E-book with all the images and with texts, included a students survey

Daimon Club story, a synthetic article about the origin of our club based on Daimon principle , an inner force and passion, a mixture of desires and aspirations.

Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.
James Hillman

Very often there is nothing more unconscious than our ignorance, of which we obviously disregard the existence; therefore opening the mind to the ethics of knowledge and cultivating one’s learning is the only wise thing to do in order to give a sense to our mysterious life.
Carl William Brown

Daimon is an inner force, an inner passion, a mixture of desires and aspirations. Our daimon is the genius that lives with us, good and evil at the same time. As Blake would say, it’s the marriage between heaven and hell. It’s death in life and life in death. It’s a kind of enthusiasm that guides us towards the search for knowledge, without believing in any superior entity. It’s a holistic approach to life that struggles against any form of vanity, of stupid power and false authority. It’s a form of magic, of ecstatic feeling,  it’s the art of living for freedom without having to submit our inner thoughts to the banalities of our society. It’s a dream that gives hope to our intellect, it’s a mystery without solution. it’s the absurdity of our life, it’s a nonsensical joke. That’s why I thought to link the surrealistic poetics with the spirit of my creation, and that’s why the Daimon Club was born.
Carl William Brown

The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with stubborn fidelity. It resists compromising reasonableness and often forces deviance and oddity upon its keeper, especially when neglected or opposed. It offers comfort and can pull you into its shell, but it cannot abide innocence. It can make the body ill. It is out of step with time, finding all sorts of faults, gaps, and knots in the flow of life – and it prefers them. It has affinities with myth, since it is itself a mythical being and thinks in mythical patterns.
James Hillman

One of the first examples of surrealistic writer and daimon guided author was Laurence Sterne. He was born in Ireland in 1713 end died in 1768. As a clergyman, Sterne was rather unusual. Besides being involved in frequent amorous escapades, together with some friends he formed a group called “The Demoniacks” which used to meet at Skelton Castle, a curious house on the border of the Cleveland Moors, (belonging to a friend of Sterne’s, who called it “Crazy Castle”, where they indulged in moderate revelry. When I found the Daimon Club I didn’t know about Sterne’s association, but now what I intend to point out is that unfortunately we don’t have a castle, and it’s always more difficult to find people who like to be open-minded, not only from a sexual point of view, but also from an artistic and intellectual one.
Carl William Brown

It has much to do with feelings of uniqueness, of grandeur and with the restlessness of the heart, its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, witnessed, accorded recognition, particularly by the person who is its caretaker. Metaphoric images are its first unlearned language, which provides the poetic basis of mind, making possible communication between all people and all things by means of metaphors”
James Hillman

When towards the end of 1997 Carl William Brown registered the first few pages of the Daimon Club website in the main search engines the term Daimon did not appear because as a matter of fact it was unknown. Therefore, digitally speaking, it was our association that has had the privilege of inaugurating what would soon have become a real phenomenon. Try to type today on the most famous Internet spider the word Daimon, or Daimon Club and you will immediately realize the real development of the trend.
Carl William Brown

A good partnership must be useful and profitable not only for the different involved members but for the whole society as well.
Carl William Brown

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts.
Aristotle Onassis

Whatever you do the Daimon Club for sure can do something for you too, and together we can do so much more! We believe in fact, as also great innovators sustain, that the business world in its deepest essence is fundamentally human, and that the technique without aesthetics in the long run does not interest anyone. The true language of commerce is the natural conversation between human beings.

Discover our Principles of Daimonology, or better Synthetic principles of applied Daimonology, consisting of 100 aphorisms, maxims, ideas and thoughts sometimes enigmatic and a little humorous, on the dissemination and deepening of knowledge and creative thinking in general.

Daimon Club Strategy

Our first goal is to create and cultivate a unique and innovative online network inspired from international managers, artists and scientists from all sectors in order to enhance real and effective marketing and communication. Our main goal is to promote all the different branches of relationships to foster professional, intellectual and creative growth of the various actors of culture and economy, as well as contribute to the practical solution of specific problems related to professionalism and the existence of each of them. Aware of the fact that if you do not make works really great, and if you think only of mere money, in a few years all our efforts will be gone and no one will remember us!

First we are engaged in creating and promoting a brand, then we must keep well in mind that transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn’t happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find credible and aligned with their values, as teaches us Simon Mainwaring.

Our main websites are full of aphorisms and quotes, jokes, humor, articles, books and news about the Italian country and the Anglo-American speaking world. They are also a meeting place for new friends and an internet guide full of links. There’s also a private area with a forum, a chat and a lot of italian and English resources.

To find out more you can read the whole book:

Applied Daimonology. Aphorisms, principles and essays. Kindle ebook available on Amazon. It also includes all the realities in the world that are linked, in one way or another, to the creativity and brand of the Daimon.

Daimon Club Organization

Daimon origin and meanings

Introduction to Daimonology

Principles of Daimonology

Daimon directory project

Daimon Club mission

Daimon blog strategy

Daimon Club structure

Great philosophy quotes

Etica e filosofia

Etica e conoscenza

Carl William Brown

Il testamento di C.W. Brown

Daimon Club organization (It)

Principi sintetici di Daimonologia applicata

Essays with quotes

Quotes by authors

Quotes by arguments

Thoughts and reflections

News and events

Daimon Club strategy, a short article that presents our cultural mission, links to our organization and our global marketing Strategy, goals and projects.

A good partnership must be useful and profitable not only for the different involved members but for the whole society as well.
Carl William Brown

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts.
Aristotle Onassis

Whatever you do the Daimon Club for sure can do something for you too, and together we can do so much more! We believe in fact, as also great innovators sustain, that the business world in its deepest essence is fundamentally human, and that the technique without aesthetics in the long run does not interest anyone. The true language of commerce is the natural conversation between human beings.

Our first goal is to create and cultivate a unique and innovative online network inspired from international managers, artists and scientists from all sectors in order to enhance real and effective marketing and communication. Our main goal is to promote all the different branches of relationships to foster professional, intellectual and creative growth of the various actors of culture and economy, as well as contribute to the practical solution of specific problems related to professionalism and the existence of each of them. Aware of the fact that if you do not make works really great, and if you think only of mere money, in a few years all our efforts will be gone and no one will remember us!

First we are engaded in creating and promoting a brand, then we must keep well in mind that transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn’t happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find credible and aligned with their values, as teaches us Simon Mainwaring.

Our main websites are full of aphorisms and quotes, jokes, humor, articles, books and news about the Italian country and the Anglo-American speaking world. They are also a meeting place for new friends and an internet guide full of links. There’s also a private area with a forum, a chat and a lot of italian and English resources.

Find out more about our Principles of Daimonology, or better Synthetic principles of applied Daimonology, consisting of 100 aphorisms, maxims, ideas and thoughts sometimes enigmatic and a little humorous, on the dissemination and deepening of knowledge and creative thinking in general.

These principles are thus a kind of vademecum of creative thinking and enhancement of mental faculties. These principles of applied Daimonology thus cover, along with the Testament of C.W. Brown, the Bequest of the Daimon Club, the various written texts, and my own aphoristic production a kind of spiritual legacy that I intend to leave to weary humanity.

Certainly, one cannot claim to be able to exhaust such a broad subject in a few pages and therefore perhaps not everything will be clear at first, in any case this publication is to be considered solely of an informative and popularizing nature and therefore cannot be considered an exhaustive and definitive discourse on the subject. However, I hope that it will be equally enlightening to those who will take the action of reading it and at the same time try to get into the spirit of its elaboration and interpretation. Once again therefore, thank you in advance!

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PROMOTION AND PUBLICITY DISCLAIMER

Carl William Brown and the Managing Crew of the International Daimon Club Organization are eager to point out that our main and only fundamental SPONSOR is STUPIDITY at large, in all her great, divine and sublime manifestations. Without her powerful and everlasting MAJESTY it’s clear that we couldn’t even exist so there are no doubts about the topic kernel of the matter. Since “Stultorum infinitus est numerus” and we perfectly know that the supreme deity is boundless, therefore we solemnly declare that we are honored, pleased and fully satisfied of accepting every kind of any other valuable and reliable promotion, sponsorship, partnership or publicity, for we are deeply aware that we can profit much more watching different idiots than listening to scholarly engaged professionals, also because for some original smart people they seem to belong to the same bizarre antic human category.

Carl William Brown

For those wishing to learn more about the topic, I suggest the following articles or books:

Applied Daimonology. Aphorisms, principles and essays. Kindle ebook available on Amazon. It also includes all the realities in the world that are linked, in one way or another, to the creativity and brand of the Daimon.

Synthetic Principles of Daimonology

Daimon origin and meanings

Principi sintetici di Daimonologia applicata

Daimon Club strategy

Daimon Club story

Daimon Club structure

Great philosophy quotes

Platone e il mito di Er

Etica e filosofia

Etica e conoscenza

Carl William Brown

Il testamento di C.W. Brown

Daimon Club organization

Essays with quotes

Quotes by authors

Quotes by arguments

Thoughts and reflections

News and events

Olympic games quotes, aphorisms and ideas by great authors and world athletes by the World of English blog and Carl William Brown

If you want to know more about the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games visit its website. Follow the worlds top athletes as they go for gold in France (Jul 26-Aug 11, 2024). Paralympic Games – Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 8 September.

So you wish to conquer in the Olympic games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be! But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician. Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.
Epictetus

Why is luge a sport? You dress up like a giant sperm and go sledding really fast. That’s hardly athletic. Phallic and sexy, yes. But hardly athletic.
Jessica Park

I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on.  In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter. 
Michael Ventre

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.
Pierre de Coubertin

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver.  Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion. 
Richard Nixon

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.
Dawn Fraser

I won it, at least five million times. Men who were stronger, bigger and faster than I was could have done it, but they never picked up a pole, and never made the feeble effort to pick their legs off the ground and get over the bar.
Bob Richards

The Olympic games should be a matter between individual athletes and the gods. Noisy flag-waving dishonors gods and men alike. 
Dave Beard

The first is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.
Peggy Fleming

The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation, the kind of international competition that’s wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us. 
John Williams

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.
Jesse Owens

When anyone tells me I can’t do anything, I’m just not listening any more.
Florence Griffith Joyner

The important thing in life is not victory but combat; it is not to have vanquished but to have fought well.
Pierre de Coubertin

Passover and Easter are the only Jewish and Christian holidays that move in sync, like the ice skating pairs we saw during the Winter Olympics. 
Marvin Olasky

It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.
Herb Elliott

A lo largo de los años he aprendido mucho del deporte, he vivido momentos muy importantes para mí que me han marcado y me han hecho madurar.
Ona Carbonell

For athletes, the Olympics are the ultimate test of their worth.
Mary Lou Retton

There can be distractions, but if you’re isolated from the heart of the Games, the Olympics become just another competition.
Mary Lou Retton

It never gets tiring coming to Paralympic Games and crossing the line first. It is like a fairytale that just doesn’t seem to end, each time I come out.
Jason Smyth

My dream was to win the World Championships and I did it. So I said my next dream was to win the Paralympics. So what’s my next dream? It is sleeping.
Daniel Martins

We are all humans, we spend almost all our career together so when a teammate suffers, I suffer too.
Omara Durand

The Olympic Games is a celebration of discipline.
Sunday Adelaja

It was not the money that was my main motive; it was the challenge and the thrill where I got my kicks. Armed robbery to me was like a sport. To take on an armored vehicle with two armed security guards – it was like an athlete attending the Olympic Games.
Drexel Deal

In Hollywood you can see things at night that are fast enough to be in the Olympics in the day time. 
Will Rogers

Estoy convencida de que estamos aquí para retarnos día a día a hacer grandes cosas. Porque sólo atreviéndonos a luchar para conseguir nuestros sueños podremos hacerlos realidad.
Ona Carbonell

Arguing is the Olympics of talking
Stewart Stafford

Performing enhancing drugs are banned in the Olympics.  Okay, we can swing with that.  But performance debilitating drugs should not be banned.  Smoke a joint and win the hundred meters, fair play to you.  That’s pretty damn good.  Unless someone’s dangling a Mars bar off in the distance. 
Eddie Izzard

Here’s a good trick:  Get a job as a judge at the Olympics.  Then, if some guy sets a world record, pretend that you didn’t see it and go, “Okay, is everybody ready to start now?” 
Jack Handey

You can also read:

The History of Olympic Games

Paris 2024 Olympic Games

The Paralympic Games

Great Sports Quotes

Sports News

A short history of pop music, from blues, soul, gospel and jazz music, through rock, hip hop, funky and disco to modern commercial, and rap music. And now that is summer time you can visit our page about The most beautiful summer songs from 1960 to 2024, many famous of them in Italian!

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Berthold Auerbach

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
Bob Marley

Music – it’s motivational and just makes you relax.
Taika Waititi

The only truth is music.
Jack Kerouac

Without music, life would be a mistake.
Friedrich Nietzsche

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.
Charles Darwin

Music makes one feel so romantic – at least it always gets on one’s nerves – which is the same thing nowadays.
Oscar Wilde

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Frank Zappa

Music… can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.
Leonard Bernstein

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley

Where words leave off, music begins.
Heinrich Heine

You know the drum was the first instrument besides the human voice.
Billy Higgins

I love the percussion. It’s a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It’s your whole body doing it, you’re doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You’re this whole motion machine.
Shalom Harlow

My definition of hip hop is taking elements from many other spheres of music to make hip hop. Whether it be breakbeat, whether it be the groove and grunt of James Brown or the pickle-pop sounds of Kraftwerk or Yellow Magic Orchestra, hip hop is also part of what they call hip-house now, or trip hop, or even parts of drum n’ bass.
Afrika Bambaataa

To understand where pop music comes from we have to start from Blues. This is a genre and musical form that originated in African-American communities in the “Deep South” of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from a fusion of traditional African music and European folk music, that incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.

The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. The blue notes (or “worried notes”) which are often thirds or fifths which are flatter in pitch than in other music styles, are also an important part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect called a groove.

The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after emancipation of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century.

The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta and Piedmont, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock evolved.

Now we can pass to soul music. This is also a genre of African American popular music that led to many later genres, from funk and dance music to hip hop and contemporary R&B. It developed in the USA in the late 1950s from African American church music called “gospel music”. After slavery ended in 1865, African Americans weren’t welcome in the churches of white Americans, so they built their own churches and sang Christian songs with African-American vocal styles and rhythms. They sang joyful, up-tempo gospel songs while clapping and moving to the beat, and they sang slower gospel songs that expressed deep feelings like yearning for God’s love. These different styles led to the two main styles of soul music.

The first soul songs were created when gospel songs were changed into secular songs by rewriting the lyrics. Joyful, up-tempo gospel songs became up-tempo soul songs, while slower gospel songs became romantic love songs. An example of the up-tempo style is R&B artist Ray Charles’ 1954 song I’ve Got a Woman (Way Across Town), a secular version of the old gospel song I’ve Got a Savior (Way Across Jordan).

Another example is Ray’s first crossover hit What’d I Say in which he uses a gospel-music call and response to exchange sexy “oohs” and “aahs” with the Raelettes, his female backing singers. An example of the slower style is former gospel singer James Brown’s 1956 song Please, Please, Please in which he changed a gospel song about yearning for God’s love into a song about yearning for a girl’s love.

In 1930s in Europe swing became popular. Benny Goodman and his Orchestra were the ‘King of the Swing’, as were Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw. The music was fast and frantically paced and led to dances being banned from dance halls, as the young women being flung into the air by their partners showed their stocking tops and underwear. Jazz continued to be popular. In 1940s, in Europe the Second World War brought fast, frantic (and often American) dance music – boogie-woogie or jitterbug.

Dances were held in church halls, village halls, clubs, Air Force bases – everywhere! But slower, romantic songs were also popular as loved ones went away to fight, such as Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and the song about coming home again, ‘The ‘White Cliffs of Dover’. After the war ‘skiffle’ bands became popular. These bands used household items, such as washboards and tea chests, as part of their set of instruments! Tommy Steele, who later became very famous, first played in a skiffle band.

Obviously we couldn’t imagine pop music without Soul-Jazz, which was the most popular jazz style of the 1960s. It differs from bebop and hard bop (from which it originally developed) in that the emphasis is on the rhythmic groove. Although soloists follow the chords as in bop, the basslines (often played by an organist if not a string bassist) dance rather than stick strictly to a four-to-the bar walking pattern.

The musicians build their accompaniment around the bassline and, although there are often strong melodies, it is the catchiness of the groove and the amount of heat generated by the soloists that determine whether the performance is successful. Soul-jazz’s roots trace back to pianist Horace Silver, whose funky style infused bop with the influence of church and gospel music, along with the blues.

Other pianists who followed and used similar approaches were Bobby Timmons, Junior Mance, Les McCann, Gene Harris, and Ramsey Lewis. With the emergence of organist Jimmy Smith in 1956, soul-jazz organ combos (usually also including a tenor, guitarist, drummer, and an occasional bassist) caught on, and soulful players became stars.

And now we can finally talk of ‘Pop’ that is the short term for popular music. There are different styles of pop music, but they all appeal to the general public. But when did ‘modern’ pop music begin? There were two significant moments. First of all Leo Fender invented the electric guitar in 1950. Then, in 1954, Sony introduced the transistor radio and after that, music was accessible to people in their homes and cars. In 1954 Elvis Presley released That’s All Right. He fused country music with black rhythm and blues to create rock and roll. At that time this was an innovation, and Elvis, who was young, attractive and exciting, became the first teen idol and made pop music a youth culture. Rock and Roll was born and it became soon very popular.

The 1960s was the decade of The Beatles, who dominated pop music from 1961 to 1970 with a new folk-rock sound. The Beatles were the first band to play in a stadium: Shea Stadium in New York in 1965. In June 1969 they had their seventeenth number one hit – two more than Elvis. The 60s also saw the first outdoor music festivals and popular music began to have a social and political message, for example, Bob Dylan.

This was also the beginning of Motown and soul music with artists like Ray Charles, The Supremes and Marvin Gaye. The Beatles began their career. They leapt to fame in 1963 with ‘Please, Please Me’.
The Beatles moved through the late 1960s as favourites of the ‘flower power’ generation – many young people enjoyed ‘hippie’ music. Other teenagers preferred the music of the ‘Mods’ – ska music and The Who.

Next came the 1970s and several new genres of music appeared, like reggae (Bob Marley), glam rock (David Bowie), punk (the Sex Pistols) and heavy metal (Iron Maiden). When the Bee Gees recorded Saturday Night Fever, a new global dance phenomenon was born: disco. Michael Jackson’s Thriller video started the trend for using video as promotion and during the 1980s the influence of MTV meant that the video became as important as the song itself. Madonna exploded onto the scene, and with her ability to adapt to every trend, is now a pop icon.

In England the first big new sound of the 1970s was “Glam Rock”, the main figures of this were David Bowie, Elton John and of course Gary Glitter. In the bleak political backdrop, these larger that life British bands and characters brought a welcome relief with their platform boots, sequins, nail varnish and colourful hair. This period also saw the spring of the punk movement of the late 1970s. Great British bands of this scene were The Sex Pistols and The Clash. The Punk style was Mohicans, bondage clothes, safety pins, piercings and bovver boots.

The 80s was the era of indie music from bands like The Smiths, The Cure and New Order. This decade also saw the first ‘raves’ when disco transformed into high energy dance music. The 1980s saw also the rise of hip hop and rap music, with American influences powerful once again in the form of such groups as Run DMC and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It also saw the rise and fall of the ‘New Romantics’, typified by groups like Adam and the Ants, who dressed as pirates and highway men and wore huge amounts of makeup.

From the late 80s, through the 1990s and into the first part of the 21st century, other musical styles appeared. Grunge (Nirvana), RnB (Beyoncé), rap and hip hop (Eminem, Ice-T, 2Pac, Black Eyed Peas), new rock (The White Stripes) showed that pop music is always evolving. The 90s onwards was also the era of boy bands and girl bands such as Take That and The Spice Girls. Britpop, this was the general name given in the 1990s to a new wave of successful British bands who made a big impact in the United States and Europe, as well as in England. The most successful have been Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Massive Attack and The Spice Girls.

Today pop is a global industry. CDs replaced records a long time ago and nowadays, downloading from websites is marking the end of these traditional music formats. It is now the age of digital music. In 2006 Gnarls Barkley with his song Crazy became the first artist to reach number 1 in the UK charts based only on download sales. In Europe, Britain is certainly more famous for pop music than it is for classical composers or jazz musicians. Names such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, George Michael and The Spice Girls are known world wide but little do people know of our other musicians not in the pop world. In Britain, most youths listen to punk, garage, house, rock, pop and R&B. (such as McFly, JLo, Xtina, Beyonce, Pink, Britney, Justin Timberlake, Mis-teeq).

Nowadays the internet has also revolutionized the way music is being consumed. Including all video and music streaming, internet-based music consumption was the primary choice for 64% of respondents to a recent survey. That’s not even accounting for livestreams or music purchased through the internet. This internet-heavy metric is being reflected on the business side as well, with 75% of the music industry’s revenues in the U.S. coming from streaming. However, for artists, streaming revenue is usually the third-biggest earner after live performances and sales. But utilizing streaming to its fullest potential keeps modern artists in the loop. For example, Beyoncé was one of the first artists to utilize streaming platforms to release an album completely unannounced in 2013, a marketing move that has been replicated many times since.

Data is from 2022 and is sourced from a survey of over 44,000 people from 22 countries by IFPI that asked people their primary mode for consuming music, so it highlights global music consumption habits. As of 2022, paid subscription services (i.e. Apple Music, Spotify) are the most preferred option for listeners, accounting for nearly one-fourth of main platform share. 1) Paid Audio Streaming 24% Spotify, Apple Music; 2) Video Streaming 19% YouTube; 3) Radio 17%; 4) Purchased Music 10% Vinyls, CDs, purchased digital albums; 5) Ad-Supported Audio Streaming 8% Amazon, Deezer; 6) Short-form Videos 8% TikTok; 7) Social Media Videos 5% Facebook, Instagram; 8) Live Music 4% concerts, livestreams; 9) Other 6% music on TV, phone-to-phone transfers.

And now to conclude this article I would spend a few words on Lounge music that is a type of easy listening music, popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The range of lounge music encompasses beautiful music–influenced instrumentals, modern electronica (with chillout, and downtempo influences), while remaining thematically focused on its retro-space age cultural elements. The earliest type of lounge music appeared during the 1920s and 1930s, and was known as light music.

Lounge music often incorporates smooth, relaxed instrumentation which can also be found in pop music, especially in more mellow or soft pop tracks. The use of electronic elements, synthesizers, and smooth vocals is common in both genres. Many artists create music that can be classified under both lounge and pop genres. These artists often blend elements from both styles to create a unique sound.

Both genres aim to create a specific mood or atmosphere. Lounge music is typically designed to be soothing and relaxing, which can be a characteristic of some pop music as well, especially ballads and softer tracks. Lounge music, particularly in its more modern forms, often aims to have broad appeal, similar to pop music. This includes catchy melodies, accessible arrangements, and production that appeals to a wide audience.

Pop songs are frequently remixed into lounge versions, and lounge tracks can be covered or adapted into pop formats. This interchangeability highlights the fluid boundaries between the two genres. Both genres are frequently used as background music in various settings, such as cafes, bars, and stores, where creating a pleasant atmosphere is key.

Lounge music, particularly from the mid-20th century, has influenced the development of pop music. The lush orchestrations and smooth styles of early lounge music have found their way into the arrangements and production techniques of modern pop music. Genres like chillwave, downtempo, and nu jazz often blend elements of lounge and pop, creating music that is both relaxing and catchy.

Evanescence – Bring Me To Life – 2003 – Drum Cover by Kristina Rybalchenko

Ben Jonson:
Politics? My play has nothing to do with politics. I-i-i-it’s just a simple comedy.

Earl of Oxford:
It showed your betters as fools who’d go through life barely managing to get food from plate to mouth were it not for the cleverness of their servants. All art is political, Jonson, otherwise it would just be decoration. And all artists have something to say, otherwise they’d make shoes. And you are not a cobbler, are you Jonson.

Don’t quit. Never give up trying to build the world you can see, even if others can’t see it. Listen to your drum and your drum only. It’s the one that makes the sweetest sound.
Simon Sinek

In all the music that deals with experimental repetition, drum and bass, dub, various kinds of house music, there’s always been a quality of atmosphere and ambience.
Bill Laswell

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
Victor Hugo

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Plato

If music be the food of love, play on.
William Shakespeare

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life – music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer

The only truth is music.
Jack Kerouac

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.
Maya Angelou

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