Steampunk Internet
 The telegraph room at the original Mundaneum in Brussels. |
In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”
The New York Times, The Web Time Forgot
Two years later, Shoghi Effendi wrote:
A mechanism of world intercommunication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity.
Shoghi Effendi, World unity the goal, 1936
Or was Shoghi Effendi plagiarising the ideas of Hermia S. E. Nobileo, D.D., Ph.D, the founder of the First Church of Metaphysical Science?
We must have a mechanism of world inter-communication, embracing this entire “Earth” “Plane”, freed from inter-national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with perfect regularity.
Hermia S. E. Nobileo, The Path to World Peace, 1927
Tags: 1930s, Otlet, Shoghi Effendi, the Internet
May 29th, 2009 at 6:18 am
After doing my own research, I think that Nobileo quote is a fabrication, as is the article it is extracted from.
The link doesn’t work. I had to go to the archive wayback machine to see it at all:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060829131259/www.fcms.org/WorldPeace.html
The site is sketch and there is virtually no record of this “Nobileo” person anywhere on google, no other works published anywhere. The site is called “The First Church of Metaphysical Science” and looks like it took 5 minutes to make. I tried emailing them but I got a delivery failure, I guess the account canceled.
When you read the whole article and google other extractions its almost exactly from the World Order of Baha’u'llah. Only a few words are changed here and there, the order of the words and the methods of conjunction…like a kid trying to plagiarize his report for school.
So, the charge is either that the makers of this shady site that looks like it was made 20 years ago by an 8 year old and is totally empty, save 2 articles, just happened to have and have published the only copy in existence and record of this “Nobileo” guy, and it shows Shoghi Effendi is a total fraud and charlatan for taking his article and changing some of the words.
OR…
Those words belong to Shoghi Effendi, and this cheapolla site of “The First Church of Metaphysical Science” was some side project of some dude a long time ago who cheaped out from writing his own articles by copying and pasting what he thought were obscure scriptures, and changing them around a bit to look at least a little original?
I mean…its just common sense. The only people who wouldn’t see that right away are people inclined to attack the Baha’i Faith.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:35 am
On Otlet. It’s an interesting article and I enjoyed reading it.
At that point in 1934, the first Televisions had been in existence for years, first invented in the 20’s, and the exploration of image transmission had been explored since the late 1800’s, and radio had been around longer.
Otlet’s life’s work in part was…how to make research and information gathering easier, through libraries.
Given the proven capability of cinema and newsreels, and television, and the ever increasing potential for television, and the long established achievements of radio…
I don’t think it was much of a stretch for him to put 2 and 2 together, and see the work book research becoming a visual interactive experience, in as much as the work of the newspaper, and novels, etc, had been increasingly replaced by the radio, cinema, and television.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:44 am
But….if we want to talk about Prophecy, I think Shoghi Effendi’s prophecy is unique in that he signifies as to how the Internet is beyond any technology imaginable at the time, and what it means for a global Utopian society.
Lets also remember this quote from the Sixth Imam:
Hadith quoting Jafar as-Sadiq -
‘I heard Abu ‘Abdu’llah [the Sixth Imam] saying: the believer, in the time of the Qa’im, while in the east, will be able to see his brother in the west and he who is in the west wiill be able to see his brother in the east.’
az-Zanjani, Aqa’id, p. 255. (Momen, Introduction to Shi’i Islam)
Dr. Momen commented beside the quote at the time of this publication in 1985 that it seems to refer to Television. True…25 years later though though we can expand on that as perhaps Internet video conferencing, etc.
When we view that in conjunction with the Shoghi Effendi quote and the context at which he wrote it, we can see they are both speaking on common points, and I see Shoghi Effendi’s expansion on that point as remarkable prophecy, something that could not have been caught, and was not caught until after the establishment of the Internet.