Zeitgeist (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Zeitgeist - the film |
| Original title | Zeitgeist the Movie |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2007 |
| length | 116 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Joseph |
| script | Peter Joseph |
| production | Peter Joseph |
| music | Peter Joseph |
| cut | Peter Joseph |
| chronology | |
|
Successor → |
|
Zeitgeist is a film produced by Peter Joseph , using the means of a documentary film and the like. a. takes up a number of conspiracy theories around Christianity , the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the connection between high finance and the war economy .
In 2008 and 2011, two sequels of the film were released, also directed by Peter Joseph: Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward .
Publication and response
The film was originally part of a live artistic musical performance by Peter Joseph. The film was released in June 2007 on Google and on DVD. With 70,000 downloads per day, Zeitgeist has quickly become one of the most successful Internet films. The film has been translated into many languages and has been featured on video platforms, forums and blogs for discussion and independent editing and video commentary.
content
Intro
The film begins with animated abstract representations, naming the participants, a cartoon and audio quotes. Then Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché talks about spirituality, followed by a sequence of musically synchronized depictions of war events , explosions and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . While the title of the film is faded in, Jordan Maxwell's Inner World of the Occult is quoted. The general benefit of religious institutions, governments and banking cartels is called into question against the background of an ideal of truth that is based on the original divine quantity. The intro of the film ends with a monologue about religions by late-night American comedian George Carlin, accompanied by cartoons .
part One
The first part, The Greatest Story of All Time , looks at the Jesus story from a religious-historical perspective. Parallels between Christianity and other religions and previous beliefs and traditions are made and their origins are traced back to ancient astronomical observations and astrological myths. Jesus of Nazareth as a historical figure is subjected to a critical look and literary and astrological parallels and precursors are shown. The strategic taking up and propagation of the story of Jesus by the Roman Church is cited, which was agreed in the First Council of Nicaea under the Roman Emperor Constantine I.
With regard to a factual approach to the Jesus story, attention is drawn to the complete absence of historical mentions of the person of Jesus Christ , which - in view of the miracles attributed to Jesus - makes the real existence of the person seem implausible. Of all the historians who lived in times that could have made them contemporaries of Jesus, the film says, none of them mention any relevant incidents or people. The historians considered are: Aulus Persius Flaccus , Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella , Dion Chrysostomos , Justus of Tiberias , Titus Livius , Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , Lucius Flavius Arrianus , Titus Petronius , Phaedrus , Philo Judaeus , Phlegon the Elder , Plinius , Plutarch , Pomponius Mela , Quintus Curtius Rufus (historian) , Quintilian , Quintus Curtius Rufus (suffect consul) , Seneca , Silius Italicus , Statius , Theon of Smyrna , Gaius Valerius Flaccus , Valerius Maximus .
The four authors who are often cited as evidence of Jesus are partly wrongly, partly wrongly interpreted. Three of them are Pliny the Younger , Suetonius and Tacitus , whose mentions of the word “Christ” are misinterpreted if they are understood as a reference to the biblical figure Jesus Christ, since the word “Christ”, in English “anointed”, “the Anointed, ”is an attribute that has been used many times. The fourth of these authors is Josephus, whose alleged mentioning of Jesus Christ is now widely regarded by historians as a forgery.
The section draws on a number of authors, filmmakers and researchers, such as the 19th century poet and amateur Egyptologist Gerald Massey and his thesis of the equation of Horus and Ra , the Mithras researcher David Ulansey with his astronomical interpretation of the legend of tauroctony , the Mythologists Joseph Campbell , Kersey Graves and DM Murdoch (Acharya S). The latter has published an examination of the first part of the film in English.
One shows a number of parallel features of Horus, the Egyptian sky god, and other deities from the Egyptian and other ancient and pre-ancient mythologies and religions, namely Attis , Dionysus , Mithra , Krishna and Jesus . In the film, all of them are assigned peculiarities such as the birth of a virgin on December 25th, twelve disciples, death and resurrection after three days and the working of miracles. All claims are attempted to be substantiated by references to publications by the authors named above. After introducing these five supposedly Christ-like sun deities, a list of other deities appears who are believed to share the key characteristics of Attis, Dionysus, Mithra, Krishna and Horus. This list comes unchanged from the first chapter of Kersey Graves book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (1875). Only Muhammad , who is last on Grave's list, is omitted from the Zeitgeist.
- Crishna of Hindostan
- Budha Sakia of India
- Salivahana of Bermuda
- Zyulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus of Egypt
- Odin from the Scandinavians
- Crite of Chaldea
- Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia
- Baal and Taut "those only begotten by God" of Phenicia
- Indra of Tibet
- Bali from Afghanistan
- Jao from Nepal
- Wittoba from the Bilingonesians
- Thammiz of Syria
- Atys of Phrygia
- Xamolxis of Thrace
- Zoar from the Boanzen
- Adad of Assyria
- Deva Ta, and Sammanocadan from Siam
- Aklcides of Thebes
- Mikado from the Sintroans
- Beddru of Japan
- Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah, from the Druids
- Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls
- Cadmus of Greece
- Hil and feta from the Mandaites
- Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico
- Universal monarch of the Sibyls
- Ischy from the island of Formosa
- Divine teacher of Plato
- Saint of Xaca
- Fohi and Tien of China
- Adonis, son of the Virgin Io of Greece
- Ixion and Quirinus of Rome
- Prometheus from the Caucasus
Furthermore, parallels are drawn with biblical texts and astronomy, where Joseph clearly explains the phenomenon of precession . What the ancient Egyptians and ancient societies should have been fully aware of is the so-called Great Year . Roughly every 2,150 years, sunrise occurs on the morning of the spring equinox in a different zodiac sign. The Bible would clearly indicate the symbolic movement through three eras while a fourth would be suggested. In the Old Testament, Moses was angry on Mount Sinai that his people worshiped a golden calf . The golden calf is the constellation Taurus . And Moses represented the new era of the constellation Aries . That is why the Jews would still blow the ram's horn shofar today . These transitions can also be found in other deities, such as Mithras , who kills the bull ( tauroctony ), the symbolism is the same. Jesus, according to Joseph, is the figure that can be assigned to the Aries era, the era of the two fish . Pisces symbolism is very common in the New Testament. Jesus provided bread and two fish for 5,000 people. When Jesus began his ministry, he made friends with two fishermen who followed him. The " Jesus fish " on the rear of cars is also an indication of the Sun Kingdom in the era of fish. Jesus' supposed “birthday” is actually the start of this era. It is also claimed that the incident in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.10, asked Jesus by his disciples where the next Passover should take place when he is gone, and Jesus replied:
"See, when you come into the city you will meet a person carrying a jug of water, follow him into the house he is going into!"
By far one of the clearest of all references to astrology in the Bible. All Jesus is saying is that after the Pisces era, the Aquarian era would begin.
Subsequently, theses are put forward for the reasons for the alleged matching characteristics. To give the reasons for a birth on December 25th, it is first explained that the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere . Allegedly, according to the film, the days only got longer again three days after the winter solstice. This day marks the birth of the god of light or the sun god. According to the film, another Christian-astrological loan is the three stars in the Orion belt (called the " three kings "), which line up with Sirius , the brightest star in the sky, to the point where the sun is said to have been on the 25th December rises on the horizon . The birth of Christ is ascribed to this point in time , at which, the film claims, according to Christian myth, three kings follow the star eastwards to find the place of the birth of Jesus, the birth of the sun.
In addition, the sun rises on December 25th near the constellation Virgo , with which Jesus' virgin birth and that of the other gods are connected. Matching the sunset near Crux , the Southern Cross , follows a similar pattern. In addition, miracles of Jesus such as walking across the water (the daily course of the sun's reflection over the water surface), the healing of the blind (without the sun there is darkness, with the dawn comes the view), the conversion of water into wine (yield of a vineyard after a sunny season), declared as metaphorical miracles and associated with the influence of the sun on people's lives.
Christianity is represented as a Gnostic myth, which was confirmed by the Roman Empire in the First Council of Nicaea and placed on a historical basis. The Inquisition and the Crusades are attempts by the Vatican to preserve its theological interpretative sovereignty and political leadership with the help of Christianity in Europe. In summary, it is said that Christianity, along with other theistic belief systems, favor those who know the "truth" about the invented religion, since they use their knowledge to manipulate and control society. Other people are not aware of any responsibility, because God controls everything. Those who reject the Christian faith face terrible punishments in the sense of eternal persecution, purgatory . Thus the religious myth is the most powerful tool ever created and serves as a psychological breeding ground for the acceptance of further myths.
Part II
Part II, The Whole World Is a Stage , claims that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were either planned or made possible by parts of the US government. The aim was to be able to initiate and justify a war on terror by stirring up general fear , to obtain a pretext for curtailing civil liberties and to increase economic profits.
In detail, Part II claims that the US government was aware of the attacks beforehand, that the military deliberately allowed the aircraft to reach their destinations and that World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7 were destroyed by controlled demolition . The film also claims that six of the named hijackers are still alive, that Hani Hanjour could not have piloted Flight 77 to the Pentagon due to his incompetence as a pilot, that no real traces of the plane wreck could be found at two of the three crash sites, that the Bush administration concealed the truth in the 9/11 commission report (for example, it commented on the government's payment of US $ 100,000 to the terrorists the day before the attack as "of no practical relevance"). In addition, the mass media failed to ask important questions about official opinion.
In this part of the film, the film relies on circumstantial evidence represented in Germany by, among others, the authors known as conspiracy theorists Gerhard Wisnewski , Mathias Bröckers and Andreas von Bülow . Similar to these authors, however, the film does not go into the evidence and facts that contradict their theses . Peter Joseph continues to support a fresh investigation into the September 11, 2001 incident, despite a previous misconception that he would have changed his mind.
Part III
In Part III, Respect not to the men behind the curtain , it is claimed that at least three of the Wars of the United States, first and World War II and the Vietnam War , during the twentieth century all the way to winning the so-called in the film international bankers out were. Various events, according to the film, were brought about or intentionally not prevented in order to be able to use them as reasons for entering the war. Specifically, it concerns the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (reason for entering the war in World War I 2 years later), the attack on Pearl Harbor (Japanese surprise attack on the USA in World War II) and the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin (which led to the Vietnam War).
According to the film, the US was forced by the Federal Reserve Bank to interfere in these wars, not to win but to make them last longer. This forced the US government to accept bank loans, which is said to increase the profits of international bankers. Then the film tells the story of the Federal Reserve Bank and alleges that it deliberately brought about the Great Depression in order to steal from the American people. She is also believed to have initiated the assassination of Louis McFadden , a congressman who was on the verge of dismissing the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank. Finally, the film claims that American income tax is illegal because it did not achieve the required majority in some states and is contrary to the American constitution .
It depicts the actions of two British special forces who, disguised as Arabs, shot civilians in Basra ( Iraq ), were arrested by the Iraqi security forces and finally released from prison by British forces. It is argued that the US has no interest in a pacified Iraq. Only during a destabilized situation would the US be able to secure oil, make enormous profits for arms companies and have a plausible pretext to set up permanent military bases in the region to attack other oil-rich countries such as Iran and Syria .
The ubiquity of mass media and entertainment is criticized . On the basis of several overlaid reports of falling literacy among American students, it is assumed that the government is targeting a poorly educated and non-critical thinking population.
In this part of the film is also claimed that there was collusion, the United States, Canada and Mexico into a "North American Union" ( North American Union , shortly NAU) to merge and the Canadian dollar , the US dollar and the Replace the Mexican peso with a new currency called Amero . The creation of the North American Union is then seen as the first step towards world government , which would come about through the unification of the North American Union, the European Union , the African Union and a hypothetical Asian Union. The film further speculates that under such a government every person would have an RFID chip implanted that could be used to monitor individuals and suppress resistance, and shows comments from some people who have already had a traceable data chip implanted . The film ends with quotes from Carl Sagan , Bill Hicks, and others.
Revision of the film (2010)
In 2010 the film was revised and republished by Peter Joseph. In the new version, the narrative of the first part has been redesigned in places and the second part of the film has been expanded to include new findings. The third part has been shortened compared to the original version. In addition, sources have been corrected and added.
Awards and media
On November 10, 2007, the film was shown at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of the 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival and received the Best Feature Award for feature films in the Artivist Spirit category. In 2008 the sequel Zeitgeist Addendum also won in the Artivist Spirit category .
In September 2008 he received a special honor at the Rutger Hauer's Film Festival in Milan.
Despite these awards, the film aroused little negative interest from the media.
Sightings on YouTube
The film had the greatest impact through the video platform YouTube . There it was published in five parts on June 16, 2007 under the title Zeitgeist - The Movie: Federal Reserve . The first part received most of the sightings, the audience for the following parts was much lower. This concentration of popularity increased with the length of the publication.
| Film part | Sightings Apr 17, 2011 | Audience share 2011 | Sightings Oct 4, 2012 | Audience share 2012 | Length (minutes) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | 4,534,045 | 100.0% | 5,479,950 | 100.0% | 7:38 |
| Part 2 | 1,509,017 | 33.3% | 1,791,470 | 32.7% | 9:26 |
| part 3 | 1,260,194 | 27.8% | 1,479,029 | 27.0% | 9:37 |
| Part 4 | 1,072,942 | 23.7% | 1,259,467 | 23.0% | 9:59 |
| Part 5 | 844.909 | 18.6% | 994.319 | 18.1% | 8:11 |
criticism
Representation in the media
The Zeitgeist film was barely noticed in classic review media such as television and newspapers, but it was widely discussed in internet forums, radio stations and blogs. The reactions are split into two camps: On the one hand, many comments articulate dismay at the connections portrayed in the film; on the other hand, many contributions express their rejection because of the numerous dubious representations and the falsified evidence.
Comments on zeitgeist in the mass media are rare and mostly negative, as the impure argumentation based on falsified facts or invented contexts is obvious. An article in the Irish Times said "Zeitgeist: the Nonsense" was a surreal perversion of real issues and debates. The film attacks questions of faith, the Bush administration and globalization, but there are more than enough proven injustices in this world for more to be invented.
The New York Times was one of the few major newspapers to report on the film.
In response to the criticism, Peter Joseph published a 220-page source guide to the film ( Zeitgeist: The Movie Companion Source Guide ) in addition to the transcript , in which evidence for the allegations was given. Joseph states that this source guide has not yet been approached or rated by critics.
Allegations: conspiracy theory and anti-Semitism
The film is accused of structural anti-Semitism because of the connection between high finance and the initiation or support of wars and armed conflicts and because of its sources, such as David Icke .
According to the American political scientist Michael Barkun , the film comes close to a "super-conspiracy theory", that is to say a construct that combines several conspiracy theories: the mere combination of statements about the emergence of religions, about the attacks of September 11th and about monetary theory suggests that there are contextual connections between them, even if the film never explicitly states which ones. The media scholar Simon Spiegel rates the film as a “wild mixture of different conspiracy theories” that hold different institutions responsible for “all the evils in the world”.
Errors and inaccuracies in the 1st part
The first part in particular provoked severe criticism because it contains errors and unsubstantiated theses. Incorrect information includes:
- 12 instead of 11 brothers of Joseph ,
- December 25th is already mentioned in early Christianity as the birthday of Jesus Christ,
- between December 22nd and 25th the position of the sun does not change.
Chris Forbes , an ancient historian specializing in Early Christianity at Macquarie University , mentions other mistakes:
- Ra , not Horus , was the Egyptian sun god.
- Isis , the mother of Horus in Egyptian mythology, was not a virgin according to the sources.
- According to the sources, the mothers of Krishna , Dionysus and Attis were not virgins either.
- Anubis as "Baptist" is unproven.
- Horus will not be crucified, not even killed.
- All the events of the Isis-Osiris-Horus stories are located by the sources in the "dream time", ie prehistoric, mythological time.
- December 25th is not a date on the Egyptian calendar and has not been passed down as the birthday of Jesus Christ, Mithras or Dionysus.
literature
- Jonathan Brown: The Zeitgeist Heist. In: James Patrick Holding: Shattering the Christ Myth. Xulon Press, 2008, ISBN 1-60647-271-2 , Chapter 22 ( pp. 291-340 ).
- Stephen J. Bedard: Exposing the Spirit of the Age: Responding to the Zeitgeist Movie. In: Stephen J. Bedard (Ed.): Hope's Reason: A Journal of Apologetics Vol. 1 No. 1. lulu.com, 2012, ISBN 1-4583-8190-0 .
See also
Web links
- Official website
- Film sources accompanying manual (PDF; 5.2 MB)
- Christoph Cadenbach: Servant of Truth on sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de
- Zeitgeist in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- List of the facts mentioned in the film with counter-notification
- Zeitgeist Movement Orientation Presentation. Retrieved November 28, 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Faherty: Gabrielle Gifford's shooter suspect: Moments from a life in spiral. In: The Arizona Republic, January 16, 2011 ( online , accessed October 14, 2014); Christoph Cadenbach: Servant of Truth. In: sz-magazin of May 6, 2011 ( online , accessed October 14, 2014).
- ↑ Video interview with Peter Joseph - Who is Peter Joseph ( Memento from February 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Zeitgeist - The Film and Z-Day , October 28, 2009
- ^ Zeitgeist: The Movie - Credit ( Memento October 4, 2007). At www.zeitgeistmovie.com
- ↑ James Patrick Holding: Shattering the Christ Myth . Xulon Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-60647-271-2 , pp. 316 ( + von + kersey + graves & source = bl & ots = vOlwoTvUmf & sig = ACfU3U3F5Ay2bZORCCzRzRw67lUyTKiCQg & hl = de & sa = X & ved = 2ahUKEwiPueqDribou-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWXArUIegHogle.de = on July 25th, 2020 [accessed].
- ^ Zeitgeist EBook / Part 1 / Horus / Jesus Stellar House Publishing
- ↑ ZEITGEIST: THE MOVIE COMPANION SOURCE GUIDE
- ↑ James Patrick Holding: Shattering the Christ Myth . Xulon Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-60647-271-2 , pp. 316 ( + von + kersey + graves & source = bl & ots = vOlwoTvUmf & sig = ACfU3U3F5Ay2bZORCCzRzRw67lUyTKiCQg & hl = de & sa = X & ved = 2ahUKEwiPueqDribou-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWiPueqDr-TqAhWXArUIegHogle.de = on July 25th, 2020 [accessed].
- ↑ Joseph's intercession for further investigation in the New York Times
- ↑ BBC : Basra governor demands UK apology, September 22, 2005, accessed April 8, 2010.
- ↑ BBC : UK soldiers 'freed from militia', September 20, 2005, accessed April 8, 2010
- ↑ Lois Romano: Literacy of College Graduates Is on Decline in Washington Post, December 25, 2005, accessed April 8, 2010.
- ↑ Zeitgeist website - official Q&A
- ↑ 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Awards Announce the Winning Films of “This Year's Festival”, November 5, 2007, press release , accessed June 12, 2009
- ↑ 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Awards : “Merging Art & Activism”. October 31, 2007, press release , accessed June 12, 2009
- ^ Milan The 2009 Winners ( Memento from November 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) I've seen films International Film Festival
- ↑ Zeitgeist - The Film - Part 2 ( Memento from February 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Zeitgeist - The Film - Part 1 ( Memento from July 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Davin O'Dwyer, " Zeitgeist: the nonsense " in Irish Times, August 8, 2007, accessed April 8, 2010.
- ^ Alan Feuer: They've Seen the Future and Dislike the Present in the New York Times, March 16, 2009, accessed April 8, 2010.
- ↑ Zeitgeist website - official Q&A
- ↑ http://www.h-ref.de/lösungen/icke-david/
- ↑ See, for example, Andy Newman: Gilad Atzmon, antisemitism and the left on theguardian.com , accessed October 11, 2015.
- ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America . University of California Press, Berkeley. 2nd edition 2013, p. 178.
- ↑ Simon Spiegel: The documented miracle. Utopian designs in non-fictional film. In Stefanie Kreuzer, Uwe Durst (Ed.): The wonderful: Dimensions of a phenomenon in art and culture. Wilhelm Fink, Leiden 2018, ISBN 978-3-7705-6239-8 , pp. 115-132; here: p. 121.
- ↑ Zeitgeist: time to discard the Christian story? In: publicchristianity.org. Center for Public Christianity, September 11, 2008, accessed April 30, 2020 .