A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink, and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.[1][2]
In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modelled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday,[3] compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.[4] Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions, the hand mould and the printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs.
From Mainz the printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries.[5] By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.[5] In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.[5] The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing, and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, "the press".[6]
In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto-nationalism, and accelerated by the development of European vernacular languages, to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca.[7] In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale.[8]
Dialogue Between Hermes Trismegistus and
Asclepius
source: http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/29-79-80/rel-prof.htm
From Hermetica: The Ancient
Greek and Latin Writings which contain Religious or Philosophical Teachings
ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus 1:341-7; translated into English by Walter
Scott from a Latin text, itself a translation attributed to Apuleius from a
Greek original which is now lost.
Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an
image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the
powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below? Nay,
it should rather be said that the whole Kosmos dwells in this our land as in
its sanctuary. And yet, since it is fitting that wise men should have knowledge
of all events before they come to pass, you must not be left in ignorance of
this: there will come a time when it will be seen that in vain have the
Egyptians honored the deity with heartfelt piety and assiduous service; and all
our holy worship will be found bootless and ineffectual. For the gods will
return from earth to heaven; Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was
once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its
deities. . . .
In that day will our most holy land, this land
of shrines and temples, be filled with funerals and corpses. To thee, most holy
Nile, I cry, to thee I foretell that which shall be; swollen with torrents of
blood, thou wilt rise to the level of thy banks, and thy sacred waves will be
not only stained, but utterly fouled with gore. Do you weep at this, Asclepius?
There is worse to come; Egypt herself will have yet more to suffer; she will
fall into a far more piteous plight, and will be infected with yet more
grievous plagues; . . . The
dead will far outnumber the living; and the survivors will be known for
Egyptians by their tongue alone, but in their actions they will seem to be men
of another race.
O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing will
remain but an empty tale, which thine own children in time to come will not
believe; nothing will be left but graven words, and only the stones will tell
of thy piety. And in that day men will be weary of life, and they will cease to
think the universe worthy of reverent wonder and of worship. And so religion,
the greatest of all blessings — for there is nothing, nor has been, nor ever
shall be, that can be deemed a greater boon — will be threatened with
destruction; men will think it a burden, and will come to scorn it. They will
no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of God, this
glorious structure which he has built, this sum of good made up of things of
many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of God operates in that
which he has made, ungrudgingly favoring man's welfare, this combination and
accumulation of all the manifold things that can call forth the veneration,
praise, and love of the beholder. Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more
profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane,
and the impious wise; the
madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.
As to the soul, and the belief that it is
immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you
— all this they will mock at, and will even persuade themselves that it is
false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the
gods of heaven, will be heard or believed.
And so the gods will depart from mankind — a
grievous thing! — and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men,
and drive the poor wretches by main force into all manner of reckless crime,
into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of
the soul. Then will the earth no longer stand unshaken, and the sea will bear
no ships; heaven will not support the stars in their orbits, nor will the stars
pursue their constant course in heaven; all voices of the gods will of
necessity be silenced and dumb; the fruits of the earth will rot; the soil will
turn barren, and the very air will sicken in sullen stagnation. After this
manner will old age come upon the world. Religion will be no more; all things
will be disordered and awry; all good will disappear.
But when all this has befallen, Asclepius,
then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that god
who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will
stay the disorder by the counterworking of his will, which is the good. He will
call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the
world from evil, now washing it away with waterfloods, now burning it out with
fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence. And thus he will
bring back his world to its former aspect, so that the Kosmos will once more be
deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and
restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with
unceasing hymns of praise and blessing. Such is the new birth of the Kosmos; it
is a making again of all things good, a holy and awe-striking restoration of
all nature; and it is wrought in the process of time by the eternal will of
God.
For God's will has no beginning; it is ever
the same, and as it now is, even so it has ever been, without beginning.
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