"The only certainty is that you cannot run a business without cash."
—Project Management Accounting: Budgeting, Tracking, and Reporting Costs and Profitability

An illustration from a 1921 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The guardian ghost of the treasure."

"You drop the anchor, the boat stops.  It's not rocket science."
—Cindy Dees, Her Hero After Dark (2012)

An illustration from an 1895 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "He called some strange, weird-sounding name three times."

A ghostly illustration from a 1901 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I knew him to be behind me."

"Call it a hunch, but it's based on some of the oldest saws in the book."
—Linda Barnes, Deep Pockets (2004), as if referring to two scenes from Young Frankenstein




Two stills from the perennially hilarious Young Frankenstein.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't seem so upset."
—Zoraida Cordova, Vicious Deep

An illustration from a 1902 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "The overhead table shot."

"This might surprise you, but I don't want to be here, either.  Just show me where the privy is, give me my hat and I'll be gone."
—Pamela Bauer, Mail Order Cowboy

An illustration from an 1888 issue of Harper's magazine.

photo by Cobalt 123

"The pictures were apropos of nothing; they had been suggested by nothing I had been reading or talking of; they simply came as if I had been able to look through a glass at what was occurring somewhere else in the world."
—Swami Panchadasi's Clairvoyance & Occult Powers: A Lost Classic (2011)

An illustration from an 1893 issue of Pall Mall magazine. 

We had the pleasure and honor of illustrating the hysterical wordplay in the chapter titles of famed magician Jeff McBride's new book, The Show Doctor.

"It bears repeating yet again that the keyboard is not merely constructed of white and black keys, but that the rows of each are positioned in their respective horizontal planes."
—Jon Verbalis, Natural Fingering: A Topographical Approach to Pianism

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from an 1873 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

An illustration from a 1902 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "'Monsters!  Monsters!' he cried."

"This revelation is so counterintuitive that it bears repeating: adding lanes makes traffic worse."
—Andrés Duany, et al., Suburban Nation

The acronym "CAPTCHA" ("Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") was coined in 2000, but we've traced the concept all the back to the late 1800s.  Our evidence comes from Wide World Magazine, Sept. 1898.

"Now, don't take this the wrong way, but I think most women like cuddling."
—Helenkay Dimon, When She Wasn't Looking

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "She let all the twigs fly back in his face."

Dedicated to Teresa Burritt.

"Endure or escape!" —John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent

An illustration from a 1912 issue of Everybody's magazine.  The caption reads: "'That is not I,' she said.  'That is the spirit of the woodland.'"

An illustration from a 1902 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The sick woman's mother sat with her apron over her head."

An illustration from an 1894 issue of Scribner's magazine.  The caption reads: "A submarine ghost."

While poring through old magazines, we discovered two precursors to famous films.  First, you might recall the tentacled Davy Jones playing the organ in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.  Here he is in Metropolitan Magazine, way back in 1906.



And you'll recognize the illustration below as a precursor to Home Alone.  The caption reads, "He fell all the rest of the way, accompanied by the rifle, the camphor bottle, the carving-knife and the axe."  It's from Metropolitan Magazine, 1914.

"It bears repeating: Summer is coming."
—George R. R. Washington, A Game of Groans: A Sonnet of Slush and Soot

This illustration accompanies an article about Charlie Andress' first adventure as a traveling magician at the mature age of twelve.  The illustration depicts Andress performing under the protection of a "big-hearted, heavy-fisted" tavern-keeper who had learned that the boy's act had been ill-received by the rowdy lumberjacks and mill-hands of Otisville, Michigan.  The man drove Andress back to Otisville in his buggy, "told its citizens the vileness of their manners, and made that audience reassemble—and pay double, to boot.  And he stood beside the child while he went tremblingly through his 'business.'"  Such was Andress' launch into the profession.  Would that we all had such a champion!

From a 1903 issue of Saturday Evening Post.

An illustration from a 1921 issue of Munsey's magazine.  The caption reads: "You aren't in a land of illusion.  You have left the land of illusion behind for all time."

[Newly updated]

The artist Aaron Ross has a great definition of phosphenes: "phantom images seen only in the mind's eye."

Phosphenes (literally "light that shines forth") are luminous, ephemeral signposts marking the landscape of innerspace. Several scientists have found that phosphenes have common features across cultural boundaries. Such findings point to a universal library of symbols.

A phosphene is a multicolored shape or pattern seen in the darkness, without external visual stimulation. Phosphenes can be seen with closed eyes or in a completely dark room with open eyes. Phosphenes may appear as:

• spirals
• exploding stars
• wispy clouds
• wheels
• tunnels
• parallel lines
• wavy lines
• dotted lines
• zigzags
• checkerboards
• honeycombs
• spider webs
• dot patterns
• circles within circles
• crosses
• thin meandering lines, like lightning
• geometric shapes, like triangles, squares, pentagons
• and so on.

They may swirl, pulse, superimpose, fragment, or morph into other images.

If you have ever bumped your head and seen stars, those were phosphenes. You can, however, stimulate the appearance of phosphenes without hurting your head in the process. Hold your fingers over your closed eyelids and make very slow and gentle circular motions or apply very gentle pressure. When images begin appearing, remove your fingers, keep your eyes closed, and watch the visions. Having a tape recorder handy will allow you to describe out loud the colors, shapes, and other phenomena you witness. This information will be helpful later as you study the symbolic meaning of your visions.

Why does pressure on the eyeballs create phosphenes? Mathematician G. Bard Ermentrout explains that the pressure inhibits signals from the retina, thereby encouraging the brain's cortex to fill the void. The brain begins firing spontaneously and creates hallucinatory patterns.

Phosphenes can also be seen under such conditions as:

• hypnosis
• reverie
• fever delirium
• fatigue
• sensory deprivation
• sweat lodges
• profound concentration
• hyperventilation
• medicinal herbs
• psychoactive drugs (such as LSD)
• food and water deprivation
• electrical and magnetic stimulation of the visual cortex
• strobe lights
• rhythmic movement
• migraine headaches
• meditation
• trance states
• intense emotion
• stress
• crystal gazing

The behaviour of phosphenes seems to be uncontrollable by scientists. In 1994, vision researcher William H. Dobelle discovered that the phosphene lights flicker at a rate which seems unrelated to the cardiac pulse, breathing rate, or other physiologic functions.

Phosphene researcher and artist Lorena Babcock Moore says that under the influence of drugs and other intense forms of stimulation, phosphenes become "more pronounced and the patterns (called entoptics) increase in complexity and may include flashes, spirals, circles, or zigzags that move in concentric circling, horizontal streaking, vertical falling, or scattering fragments. Motifs may overlap and transform into one another." However, Moore does not use intense methods for her own phosphene work. She prefers outdoor solitary drumming.

Distinct shapes are commonly seen in phosphenes. Phosphenes are said to be generated by the nervous system's intrinsic geometry.

Vivid, morphing colors are typical. Phosphenes typically change color in phases:

1. Yellow
2. Bright green with a red halo expanding toward the center
3. Red with a blue halo expanding toward the center
4. Blue
5. Grey, faint afterimage

These inner visions have inspired artistic works throughout human history. In 1989, researcher Richard Bradley applied the concept of phosphenes to European megalithic art. He attributed many mysterious cave drawings with the phosphene visions of the ancient artists. Art historian A. E. Iribas has traced the influence of phosphenes on such art as:

• the "childlike" art of Miro
• the psychedelic art of Michaux
• the surrealist art of Dali
• the mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism
• the architecture of temples
• alchemical imagery
• Hildegard von Bingen's illuminations
• the work of contemporary painters such as Onslow-Ford, Kupka, Kandinsky, av Klint, and others

In 1983, Qabala expert Philo Stone suggested that phosphenes are actually "sparks of pure energy, light perceived at the moment of its conversion into nervous-system information between the cornea and the brain. Thus, phosphenes may be the behavior of atomic particles as observed by the naked eye: the interface of two worlds, the normal and the nuclear -- the fourth dimension."

The French physician Francis Lefebure (1916-1988) experimented with a technique of combining a thought with a phosphene in order to transform the energy of light into mental energy. He believed that conscious phosphene work would stimulate memory, attention, intelligence, imagination, intuition, creativity, decision making, patience, perseverance, self confidence, dreaming, and the discovery of new dimensions. His technique involved stimulating phosphenes with a light source:

1. Sit in a darkened room.
2. Look at the bulb of a small pocket flashlight (non-halogen) for thirty seconds.
3. Turn off the light and, with open eyes, see the phosphene.
4. Place a thought inside the phosphene: "A thought of love, goodness, peace, wisdom, a thought dedicated to unhappy and unlucky people of the planet."
5. Keep both the phosphene and the thought for at least one minute, smiling throughout.

Let's close with our favorite appearance of phosphenes in literature, in which the colored lights are each worlds of their own: "[He] pressed his knuckles against his closed eyeballs. How they throbbed ... those eyeballs ... and what surprising shapes and colours those were, that appeared before his inner vision! ¶ With a sort of sullen curiosity he watched those floating geometric shapes — green and purple and violet. 'Each of these,' he thought, 'might be a world. Perhaps it is ... and from the point of view of the Absolute just as important a world as this of ours!'" (John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent, 1929).

---------

Steven writes:

---

William Keckler writes:

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook, in honor of our friends at Sincerely Yours.  When two hearts beat together, light bends into wondrous colors [including the color of magic, octarine].

An illustration from a 1920 issue of Munsey's magazine.  The caption reads: "Much as I feared old man Fate, he exerted a peculiar fascination over me.  Like many another fool, I longed to look into the eyes of the future."

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Dedicated to Gary Barwin.

J notes:

"To answer your rhetorical question, 'Does it matter?': It most definitely does matter."
—U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 124 (1998), p. 13

[For Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.]

An illustration from an 1896 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Oh, yes, she had known it!  She was ugly now."

"The answer is simple: vinyl.”

—Mark Katz, Groove Music (2012)

"Who are you?":  an illustration from a 1913 issue of Munsey's magazine.

J writes: "Well, the answer that jumps to mind is 'Bob Hope.' Anachronistic, yes (I believe Leslie Hope would still have been, literally, in short pants in that decade, except when donning baggy pants for his award-winning Charlie Chaplin imitation); but if a ghost can't be exempt from strict chronological considerations, who can? I also, of course, love the fact that it's the *apparition* asking the *mortal* who the hell he is."

An illustration from an 1894 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "No real intellectual interest."

Dedicated to Teresa Burritt.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you're my last resort."
—Jennifer LaBrecque, Northern Fires

An illustration from an 1896 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Goo-goo—goo-goo."

"This may surprise you, but . . . artwork . . . adds life and style to a room without using up valuable square footage."
—Libby Langdon's Small Space Solutions (2009)

An illustration from a 1914 issue of Everybody's magazine.  The caption reads: "It had draped arms extended, with some cloth or band that looped and tightened at each stride."

"The Watch": an illustration from a 1919 issue of Life magazine.

A ready-made collage courtesy of Google Books:  from an 1898 issue of Munsey's magazine.

An illustration from an 1873 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "Everything had been made as sane as a lunatic's dream."

"This may surprise you, but chances are you will do a lot of the same things after retiring as you did before."
—Tina Di Vito, 52 Ways to Wreck Your Retirement (2012)

An illustration from a 1915 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "I don't need other people's thoughts; I've got my own."

"The Runaway Doll": an illustration from an 1872 issue of Our Boys and Girls magazine.

An illustration from a 1901 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "The straw hat was the lodestar."

An illustration from an 1871 issue of Our Boys and Girls magazine.

An illustration from an 1899 issue of McClure's magazine.  The caption reads: "'It's extraordinary,' Ackerly thought, as he ... listened to the spirits in the violin calling to the king cobra."

An illustration from a 1902 edition of Vaught's Practical Character Reader.  The caption reads: "The above illustration shows that two Roman noses are surely too many in one family, especially in husband and wife."

[Thanks, Gordon!]

An illustration from an 1891 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "The Queen of Spades denotes ill-luck."

"How I've Changed!": an illustration from a 1912 issue of Saturday Evening Post.

"What a beautiful dream!": an illustration from a 1902 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from an 1875 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Time smoking a picture: as Statues moulder into Worth."

"This point bears repeating. Women are notorious for denying their own needs even when symptoms of stress are obvious."
—Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running

"The downfall of the believer is finding his Church."
—Enrique Vila-Matas, Never Any End to Paris

Staring into the depths: an illustration from an 1893 issue of Pall Mall magazine.  The caption reads: "Here she paused a moment."