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[g_rott]

This thing is huge, intimidatingly huge; sigh... Don't have a lot to add as i've just started reading through all the sumaries and maybe once up to speed was thinking of going through as many back puzzles in the order they have been presented, try to build up the knowledge base and see what the 'Orphanage' are trying to put over.
On the schizophrenia note, i can add a relative summary as it's a topic i find great pleasure in figuring out. A particular viewpoint that arises again and again is that schizophrenia is a defense mechanism we all have inbuilt, something that over prolonged periods of stress (largely emotive not work based) kicks in. Though this is largely theory the facts are that it carries symptons which either detract from normal behaviour (catatonic stares for instance) or add to normal behaviour (hearing voices and as is particularly important in this case delusions of grandeur).
These delusions can lead the scizophrenic to believe they are part of some higher order, or that they alone are free from alien attack; the varieties are endless. But there are symptons which should be apparent if the mayday mystery is the work of a schizophrenic. Firstly the schizophrenic would try to welcome people into his/her delusion perhaps after some brief test of reliabilty. The span of twenty years however goes against the pattern of case studies. Also this way of being would mean the schizophrenic would want to give constant updates, a trail of clues to welcome friends in their reality. And their involvment with their reality would lead to the deteriation of social skills, personal hygene and any business sense. Now unless the person in question is fabulously rich and has a great deal of help from (pardon the expression) sane people such behaviour would mean a collapse of any long-term goal and would also be very noticable in a proffesional circuit such as that of a lawyer.

The sanity of a group dedicated to pushing people to expand such mental horizons and advance their development even in adulthood has to be questioned. I feel in essence the Orphanage is a group of very skilled people (think the Masons with a true secret society) who met at some educational based group (university or even a mensa picnic) with a benign plan and a sense of adventure that would have been born out of the second world war and with that the advent of comic books (they would now be older proffesionals, the 5 levels or ranks presumably being those who have entered the group more recently). Such imagination in a world which works so hard to seperate the real from the fantastic would lead a generation to be 'orphaned' upon the rocky shores of the profane. Though this is little more than speculation. And i would stress that seeing the puppet masters is something to do after the game (if i may refer to it as such) - apologies to the Orphanage for trying to peer inside their workings but i like to speculate.
What is important is that this is not insane ramblings but it is passed through many hands and mistakes may arise from this; there is a solution.
Apologies for quite how long this became.
g_

[MacD]

Hello! Came here from Metafilter and thought I'd chime in.

First off, I'd say (and Occam's Razor might agree) that this is the work of a couple of friends who are having fun. They might even be communicating through the adds, or they might be telephoning each other up to organise what gets in the adds. They found the 'hermetic lawyer' to be an agreeable character who would front for them or maybe the lawyer is in the group (might be interesting to know who he was friends with/who was in the same years as he was at uni).

The reason I think it's a group of friends is due to the diverse topics: we have high level quantum mechanics (not just firstyear's textbook stuff, although that too can be found), chemistry (with obvious chemistry student in-jokes like the 'palate cleaner' poison), history, old and new languages (ancient hebrew, summerian, greek, latin, africaans etc), geographics and [geo]political science, quite a bit of old lit. etc.
All this, plus the references and geography, points me towards a group of friends [maybe of differing nationalities] in different sciences, who might have moved off to different places. The knowledge is so divers and quite indepth that I'd say that multiple people are involved. It could be one person with a large intelect, too much time on his hands and who is odd in the manner that some of his interests don't seem to go together very often (geography, physics and of all things chemistry? Most physicists I know spit on chemists )

Another thing which struck me was the cartoon guy with the differing amount of hairs drawn on. This could be a number of things, something which that 'near a terminal' person posted about, with the chinese count the number of strokes on a character'. First off, the cartoon face can be considered a character...and the hairs on his head can be called 'brushes'...on a character .
Now the number of hairs could be a cypher...you know, 5 hairs means only use every fifth character in the text to form youtr message, or something like that; whatever the group has determined.
But another thing which the hairs could mean is a signifier of who (or which persons) made the message this time 'round. I noticed that on one of the latter messages (with 5 hairs), nov30/'88, there where references to among other things the hebrew and a physicists integral (complex exponential description of a circular force/movement/whatever). Other letters with 5 hairs have similar content (at leats, it seemed to me in my quick perusal of the adds).

Also, there's the Leidmotif. Personally I think that's nothing more than a description of what the message is about. Again, look at the nov30/'88 add: the Leidmotif says something about "on what to hang a flag", whilst the message talks about Schrodinger (I take it it's the physicist of the bunch) who's starting to publish in scientific journals again...or something akin to it.

I'd also hazzard a guess that (some) people in the group have multiple nicknames. There's a later add which also has five hairs which speaks directly as if it's a message from one individual to the group.

And then there's the ad which is quite death-themed, from the Leitmotif onwards. Maybe a death (or mortal illness) in the group? Yet the add is hopefull, almost like a eulogy...lots of stuff about 'nothing is truly dead, stuff gets left behind' [obviously not a litteral quote from the add ]...this too seems to be a group of people communicating with each other and letting people know (kinda ) what happened to their group via the medium they made up as a joke (or whatever) oh so long ago. If I reacal correctly, that add was also an unscheduled one...well, death tends to be, neh?

Anyway, just my rambling thoughts on the subject. Hop I didn't bore anyone, or make too much a fool of myself . I am fascinated by this kind of thing, I do have to say I'll be having a good read though all the adds during the holiday:)

[MacD]

Screw it: I just listened to that mp3 posted here...I think most of comment still stands, but I think the motivation of the group is to just make life interesting. That 'changing reality' thing might just mean what it is: a couple of people decided that life was too mundane at their uni/college, so they put up the adds to make life interesting for the students. And hey...it worked

Especially that bit in french, the 'keep at it and your work will be rewarded' fits this explanation

[Hazard J Simpson]

ten little indians

[TomFesters]

after hours of reviewing all the messages and surrounding information i think this is either the ultimate ARG or the lifelong work of one very disturbed lawyer.

[jBecker]

Another similar puzzle.

[dmax]

The December 1st message is up. I'm ashamed I missed it.

Here's the link.

[lattimore]

SORRY WHAT HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT?