國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 古典打字機 - 推動西方文明

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / Classical typewriter - To promote Western civilization

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / Máquina de escribir clásica - Promover la civilización occidental

国立の台湾の文学館 - 推理の文学は台湾特に展にあります / 古典のタイプライター - 西方が文明的なことを推進します

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Klassische Schreibmaschine - Zur Förderung der westlichen Zivilisation

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / Machine à écrire classique - Pour promouvoir la civilisation occidentale

 

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

 

管樂小集 2017/10/07 台南孔子廟 Confucian temple Tainan performances 1080P

{ 旅笠道中 Wearing hats travel in road }

 

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PENTAX SMC TAKUMAR 50mm 1:1.4

 

{My Blog / 管樂小集精彩演出-觸動你的心}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{My Blog / 管楽小集すばらしい公演-はあなたの心を心を打ちます}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

 

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen

{ 夢旅人 1990 Dream Traveler 1990 }

  

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

 

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

 

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

 

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?

 

Here is a divination tool: the water mirror. It makes it possible to see, through our third eye, images of the future, but also, even if this use is less popular, past or future lives, entities... and many other things that you will discover during your practice if you try the experiment. To limit the mirror of water to a mere divinatory tool would be to amputate it from much of its use and mystery. However, as with any esoteric practice, you must feel ready to use it, it is not a question of going blindly, as this experience can be shocking for some people depending on how the session unfolds. You don't need a particular water level, no, you just have to feel ready and approach this tool and this experience with a lot of respect.

The Aztec god of night, Tzcatlipoca, is even supposed to have carried a magic mirror that enveloped his enemies in clouds of smoke. ... The first recorded case of mirror divination (known as catoptromancy) can be traced back to ancient China, India, Persia and Roma, where small metal mirrors were used to predict the life expectancy of the sick.CATOPTROMANCY. AND. THE. MAGIC. MIRROR. Cataptromancy is a form of divination using reflective surfaces, such as a mirror, water or some other suitable surface. Both the Magic Mirror and the Mandala may be used individually, by themselves as separate tools for externalising the consciousness.

 

Practice: To begin with, you need to find a water mirror, or if you don't have one, a normal mirror that you will use in the half-light, lit by one or two candles if you wish, or nothing at all if you see enough, it's up to you to judge when the time comes. Anyway, you will only have to use this mirror ONLY for this practice, it is extremely important (whether you dedicate it or not). And when you don't use it I advise you to cover it with a cloth, because once it has been used it becomes a kind of door, a link, and you will see, you will feel its power, the energy that will come out of it. Sit in front of your mirror, comfortably, and meditate for a few minutes on what you are going to do, your goal... When you feel ready, fix your third eye, or your eyes, through the mirror. After a while your eyes will sting you, which is normal, over time this sensation will fade. You can burn incense and arrange some crystals to help you during this exercise. Of course the crystals will vary according to your purpose and your affinities with them. Then the first phase will slowly set in place, you will see your orbits become black and your face unravel to become a skull before disappearing. This step can be frightening if you're not ready enough and I think it may be partly done to push some back, but not just that of course. When your skull disappears from the mirror everything can begin, take your time and observe! You have been able to read various experiments on the Internet, some of them do not fix their reflection, and therefore do not go through the "skull"stage. It's up to you to see what appeals to you the most, and therefore, what's best for you. As with all esoteric practices, there are always several ways to achieve the same result:) This is Catoptromancy (Gk. κάτοπτρον, katoptron, "mirror," and μαντεία, manteia, "divination"), also known as captromancy or enoptromancy, is divination using a mirror.Catoptromancy is a word you do not hear very often. Its meaning, however, is something which just about everyone knows about. Catoptromancy is a word derived from Greek which basically means “Mirrors in Divination”. The Evil Queen in Snow White asking for information by saying “Mirror, mirror on the wall” and old folk games of looking into a mirror to see the image of a future spouse are two example of catoptromancy. Another example – albeit a rather indirect one –is the mirror in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott: this mirror is not magical from the standpoint that it, like any other mirror, simply reflects what is happening. However, the mirror crack’d from side to side the moment the Lady of Shalott fell under the curse, thus foretelling her imminent death. Therefore, this can be considered an example of catoptromancy or the use of a magical mirror.

 

An ancient Mesoamerican artifact is seen along its own reflection in an ancient Mesoamerican mirror with a carved wooden frame. While authorities on the subject of ancient Mesoamerican culture don't yet acknowledge these things, they are in no way restrained, ironically, from offering every praise short of it. Regarding the mirrors in general, Valliant, in "The Aztecs of Mexico, writes (pg. 116): "The making of the mirrors called much ingenuity into play... Blocks of obsidian were sometimes polished to produce an eerie and mysterious reflection. However, iron pyrites, burnished and shaped, were more common; and rarer examples had thin pyrite flakes laid in a mosaic and glued to a background of wood or shell. In another technique used on the coast the artisan detached a surface of pyrites in its matrix of slate, burnishing one side and carving the other to fashion a mirror with a carved back. One example, at least, is known of a mirror with marcasite with its surface ground as to produce a magnified reflection". Such praise reveals at the very least mundane sophistication like that which is also freely given regarding the optics marvels of the ancient orient. Similarly, Michael D. Coe, in "Mexico", writes: Certain Olmec sculptures and figurines show persons wearing pectorals of concave shape around the neck, and such have actually come to light in offerings, These oddly enough turned out to be concave mirrors of magnetite and ilmenite, the reflecting surfaces polished to optical specifications. What were they used for? Experiments have shown that they can not only start fires, but also throw images on flat surfaces like a camera lucida. They were pierced for suspension, and one can imagine the hocus-pocus which some mighty Olmec preist was able to perform with one of these. Imagine, indeed. Whether or not the priest could have impressed anyone, however, when the underlying principles are captured by every artist and given away to every citizen with nearly every gesture of the cultures in question, every artwork or every holiday, is another story altogether. Still, these fabulous optical properties, while certainly making solid testimony that these ancient people had a remarkably advanced grasp of sophisticated optics, may only be ideographic markers- outward superficial properties acting as labels for the even more incredible powers that these devices were made to possess. Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec deity whose name literally means, "Smoking Mirror", may be a fictitious contrivance used to label literature that allegorically describes the making, use, and principles of these mirrors. While the phrase "smoking mirrors" has even found its way into modern politics, no one seems to have a substantial clue to its origin. In the case of Tezcatlipoca, the "smoke" may have been a smudge or incense used to activate the mirrors; Mexican mugwort or a closely related specie is very probable.

This may yet prove to be another viable alternative to Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific crossing to explaining the extreme degree of cultural parallels between peoples normally spoken of as isolated from one another; with the aid of such devices, they may have in fact been in constant communication. Here's another twist or two: ancient Egyptian mirrors often contain the same familiar birds as magick mirrors of Greece and elsewhere (left), but sometimes they don't (right), which remarkably either evokes the crescent as a magnetic symbols, or reduces the symbol of artificial intelligence to the universal feature of a face of a body of a human, rather suggestive of the artificial intelligence labeling of Crystal Skulls and Skull Oracles.The symbols are simple, but the rules do tend to vary somewhat.

This picture above in Alsace remain, "Sobek, god of a city called Crocodilopolis" (Lionel Casson, "Ancient Egypt", pg. 73), has strong elements of both magick mirrors and oracular skulls and points in the direction of the Egyptian and Vedic "mystical" Solar science .It also shows another variation on the frog symbol that remains within the reptilian.;The peculiar details of the window to other worlds may also encode details about the harmonic physics used in its creation or operation, like the designs on the Celtic magick mirrors, above. The harmonic science of magick mirrors and time cameras (the counter magnetic amplifier, shown below, could easily classify as a harmonic device, perhaps a magnetic harmonic resonator) brings us to an interesting place in the burgeoning science of hyperdimensional physics because we have all the pieces of how the ancients would have utilized the harmonic energy grid of the earth, but we may not yet be able to account for the absence of hundreds of pages of equations governing every detail and alignment of the ancient landmarks that appear on the predicted nodal points of world grid maps. The harmonic markings and symbols on many magick mirror devices may be telling us that these devices not only run on the same principles that are relevant to this planetary grid science, but implying they had a purpose as tools to abbreviate hard work of calculating such incredible aspects. One other trend or common denominator in various literature on the subject resembles what may be equivalent applications of Howard Wachpress' Unpaired Magnetic Pole Levitation design, comprised of odd/even poles made when irregular carvings or geometries are magnetized (The actual example on the cover of Tyson's book is one example, although he does not seem to be aware that this principle may be at work; other examples might be found in Lewis Spence's "Encyclopedia of Occultism"; the subject is also treated in De Givry's book). This design for a magnetic ship by Hughes can be found in George Frederick Kunz, "Curious Lore of Precious Stones", pg. 53. It originates from Valentini, "Museum Museorum," pt. III, Franckfurt am Mayn, 1714, pg. 35. Kunz's caption tells us that coral-agates were to be set in the network above the pilot, which was "supposed to possess such magnetic powers as to keep the craft aloft". Magnetic levitation designs have beeen, and remain contemporary with magnetic magic mirrors. The cover of Tyson's remarkable book. Whether or not the author is consciously aware of it, the mirror which is shown and which the book contains instructions for making, is one of a class of a great many of at least the last five centuries, whose number of engravings or the number of characters in cardinal points recalls the odd-even magnetic polar pairing of Howard Wachpress' magnetic levitation design. While the exact mechanism may be difficult to ascertain, mostly because the possibilities are particular numerous and some are inevitably complex, the connection in both form and function is immediately obvious. There may be little difference in many applications between the unpaired magnetic pole levitation system and the counter magnetic amplifier of Active Reseach and Development's time camera, or between the methods that Ernetti uses. Here, astrological glyphs are set against sides of the mirror frame. It is likewise a trend to use Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) with crystal balls and magic mirrors; Mugwort is also known as "Compass Plant" or here on the picture like a "Compass Boat" because it is one of those plants which aligns its leaves along a north/south magnetic axis as if it were magnetized. It may also affect human endocrine systems which interact with magnetism and or gravity. At left is Howard Wachpress' invention depicted in it's patent diagram. At right below, the counter magnetic amplifier in the Time Cameras offered by Active Research and Development. Note that the latter, intriguingly, is said to rely on Hieronymous' "Eloptics", and energy he named that has both the properties of ELectricity and OPTIC energy, or light.

Descriptions of superconducted electricity accelerating to light-like velocities certainly comes to mind; the device might also rely on various principles of symmetry as well as its magnetic attributes. The actual tuning system of one of ARD's more advanced models relies on skin electricity translating thought patterns for its tuning mode. Rather than being preposterous, this may be both a logical extension of the latest in physics and biology when the two fields are effectively joined, and such technology could become part of an amazing genera of devices. Whatever the individual believes about the artifacts gathered from the "Roswell Crash", the footage shows technology that may be astonishingly similar. This principle of translation may be intrinsic to how a great deal of true magick that involves mental processes is accomplished. Also helping to render plausibility is the fact that certain superconducting magnetic devices, known as SQUIDs, are said to amongst, if not the only, devices thus known capable of imaging energies that come from the hands of physic healers who perform "laying on of hands". If such technologies can interact with such forces, they can perhaps also modulate or even simulate them. Such technology, besides having tremendous potential in medical diagnostics, also has potentials in even more futuristic medicine and biology. Time cameras may be employed to retrieve biological pattern data for varied applications from identifying and reconstituting lost and even unknown species, to providing data about structure prior to disease states for reconstruction of biological systems. Such far-flung notions are precisely what some of the markings on the ancient Mesoamerican mirrors directly imply. Not at all surprisingly, T.G. Hieronymous' scientific achievements not only include his eloptics technology and patents, but his amazing Cosmiculture" wherein he succeeded in growing plants without sunlight, but rather with some mysterious force carried by electrical conductors from a solar plate. Robert Pavlita's amazing "Psychotronic" motor or generator (left), featured in Ostrander and Schroeder's classic, "Handbook of Psychic Discoveries" (Photo 28), created with a five part structure which may pit against two energetic poles, may turn out to be largely motivated by the same effect of unpaired poles as Howard Wachpress' levitator. Its structure perhaps not coincidentally recalls the features of hyperdimensional signatures on planetary magnetic poles in the solar system (see above).

At right, the well-known levitating stone raised by 11 people chanting "Qamar Ali Dervish", noted in Andrew Tomas' "We Are Not the First" and by many others, including KeelyNet files, may inevitably be primarily accomplished the same way, through the Wachpressian technology that may simply be another spin on the familiar theme of unipolar or homopolar dynamos, since the singular pole, real or contrived, most likely also serves as an "odd pole out". The Vimaanika-Shastra, an ancient Sanskrit text which describes in detail the making and operation of flying machine or "flying saucers", details the construction and use of a number of mirrors with unusual properties. While any of the many formulas in this vast collection whose ingredients can be successfully translated and identified could be thusly explained, or by following the instructions and analyzing the results, any eventual similarity between the workings of these mirrors and other ancient magick mirrors could help serve as a bridge toward linking the peculiar and complex science of this ancient Vedic text to the appropriate modern, if unusual, concepts and terminology.

From the Vimaanika-Shastra, found in 1908 in the Royal Baroda Library, translated by G. R. Joyser, and found in its entirety in "Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India and Atlantis" by David Hatcher Childress: "Darpanaadhikaranam: Mirrors and Lenses Mahrishi Bharadwaaja: "Darpanaashcha" Sootra 1

"Lenses": Bodhaananda Vritti: This chapter deals with the mirrors and lenses which are required to be installed in the vimaana. There are seven different ones. Their names are given by Lalla in "Mukura-kalpa" as Vishwakriyaa darpanana, or television mirror, Shaktyaakarshana darpana or power-capturing-mirror, Vyroopya darpana or appearance changing mirror, Kuntinee darpana, Pinjulaa darpana, Guhaagarbha darpana, and Rowdree darpana or terrifying darpana. Vishwakriyaa darpana is to be fixed on a revolving stand near the pilot so that he cold observe whatever is happening outside on all sides. Its manufacture is thus described in Kriyaasaara: Two parts of stava, 2 parts of shundilaka, one part of eagle bone, 5 parts of mercury, 2 parts of the foot-nails of the sinchoranee, 6 parts of mica, 5 parts of red lead, 8 parts of pearl dust, 18 parts of the eyeballs of sowmyaka fish, one part burning coal, 8 parts of snake’s slough, 3 parts of eye pigment, 6 parts of maatrunna, 10 parts of granite sand, 8 parts of salt, 4 of lead, 2 parts of sea foam, 3 parts white throated eagle’s skin, 7 parts of bamboo salt, 5 parts of vyraajya or white keg tree bark, these ingreedients should be purified, and weighed, and filled in a beaked crucible and placed in the furnace called chandodara and subjected to a 800 degree heat, and when duly liquified, should be poured into the funnel of the kara-darpana yantra or hand-mirror mold. The result will be an excellent mirror in which will be reproduced minature details of the world outside." Those familiar with ancient formulas, however peculiar their ingredients, know far better than to dismiss them. Information in "The Curious Lore of Precious Stones" by George Frederick Kunz gives more instances of applying minerals containing iron being applied to such magickal contrivances. (interestingly, this book makes detailed mention of a design for a flying craft by a Brazilian priest in the 1700's that may be also very much in essence like Wachpress's design mentioned above!). (Magic Screens of Ancient Asia are also mentioned in some of the above texts, a possibly closely related principle, where screens were made that show images inside the human body, probably equal to or greater than out own modern medical imaging.) What doesn't tie in to this topic? This photo, also appearing on Richard Hoagland's "Enterprise Mission" site on his pages on Hyperdimesional Physics , of one of Saturn's magnetic poles shows the hexagonal polar region that has been found on planets throughout the solar system, including Uranus and Mars, and most recently, the sun itself. Note that there's not only a hexagon (6 sides) but a 5-armed "star" shape, our familiar unpaired numerical matching, occurring on the magnetic poles of celestial bodies. (It certainly thereby makes some implications about the nature and purposes of pentagrams as well; they could scarcely be Satan's playthings and yet God's own signature as creator!)

Just as Hoagland implies how hyperdimensional physics was encoded by ancient peoples on earth and possibly elsewhere, the method of sending information through hyperspace may already be at work in magick mirrors, possibly due to angular momentum effects of the magnetic fields rotating due to unpaired pole effects. The theory behind magick mirrors may not just be a communications utility, it may shed light on celestial mechanics, and the same technology may provide sane amounts of free energy for human use. And that may only be the beginning... As to the traditions of Ancient Wisdom... amongst the other enlightenment that can be found amongst them, as meaning layers over meaning, upheld and facilitated by the science of Correspondences, we might find significant details of these devices and rites labeled with allusions that fall under the motif of reflection: Echo and Narcissus, Perseus and Medusa... just as we may find them under the theme of closeness to the waterside, since it is part of Pausanius' account of Catoptromancy: Romulus and Remus, Temperance in the Tarot, The Star in the Tarot, Echo and Narcissus once again, etc., etc.... Someday, even if the phone company has shut you off, you may be able to summon help in an emergency, "As the crow flies", and never be obstructed from communion with those whom you love... but the technology also promises to be of inestimable value in medicine and healing as well.

Catoptromancy should not be confused with crystal gazing, although both divinatory methods fall under the category of “scrying” – looking into water, a mirror, a crystal or any other transparent object in order to see the future or contact a supernatural entity.Pausanias, an ancient Greek traveler, described as follows: Before the Temple of Ceres at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its base touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect.This method of divination has been frequently used in various forms since ancient times on mirrors made of polished metal: copper, bronze, iron, silver or gold. There are traces of it in Chaldea and Mesopotamia. Of course, the surface of water or any other reflective surface was also suitable2. The Sagas of Thessaly traced on mirrors their sibylline formulas with blood: immediately the moon - another mirror - reflected these bloody characters, then the answer was imprinted on its silver crescent. This is how the oracle was rendered "3. In his Description of Greece (around 174) Pausanias le Périégète writes in his Description of Greece:

In front of this temple there is a fountain which on the side of the temple itself is closed by a wall of dry stones; outside there is a path that goes down. It is claimed that this fountain makes oracles that never deceive; it is consulted not on all kinds of affairs, but only on the state of the sick. A mirror is attached to the end of a string and held suspended above the fountain so that only the end touches the water. Then prayers are made to the Goddess, perfumes are burned in her honour, and as soon as we look in the mirror we see if the sick person will return to health or die; this kind of divination does not extend further. ».The Roman Emperor Didius Julianus (193) had similar practices as Spartianus relates: Julianus even resorted to this kind of divination, which is done with the help of a mirror, in which, it is said, children see the future, after their eyes and heads have been subjected to certain enchantments. It is claimed that, in this circumstance, the child lives in the mirror when Severus arrives and Julianus leaves.

The Renaissance also had its share of divinations by mirrors, the doctor Jean Fernel 1497-1558 relates: The gestures of these figures were so expressive that each of the assistants, who saw like him in the mirror, could well understand their mimicry. One evening in 1559, Cosme Ruggieri, the magician of Catherine de Médicis, used it at the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire to predict to the Queen Mother Queen the duration of the reign of her sons, who had to make as many turns on themselves as they had spent years on the throne. Francis II made a tour, Charles IX fourteen, Henry III fifteen and the Prince of Navarre (the future Henry IV) twenty-one8. In November 1582 John Dee, the Magician of Elizabeth I of England, saw the Uriel Angel appear at his window one evening. He gave her a polished black stone which, when fixed with insistence, showed up beings capable of telling the future. This strange dark mirror is currently on display in the British Museum. Catoptromancy is quite common in the folk magic of nearly every country. For centuries, mirrors were considered powerful tools: if they could capture physical images of the world, perhaps they could also capture the supernatural. To this day, it is not uncommon in many Eastern European countries for surviving family members to cover the mirrors or turn them to face the wall after a person in the household has died, for fear the recently released soul may become caught inside the mirror. Mirrors have often been used as a tool in folk magic. One of the most common applications of catoptromancy is the old ritual, which every culture seems to have a variation of, that involves a young woman looking into a mirror in the hopes that the face of her future husband will be revealed. Sometimes, this game would be taken quite seriously and there would be other rules regarding the age of the girl and what she may or may not have been wearing, as well as what day of the year was the best for performing the ritual.

 

Many young women may have been scared away from playing this game by the possibility that she may in fact see an image of the Golden House in the mirror. This would mean that manor would be full kindness to accept holistic's students. Frederick II was the first Germanic and Italian Emperor, he had brought the divinatory sciences back to Alsace and his Sicilian doctors who of course spoke Arabic. The Egyptians' divination and secrets were part of the Moorish culture, they had assimilated the Persian culture with Zarathustra as well as the Greek culture with Plato, or the Egyptians with Hermes-Thot. The golden manor is reflected in this boat asleep in the waves of a regenerating winter, it reminds us of the memory of the last Germanic Emperor William II and his golden eagle floating between two waters in the gable which traces its extended wings, we are ready for a flight to the hidden dimension of a reversible World. Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?

Nearer to us, J. T Reinaud (1795-1867), Orientalist commenting at the beginning of the 19th century on the museum of the Duke of Blacas, writes: The Orientals also have magical mirrors in which they imagine themselves to be able to reveal the angels, the archangels; by perfuming the mirror, by fasting for seven days and keeping the most severe retreat, one becomes able to see, either with one's own eyes or those of a virgin or a child, the angels that one desires to evoke.

Today, catoptromancery is still widely used in sub-Saharan Africa.Interpretations[edit | modify code] One can give two kinds of interpretations to visions obtained in mirrors. First of all, these visions are of dreamlike, hypnotic or hallucinatory nature, provoked by the atmosphere and rituals frequently involving semi-darkness, a long period of concentration sometimes preceded by fasting and the use of fumigations that can be hallucinogenic (see above). As psychologist Pierre Janet writes: People who have seen in these mirrors will certainly say,"I knew nothing of all this. Well, I have to tell you that your statement is inaccurate. You knew very well what you saw appearing. They are memories acquired, at fixed dates, recorded knowledge, daydreams and reasoning already done. » From the Renaissance onwards, the use of techniques to obtain all sorts of illusions using semitransparent or judiciously arranged mirrors was added to this, and Jean-Baptiste Porta, like this one, described in great detail at that time: How can we make a mirror out of several full mirrors, to which, at the same time, several effigies will appear "12, techniques still used today by illusionists.

 

Vision of her future husband on Halloween night. According to Anglo-Saxon tradition, a young girl presenting herself in front of a mirror with a candle lit by hand during Halloween night would see the face of her future husband pass by... or a skull if she had to die before her marriage! A legend has it that by performing a certain ritual in front of a mirror on the night of Epiphany we could see ourselves as we were at the time of his death. There is also the urban legend of Bloody-Mary, which has many variations. If you place yourself in front of a mirror in a dark room (a bathroom for example), lit only by a candle, and you pronounce thirteen times in a row the name "Bloody Mary" it appears the bloody face of a woman who attacks you...With the exception of the Magic Mirror in Snow White, the best example of catoptromancy is the old Halloween party game “Bloody Mary”. The tradition developed out of the old fashioned attempt to see the face of your future spouse. The idea of calling on “Bloody Mary” started during the Elizabethan Era: A young, Protestant woman, hopeful for a good life with a future husband and lots of children, would look into the mirror and taunt the ghost of the Catholic queen Bloody Mary, a woman who had been physically unable to produce an heir. As the years went by, the religious tensions which created the Bloody Mary game were forgotten. Eventually, the game was somehow combined with the urban legend of Bloody Mary, a horrifying and perhaps vengeful specter (again, with variations from different eras and cultures). After this happened, the idea of it being a ritual for the discovery your future spouse was jettisoned as well. Anytime Bloody Mary is called on now, it is just a simple dare or Halloween prank, usually played by young children, in order to cause a good scare.

A type of divination with a mirror which the second century AD Greek traveler Pausanius described as follows: "Before the Temple of Ceres at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its based touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect." Another divinatory method of using a mirror was to place it at the back of a boy's or girl's head when their eyes were bandaged shut. In Thessaly the responses appeared in characters of blood on the face of the moon, probably projected in the mirror. This practiced was derived by the Thessalian sorceresses from the Persians who wanted to establish their religion and mystical rituals in the countries which they invaded. A.G.H.

 

Catoptromancy is the technique used by Snow White's evil mother-in-law in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's famous tale:"Little mirror, little mirror on the wall, which is the most beautiful of the whole country? ». In Lewis Carol's tale, Alice in Wonderland passes through the fantastic universe on the other side of the mirror.Grimms’ Schneewittchen or Snow White is one of the oldest and most famous stories in the world. Catoptromancy is a very important part of this tale – in fact, one could easily say that the entire story centers around catptromancy. The action all starts when the Evil Queen asks “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

The Mirror or the Queen’s use of catoptromancy in the story is what causes her to want to kill Snow White. And, in turn, it is what leads the heroine into home of the Seven Dwarfs. The Mirror carries the story further by refusing to answer the Queen’s question – “Who is the fairest of them all?” – in a way she would like. Through the Mirror, the Queen knows that her first two attempts to murder Snow White have failed, and she eventually uses the seemingly effective poisoned apple to rid herself of her rival.Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand,- The Evil Queen’s invocation of the mirror in the Grimms’ original German. A magical mirror, in some form, has played a part in probably every adaptation of Snow White that has ever been made. This is not only because of the importance of catoptromancy in folklore, but also because this story expounds on the difference between vanity and beauty.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catoptromancy

“AND THE BUILDING BECOMES MAN”: MEANING AND AESTHETICS IN RUDOLF STEINER’S GOETHEANUM

Carole M. Cusack

Introduction

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of the Anthroposophical Society, is renowned for his work in widely varied fields including education, biodynamic agriculture, politics, banking, poetry, and drama (Hammer 2009: 209). His accomplishments in architecture are among his less well-understood cultural productions. His two greatest achievements – the buildings known as Goetheanum I and Goetheanum II (the latter built after the destruction by fire on 31 December 1922 of the former structure), in the small town of Dornach near Basel in the canton of Jura, Switzerland – have been described as “sculptural architecture,” of a kind similar in Expressionist form to works by his contemporaries Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), Hermann Obrist (1863-1927), and the younger Hermann Finsterlin (1887-1973) (Sharp 1966). The focus of this chapter, Goetheanum II, is a giant sculpted concrete form four stories high, with sweeping lines that give the effect of a monolith. It is headquarters to the Anthroposophical movement, and contains a one-thousand seat auditorium in which religio-spiritual performances of Eurythmy (Steiner’s movement art, which he initiated in 1912) take place. Contributors to a 1960 issue of the Swiss architectural magazine

Werk featuring the building agreed that its design required “a uniform worldview and lifestyle” (quoted in Steinberg 1976: 4). This is the case: to understand both incarnations of the Goetheanum, built as “Schools for Spiritual Science,” requires an understanding of Anthroposophy and of Steiner himself. Richard A. Peterson has posited that the main “symbol-creating domains most often identified [are] art, science, and religion” (Peterson 1976: 673). Anthroposophy, as developed by Steiner, is a philosophy that integrated all three of these domains, and which formed the basis for an enthusiastic programme of cultural production. This chapter considers the meanings embedded in the aesthetic choices of Steiner in the design and construction of both Goetheanum I and Goetheanum II. Steiner thought that Western Europe needed to re-orientate its Weltanschauung

as a spiritual priority and that art was a crucial part of this regenerative process. David Brain’s argument that cultural production creates society itself is relevant here. Brain states that “[t]he social construction of cultural artefacts entails the production of practices which, in turn, enact their own status in broader social contexts by inscribing both the boundaries of cultural domains and the social status of the author in qualities of the artefact” (Brain 1994: 193). Expressionist artists, some of whom (for example the Russian Wassily Kandinsky) shared Steiner’s Theosophical background, shared his vision for the spiritual renewal of Europe. Steiner could not have been unaware of a range of significant Expressionist philosophies and artistic forms present in Europe during his lifetime, and particularly at the time he was developing Anthroposophy. As a lecturer he travelled extensively, and came into contact with many artists and writers who shared mystical ideas about art. His vision for the headquarters of Anthroposophy was grandiose, like that of many other Expressionists, though unlike most of them he had the opportunity to construct his vision himself. Goetheanum II has also been referred to as a

Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), a term associated with Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and with architects such as Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, who influenced the interiors as well as the exteriors of their buildings (Adams 1992: 182). Yet Steiner wanted something specific for his group; “[n]ot to build in a style born out of our spiritual world view, would mean to deny Anthroposophy in her own house” (quoted in Steinberg 1976: 82). The Goetheanum embodies Anthroposophical ideals, and Anthroposophy inhabited the entire cultural life of its adherents. For Steiner this came in the form of cosmological insights, which could best be achieved in the sculptural shapes and organic forms, derived from the natural world, of the Goetheanum (in both its first and second incarnations). This chapter first considers Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual quest, Anthroposophy, the teaching he developed, and the place of art and cultural production in his vision for a transformed humanity. The creation of seventeen buildings between 1908 and 1925 in Dornach, which in the twenty-first century is a community of approximately six thousand, was a major achievement in embodying the Anthroposophical ideal of revealing a “logic of life” deriving from Goethe’s writings on the natural sciences and esoteric Christianity, in physical forms, and transformed Dornach into something of a pilgrimage centre for Anthroposophists and spiritual seekers (Reese 1965: 146). The meaning and construction of Goetheanum I is explained, then the chapter’s focus shifts to the realised Anthroposophical theology of Goetheanum II, which was designed by Steiner in 1923 but not completed until 1928, three years after his death. This magnificent building is a magnet for tourists and architecture enthusiasts, as quite apart from its Anthroposophical significance, it is a remarkable and beautiful example of Expressionist architecture.

Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in Donji Kraljevec, a village in what is now Croatia but was then Hungary, in the Austrian Empire. He was educated by his father, the provincial stationmaster at Pottschach in Lower Austria, and at the local school. In his uncompleted autobiography, Steiner claimed that by the time he turned eight “the reality of the spiritual world was to me as certain as that of the physical,” and that he was able to communicate with the spirits (Davy 1975a: 12). He was heartened to discover that geometry (and mathematics more generally) was about invisible realities that had been discovered by humans. From 1879 to 1883 he studied mathematics and physics at the Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Vienna. Steiner funded his studies by working as a tutor, chiefly in philosophy, classics, and literature. During this time he met two people who would significantly affect his development; “an old peasant herb-gatherer … [who] possessed faculties of spiritual perception which allowed him to see deep into the secrets of nature and know, for example, the curative properties of herbs” and “Professor Karl Julius Schroer, the great Goethe scholar” (Davy 1975a: 14). After graduation he was employed at the Goethe Archive in Weimar, where he worked on Goethe’s scientific writings under the direction of Joseph Kürschner, who was preparing a new edition of Goethe’s works (Landau 1935: 50). In 1891 Steiner received his doctorate in philosophy from Rostock University and the next phase of his intellectual and spiritual quest began. This was concerned to relate the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) to that of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1742-1832). From 1897 to 1900 Steiner resided in Berlin, where he edited the

Magazin für Literatur

, “visited Nietzsche, [and] wrote introductions to the works of Schopenhauer” (Schwarz 1983: 11). During this period

he became deeply interested in Theosophy and was a key player in the establishment of the Nietzsche Archive. In 1902 Steiner became head of the Theosophical Society in Germany. Yet, his orientation shifted in the first decade of the twentieth century as he embraced a combination of natural science and esoteric Christianity, partly through the influence of Marie von Sivers, an actress and artist of Russian extraction (Davy 1975a: 20). Von Sivers became his second wife in 1914 after the death of Anna Eunicke, whom he had married in 1899 and separated from a few years later. In 1901 von Sivers had asked Steiner “[w]ould it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?”

 

The Theosophical Society had always looked to Hinduism and Buddhism, to the East, for spiritual inspiration; Madame Blavatsky’s “Masters” were Tibetan lamas, and Annie Besant, her successor, and her colleague Charles Webster Leadbeater promoted Jiddu Krishnamurti as the next World Teacher (

Maitreya in Buddhism, also known as the “Cosmic Christ”). It was Theosophy’s endorsement of Krishnamurti that caused Steiner to leave the movement, and to form the Anthroposophical Society late in 1912. The first meeting was convened on 13 February 1913. Steiner was convinced of the crucial and unrepeatable nature of the “Christ impulse,” which was introduced into the human soul through the “Mystery of Golgotha” (Steiner 1976: 63). Christ, for Steiner, was the paradigmatic Being, and a human being at that. Anthroposophy means “the wisdom of man,” and is therefore explicitly contrasted with Theosophy, “the wisdom of God.” Steiner thought that modern

spiritual knowledge should depend, not upon external revelations, but rather upon the development of human mental powers … He claimed to teach nothing he had not himself known through … methods of “spiritual scientific” research … Until his death in 1925, he worked … to develop examples of practical applications of anthroposophy in diverse fields, including education, agriculture, economics, medicine – and architecture (Adams 1992: 185).

Steiner taught that modern humans, influenced by empirical science and logical reasoning, had lost the consciousness possessed by ancient humans, in which the individual was understood to be a microcosm of the universe, and life had meaning accordingly. He advocated the gaining of “Initiation knowledge” of “Mysteries,” which involved developing the human will; and cultivating active thinking, which becomes “an organ of touch for the soul, so that we may feel ourselves thinking in the same way that we walk, grasp or touch; so that we know that we are living in a real being” (Steiner 1991; 13-14). Steiner continued to employ Theosophical concepts, including: the notions that human beings have an etheric body beyond the physical, and an astral body beyond the etheric; the existence of higher beings,

karma

and reincarnation, and the essential unity of religion and science. He placed great emphasis on the cultivation of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, which are creative capacities in ordinary human life. Yet Steiner argued that, like the capacity for love, quotidian experiences of imagination, inspiration, and intuition were only “dim promptings,” a “shadow- picture[s]” of highest cognition, the attainment of which humans must strive toward (Steiner 1991: 25). Like his near contemporary G. I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949), Steiner spoke of the radical discontinuity between subjective human states, and “objective”

love, art, and so on. Both men, following Madame Blavatsky’s lead, presented their esoteric teachings as occult science, a comprehensive system that restored to modern humans their ancient spiritual birthright, and which had the capacity to create a true self, delivering moderns from the splintered identity they customarily experienced. Both systems were cosmological in orientation, presented the physical world as alive, and engaged in processes of transformation. Steiner argued that sleep and dreams were access points to the supersensible world, where spiritual beings could be encountered, and that these beings could waken dead matter, transforming it into living nature:

[a]ll … in those hills, is expecting that one day it will be able to dream, and so with dream- consciousness to take hold of lifeless matter, and from these rocks and hills to conjure forth once more as embryos, seeds, living plants. It is indeed these beings who bring before our souls a wonderful magic of nature, a creating from out of the spirit (Steiner 1991: 77).

Anthroposophy understands all within the physical world to be evolving into higher forms, and in humans the development of spiritual senses enables the “digestion” of experiences by the soul. With this digestion, certain cosmological realisations are possible; for example, recognition of the interrelatedness of the human being with the whole of creation will lead to the person “becom[ing] a living Zodiac” or absorbing the wisdom of the dead (Steiner 1975: 37). It is crucial that humans learn that “the world [is] a book which the Hierarchies have written for us, in order that we may read in it, then only do we become Man in the full sense of the word” (Steiner 1975: 77). For Steiner, becoming “Man” fully involved the realisation that the human was a microcosm of the macrocosmic cosmos. The logical consequence of this is that the human being is the model for everything; the system that offers the key to all other systems. In 1911, Steiner wrote a poem for Marie von Sivers, which began, “Shaping the world in the self/ Seeing the self in the world/ Is the breath of the soul” (Steiner and Steiner-Von Sivers 1988: 121). The centrality of Christ in Anthroposophy follows from this teaching, and Steiner’s teaching contained many examples of this “fractal” structure in which each component is broken down into components that are smaller models of the whole. The layering of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and Ego is similar, though the underlying principle is not one of size but spiritual development (King 1987 [1986]: 360). Anthroposophists often use homeopathy, a form of holistic treatment developed by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), which operates on the same principles of intensification through breaking down to minute quantities, reflecting the occult teaching of the

Emerald Tablet

of Thoth (or Hermes), “as above, so below” (Shumaker 1972: 165). Hahnemann believed that like substance should be employed to cure like ailment, and Francis King states that, “[h]ighly dynamized or potentized medicaments are possessed of qualities pertaining to non-material modes of being” (King 1987 [1986]: 64). The cosmological dimension is not neglected either; cosmic data, such as planetary events, are also factored into the process of making remedies within Anthroposophy. Steiner’s debt to his master, Goethe, is everywhere apparent; Goethe had spoken of coming to understanding through “the inner sense” and had asserted that, “every living thing is not an isolated being, but a majority” (quoted in Pehnt 1991: 9). He was notably influenced by Goethe’s notion of metamorphosis; if the archetype of a plant was located, “out of that conceptual archetypal plant one could think out countless numbers of special forms” (Steiner 1938: 3). Chapters in this

volume by Liselotte Frisk and Alex Norman treat other aspects of Steiner’s Anthroposophical teachings.

Steiner’s Teachings on Art

Due to his concentration on the human development of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, Steiner accorded a prime place to artistic endeavours within his system of esoteric development. He understood that the imaginative capacity was engaged when human consciousness was clear of physical “pictorial impressions” and filled with “etherically pictorial impressions.” When these were cleared from consciousness and the person was aware of the void, “into that state of voidness pour astral impressions” (King 1987 [1986]: 37). This signalled that the inspirational capacity was engaged. When the intuitive capacity was engaged, Steiner claimed that the spiritual has been “brought to full consciousness and has been born to a new life in which he or she is a spirit being dwelling amongst other spirit beings” (King 1987 [1986]: 38). Steiner himself worked in a wide range of creative arts with notable success; he was a poet, sculptor, painter, and architect, “the creator of a new art of movement,” Eurythmy, and a dramatist (Klingborg 1975: 48). Steiner himself allied the arts very closely with true religion, saying “Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is from the beginning so placed, that it flows as one stream from a source out of which both art and religion in their origins can also flow” (Steiner 1938: 7). Steiner’s ideas on the spiritual function of art reflected a wider concern in European society just prior to the outbreak of World War I; for example, the Theosophically-inclined Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), a member of the art movement

Der Blaue Reiter

(“the blue rider”) published the hugely influential

On the Spiritual in Art

(1912), which called for a return to the spiritual as the fundamental inspiration for art and the principal aim of artistic production (Fant, Klingborg and Wilkes et al 1975: 9-10). Steiner commenced writing a series of Mystery Plays in 1909 with Marie von Sivers, who as mentioned above, was an actress. The four resulting plays were pictorial scenes intended to convey spiritual truths, and were performed in theatres. The four titles were “The Portal of Initiation: A Rosicrucian Mystery” (1910), “The Soul’d Probation: A Life Tableau in Dramatic Scenes” (1911), “The Guardian of the Threshold: A Series of Soul Events in Dramatic Pictures” (1912), and “The Soul’s Awakening: A Drama of the Soul and Spirit” (1913) (Steiner 2007). Drama is an embodied art, and in Steiner’s lecture series

The Arts and Their Mission

(1923) he placed great emphasis on the fact that ancient peoples in Greece, Rome, India, and other countries were at harmony with their bodies and did not suffer from the mind- body dualism that plagues modern people. As important as the unity of the mind and body, Steiner asserted, was the “unity of spiritual life and art,” which Goethe deeply apprehended but which is no longer experienced (Steiner 1964: 15). Unsurprisingly, Steiner was critical of mimetic art, claiming that it could only reproduce things in nature, whereas true art could express “kinship with the spiritual world” (Steiner 1964: 16), and was experiential; it was not sufficient to see the colour red but it was necessary to experience “red or blue in the spiritual world” (Steiner 1991: 21). In art, as in spiritual exercises and authentic life experiences, humans were enabled to be truly themselves. Therefore Steiner paid close attention to the body, teaching on food and diet, clothing and costume, and art forms that partook of bodily experience.

The movement art of Eurythmy shared certain qualities with the Mystery Plays, in that both art forms were externalisations of “innermost laws” that were perceived through bodily actions. The first Eurythmy classes were taught in 1912, and by 1919 two courses of training had been developed and Steiner’s eurythmists had toured Europe giving public demonstrations. Marie von Sivers and Lory Smits, an early teacher of the art, contributed significantly to its development. The esoteric meaning of Eurythmy was emphasised by Steiner:

[w]e are setting the human organism in motion; we are making its limbs move. The limbs, more than any other part of the human body, are what pass over into the life of the next incarnation. They point to the future, to what comes after death. But how do we shape the limb movements we bring forth in eurythmy. In the sense realm and in the supersensory realm we study how the larynx and all the speech organs have been brought over from the previous life and shaped by the intellectual potentials of the head and the feeling potentials of the chest. We directly link what precedes birth with what follows death. In a certain sense, we take from earthly life only the physical medium, the actual human being who is the tool or instrument of eurythmy. But we allow this human being to make manifest what we study inwardly … Eurythmy shapes and moves the human organism in a way that furnishes direct external proof of our participation in the supersensory world. In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensory world (Steiner 2006: 17).

Eurythmy is thus explicitly cosmological and anthropological, linking the human person’s body as it manifests in this lifetime with their previous and future lives and with the universe of which the person is a microcosm. In Anthroposophical circles Eurythmy has been referred to as the speech of the soul. Steiner wrote extensively on literature, music, and painting, but for the purpose of this chapter his remarks architecture are most relevant. He stated, “[o]h soul, if you wish to leave the physical body in order to regain a relationship with the cosmos, what aspect will you take on? – this was the question. The forms of architecture were, so to speak, answers” (Steiner 1964: 23-24). From the perspective of the production of culture, “the symbolic elements of culture are shaped by the systems within which they are created, distribute, evaluated, taught, and preserved” (Peterson and Anand 2004: 311). In the case of Steiner’s buildings in Dornach, the ‘system’ is Anthroposophy. For Steiner, buildings (like all art forms) should not slavishly imitate forms witnessed in nature, but should rather exhibit organic forms like living nature, and stand in the same mirror relation to nature as the human body does to the macrocosmic universe. For Steiner, in a very real sense, buildings were alive. His application of Goethe’s notion of metamorphosis to architecture meant that, to quote Rex Raab, “the transformation of mass and shape according with a recognisable motive or theme appropriate to the task, creates ‘the appearance of consciousness’” (Raab 1975: 70). For Steiner, the building and its natural setting created “landscape,” which was creative and active, and spiritual power (for example, from the cardinal directions or the heavenly bodies) could be tapped through the strategic design of buildings (Bockemühl 1981: 42). This made environments like Dornach able to facilitate the spiritual development of those people who lived there and interacted with the architecture. In short, human creativity was intimately connected to divine creativity.

Goetheanum I at Dornach .…

During World War I, Steiner and his followers began constructing Goetheanum I on a hill in Dornach. Wolfgang Pehnt observes that, at that time, the Birs valley was open country, “half cultivated nature and half a little world of buildings” (Pehnt 1991: 7). Steiner’s architectural ambition for the Anthroposophical headquarters was initially to erect a twin-domed meeting hall, provisionally called the Johannesbau, in Munich. This was conceived as a Theosophical structure, as he had decorated the interior of the Tonhalle in Munich for the 1907 European Theosophical Congress, and there was enthusiasm for a building in which Steiner’s Mystery Plays, discussed above, could be performed in (Schwarz 1983: 14-26). Architect Carl Schmid-Curtius was engaged to realise Steiner’s design concept. But in May 1913, after Steiner broke with the Theosophical Society, his friend Dr Emil Grosheintz donated land in Dornach to be the site of the building, now to be called the ‘Goetheanum’. There was only one structure on the hill at the time, in which Steiner resided. The foundation stone, which was aligned east-west, was laid with great ceremony (in which Steiner invoked spirit guides and protectors, and noted the stone’s formation “in accordance with the cosmic picture of the human soul”) on 30 September 1913 (Schwarz 1983: 36). Nearly two hundred of Steiner’s pupils, from seventeen different countries, worked on Goetheanum I in 1913 and 1914. The building was 272 feet long, 243 feet wide, and 111 feet high, with a sixty-five thousand cubic metre interior space. It was oriented east-west, with the stage beneath the smaller of the two domes and the seating area beneath the larger. Rex Raab notes the “domes were clad in Norwegian slate, which shone silvery in the Jura landscape” (Raab 1975: 63). A major sculpture,

The Representative of Humanity

, nine metres high and sculpted of wood, by Steiner and his collaborator Edith Maryon, depicted the dark and light aspects of being (which he named for Ahriman, the Zoroastrian “Evil Spirit” and Lucifer, the Biblical angel and “Light Bearer”), stood in the Goetheanum. These figures represented the closed self and the open self, and were united by the central figure of Christ, “The Representative of the Human” (Klingborg 1975: 50). The acoustic qualities of the structure were important in that it was intended for performances. Goetheanum I was built of wood; Rom Landau says that, “Steiner used for its construction the same seven different kinds of wood which are used for the construction of a violin, and the ceiling of the main hall was as buoyant as the walls of a violin” (Landau 1935: 71). In a 1921 lecture, Rudolf Steiner repudiated the idea that Goetheanum I should be read symbolically, rather asserting that it was built according to laws that made possible the “revelation of the supersensible world in the sensible” (Steiner 1938: 9). He further claimed that the organic forms of the structure were an attempt to explore creation itself, in the manner of Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis. The macrocosmic-microcosmic principle described above was present in the first Goetheanum; at one point Steiner, describing the stair-hall, says;

I arrived, through feeling, at the development of these three semi-circular canals standing in the three directions of space at right-angles. If you go up this staircase, you have this calming sensation. It is not copied – that it certainly is not – but afterwards I remembered that the three semi-circular canals of the ear also stand in these three directions of space. When they are injured, man falls down in a faint: they are therefore closely connected to the laws of balance. It did not arise out of a naturalistic desire to copy, but from experiencing the same element by which the aural canals are arranged (Steiner 1938: 12).

This quotation makes it clear that, for Steiner, mimetic art (that which seeks to copy nature and produce “life-like” artistic products) is an inferior, or perhaps entirely

illegitimate form of art. Spiritual art, which brings people into contact with the supersensible through the sensible, is, rather, the production of artworks that embody certain laws that resonate with the embodied viewer. He does allow that the first Goetheanum featured some occult symbolism (for example there were five pointed forms that could be interpreted as pentagrams, though they could also be seen as leaves), but in general the building’s effect was intended to be emotional rather than intellectual. The building’s interior featured just one inscribed word, “Ich.” Of this, Steiner said it referred to “Faust striving towards the fully-conscious ‘I’ – towards the ‘ICH’ embodying itself in the word. The older languages had ‘I’ incorporated in the verb; in this epoch it is right that a separate word for it should appear” (Steiner 1938: 16). The interior of the Goetheanum was flooded with symbolic colours, facilitated by huge red and yellow glass windows and “luminous wall paintings” that exemplified the colour theory of Goethe (Adams 1992: 200). By the time the Goetheanum I was finished, Schmid-Curtius was no longer involved, and the team of Ernst Aisenpreis (who also worked on the Goetheanum II) and Hermann Ratzenberger, assisted by Albert von Baravalle, oversaw the final stages of construction (Schwarz 1983: 51). Goetheanum I was sited among other early buildings at Dornach, including Haus Duldeck (now the archives), the Boiler House (with its dramatic “flame” chimney), and the Glashaus, all constructed between 1913 and 1916. The latter two also featured twin domes, and all exhibited an absence of straight lines and a preponderance of curves and organic forms (Adams 1992: 187-188). On 31 December 1922, New Year’s Eve, a Eurythmy performance was held in Goetheanum I at 5 PM, and at 8 PM Steiner delivered a lecture to the audience. At the close of the evening most people left; shortly after, the building was discovered to be on fire (Anon 1923). It was not possible to save it, and Goetheanum I was destroyed after eight brief years. Anna Samweber, in her memoir of life with Steiner and his wife, describes the rescue of the sculpture, “The Representative of Humanity,” from the flames. She also notes the fear that the nearby Schreinerei, a building “with the halls and Rudolf Steiner’s studio,” might also catch alight (Samweber 1991: 30). Although it was never proven, many Anthroposophists believed that the fire was arson; that “non-Anthroposophists could not bear the beauty that was created for such a unique spiritual group” (Steinberg 1976: 57). Steiner was deeply distressed by the destruction of Goetheanum I, and his health began to decline. He decided that the second Goetheanum would be built entirely in concrete to render it more durable.

Haus Duldeck. There was considerable opposition to the erection of Goetheanum II by the local council, probably motivated by hostility to Steiner and Anthroposophy, despite the movement’s considerable contribution to the local economy (Steinberg 1976: 61-62). Conformity to the building permit resulted in a reduction of height of the west front and a widening of the horizontal wings. The vital importance of the second Goetheanum is evident in the fact that nowadays Anthroposophists call it simply “the Building” (Sharp 1963: 377). Steiner’s considerable talent as an amateur architect is richly evident in the second Goetheanum. The exterior sculptural mass has a plain east end, almost a flat wall, and develops towards the west, with the west front as the “face” of the building opening onto the landscape. It is radically different from the earlier building; some Anthroposophists regard it as a poor substitute. This is partly because Goetheanum I had been funded through donations, whereas Goetheanum II was largely funded through an insurance payout. Additionally, the concrete structure, although larger, spelled “the relinquishment of detailed work by hand, the farewell to a vast sun of invested creativity” (Pehnt 1991: 21). Steiner and his wife acknowledged the tragic loss of Goetheanum I but stressed the need for a second School of Spiritual Science to be erected swiftly, and Steiner’s design for the concrete building utilised the same notion of metamorphosis and transformation from Goethe. Sharp describes it as “a piece of living sculpture” (Sharp 1963: 378) and Hans Hasler, in his discussion of the major conservation operation undertaken between 1993-1996, emphasises the plasticity and dynamism of concrete as a building material (Hasler 1999:9-11). Hagen Biesantz notes that the ground plan retains the cruciform shape of Goetheanum I, but the double space created by the two cupolas has given way to a threefold space, which relates to Steiner’s theory of the “threefold division of the social and human physical organisms” (Biesantz 1979: 59). Only the windows provide some indication of the function of the rooms concealed within the building; for example “the three high side windows tell us that the great hall is behind them” (Pehnt 1991: 7). Writers on the Goetheanum constantly stress its organic forms, and Wolfgang Pehnt argues that the group of Anthroposophical structures in Dornach exemplify Steiner’s theory, taken from Goethe, of “architecture and architectural ensembles as societies of biological species … a biotope” (Pehnt 1991: 9). Although Steiner did not design the interior of Goetheanum II in the same detail that he did for Goetheanum I, Anthroposophical teachings inform the general scheme. The Great Hall has four long windows, which are coloured “as in the first Goetheanum … green, blue, violet and pink” (Biesantz 1979: 69). The Great Hall was actually completed by Johannes Schöpfer, a Stuttgart architect, chosen by competition in 1957. Georg Hartmann’s study of the windows notes that Goetheanum I had nine coloured glass windows, two sets of the above-mentioned four colours, and the central red window over the west entrance. He claims that, “the motives of the coloured glass windows deal with the experiences of the human being, searching for spiritual knowledge” (Hartmann 1972: 17). In Goetheanum II, the huge red window in the west wall features the human face, the four evangelists’ symbols from the New Testament (the lion, bull, eagle, and the man), and occult symbols such as the lotus, the swastika, and planetary images, such as that of Saturn. Olav Hammer notes that when writing about the significance of colour, “Steiner informs us that purple is the color of mysticism, blue calms the soul, red gives a feeling of festivity, while green is associated with the earthly domain” (Hammer 2009: 214). Anthroposophical poet.

 

As Steiner had no formal training as an architect, Anthroposophists have been inclined to treat his achievements in the field as evidence of his extraordinary creativity and spiritual development. Within Anthroposophy it is not acceptable to speak of Steiner being influenced by other architecture of the period, although Dennis Sharp has made an excellent case for the inclusion of Steiner within the category of Expressionist architecture, a sub-field of the broader Expressionist movement in art

(Sharp 1963). Sharp argues that Steiner was influenced by the Art Nouveau style, the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde (1853-1957), and the exuberant Catalan Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), whose own creations were inspired by his passionate though rather unorthodox Roman Catholicism. Sharp contextualises Goetheanum II with the works of Hermann Obrist (1863-1927) and Hermann Finsterlin (1887-1973) (Sharp 1963). The title of this chapter, “And the Building Becomes Man,” is a motto written over the south window of the model of Goetheanum II on display in Brodbeck House, a house that predated the second Goetheanum and which now has the Eurythmeum built as an addition to it (Turgeniev 2003: 61). It is a romantic notion, yet one that encapsulates the core of Steiner’s Anthroposophical teaching that the human being is the basic unit of the cosmos, the fractal model on which larger and smaller structures are based. Steiner’s architecture, though striking and beautiful and appreciated by architectural experts, casual tourists, and Anthroposophists alike, cannot really be understood without reference to the Anthroposophical worldview and Steiner’s “spiritual science.” Pehnt notes wryly that, “Steiner’s inspiration seems always to be productive in architects who apply his methods without feeling committed to the results achieved at the time” (Pehnt 1991: 39). Brain has argued that “the production of cultural objects can be more closely tied to the to the conditions of possibility for social action in general – not only at the level of meaning, but at the level of the capacity to conceive and enact strategic action” (Brain 1994: 218). Goetheanum II in Dornach is a structure of crucial significance for Anthroposophists the world over, and visiting it (whether to study Eurythmy or some other aspect of Steiner’s spiritual science, or simply to feel close to Steiner and the transformational philosophy of Anthroposophy) is a deeply meaningful experience. Brain continues that cultural objects such as Goetheanum II (and the practices that take place within it, including the visual arts and Euythmy) illuminate “the making of the social world that goes on in the practices through which culture producers inscribe intentions in artefacts, and social actors, generally, make sense

with

things” (Brain 1994: 218). Steiner, of all esoteric and new religious teachers of the early twentieth century, was acutely aware of the peculiar value of cultural production, an activity with which he engaged with tireless energy, and considerable (amateur and professional) skill and achievement. It is true that the majority of architects inspired by Steiner are not Anthroposophists, and have only a limited understanding of the underlying principles of Goetheanum II, being enamoured of its aesthetic qualities alone. This, however, still confirms Goetheanum II as a consummate cultural product of Anthroposophy, and one that continues to amaze and delight all those who are fortunate enough to visit Dornach.

 

www.academia.edu/738542/_And_the_Building_Becomes_Man_Mea...

 

The whole of the Gospel of St. John culminates in that event in human history which we call the “Mystery of Golgotha.” To comprehend this Mystery of Golgotha esoterically predicates also the ability to decipher the deep significance of this Gospel. If we turn our attention to what exists at the very central point of this Mystery and wish to express it in occult terms, we must contemplate the moment of the Crucifixion when the blood flowed from the wounds of the Saviour, and at the same time we must remember something which has often been said in the course of these lectures, that for one who knows the spiritual worlds, all material, substantial, physical objectivity is only the outer expression, the external manifestation of something spiritual. Now let us permit the physical event to arise before our souls: Christ-Jesus upon the Cross, the blood flowing from His wounds. What does this picture, the content of which is a physical event, express for those who are able to understand the Gospel of St. John?

 

This physical event — the occurrence on Golgotha — is the expression, the manifestation of a spiritual event which stands at the central point of all earthly happenings. Anyone interpreting these words according to the present materialistic world concept will not be able to make much out of them, for he will not be able to imagine that at that time something occurred in this unique Event of Golgotha which differs from some other like event, or from one perhaps physically similar. There is a very great difference between all the earthly occurrences which preceded this Event of Golgotha and those that succeed it.

 

If we wish to picture this in the soul in all its detail, we must say that not only has the individual human being, or for that matter any other individual creature, a physical, ether and astral body as we have described it from many aspects in the foregoing lectures, but that cosmic bodies likewise do not consist only of physical substance as they appear to the astronomer and to other physical researchers. A cosmic body has also an ether and an astral body. Our earth has its ether and astral vehicles. If our earth did not possess its own ether body, it would not be able to harbour the plants; if it did not possess its own individual astral body, it would not be able to shelter the animals. If we wish to visualize the earth's ether body, we must imagine its central point exactly at the center of the earth where the physical earth body also has its central point. This entire physical earth body is embedded in its own ether body and these two are again embedded in an astral body. If someone had observed clairvoyantly the astral body of the earth during the course of the earth's evolution, during the course of long epochs of time, he would have seen that, as a matter of fact, this astral body and ether body of the earth have not always remained the same, that they have changed. In order to represent the matter quite pictorially, let us in spirit transplant ourselves outside beyond the earth to some other star, and let us imagine a person with clairvoyant vision looking down upon the earth from this star. He would not only see the earth suspended there as a physical planet, but he would see an aura about it, he would see the earth surrounded by an aura of light, for he would be perceiving the earth's ether and astral bodies. If this clairvoyant person were to remain a long time on this distant star, long enough to have observed the pre-Christian periods of the earth pass by and the Event of Golgotha approaching, the following spectacle would have presented itself to him. Before the Event of Golgotha the aura of the earth, the astral and ether bodies offered a certain aspect of colour and form, but following a particular, definite moment of time, he would have seen the colour of the entire aura changing. What was this particular moment of time? It was the very moment when the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ-Jesus upon Golgotha. All spiritual earthly relationships, as such, changed from this moment.

 

It has been previously stated that what is called the Logos is the sum total of the six Elohim who, united with the sun, present the earth with their spiritual gifts, while externally the physical sunlight is falling upon the earth. Therefore the light of the sun appears to us like the outer physical body of the spirit and soul of the Elohim or of the Logos. At the moment of the Event of Golgotha, that force, that impulse which formerly could only stream down upon the earth as light began to unite with the earth itself. And because the Logos began to unite with the earth, the earth's aura became changed.

 

We shall now consider the Event of Golgotha from still another point of view. We have already reviewed the evolution of the human being and of the earth from various standpoints. We know that our Earth, before it became the Earth, passed through the three embodiments of Saturn, Sun and Moon. Therefore the embodiment just preceding that of our Earth was that of the ancient Moon. When a planet has attained the goal of its evolution, something happens to it similar to what happens to a human being who, in a certain incarnation, has attained his life's goal. The planet passes over into a different invisible existence, a state called a “Pralaya” and then after a time it embodies itself anew. Thus between the previous embodiment of our Earth, the Moon Evolution, and the Earth's present embodiment, there existed an intermediate state. Out of a sort of spiritual, self-animated, externally invisible existence, the Earth gleamed forth in its earliest state and out of this state developed those states which we described yesterday. At that time, in that early age when our Earth gleamed forth, it was still united with all that now belongs to our solar system. It was then so large, that it reached to the furthest planets of this solar system. All was unity, for only later individual planets became segregated. The present earth up to a certain point of time was united with our present sun and moon. Thus we see there was a time when sun, moon and earth were a single body. It was as though you were to take the present moon and sun and stir them together with the earth and thus make one large cosmic body. This was our Earth once upon a time when your astral body and your ego were floating about in a vapour-like form. Even earlier than this the sun, moon and earth were joined together. At that time the forces which are now in the sun — the spiritual and physical forces — were bound up with the earth. Then came a time when the sun separated from the earth; but not only did the physical sun with its physical light which can be seen with physical eyes depart, but with it all its spiritual and soul beings at whose head stood the Elohim, the real Spirits of Light, the denizens of the sun. What was left, was a mixture of the present moon and earth. Then for a time the earth, though separated from the sun, was still united with the moon. It was not until the Lemurian period that the moon separated from the earth, when, as a result, there arose that relationship between these three bodies, sun, moon and earth, that exists today. This relationship had to occur. The Elohim had to act from without. It was necessary for one of them to become Lord of the moon and from there reflect the powerful force of the other Elohim. We live at present upon our earth as though dwelling upon an island in cosmic space which has separated from the sun and moon. But the time will come when our earth will once more unite with the sun and again form one body with it. Then human beings will be so spiritualized that they will again be able to bear the stronger forces of the sun, able to receive them and unite them with themselves. They, together with the Elohim, will then occupy the same field of action.

 

You will ask, what is the force that will bring this about? Had the Event of Golgotha not occurred, the earth and the sun would never be able to reunite. For through the Event of Golgotha, which bound the force of the Elohim in the sun to the earth — in other words the force of the Logos — the impulse was given which will again eventually impel one Logos-force toward the other, and finally once more unite them — sun and earth — in one body. Since the Event of Golgotha, the earth, spiritually observed, is possessed of the force to draw the sun again into a unity with it. Therefore it can be said that through this great Event, the force of the Logos, which formerly radiated down upon the earth from without, was now taken up into its spiritual being. The question may be asked, what existed previously within the body of the earth? It was that force which streamed down upon it from the sun. But since that time, what exists there within the earth? The Logos itself which through Golgotha has become the spirit of the earth.

 

As truly as your soul and spirit dwell within your physical body, do also the soul and spirit of the earth dwell within the body of the earth — that earthly body which consists of stones, plants and animals and upon which you tread. This soul and spirit, this earth spirit is the Christ. Christ is the spirit of the earth. When the Christ spoke to His most trusted disciples on an occasion which can be numbered among the most intimate of such occasions, what did He say to them? With what mystery had He occasion to entrust them? He was able to say to them: “It is as though you can gaze into your own soul from your physical body. Your soul is within. It is the same when you observe the whole earth-sphere. That spirit which for a time now stands here before you in the flesh is also the spirit of the earth and will always continue as such.” He had occasion to point to the earth as to His real body and ask: “When you behold the cornfield and then eat the bread that nourishes you, what in reality is this bread which you are eating? You are eating My body. And when you drink of the plant sap, it is like the blood in your own body; it is the blood of the earth — My Blood!” — These were the very words that Christ- Jesus spoke to His most intimate disciples and we must take them very literally. Then when He called them together and expounded to them symbolically what we shall call the Christian Initiation, He uttered those extraordinary words which we find in the 18th verse of the 13th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John, where He announced that one among them would betray Him:

 

“He who eats My bread treads me under foot.”

 

These words must be taken literally. Men eat the bread of the earth and tread upon the earth with their feet. If the earth is the body of the Earth-Spirit, that is, of the Christ, then men tread with their feet the earth's body, the body whose bread they eat. An immense deepening of the idea of the Last Supper as presented in the Gospel of St. John is granted us, when we learn about the Christ, the Earth-Spirit, and about the bread which is taken from the body of the earth. Christ points to the earth and says: “This is My body!” Just as the muscular human flesh belongs to the human soul, so does bread belong to the body of the earth, that is to the body of the Christ. And the sap that flows through the plants, which pulsates through the vine stalk, is like the blood pulsating through the human body. Pointing to this, the Christ says: “This is my blood!” That this truthful explanation of the Last Supper can cause some of the sanctity to be lost which has always been associated with it can only be imagined by someone possessing no understanding of it or who has neither desire nor capacity for such an understanding. But anyone who wishes to understand will acknowledge that this does not cause it to lose in holiness, but that through it the whole of the earth-planet becomes sanctified. What powerful feelings can be engendered in our souls, if we can behold in the Last Supper the greatest mystery of the earth, the connection between the Event of Golgotha and the entire evolution of the earth; if we can learn to feel that in the Last Supper the flowing of the blood from the wounds of the Saviour had not only a human, but a cosmic significance, that is, it gave to the earth the force to carry forward its evolution.

 

Anyone who understands the profound meaning of the Gospel of St. John will feel not only united through his physical body with the physical body of the earth, but as a psycho-spiritual being will feel united with the psycho-spiritual being of the earth which is the Christ Himself, and then he will feel how the Christ, as the Spirit of the Earth, flows through his body. When we have this experience, we are able to ask: what illuminated the writer of the Gospel of St. John at that moment when he was able to behold the profound mysteries which have to do with Christ-Jesus? He beheld the forces, the impulses which are present in Christ-Jesus, and he perceived how these impulses must be active in mankind, if only mankind will receive them.

 

In order to understand this quite clearly, we must once more bring before our souls the way in which human evolution actually takes place. The human being consists of physical, ether and astral bodies and an ego. How does this evolution occur? By the ego gradually working through the other three members, purifying and strengthening them. The ego is called upon gradually to purify the astral body, to cleanse it and to raise it to a higher level. When the entire astral body has been purified and strengthened by the special forces of the ego, it becomes Manas or Spirit-Self. When the ether or life-body has been thoroughly worked over and strengthened by the force of the ego, it becomes Budhi, or Life-Spirit. When the physical body has been fully overcome and conquered by the ego, it becomes Atman or Spirit-Man. Then will the human being have reached the goal which above all lies in store for him. That, however, will be attained only in the far distant future. Moreover, we wish it to be quite clear that the ego acts in full consciousness in what has just been described; namely, that the human being consisting of the four members — physical, ether and astral bodies and ego — works by means of the ego upon the other three members, transforming them into Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man. For the most part this is not yet the case with present humanity which, as a matter of fact, is just beginning, fully conscious, to work a little of Manas into its astral body. The human being is doing this now. Through the help of higher beings he has already, although unconsciously, worked upon his three lower members during this Earth evolution. In ancient times he unconsciously worked over the astral body, and this then became permeated by the Sentient Soul. The ego unconsciously worked into the ether body and this unconsciously re-formed ether body is what you will find described in regular sequence in my book Theosophy as the Intellectual Soul, and that part of the physical body, unconsciously worked upon by the ego, you will find described there as the Consciousness Soul. The Consciousness Soul only came into being toward the end of the Atlantean period when the ether body — previously outside the physical body in the head region — gradually drew wholly within it. Through this the human being learned to utter the word “I.” Thus variously-membered, he gradually passed over into the post-Atlantean period. It is the task of our age to work Manas or Spirit-Self by degrees into what had previously been received unconsciously. The human being must, as it were, develop Manas within himself by means of all the forces he has acquired by virtue of possessing a physical, an ether and an astral body, a sentient, an intellectual and a consciousness soul; by means of all the forces which these various members can give him, he must develop Manas and also, although in a very small degree, the germ of a Life-Spirit or Budhi. Therefore our post-Atlantean age has the important task of helping the human being to develop consciously these higher members of his being (Manas or Spirit-Self, Budhi or Life-Spirit and Atman or Spirit-Man) in the distant future when he will at last have reached his goal. He must from now on, by degrees, develop within himself the force to evolve his higher members out of his lower.

 

Let us now ask: what has been the condition of the human being that has kept him from already developing these higher members, and what will be the difference in the future? How will the humanity of the future differ from that of the present?

 

When at last the whole of the higher man has been developed, the entire astral body will be so completely purified that it will simultaneously become Manas or Spirit-Self; the ether body so thoroughly purged that it will simultaneously become Life-Spirit or Budhi, and the physical body will be so greatly metamorphosed that it will, at the same time, be as actually a Spirit-Man, Atman, as it is now a physical body. The greatest force will be needed to conquer this lowest body, hence the conquest and transformation of the physical means the greatest victory for the human being. When mankind has fully perfected the physical body, this physical man will then become Spirit-Man or Atman. All this is at present only in germ within the human being, but a time will come when it will live in him in its fulness. And by lifting his gaze to the Christ Personality, to the Christ Impulse, by energizing and strengthening himself through this Christ Impulse, he draws into himself the force that can accomplish this transformation.

 

Since humanity of the present has not yet perfected this metamorphosis, what is the result? Spiritual Science makes this very clear. Because this katharsis of the astral body has not yet been accomplished, that is, the astral body has not yet transformed itself into Spirit-Self, selfishness or egotism is possible. Because the ether body has not yet been strengthened by the ego, lying and error are possible; and because the physical body has not yet been fortified by the ego, sickness and death are possible. In a once fully developed Spirit-Self, there will be no more selfishness; no sickness and death, but just health and salvation in the fully developed Spirit-Man, that is, in the fully evolved physical body. What does it mean for the human being to take the Christ into himself? It means that he has learned to understand the forces that are in the Christ, which if taken into himself make it possible for him to become master even of his physical body.

 

Imagine for example that someone could receive the Christ Impulse fully into himself, that it could completely pass over upon him. The Christ Himself might stand directly in the presence of this person and the Christ Impulse be transmitted to him. What does that signify? If the person were blind, he would yet be able to see by means of the direct influence of this Christ Impulse, for the final goal of evolution is the conquest of the forces of sickness and death. When the writer of the Gospel of St. John speaks of the healing of the man born blind, he is then speaking out of the depths of the Mysteries, he is demonstrating, by means of an example, that the force of the Christ is a healing force when it appears in full power. It may be asked: Where is this force? It is in the body of the Christ, in the earth! But this earth must, in truth, be fully permeated by the being of the Christ Spirit or of the Logos. Let us see if the writer of the Gospel recounts the story with this meaning. How does he relate it?

 

Standing there is the blind man. The Christ takes some earth, insalivates it and lays it upon the blind man's eyes. He lays His body, the earth, permeated with His spirit upon the blind man. In this description, the writer of the Gospel indicates a mystery which he very well understands. Now laying aside all prejudice, let us talk a little more in detail of this sign — one of the greatest performed by the Christ — in order that we may learn to know more exactly the nature of such a thing and not be disturbed because our very clever contemporaries will consider what has just been said to be sheer madness or folly! There are, however, in the world great and mighty mysteries which mankind is not yet entitled to know. Human beings of the present day, even though they may be sufficiently developed, are not yet strong enough to go through the great Mysteries. They can know of them, they can understand them when they are able to experience them spiritually; but our present humanity, so deeply immersed in matter, is not yet capable of converting them into their physical expression.

 

All life is, in fact, made up of antitheses and extremes. Life and death are just such extremes. For the thought and feelings of the occultist, there is something very extraordinary in seeing, for example, a corpse and a living human being side by side. When we have a living, waking human being before us, we know that a soul and spirit dwell within him. But as far as consciousness is concerned, this soul and spirit are, as it were, cut off from any connection with the spiritual world; they cannot look into it. If we have a corpse before us, we have the feeling that the spirit and soul which once belonged to it are passing over into the spiritual worlds where consciousness, or the light of those worlds is flashing up within them. Thus the corpse becomes a symbol of what is taking place in the spiritual world. But in the physical world also, there are reflections of what is happening in the spiritual world, but they are of an extraordinary character. When a human being descends again into physical birth, his bodily part must be reconstructed; material substance must, so to say, rush together in order that a body be created for him. For the clairvoyant, this rushing together of physical substance represents the death of consciousness in the spirit world. There it dies — here it becomes alive. In the rushing together of substance to form a physical human body can be seen, in a certain sense, the dying of a spiritual consciousness; while on the other hand, at the moment of decomposition or of the burning of the physical body, when the parts disintegrate and dissolve, the opposite actually becomes manifest in the spiritual world, that is, the awakening of a spiritual consciousness occurs. Physical dissolution is spiritual birth. Therefore all processes of decay and dissolution mean something more than just decay and dissolution to the occultist. A churchyard, spiritually observed, where physical bodies are in the process of dissolution, is the scene of remarkable processes, the continuous flashing up and glistening of spiritual birth; (I am now speaking of what is taking place spiritually in the churchyard itself apart from the human beings there).

 

Let us imagine for example that a person were to give himself up physically to a certain training — naturally no one would recommend this, for the present physical body could not possibly endure it — to a schooling in which he would train his body to breathe in putrified air for a certain prescribed length of time with the conscious intent of taking in the spiritual processes which have just been described. If he does this in the proper way, then in his following incarnations — it cannot be done in one — he can be incarnated with that force which offers restorative and health-giving impulses. Breathing putrid air belongs to a schooling which gradually gives strength to the spittle, when mixed with the ordinary earth, to become the healing substance which the Christ rubbed upon the eyes of the blind man. This mystery through which a person consumes, eats or inhales death, by which he acquires the power to heal, is the mystery to which the writer of the Gospel refers when he describes such signs as the healing of the man born blind. Instead of declaring without cessation that such and such a thing should be interpreted to mean thus and so, it would be much better were people to learn that such a thing as is described in the healing of the blind man is literally true, that it exists, and that it is possible to have respect for such a personality as the writer of the Gospel and be able to say: “There was such a person who was thoroughly initiated into this mystery about which we must try to acquire an understanding.”

 

It was, moreover, necessary to call attention beforehand to the fact that we are here in an anthroposophical group in which many prejudices have been eliminated, thus making it possible to speak of such real mysteries as the insalivation of the earth's soil for healing purposes, and to say that such an incident has a literal significance.

 

However, let us now try to comprehend how, by knowing these facts, we unite with the idea that occupies us today namely, that the Christ is the Spirit of the earth and that the earth is His Body. We have seen the Christ spiritualizing the etheric element in one instance and have seen Him giving up something of Himself in order to perform the miracle we arc considering. Now let us consider something else. Besides what has been said today, let us take what the Christ Himself said: “The most profound mystery of My being is the I AM, and the true and eternal might of the I AM or of the Ego which has the force to permeate other bodies must flow into human beings. It dwells within the Earth Spirit.” Let us hold this clearly in mind and take very earnestly, quite seriously, the fact that, because the Christ wishes to bestow the true ego upon every human soul, He will awaken the God in it and gradually enkindle the Spirit of the Lord and King in everyone. What does this signify? We have here nothing more nor less than the fact that the Christ brings to expression, in the highest sense, the idea of Karma, the karmic law. For when anyone fully understands the idea of Karma, he will understand it in this Christian sense. It means that no man should set himself up as a judge of the inner soul of another human being. Unless the idea of Karma has been understood in this way, it has not been grasped in its deepest significance. When one man judges another, the one is always placing the other under the compulsion of his own ego. However, if a person really believes in the “I AM” in the Christian sense, he will not judge. He will say: “I know that Karma is the great adjuster. Whatever you may have done, I do not judge it!”

 

Let us suppose that a transgressor is brought before a person who really understands the Christ-Word. What will be his attitude toward the transgressor? Let us suppose that all those who would like to be Christians were to accuse him of a terrible sin. The real Christian would say to them: “Whether what you maintain has been done by him or not, makes no difference, the I AM must be respected; it must be left to Karma, to the great law which is the law of the Christ-Spirit Himself. Karma is fulfilled in the course of earthly evolution. We can leave it to this earthly evolution to determine what punishment Karma shall inflict upon a human being.” He would perhaps turn to the earth and say to the accusers: — “Pay heed to yourselves, it is the duty of the earth to inflict the punishment. Let us inscribe it then upon the earth where it has, moreover, been registered as Karma.”

 

Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives.

 

And early in the morning He came again into the temple and all the people came unto Him and He sat down and taught them.

 

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and they placed her in their midst.

 

They said unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned; but what sayest Thou?

 

This they said, tempting Him, that they might accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

 

So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

 

And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

 

But when they heard this, being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

 

When Jesus had lifted

High potential? Parents want to know

Psychological examinations are increasingly common to identify gifted children. It’s a trend that hides a complex reality, as gifted children can also be prone to failure.

  

Enéa gets good marks. But she disturbs the class, talks a lot and complains often. This situation surprises her mother, Stéphanie Laurent. At home, this seven-year old schoolgirl from Lausanne is quiet, responsible and not the type to bother others. What’s wrong? School. Enéa is bored. A teacher friend advised Stéphanie Laurent to enter her daughter for tests to determine whether she was “high potential”. And the result came back positive.

 

High potential (HP) children are referred to as gifted or precocious. They are sometimes compared with child prodigies, which is one reason for the increase in requests for psychological examinations. “Interest in these tests is growing,” states Pierre Fumeaux, a child psychiatrist at Lausanne University Hospital who is currently conducting a study on the subject. “A few years ago when parents or teachers had to deal with a difficult student, they would ask the doctor if the child was hyperactive. Now the term ‘high potential’ has taken centre stage in the media.” Contrary to popular belief, gifted is not always synonymous with success. High potential children can also be prone to failure.

 

A different brain

 

To be diagnosed as “HP”, an individual has to obtain a score of at least 130 on IQ tests. “But the score isn’t enough,” explains Claudia Jankech, a psychotherapist in Lausanne specialised in child and teenager psychology. “We also need to understand their family and social context and their personality.”

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”

 

Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.

 

Using a scanner, we can then see which areas are activated,” Pierre Fumeaux explains. “A stimulus or given task will activate certain areas of the brain in normal individuals. In HP children, sometimes several larger areas are activated at the same time,” he adds. These indicators help doctors understand how an HP mind works. “But our knowledge in neuroscience remains limited,” the researcher admits. “Being high potential is not an illness, but a special cognitive ability. And that’s not a priority for researchers.”

 

INTERVIEW: “The methods of diagnosis are debatable”

 

In a survey conducted on gifted children, the French sociologist Wilfried Lignier noted that specialists do not agree about the tests designed to diagnose giftedness.

 

In Vivo You observe that most gifted children don’t have difficulty in school or psychological problems. Why then do parents have them take tests?

Wilfried Lignier These parents are very concerned that their children will face difficulties, whereas they actually have every chance of success. They think that the school’s assessment is not enough. Psychology offers greater legitimacy for their concerns.

  

IV You approach giftedness as a “debated and debatable” issue. Why?

WL Many psychologists don’t recognise giftedness mainly because they doubt the credibility of IQ tests. These tests are meant to assess something other than academic skills, but in form they are quite similar to the exercises performed in school. Furthermore, children also have this impression. After the test is over, some say that they did well in the “maths” section, referring to the logical reasoning, or the “language” section, referring to the vocabulary. Being so similar to exercises done in school, these tests contradict the idea that intelligence isn’t the same as academic performance. Yet most of the social repercussions expected from test results are based on the idea that they tell a truth that school does not.

 

IV You show that the diagnosis swings in favour of one gender. How do you explain that high potential is more often diagnosed in boys?

WL Parents tend to express greater concern about their future, as it more readily carries their hopes of upward social mobility. The fact that boys have greater chances of having “symptoms”, such as openly expressing their boredom or not being able to stay still, also plays a role.

 

Hyper-sensitivity

 

HP children also typically have emotional characteristics featuring high sensitivity or a high level of empathy. Stéphanie Laurent’s two other children, boys, have also been diagnosed as high potential. “Nathael, age six, cries at Christmas because poor people are cold and have nothing to eat.” His hyper-sensitivity distresses him. “It can take on huge proportions. At one point, Mathys, age eight, felt unreasonable fear because he knew that there was a core on fire at the centre of the earth.” Myriam Bickle Graz, a developmental paediatrician at Lausanne University Hospital who wrote a thesis on the subject, says, “The children seen at consultations were often overwhelmed by their emotions. For some, it was incredibly difficult; they have no filter,” she explains. “The fear of death, for example, comes very early.” They develop symptoms such as anxiety, sleep disorders, strained relationships with other children and aggression.

 

THE HAPPIEST HP CHILDREN ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT IDENTIFIED AS SUCH AND MANAGE TO ADAPT.

As in the Laurent family, there are often several gifted siblings. “Not all siblings are necessarily going to be HP, but there is a certain degree of genetic heritage. However, that hasn’t been proven scientifically,” explains Myriam Bickle Graz. “It remains a clinical observation.”

 

Although some high potential children suffer, the majority of them lead normal lives. As summed up by Pierre Fumeaux, “the happiest HP children are those who are not identified as such and manage to adapt.”

 

Arborescent thinking deploying in several directions, simultaneously, extremely fast and without boundaries. While it is a important source of creativity, it also implies: Difficulties to identify relevant information; all these thoughts in all directions may be confusing when the child is faced with a question, a problem or a task at school, An absolute need to organise these thoughts within a sturdy frame so that the child feels affectively, emotionally and socially secure. A “global” information processing system, with analogic and intuitive thinking. While it enables a very rich and deep understanding, with photographic memory, it also implies: Serious difficulties to adapt to the traditional schooling systems which treat information in details and sequentially (one thing after the other), An inability to develop arguments or justify their reasoning. Gifted children usually can’t explain their results, they consider the answers obvious, they know intuitively. The necessity to use in parallel the traditional school learning methods and their own knowledge aquisition systems; they do not want to feel useless, rejected or stupid. A thinking mode that needs meaning to function and complexity to develop and bloom. While it is an endless source of information data stored in an exceptional memory, it also implies: Difficulties or even refusal to acquire skills or information which they consider useless, too simple or not exciting enough to justify their attention and efforts, Constant challenges of established rules and norms, to satisfy their needs for meaning, To “learn how to learn” while taming their impatience through inventive and stimulating methodologies, with deep enrichment on all subjects. A way of thinking constantly integrating affective aspects of its environment. While it is a rich incentive to learning, it also implies: Frustration, even rejection of some teachers whom they see as incompetent in their teaching methods or behaviours, Excessive, even pathological reactions if these children, who try to master their environment and their variations, cannot find reassurance. They are scared by what they do not understand and they know, from a very young age, many things that they cannot put in perspective due to their short life experience. A need for constant reassurance on their learning progress, with a learning methodology adapted to their needs and offering a long-term continuity and homogeneity, thus reducing affective disruptions as much as possible.

 

anhugar.wifeo.com/arborescent-way-of-thinking.php A difficulty encountered by many gifed children is the fact that they think in an arborescent way instead of a linear one. The usual teaching methods are linear - when forced to learn in that mode, gifted children need to make a lot of efforts to voluntarily slow-down their “processing” thinking pace.

 

Arborescent thinking is very adequate for gifted people; it allows them to use all their mental capacities and their knowledge simultaneously. However, it needs to be guided and framed otherwise their thinking takes them far away from the subject of that day.

 

Here is an example from Jeanne Siaud-Fachin: The teacher gives a spelling test. He dictates “the boat sails on the sea”. The gifted child will initially visualize an image of a boat on the sea before seeing the sentence made of 6 words. Following the image, her thoughts will go in all directions: well, it is not a good idea to sail today because there is a lot of wind are there any people on that boat? my friend Frank owns a boat, he’s lucky but his parents are divorced, that is not fun I hope my parents will never get divorced yet, Frank has twice as many presents for Christmas now that he has 2 homes which reminds me, I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas etc. While the other children have finished writing the initial sentance, the gifted child does not remember it at all and if she’s pressed, she may write the last sentence that went through her head “ I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas ”.

 

Also

 

www.talentdifferent.com/la-pensee-en-arborescence-901.htm...

 

www.asep-suisse.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&am... (pdf) How to help such children overcome their ‘handicap’

 

From the main link in the title (translated from the French by Google Chrome, I think): Surprisingly, a high number of high potential children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”

 

Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.

Acquired from Stagecoach but never used, Optare Solo 47213 is seen in Howards yard shortly before being disposed of.

I'm not 100% sure of the reasoning behind this one, I think it came as part of a deal with a couple of others from Stagecoach that were actually used.

There's a lot of reasoning behind the placement of the Showcase pavilions. American Adventure, as the host pavilion, originally was to sit where Showcase Plaza now resides- thus establishing Mexico and Canada on either side. China and Japan had to be separated architecturally but some pairings made too much sense- the United Kingdom and France for example.

 

The waterways trailing in from International Gateway provide an ideal metaphorical English Channel and Seine River.

 

France Pavilion

Epcot

Walt Disney World Resort

Lake Buena Vista, FL

Joker: Insane Gotham City criminal with a sadistic sense of humor who is highly intelligent and skilled in the fields of chemistry and engineering.

 

Riddler: Clever Gotham City criminal with a genius-level IQ who is skilled at inductive and deductive reasoning, lateral thinking, and pattern recognition.

 

If they had to fight, who would win?

 

#309 in the Duel 365 series.

Albert Dekker stars as Alexander Thorkel, a mad scientist who pursues a fantastic experiment deep in the Peruvian jungle. He uses radioactivity to miniaturize living things, including humans, reasoning that if people were one-tenth their normal size, there would be ten times as much food to go around. When fellow scientists penetrate his jungle retreat, the paranoid Dr. Thorkel shrinks them down to size to protect his secret, even killing one of them to demonstrate his power.

 

“Dr. Cyclops” was directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, who directed “King Kong” for producer Merian C. Cooper.

 

Movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSqylxm3jo

 

A beautifully produced brochure, resplendent in a presentation envelope, and issued by the County of London Electric Supply Company to commemorate the opening of their new power house (power station) on the banks of the River Thames at Creekmouth in Barking. This great evening took place on 19 May 1925 and, one strongly suspects, was the one time Royalty set foot at Creekmouth! The brochure has a potted history of the company that has been incorporated in 1891 to serve parts of South West London and some inner parishes adjacent to the City of London itself. These two supply areas were the reasoning behind their first two power stations at City Road, Islington and in Wandsworth.

 

The UK's fledgling electricial supply industry was rather an unholy mess with not just a multiplicity of supply undertakings (private and municipal) but also a wide range of supply voltages and phases. Some consolidation took place and the County of London Company was typical of the larger players in that they extended their supply area serviving a multiplicity of administrative areas that did not develop undertakings of their own as well as becoming 'bulk' suppliers of power to 'independent' undertakings. By the early 1920s their supply area had grown to cover much of East London and South Essex as seen on the map.

 

The construction fo Barking "A" as it would become known was first mooted in post-WW1 years to firstly increase capacity and also to ensure more thermally efficient production of supply than their older and smaller stations could obtain. The riverside plant allowed easy delivery of the coal fuel by river and allowed for the necessary cooling water. The designers and consultants were Merz & McLellan, the bulk of the equipment supplied by Vickers of Barrow and the turbines were by C A Parsons.

 

Barking was also effectively the outcome of increased co-operation the company had with three other closely connected concerns - the City of London Electric Lighting Company; the South London Electric Supply Corporation Limited; and the South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power Company Limited. This cooperation was something increasingly demanded of the industry by increased legislation and in 1926 the Central Electricity Board was formed. The CEB not only instituted the National Grid, interconnection requiring a national standard of production, but also 'designated' efficient stations. City Road was not, and closed in 1929, Wandsworth was and Barking saw expansion with the construction of the "B" section stage that was commissioned in 1933 and reached full capacity in 1939. The Company was nationalised in 1948 and it fell to the state to construct what was Barking "C" in 1954. Barking "A" was decommissioned in 1969, "B" in 1976 and finally "C" in 1981. The whole site was then cleared.

 

The brochure has a number of colour plates and sketches by artist Norman Howard as well as photographs of the plant. It is spledidly printed and produced by one of the better printing houses of the day, the esteemed George W Jones, at "The Sign of the Dolphin" in Gough Square, Fleet Street. This illustration by Norman Howard shows the first completed phase of the station as constructe din 1925 and before the other planned additions were added.

chicago, il // tumbr | facebook | midnight blog | 500px | @krisbrand | store

 

Recently the freedom tower was named the tallest building in the US. The reasoning stating the spire is an aesthetic continuation of the building. Take away the antennas on the Sears Tower and I'm quite sure it would be unrecognizable to many. The antennas are both aesthetic and functional. By their logic, if I designed a building only 50 stories high but with a mile high spire, I'd like to see them name it the tallest building in the world.

Taken on 24 November 2017 and uploaded 20 January 2025.

 

Listed as a "general cargo" ship on one site and as an oil/chemical tanker on another, I've opted for the latter as the ship has all the piping a tanker might carry...a scientific decision.

Also, I like its name: Baltic Wind is a good name for a ship, even if it (the ship) relies on oil to power it and is a long way from the Baltic...it's properly romantic.

The two wind turbines here belong to Tilbury Docks and provide, I believe, 1/8 of the Docks' power needs (I read that the turbines, which total 4, provide between them 1/4 of what is required, so by mathematical reasoning, etc.)...

 

Anyway, Baltic Wind was built in South Korea, though not by Hyundai, in 2009. It may no longer be Baltic Wind, either: it's another of these to have had many names - Sphere and Prosky before Baltic Wind, then Siren (?). This is the way of the world and money, oh well. It is now, as Siren, on its way from Zhuhai, China, to Yeosu Anchor, South Korea.

 

[DSC_3075g]

*** I've decided to update my characters bio pages. Stay tuned for updates.

 

Name: Crimson Cloak (The Cloak)

  

Secret Identity: Gage Garnet, One time reporter and writer, he has almost fully devoted his time to crime fighting in recent years nearly forsaking his true identity.

  

Age: late 30s.

  

Skills/Powers:

  

* Super human stamina

  

* Advanced strength from constant conditioning and exercise

  

* Advanced intellect, intelligence, and deductive reasoning skills

  

* Knowledge of various forms of martial arts and fighting styles

  

* No known “super powers”

  

Weapons:

***All of the Cloak’s weapons are provided by his friend and inventor William Watts, the owner of WattTech Industries and fellow superhero Captain Electron.

  

The Crimson Cloak wears a suit of flexible body armor. His red cape and cowl are both bullet proof and flame proof. He wears a set of goggles that help to magnify his night vision, aiding him in low light environments. His preferred weapon of choice is a high tech staff that detaches at the center to create two smaller batons for close quarter combat. The tip of each baton is slightly electrified to aid The Cloak in dispatching his foes in a non-lethal manner. The Cloak also has an optional "gun" that he can use to launch various non-lethal projectiles at his enemies.

  

The Cloak utilizes a variety of modified WattTech vehicles to get to the scene of a crime fast. The Crimson Cycle, Crimson Cruiser, and the C.R.U.I.S.Er. www.flickr.com/photos/10211834@N07/26971335111/in/datepos...

  

Background/Origin Story:

  

Gage Garnet has always been a man obsessed with doing what is right, no matter the costs to himself or to others. During his youth, he was obsessed with comics and yearned to be like those men on the colorful pages. He and his brother Jack would spend hours dressing up like superheroes imagining that they were saving the world. As Gage matured, he showed more of an interest in writing and moved to the big city to pursue his interests. While working for The City Tribune, Gage covered a series of stories involving the rise of real heroes in the city. Men and women who put on costumes to fight crime, it was like his dream come true and here he was on the front lines documenting their rise to power.

  

Tragically, in the midst of Gage’s rise to success as a reporter, his family home is robbed and his parents are tragically murdered by the robbers. His younger brother Jack manages to escape the violence and will grow up to join the NBPD.

 

Feeling helpless and responsible for the murder, Gage crafts his own costume and trains with the help of Gothic. He soon adopts his alter ego The Crimson Cloak, and decides to track down those responsible for the murder.

  

It isn’t long before Gage is covering the stories of his own exploits, articles that soon reach the attention of a fledgling group of masked heroes known as the League of Heroes. The Cloak is invited to join the League. For the next few years, Gage fights crime along side the virtuous members of the League of Heroes. Keeping the city safe.

  

As the League of Heroes grows stronger and more powerful, Cobalt Cyclone, Silver Sentry, and Viridia all decide that it would be best to remove their masks publicly to gain the trust of the citizens and to remove any doubt that could be cast upon them by a growing crowd of skeptics. The Crimson Cloak disagrees with this measure, as he does not want his career in vigilantism to hurt his brother’s reputation at his new job on the police force. The Cloak declares that he will step down from the team and leave his career as a superhero behind. Gothic, a fellow teammate and also a detractor of this measure, does not wish to have his identity revealed though he will make an even more public statement of protest.

  

The day arrives for the big reveal, the heroes are all assembled on the steps of City Hall, Cobalt Cyclone steps up to the microphone and addresses the crowd… and BOOM! A bomb explodes from underneath the podium killing the Cobalt Cyclone, severely injuring Silver Sentry, and sending the crowd into a panic. The Crimson Cloak swings into action, and begins investigating the crime. By following the clues he soon comes to the conclusion that The Skull, the most powerful crime boss in the city was behind the plot. Though he is in for an even bigger surprise when he discovers that The Skull is in fact his former friend and teammate Gothic.

  

In the wake of the bombing, the League of Heroes falls apart. Public support for masked heroes hits an all time low. The Crimson Cloak decides that he will be all that stands between the evil that plagues the city and the justice that he feels the citizens deserve. Becoming darker and more detached, The Crimson Cloak becomes obsessed with his self-imposed duty even at the expense of losing his own identity in the process.

When looking back to scenes like this it makes it difficult to understand reasoning behind cutting back Lothian's service 12. Leyland Titan 563 is fully laden in York Place Edinburgh with the gothic octagonal towers of St Pauls and St Georges church forming the background together with two dissimilar street lamps.

 

To our story. The 12 was used by an incredible number of pasengers, little wonder, as it passed through the most heavily populated areas. On top deck seats a man who I well recall boarded each morning along Leith Links. He had a guest house nearby and flats and property all over central Edinburgh. But he still went to work. Back then fares were calculated in 'stages' and here the bus approaches St Andrew Sq stage; The previous stage at Elm Row was 5p cheaper. To avoid the 5p he paid the fare to Elm Row, then sat on the nearside to watch for an inspector, on occasions when inspectors boarded I'd see him quickly alighting and 'running' onwards to St Andrew Sq. When I approached him he gave the old adage 'Look after the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves.' He would know as by that time he was a millionaire !

 

563 was a fine bus, new in 1955 and running for years from Tollcross garage before transfer to Marine in 1969, four years before this quiet scene in York Place. The nearside advert heralds the arrival of Whitbread in Edinburgh and perhaps the start of a move away from the fine traditional local breweries - much lamented by Edinburgh's drouthy beer drinkers !

View On Black

 

One of several Mark Rothko pieces at the MOMA, NYC.

   

"The progression of a painter's work as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity.. toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea.. and the idea and the observer.. To achieve this clarity is inevitably to be understood."

  

- Mark Rothko (September 25, 1903–February 25, 1970), was a Latvian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist.

Members of the Imperium's Department of Clandestine Operations and Intelligence approached the New Carradock Naval Yards with a unique project: They wanted a starfighter built with two variants. The first, a spec ops starfighter that could be used for transportation by their undercover operatives. The second, an identical-looking fighter that would be released to the general public.

Their reasoning? The COI's fighters would appear to be inconspicuous and look like any of the civilian-variant fighters, allowing them to blend in and move freely without fear of detection.

 

The naval yards jumped at the challenge, and arguably went above and beyond expectations, building the new LRF-100 Preybird Medium Starfighter.

The COI variant was given excellent stealth capabilities and a much longer FTL range, while the civilian Preybird was built as an affordable but surprisingly reliable fighter that, combined with an impressive modular design that allowed customers with deeper pockets to get an even better ship, made it very popular and got it sold well.

 

Ironically, the Imperial Navy later called and asked for their own military variant, with beefed up firepower and defenses, after seeing the civilian variant in action and wanting a newer medium starfighter in their arsenal.

 

As such, the Preybird became a common sight throughout the MSI, in use by military and non-military alike.

 

LDD file: github.com/Arikelliott/LDD-Models/raw/master/LRF-100%20Pr...

國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 書可以讀 - 也可以當飾品

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / Books can read - Can also be jewelry

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / Los libros pueden leer - También puede ser joyas

国立の台湾の文学館 - 推理の文学は台湾特に展にあります / 本は読むことができます - アクセサリになることができますも

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Bücher können lesen - Kann auch Schmuck sein

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / Les livres peuvent lire - Peut aussi être des bijoux

 

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

 

管樂小集 2017/07/02 安平古堡 Fort Zeelandia performances 1080P

{ 霧子のタンゴ Kiriko's Tango 懷念的播音員 }

 

{View large size on fluidr / 觀看大圖}

 

{My Blog / 管樂小集精彩演出-觸動你的心}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{My Blog / 管楽小集すばらしい公演-はあなたの心を心を打ちます}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

 

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen

{ 夢旅人 1990 Dream Traveler 1990 }

 

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

 

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

 

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

 

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

There has been a number of different bus pairings for the City Sightseeing Inverness fleet over the years that I know what was used, and in my opinion this particular pairing is likely the best one since 2016. D&E Coaches have Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 S90 YST (Originally LX60 DXH) and Dennis Trident Plaxton President S88 YST (Originally SK52 OHN, later XIL 1484) this year and they're seen here picking up passengers at Inverness Bus Station for the Red Route (Gemini) and Blue Route (President).

 

Perhaps you're wondering what the Sightseeing fleet has consisted of over the years? Here's what I know.

 

From 2011 (the first year of Sightseeing services) up to and including 2016, Jacobite Tours in collaboration with Stagecoach Highlands (Jacobite owned and operated the services, Stagecoach provided staff and vehicle maintenance as well as keeping the vehicles in their Inverness depot) had two 1989 Leyland Olympian engined Alexander RH buses registered 1983 NT (Originally Lothian G338 CSG - Number 338) and 2080 NT (Originally Lothian F358 WSC - Number 358). 1983 NT was fully open top while 2080 NT was part-open part-closed top. At one point early in its tenure 2080 NT was named "Bobby Bus" on a post on the City Sightseeing Inverness FB page but that was just for that post and not an official name.

 

In 2017 these were replaced by two 2004 Dennis Trident Alexander ALX400s, both partial open top. The custom reg plates were kept and re-used with LX53 JZM (Originally Stagecoach Number 17969) becoming 1983 NT and LX53 JZH (Originally Stagecoach Number 17965) becoming 2080 NT. One interesting thing was that they inherited the rather unusual "eyelashes" around the headlights that the Olympians that came before them had. I'd assume people involved in running the service would know the reasoning behind that, but it is not something you see every day.

 

2018 was set to continue in identical fashion with the same two ALX400s running the service, however 2080 NT unfortunately caught fire in around April/Early May time and very little of it was left after the fire was extinguished. That of course meant it had to be scrapped. I haven't been able to find much on what vehicles helped cover the service for the remainder of 2018, I know at one point Jacobite Tours NE55 BUS helped out but I don't know if it was the same for the rest of the year or not. Any info on this matter would be appreciated to fill in this gap in the history.

 

In 2019 1983 NT finally found itself with an official sidekick again, in the form of 2002 Trident President SK52 OHN which had just come up from Lothian Buses in Edinburgh. Interestingly it remained closed top when it came up here but nonetheless it served its slot in the tour throughout 2019 and looked very smart while doing so, as Plaxton Presidents tend to do.

 

2020 saw no City Sightseeing services due to a certain virus which shall remain nameless as let's be honest I don't need to name it for it to be obvious what one I'm on about...

 

Then came 2021. A year of big change for City Sightseeing. Operation of the tour was taken over by D&E Coaches under their new Tours division, and alongside updating the tour to now consist of 2 routes running hourly, there was a new vehicle on the scene. 2011 Volvo B9TL Gemini 2 LX60 DXH under its new reg S90 YST made its debut in 2021, alongside the remaining ALX400 which had also been re-registered to S99 YST. It was never guaranteed which one would serve which route, sometimes the Gemini would be on Red, sometimes the ALX would be. There was an occasional showing from D&E's B7TL ALX400 P17 YST, once due to a fault with one of the buses, the other due to weather conditions (Although oddly with the weather conditions time, it was the fully open top Gemini that was out rather than the partial open top ALX!). But what of SK52 OHN? Well, it unfortunately was sidelined, sat in the depot the entire year doing nothing and looking like it might not see service again...

 

And so we come to 2022, this year. The Red Route starts up first and the Gemini 2 takes to the streets to serve it as expected. Fast forward to the end of May, up starts the Blue Route, but there's a problem. Both the ALX400 and President are listed as SORN. Another newer bus perhaps?? Well not exactly, initially taking to the blue route was a newly purchased white Enviro 200 MMC, YX22 OHC. Not much of a red livery sightseeing bus! But this was not a permanent fixture, as fast forward again to the second weekend of June, and a red bus is spotted...the President has returned! SK52 OHN against the odds comes back under its new reg S88 YST and has *almost* not missed a day of service since, with YX22 OHC only appearing once when S88 YST was oddly put on the Belladrum Shuttle Service one weekend, and SK71 CLN covering once for an unknown reason. ALX400 S99 YST remains SORN and its future unknown, but for now we rejoice that the President is here to stay, for now at least.

 

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2022: Sightseeing services have concluded for the year and all 3 sightseeing buses are now SORN for the winter. Time will tell who will return in 2023...

 

S90 YST was new to Go-Ahead London in January 2011 as LX60 DXH (Fleet Number WVL377). It was converted to fully open top in 2018 and used on the London City Tour. It joined the D&E Coaches fleet in 2021 when they acquired the City Sightseeing Inverness tour operation from Stagecoach Highlands/Jacobite Tours and was re-registered to its current reg of S90 YST.

 

S88 YST was new to Lothian Buses in November 2002 as SK52 OHN (Fleet Number 651). Its first livery was, rather obviously, the Harlequin livery, which it had from its first day until approximately the end of 2011. 2012 saw it get repainted into the Forth Bridges Bus & Boat Tour livery and a new registration of XIL 1484 while continuing with its original fleet number. It ran in this livery until 2017, at which point it was painted into the new 3 Bridges Tour livery, the design of which is based on the current Madder & White Fleet Of The Future corporate livery Lothian currently use. 2019 saw the bus transfer to Stagecoach Highlands (Inverness) to replace an ALX400 which had caught fire in 2018. With its original reg SK52 OHN re-applied, SK52 OHN received its City Sightseeing Inverness livery and ran one of the service slots throughout that year. It transferred to D&E Coaches in 2021 as part of their acquisition of the Sightseeing tour operations into their subsidiary D&E Tours, however SK52 OHN sat out that year with D&E's newly obtained Gemini 2 and the ALX400 that came from Stagecoach running instead. This year, with the ALX400 not returning, SK52 OHN made a triumphant return under its latest reg plate S88 YST.

 

If you've read this far comment S88YST :)

 

Date Taken: June 19th, 2022

Device Used: Nokia 3.1 Plus

Date Uploaded: August 25th, 2022

Upload Number: 006

 

Interested in seeing some bus videos? You'll find buses both real and virtual on my YouTube channel, as well as other cool bus-themed stuff too! - www.youtube.com/@ZZ9sTransport

 

© ZZ9's Transport Photography (ZZ9 Productions). All Rights Reserved. Modification, redistribution, reuploading and the like is prohibited without prior written permission from myself.

Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov (Russian 1848-1926)

Reproduction, Talllinn, Estonia.

 

About the original:

295,3 x446 cm (9.6' x 14.6')

Oil on canvas

The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

 

The original is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It took the artist 20 years to complete.

 

This piece depicts the mythical Russian knights Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets and Alyosha Popovich.

 

My thanks (again!) to Flickrite Manuel for having identified this piece. I don't know how he does it!

========================================================

A Bogatyr (Russian: богатырь) is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant.

 

Bogatyrs are mainly found in Rus' epic poems called Bylinas and came into existence during Vladimir the Great's reign as part of his elite warriors, akin to Knights of the Round Table except, King Arthur accompanied his men on most of their adventures unlike Prince Vladimir.

 

Bogatyrs are described as warriors of immense strength, courage and bravery, rarely using magic while fighting enemies in order to maintain the "loosely based on historical fact" aspect of Bylinas.

 

They are characterized as having resounding voices, with patriotic and religious pursuits, defending Rus' from foreign enemies (Turks at the time) and their religion. In modern Russian, the word is used to describe a courageous hero, an athlete or a physically strong person.

 

The word bogatyr is not, originally, a Russian word. There have been different theories about the origin of the word but researchers agree that bogatyr is not of Slavic origin.

 

Many researchers suspect the word bogatyr is derived from Mongolian word: baatar, bagadur, baghtur, bator, batyr, and batur, all meaning along the lines of hero, warrior, and brave. This reasoning originates from noted interactions between Mongols and Rus-Kievan people in the form war and battle, the chance of one influencing the other and vice versa being high.

 

The word bogatyr is used similarly in other modern languages such as Polish (bohater), Hungarian (bator) and Persian (bahadur) meaning hero, and/or athlete.

 

The first time bogatyr is used to denote "hero" and subsequently becoming synonymous with each other was recorded in Stanisław Sarnicki's book Descriptio veteris et novae Poloniae cum divisione ejusdem veteri et nova, (A description of the Old and the New Poland with the old, and a new division of the same,) printed in 1585 in Cracow (in the Aleksy Rodecki's printing house), in which he says, "Rossi… de heroibus suis, quos Bohatiros id est semideos vocant, aliis persuadere conantur."[4] ("Russians... try to convince others about their heroes whom they call Bogatirs, meaning demigods.")

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogatyr

========================================================

Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov (Russian: Ви́ктор Миха́йлович Васнецо́в) was a Russian artist who specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic nationalistic painting (see also neo-romanticism), and a key figure in the Russian revivalist movement.

 

Viktor Vasnetsov was born in the remote village of Lopyal in Vyatka Governorate in 1848, the second of the six children.

His father Mikhail Vasilievich Vasnetsov, known to be philosophically inclined, was a member of priesthood, and of scholarly dictation in the natural sciences and astronomy. His grandfather was an icon painter.

 

Two of Mikhail Vasnetsov's three sons, Viktor and Apollinary, became remarkable painters, the third one becoming a schoolteacher. It was in Lopyal that Viktor started to paint, mostly landscapes and scenes of village life. Recalling his childhood in a letter to Vladimir Stasov, Vasnetsov remarked that he "had lived with peasant children and liked them not as a narodnik but as a friend".

 

From the age of ten, Viktor studied in a seminary in Vyatka, each summer moving with his family to a rich merchant village of Ryabovo. During his seminary years, he worked for a local icon shopkeeper. He also helped an exiled Polish artist, Michał Elwiro Andriolli, to execute frescoes for Vyatka's Alexander Nevsky cathedral.

 

Having graduated from the seminary, Viktor decided to move to Saint Petersburg to study art. He auctioned his paintings of Woman Harvester and Milk-maid (both 1867) in order to raise money required for the trip to the Russian capital.

 

In August 1867 Viktor entered the Imperial Academy of Arts. Three years later, the Peredvizhniki movement of realist painters rebelled against the Academism.

 

Vasnetsov befriended their leader Ivan Kramskoi, referring to him as his teacher. He also became very close to his fellow student Ilya Yefimovich Repin.

 

It is ironic, but Viktor, whose name is associated with historical and mythological paintings, initially avoided these subjects at all costs. For his graphic composition of Christ and Pontius Pilate Before the People, the Academy awarded a small silver medal to him.

 

In the early 1870s he executed a lot of engravings depicting contemporary life. Two of them ("Provincial Bookseller" from 1870 and "A Boy with a Bottle of Vodka" from 1872) won him a bronze medal at the World Fair in London (1874).

 

At that period he also started producing genre paintings in oil. Such pieces as "Peasant Singers" (1873) and "Moving House" (1876) were warmly welcomed by democratic circles of Russian society.

 

In 1876 Repin invited Vasnetsov to join the Peredvizhniki colony in Paris. While living in France, Viktor studied classical and contemporary paintings, academist and Impressionist alike.

 

At that period, he painted "Acrobats" (1877), produced prints, and exhibited some of his works at the Salon. It was in Paris that he became fascinated with fairy-tale subjects, starting to work on "Ivan Tsarevich Riding a Grey Wolf" and "The Firebird." Vasnetsov was a model for Sadko in Repin's celebrated painting "Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom." In 1877 he returned to Moscow.

 

In the late 1870s Vasnetsov concentrated on illustrating Russian fairy tales and the epic narrative poem Bylinas, executing some of his best known pieces: "The Knight at the Crossroads" (1878), "Prince Igor's Battlefield" (1878), "Three princesses of the Underground Kingdom" (completed 1884 ), "The Flying Carpet"(1880), and "Alionushka" (1881).

 

These works were not appreciated at the time they appeared. Many radical critics dismissed them as undermining the realist principles of the Peredvizhniki. Even such prominent connoisseurs as Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov refused to buy them. The vogue for Vasnetsov's paintings would spread in the 1880s, when he turned to religious subjects and executed a series of icons for Abramtsevo estate of his patron Savva Mamontov.

 

In 1884-1889 Vasnetsov was commissioned to paint frescos in the St Vladimir's Cathedral of Kiev. This was a challenging work which ran contrary to both Russian and Western traditions of religious paintings. The influential art critic Vladimir Stasov labelled them a sacrilegious play with religious feelings of the Russian people. Another popular critic, Dmitry Filosofov, referred to these frescoes as "the first bridge over 200 years-old gulf separating different classes of Russian society".

 

While living in Kiev, Vasnetsov made friends with Mikhail Vrubel, who was also involved in the cathedral's decoration. While they worked together, Vasnetsov taught the younger artist a great deal. It was in Kiev that Vasnetsov finally finished "Ivan Tsarevich Riding a Grey Wolf" and started his most famous painting, the "Bogatyrs."

 

In 1885 the painter travelled to Italy. The same year he worked on stage designs and costumes for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Snow Maiden."

 

The following two decades were productive for Vasnetsov. He increasingly turned to other media during this period. In 1897 he collaborated with his brother Apollinary on the theatrical design of another Rimsky-Korsakov premiere, "Sadko."

 

At the turn of the century, Vasnetsov elaborated his hallmark "fairy-tale" style of Russian Revivalist architecture. His first acclaimed design was a church in Abramtsevo (1882), executed jointly with Vasily Polenov. In 1894, he designed his own mansion in Moscow. The Russian pavilion of the World Fair in Paris followed in 1898. Finally, in 1904, Vasnetsov designed the best known of his "fairy-tale" buildings — the façade of the Tretyakov Gallery.

 

Between 1906 and 1911, Vasnetsov worked on the design of the mosaics for Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw; he was also involved in the design of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Moscow.

 

In 1912, he was given a noble title by Czar Nicholas II. In 1914, he designed a revenue stamp intended for voluntary collection for victims of World War I.

 

Even prior to the Russian Revolution, Vasnetsov became active as a regent of the Tretyakov Gallery. He allocated a significant portion of his income to the State Historical Museum, so that a large part of the museum's collection was acquired on Vasnetsov's money. After the October Revolution he advocated removing some of the religious paintings (notably those by Alexander Ivanov) from churches to the Tretyakov Gallery.

 

In 1915 Vasnetsov participated in the designing of a military uniform for the Victory parade of Russian army in Berlin and Constantinopole. Vasnetsov is credited with the creation of the budenovka (initially named bogatyrka), a military hat reproducing the style of ancient Rus' cone-shaped helmets.

 

He died in Moscow in 1926.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Vasnetsov

She is enchanting, isn’t she !!!! She was just staring at me sitting close to my feet in Corfu, this last summer. My son Nicholas was cuddling her ;…such a calm, lovely creature ; what was she….thinking? Just a stray , adorable cat, strolling around the tavern ….With such a great impact on my mind and soul !!

“….The great creativity of consciousness is your heritage. It does not belong to mankind alone, however. Each living being possesses it, and the living world consists of a spontaneous cooperation between the smallest and the highest, the greatest and the lowly, between the atoms and the molecules, and the conscious reasoning mind” (“The Nature of Personal Reality” :A Seth Book—Jane Roberts)

 

When they get to that age.... no point reasoning with them

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Albert Dekker stars as Alexander Thorkel, a mad scientist who pursues a fantastic experiment deep in the Peruvian jungle. He uses radioactivity to miniaturize living things, including humans, reasoning that if people were one-tenth their normal size, there would be ten times as much food to go around. When fellow scientists penetrate his jungle retreat, the paranoid Dr. Thorkel shrinks them down to size to protect his secret, even killing one of them to demonstrate his power.

 

“Dr. Cyclops” was directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, who directed “King Kong” for producer Merian C. Cooper.

 

Movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSqylxm3jo

 

SET 1 – West Point Wal-Mart

 

Besides the already-uncommon logo, something else about this store that makes it even more unique is the fact that it’s one of very few (well, comparatively, anyway) “green” Wal-Marts ever to have existed. By that, I’m referring to the fact that the color scheme of the façade – instead of Wal-Mart’s usual blue, red, and gray of the 90s and 2000s – was green, tan, and white.

 

It’s my understanding that this paint scheme was adopted as a way of making the stores look a little more upscale – presumably also tying in with the more architecturally interesting façade – and possibly also improving the image of the chain, trying to distance itself from its existing colors which by then had become all but synonymous with the discounter. For at least one other onetime green Walmart, yet another reasoning was given: the Oxford Wal-Mart originally opened as a green store so as to appease residents concerned about all the trees that had to be razed for the construction! (Here on Alt Hwy 45 in West Point, I doubt that reasoning would have worked as well, but who knows :P )

 

That Oxford store, by the way, is no longer green, and indeed most green Walmarts over the years have obviously since repainted to newer looks – the idea that the paint scheme was a way of making the stores more custom and upscale sadly dropped in favor of yet more cookie-cutter looking stores. It would seem to me that the green design died off with the old Wal-Mart logo, which makes it especially fitting that both of them are still surviving together here in West Point… probably until the bitter end (that is, whenever the store’s first remodel will ever take place).

 

(c) 2022 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

sigh...I love it - but sometimes it makes me want to jump off a cliff! Internet was down for over a day at home (gasp!) and then after buying a new Monitor for work I was down for 1/2 a day getting the new graphics card installed so the resolution looked right. ARGH!

 

So, Happy late Bokeh Wednesday! and since I'm posting this so late, HBWH too!! ;-) Missed ya'll.....need to catch up...

 

Another random fact: Hubby is very private - and insisted I take all our boys photos off a public forum like flickr. This kills me. I understand his reasoning (too many freaks out there) but my favorite photography is photos of children, mine especially :( I guess I need to find a new "specialty", at least on flickr...... (me=bummed)

Photo taken in the West Norway Museum of Decorative Art park, Bergen, Norway.

 

Throughout history, no other flower has been mentioned more than the rose, and for good reasoning. The rose has been mentioned in music, mythological stories, as an icon in movies, transformed into perfumes, and been sought as the go-to flower of love. Roses grow wild from the mountains of Norway, to as far south as Mexico. Roses were in such high demand during the 17th century, that royalty considered roses or rose water as legal tender, and were often used as barter and for payments. Today, now raised agriculturally for profit, the rose is the most popular selling flower nationally, and possibly globally.

 

www.roseshire.com/blogs/outsidethebox/15331185-ill-trade-...

as fast as we can...

 

Good day everyone! I know I haven't been active a lot lately, it's because this year is my senior year, and I'm getting really involved with the school, and so we're running I have to submit all my application's needs by January. In two weeks I have my SAT reasoning, I'm not comfortable with it yet.

 

Photography wise; my camera is not being used at the moment, but I'm gonna have photography excursions soon, so I hope to amaze your eyes with some of my work!

 

T.C.

 

-V3

 

[Explore]

BAM BAM!

 

After being released from prison in Mexico, Bigelow decided to train as a professional wrestler, reasoning "there wasn't much else I was qualified for."

 

400 pounds and able to moonsault off the top turnbuckle.

 

Legit tough dude.

 

The Beast From The East invites you onto the mat. Full accommodations provided, including a chair, a table, a knuckle sandwich, and free air transportation out of the ring.

 

Just remember, if you play with fire... you're gonna get burned.

 

═════════════════════════════════════

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

WWE Superstars

Bam Bam Bigelow

2022, Mattel

It feels lame saying I have a "dream" camera, but if there was such a thing this would be that camera. This will be the camera I always have with me and it will probably outlive me. A person I see as my photography mentor said something that I hadn't heard said about any other camera. She said that normally when buying a camera, buy the system that has the lenses you need or want; but with Leica just buy the camera and work up to the nicer lenses. Now having one, I totally agree with that reasoning. The camera is just built like no other and just feels incredible to use. This Voigtlander 35mm will suit me just fine as well.

 

"You should tell your sickness that you've had enough and you would appreciate if it would just move on.

 

It's time to break-up with your cold.

 

Maybe just reasoning with it might work if nothing else has. "it's not you it's me" or "we are moving too quickly" The cold may respond with things like "but how about all the fever and chills I have given you?" and then you can kindly let your cold know that those things are signs of infatuation, not love. and you should go your seperate ways, and if it is true love one day you might get sick again, but right now it's gotta let go.

 

But giving it miso soup is sending mixed messages."

 

i'm ready to move on.

miso, lemons, and white rice, you've done me right.

Bella Dahl Jeans Girl

Yet another blast from the past that I found as I populate my new back-up server. THIS ONE was from the Coolpix 850. I get a call from the then director of marketing of Nikon telling me she wants a picture for PhotoEast that they can blow up to 8 feet by 10 feet shot with the to be announced at the show Coolpix 850 and she wants me to shoot it. It is a Monday. I say "COOL".Then she says find me a very well endowed model, and I want her to be blond. I say "SURE!" (here reasoning was computer geeks and dweebs did not get out from behind the computer screen much) . She then tells me the camera will be at my studio late Friday afternoon, hand delivered from Japan. I say "OK...." She thinks some of the menus will be in English. Again "ok......." Then she's says I need camera ready art, scaled and on my desk Monday 9am EST or 6am PST. I say "........o......k......"

So I go into the office of Altamira Group, late, get yelled at for showing up late, (I was the Artist In Residence at Altamira Group, the developer of Genuine Fractals now known as Perfect Resize from onOne) I tell them the story of the morning, the the CLO (Chief Legal Officer) say "GREAT!!! My wife has just started this company called Bella Dahl Jeans, and I'm sure she will let you shoot the promo pictures (as a favor.... for no fee being the implied thought here) and your tardiness will be forgiven!

The camera a arrives at 7pm Friday, it hat most of the menus operational. The ones that had text were 50% Japanese and 50% Spanish. No English. Japanese I get, Spanish left me scratching my head. The prototype only shot jpeg or tif. Tiffs had a 7 second shutter lag time from pressing the trigger to the camera taking the shot and a 48 second write time to card before you could shoot again. The model I got through an agent friend of mine would strike a moldelly "pose" every time she thought we were taking a picture. For the first two hours I got pouty lips and half open eyes the only thing missing was someone saying "ooo la la." So to get the shot I wanted I would tell her I was going to take the shot, she'd hold her pouty lip half eye opened ooo la la pose tell her the shutter clicked (why she could not hear it was because it was an electronic shutter, the click sound she was hearing after I took "the picture" was the camera advancing the digital film) then she'd relax into these really cool poses which I then took the shot. I told her we had to wait a two minutes for the camera to process, so she would think I was not going to shoot her and she would strike another very beautiful natural pose while stealthily I'd snap another frame. This went on ALL day Saturday for 11 hours.

This image was lit using a thermonuclear device (the sun) as the point light source (no batteries harmed in the production of this image) a Westcott Scrim Jim 3'x6' diffuser and a Westcott Sunlight reflector (I built my "Hollywood" lighting career with just these two light modifiers).

I spend all night Saturday, till 1 am, then from 5 am on Sunday on computer technology so slow (am Mac Preforma 360) that the only way to speed it up was to physically push the computer. Al Gore had just barely invented the internet, AOL came on floppy disks with every Macworld magazine and the only way to send data was on a 2880 baud modem made by Global Village that hat a peer to peer transfer software. It took four hours to scale the file and nine, count them nine hours to transfer the file to New York. But I made the deadline.

Friend was testing out his new pipe and attempting to reason why he couldn't blow smoke rings. He'll get it eventually. :) Nikon D5000 Lens. 85mm 1.8 Lighting. Lamp and LED flashlight

Apps: Hipstamatic, Imaengine, iColorama, Mextures, Superimpose, Snapseed, Pixlromatic

“All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling”

–Blaise Pascal

 

Better in L

 

NO BANNERS, please!

Unit 2 belonging to Troop D 4 (Beaver County.) This is the Beaver Barracks last CVPI and is supposedly being retired within the next few weeks. (Since retired) In this area for PSP they cap their cars out at 140,000 miles. This unit only has 110,000 miles. I am unsure the reasoning is behind its plan of retirement, best guess is age. Very clean 2011 with the Fire Suppression System like all PSP CVPI's have installed. Very friendly Troopers @ this post.

Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is an all pervasive natural force, similar in importance to gravity or electro- magnetism. Its attributes involve the flow of what we call "time". It shows why time travel is impossible and why water only runs downhill. Entropy permeates all aspects of human existence. Entropy explains why it is easy to lose money and difficult to make money. Entropy is the force behind Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, must go wrong. Is time-travel impossible? Why does water only run downhill? Why is it easy to lose money but difficult to acquire it? The answer to these and many other puzzling questions rests in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in Entropy. The so-called Second Law relates closely to the term Entropy. An understanding of this fundamental law of nature and its ramification provides great insights in the way the world really works. Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law, is the ultimate Natural Law because it determines the flow of what we call "time". Thus, entropy deals with the very existence of the universe. The term entropy describes phenomena that have the most profound effect on all events in human existence, including our ability to achieve happiness by aligning ourselves with Objective Reality.

 

The Second Law holds a unique position in science because it has never evolved from a theory such as the Theory of Relativity or the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. The Second Law is empirical. There is no fully satisfactory theoretical proof for the Second Law, although there are some connections to Quantum Mechanics, Probability and Relativity. Once a Unified Field Theory, the Theory of Everything, is developed, it will and must account for Entropy. Many scientists, who claimed that this Law is paradoxical in nature, have tried to attack it. However, in all instances the alleged paradoxes were due to faulty reasoning. The Second Law has prevailed and has established itself as the most fundamental of all Natural Laws.

 

The profound nature of the Second Law manifests itself in every aspect of human existence. It covers questions pertaining to the obscure beginnings of the universe to the way we pour milk in our coffee. I remember my high school teacher posing the question: You have a cup of very hot coffee that you would like to drink as soon as possible, let us say, within 5 minutes. Should you first add the desired quantity of cold milk to the coffee and then let the coffee sit for 5 minutes? Alternatively, do you let the coffee sit for 5 minutes and then add the same quantity of milk?

 

The answer is not intuitive but it is simple, if we are familiar with the Second Law: The rate of heat exchange between the hot coffee and the ambient air depends on their temperature differential. The higher the temperature differential, the faster will be the rate of exchange. Within the 5-minute waiting period, heat transfers to the air at a higher rate if we do not add the cold milk initially to the coffee. If we add the milk at the beginning, instead of at the end of the 5 minutes, the energy transfer will slow down and the coffee will be markedly hotter at the end of 5 minutes.

 

This revelation does not appear to be a momentous event. It was only intended to indicate the pervasiveness of the Second Law, especially in view of the fact that most people are seemingly ignorant of it. The point is, the Second Law is not intuitive. We have to acquire the relevant knowledge by a rational thought process in order to take advantage of it. The cup of coffee is not important but the principle behind the cup permeates all of our existence: In order to optimize the effectiveness of our actions it is helpful to understand the implications of Entropy.

 

Entropy describes the degradation of energy to perform work. What is energy? On the high school level, we simply defined energy as the capacity to do work. However, the real question is, What factor, precisely, is doing this work? Why does energy have the capacity to perform work? The HOWs in life are easy, the WHYs are the tough ones.

 

Energy is the raw material of the universe. At the time of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago, there was nothing but raw energy. There was no mass with a physical attribute. It was only much later in the nascent universe that this primal energy transformed itself into physical mass, stars, nebula and black holes. Stars, and particularly supernovas, are the factories of the elements, such as iron, from which human beings are formed.

 

As we know from Einstein's famous formula E = m c^2, mass and energy are freely convertible into each other. The Hydrogen Bomb demonstrates this conversion in a spectacular fashion. Most of the energy it generates is due to the conversion of matter into energy. Such conversion of matter into energy, and vice-versa, is also a less spectacular event in everyday phenomena although it is usually so minuscule as to escape our attention: When we exercise vigorously, we convert chemical energy into radiated heat energy. All this radiated energy that leaves our body has mass, just as light has energy and weight, although it will not register on our bathroom scale.

 

In cognizance of these basic facts, we can stipulate that energy is the basic raw material that makes up the universe and all that is contained within it, including human beings. The essence of the universe is the unity of energy, time and space.

 

Energy is essentially a heat phenomenon. Heat and work are mechanisms by which systems exchange energy with one another. The mechanical equivalent of heat is called a Joule. 4.2 joules are the equivalent of one calorie, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.

 

In order for energy to perform work, a difference must exist between energy at a high potential and energy at a more randomized, diluted, potential. The term entropy is a measure of the degree to which energy has lost the capacity to perform useful work. Entropy signifies the dilution, the randomization of energy. We may look at water in two lakes, connected by a canal. Unless the lakes are at a different level, unless they are at a different energy potential, there is plenty of water, but all this water has no potential energy and cannot perform any useful work because it cannot change levels. This ability or inability to perform useful work is an analogy to and is at the heart of the term entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

Let us back up a little: This whole subject of Thermodynamics sounds like a very complicated affair. Indeed, it is both very simple and extremely complex. There are three Laws of Thermodynamics, but we need to concern ourselves only with the first two laws because they are closely interwoven and can actually be expressed in one sentence: The total energy content of the universe is constant and the total entropy, the non-usable energy, is constantly increasing. There you have it: The combination of the first and second law of thermodynamics.

 

Very interesting, but what does it mean? It means that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed into mass, chemical energy, heat energy, latent energy and work, but it cannot be created and it cannot disappear. Energy is also in a constant, inevitable and irreversible process of becoming increasingly randomized. Salt crystals may be dissolved in a beaker of water without losing its identity as salt. The salt became more randomized when it dissolved in the water. The Law of Entropy decrees that it cannot reconvert itself to the less randomized, crystalline version. The salt cannot reconstitute itself as crystals, unless we introduce external energy to evaporate the water.

 

The amount of energy in the universe was established at the time of the Big Bang. At that point, energy was extremely concentrated and ordered. Since then, the universe has expanded vastly and energy has become more diluted and randomized. It is inherent in the nature of the universe that this process must and will continue. If it were to stop, the universe would cease to exist.

 

This increasing randomization of energy, entropy, is part of the structure of the universe. The energy dilemma does not involve the amount of energy that is available; it involves the form in which the energy is available. The universe is involved in a constant process of converting one form of energy into another form and in doing so, it inevitably must convert part of the original energy into more randomized, less usable, heat energy. Potential energy is organized energy whereas heat represents randomized, disorganized energy. Heat energy is irretrievable energy. Although the energy contained in heat is not destroyed, it has become unavailable for producing work. All forms of energy are degraded incessantly and irreversibly to an inferior, lower-quality, more-randomized form of energy: Heat.

 

By the same principle, the solar energy that pours out of the furnace of the sun travels on and on until it eventually becomes scattered throughout the universe: It becomes so randomized that it becomes unusable for the performance of work. Therefore, we must stipulate that entropy, as a measure of the randomness of energy in the universe, is always increasing.

 

The question arises, what will happen when all the usable energy in the universe is converted into randomized heat energy and is no longer capable of performing such work as expanding the universe. We refer to this condition as the Heat Death of the Universe: Once all the energy in the universe is converted to and randomized as heat, then the universe will be in a state of energy equilibrium, everything will be of the same temperature and entropy will remain constant. This is where science gets more complicated and involves the microwave background radiation consisting of photons near, but not quite at, absolute Zero. Scientists have recently detected this microwave background radiation and have thus confirmed the connectivity between Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics.

 

Before we go on to some practical manifestations of entropy, we need to be aware of a very important characteristic of entropy: The Laws of Thermodynamics pertain only to a system that we refer to as a closed system: An entity that does not exchange energy, information or mass with anything outside the system. The universe in its totality is a closed system because no new energy is injected into it. Therefore, all laws of Thermodynamics apply to the universe. Earth is not a closed system because our sun constantly injects it with new energy. This infusion of energy into the non-closed system of the earth makes it possible to comply with the Second Law while achieving an increase in the complexity of life forms, as necessitated by the process of evolution.

 

The laws of thermodynamics are among the very few laws of nature that describe phenomena that are an integral part of the origin of the universe, of the Big Bang. The other laws in this category are gravity, relativity, nuclear binding forces and electromagnetism. Human beings need not concern themselves with the effects of relativity or quantum mechanics. However, the phenomena of thermodynamics constantly and profoundly affect all human beings.

 

If there are any laws that have truly universal applicability and that also affect ordinary human affairs, they are the Laws of Thermodynamics. The following statement contains the essence of Entropy: In any transformation of energy from one form to another, useful energy is lost irreversibly. The German physicist Clausius first used the term Entropy in 1865 to describe the nature of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Even great physicists of that period, like James Maxwell, had trouble with a concept involving only negatives and dealing with the idea of measuring a state of disorder. Today we can condense the statement of Entropy by stating: Entropy in a closed system can never decrease. There are no exceptions to this statement.

 

The Second Law decrees that water can only flow downhill. Objects do not run uphill by themselves. If we wish to have water run uphill, we must supply outside energy to pump it up the hill.

 

A clock gradually runs down because the latent energy in its spring is used to run the clock and part of this energy is converted to irretrievable heat. Because the heat cannot be reconstituted into usable energy, this energy is lost irretrievably and the clock cannot rewind itself.

 

Even in the most complex energy transformations, there is a forward direction to the process because only an outside energy source can reverse a heat-process within a closed system. The burning of gasoline in a car creates mechanical energy and heat. However, no process in the universe will allow the exhaust gases to re-combine with the heat energy and reconstitute the original gasoline: The heat energy of the burning gasoline has achieved a higher and irreversible state of randomization: The entropy of the system, and the universe, is irreversibly increased, as required by the Second Law.

 

The close relationship of entropy to the statistical laws of probability becomes clear when we hold a stack of five coins in a hand and throw them on a flat surface. Instead of retaining their previous order and proximity, they scatter and increase their randomness. The fall of the coins generated and dissipated the tiniest little bit of heat and the lack of this heat prevented the coins from reforming in the same stack as before. Entropy always drives all transformation of energy in such a way as to increase irreversible randomness.

 

Ice must have a tendency to melt because H2O molecules in ice crystals are more orderly than in the form of water. Ice crystals tend to become randomized by changing from orderly ice crystals to a more disorderly state as a liquid.

 

Water must evaporate: A gaseous structure is more randomized than a liquid state.

 

Time can only flow in one direction: The arrow of time can only move from the dead past to the non-existing future. The Second Law is closely interwoven with the laws of probability. Therefore, the laws of entropy are statistical laws. If we apply statistical laws applicable to entropy to future events, they provide meaningful results; if we apply them to past events, they are meaningless. Therefore, time can flow only from the dead past toward the future, which does not yet exist. Time travel will always remain impossible: It is inherently impossible to move from one state of non-existence to other states of non-existence. The Second Law decrees that the universe would have to cease to exist in order to allow for time-travel.

 

The laws of thermodynamics are the descriptors of the universe and do not permit perpetual motion machines. We would only waste our time and money if we were to attempt building a machine that not only can run forever, but that could even produce excess energy while doing so.

 

Heat flows from a hot object to a cold object, never the other way around. When we drop a hot peace of metal in a container of cold water, the metal cools and the water heats up until their temperatures have equalized. During this process the entropy, the randomness of the system consisting of the water and the metal, increases and no further useful work can be performed because there is no longer a temperature differential between the water and the metal: The system has become randomized.

 

This manifestation of the Second Law can be stated quite simply: Heat energy will not flow from a cooler to a warmer body. It would be foolish to try to warm our hands on a block of ice although there is considerable heat in the ice. If we compare the heat of ice with the heat of liquid hydrogen, ice would appear to be very hot, indeed. It would be easy to build a machine that runs on the heat differential between the cold block of ice and the much colder liquid hydrogen. However, since the heat in the ice is at a much lower level than the heat in our body, heat cannot flow from the ice to our hands. We cannot warm our hands by immersing them in ice. We have always known this fact. Now we know why we cannot warm our hand by touching a block of ice.

 

Bridges and buildings will inevitably collapse, unless entropy is counteracted by the addition of new energy, such as money, energy, power or labor, to the system. If we do not paint the bridge, it will eventually, but inevitably, collapse.

 

Money is not energy but it represents energy. Therefore, money becomes randomized automatically, in compliance with the Second Law. As we only know too well, money has a distinct tendency to dissipate, to randomize. On the other hand, the creation of wealth requires an infusion of energy from a source outside the system, such as a competent strategy or the contribution of additional capital or labor.

 

We know empirically, that things do not organize themselves into artifacts that are more complex unless new energy is inserted from outside the system. This fact is obvious because a broken window will not repair itself. Without competent management, without the energy to organize and structure transactions, a business will fail, a victim of entropy.

 

Without new software, without the infusion of new energy from outside the computer system, a computer will never acquire new capabilities, but its hard-drive will fill up with defects and clutter due to the degeneration of the data it holds. A well known fact.

 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is closely interwoven with the future of the universe and with all life on earth. Sometimes people say that the existence of life on earth violates or contradicts the Second Law. However, this is not the case; we know of nothing in the universe that violates the Second Law.

 

The definition of life revolves around three prerequisites: The organism must be able to replicate itself, the organism must be capable of energy conversion and the organism must be subject to evolution. The essence of evolution is an increase in complexity, as is obvious when we consider the evolution of living organisms over eons of time.

 

An increase in complexity entails an increase in the orderliness of the organizational character of the organism: Life represents a decrease of entropy, a decrease of randomness. Such a decrease in randomization can only come about as a result of an infusion of energy from the outside of the closed system, from the outside of the organism. Therefore, the ability to utilize energy by converting it to a usable form, is the essence of all things that we call alive or living. In the case of life on earth, the outside energy is derived from the sun. No sunlight, no life on earth.

 

This is the chain of life on earth: No energy, no evolution. -- No evolution, no life -- No energy, no life

 

The discussion of energy is significant, because nothing happens in the universe without energy. The whole universe is a cauldron of energy conversions. As far as human beings are concerned, we need to remember that the standard of living of a person or a nation is determined primarily by the availability of usable energy sources, such as oil or nuclear energy. Without sources of energy to turn our wheels and to compensate for entropy, humanity would revert to the primeval existence of hunters and gatherers.

 

Many people have trouble understanding the principle of entropy because it is a concept of negatives, because it is a measure of the disorder, of the randomness of a closed system. Every biochemical function requires a decrease in entropy, which can only be achieved by the infusion of energy into a life-sustaining system.

 

Many people erroneously believe that everything that we use up can be recycled and reused if we only develop the appropriate technology. However, the Second Law makes it inherently impossible to achieve complete reconstitution or recycling. In order to recycle a used product, we must insert additional energy in the collecting, transportation and reprocessing of used materials and this energy expenditure contributes to the overall entropy, the randomness, of the environment. Thus, discards can be recycled only by the expenditure of additional energy and at the expense of increasing the entropy of the universe as a whole. On a light note: Every time someone lights a cigarette, he increases the entropy of the universe and contributes to the energy death of the universe.

 

Why is this discussion of entropy and the Second Law so important to us, to ordinary human beings? After all, most of us are more concerned with living a happy life, than the heat death of the universe. The problem is that the Second Law has a tendency to interfere with our happiness because it has a pervasive, pernicious effect on our lives. It is imperative that we are aware of the impairments caused by entropy in order to counteract them effectively.

 

If we encounter a problem in life, it is most important to be fully cognizant of the precise nature and cause of the problem. In trying to resolve the problem, it would be counter-productive to invoke the help of imagined superior beings, instead of dealing with the problem in a realistic, purposeful manner. Unless we understand the nature of entropy, we cannot resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore, a profound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to our quest for happiness.

 

"Murphy's Law" is well known. After allowing for many humorous embellishments and variations on the basic theme, Mr. Murphy’s proposition states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." A corollary version claims: "Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse".

 

We laugh about this aspect of life because we have all experienced the effect of Mr. Murphy's Law on many occasions. Rather than recognize Murphy's Law as a humorous version of a basic law of nature, we usually look upon it as a quirk of nature. Nothing could be further from the truth: When we look at the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we realize that Mr. Murphy's law is an inescapable consequence of the principle of Entropy.

 

Unless we constantly insert new energy into a house by maintaining it, painting it, repairing it, the structure will eventually but inevitably be leveled to the ground. Its molecules will move from a lower level of randomization, from structure, to a higher level of randomization, towards unstructured debris.

 

Entropy is the reason why paint peels, why hot coffee turns cold. Furthermore, entropy is the reason why investments have a preordained inclination to go sour -- unless we enhance success by inserting into the investment system additional energy in the form of strategy, work, calculated risk or other forms of energy. Entropy ensures that sugar, which becomes more randomized when it is dissolved in water, will not reconstitute itself in the crystalline form -- unless we apply heat energy from outside the system and evaporate the water.

 

Wherever we look, whatever we do, we must be acutely aware of the immutable laws of thermodynamics, especially the easily overlooked Second Law: Entropy. This fundamental law of physics ranks with other fundamental manifestations of the universe such as gravity, time and electromagnetism.

 

Anything that can go wrong not only will go wrong, it must go wrong, as decreed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics

 

www.rationality.net/entropy.htm

Dedicada a todos los amantes de estos felinos

  

"Mi gato nunca ríe o se lamenta. Siempre está razonando"

(Miguel de Unamuno)

 

"El mas pequeño gato es una obra maestra" (Leonardo da Vinci)

 

"My cat never laughs or regrets. Whenever this reasoning" (Miguel de Unamuno)

 

"The smallest cat is a masterpiece" (Leonardo da Vinci)

         

A beautifully produced brochure, resplendent in a presentation envelope, and issued by the County of London Electric Supply Company to commemorate the opening of their new power house (power station) on the banks of the River Thames at Creekmouth in Barling. This great event took place on 19 May 1925 and, one strongly suspects, was the one time Royalty set foot at Creekmouth! The brochure has a potted history of the company that has been incorporated in 1891 to serve parts of South West London and some inner parishes adjacent to the City of London itself. These two supply areas were the reasoning behind their first two power stations at City Road, Islington and in Wandsworth.

 

The UK's fledgling electricial supply industry was rather an unholy mess with not just a multiplicity of supply undertakings (private and municipal) but also a wide range of supply voltages and phases. Some consolidation took place and the County of London Company was typical of the larger players in that they extended their supply area serviving a multiplicity of administrative areas that did not develop undertakings of their own as well as becoming 'bulk' suppliers of power to 'independent' undertakings. By the early 1920s their supply area had grown to cover much of East London and South Essex as seen on the map.

 

The construction fo Barking "A" as it would become known was first mooted in post-WW1 years to firstly increase capacity and also to ensure more thermally efficient production of supply than their older and smaller stations could obtain. The riverside plant allowed easy delivery of the coal fuel by river and allowed for the necessary cooling water. The designers and consultants were Merz & McLellan, the bulk of the equipment supplied by Vickers of Barrow and the turbines were by C A Parsons.

 

Barking was also effectively the outcome of increased co-operation the company had with three other closely connected concerns - the City of London Electric Lighting Company; the South London Electric Supply Corporation Limited; and the South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power Company Limited. This cooperation was something increasingly demanded of the industry by increased legislation and in 1926 the Central Electricity Board was formed. The CEB not only instituted the National Grid, interconnection requiring a national standard of production, but also 'designated' efficient stations. City Road was not, and closed in 1929, Wandsworth was and Barking saw expansion with the construction of the "B" section stage that was commissioned in 1933 and reached full capacity in 1939. The Company was nationalised in 1948 and it fell to the state to construct what was Barking "C" in 1954. Barking "A" was decommissioned in 1969, "B" in 1976 and finally "C" in 1981. The whole site was then cleared.

 

The brochure has a number of colour plates and sketches by artist Norman Howard as well as photographs of the plant. It is spledidly printed and produced by one of the better printing houses of the day, the esteemed George W Jones, at "The Sign of the Dolphin" in Gough Square, Fleet Street. This illustration shows what the station would have looked like if all the originally intended phases had been constructed as originally intended. The site that would over time become home to three 'stations'.

Rapid strata formation in soft sand (field evidence).

Photo of strata formation in soft sand on a beach, created by tidal action of the sea.

Formed in a high tidal event. Stunning evidence which displays multiple strata/layers.

 

Why this is so important ....

It has long been assumed, ever since the 17th century, that layers/strata observed in sedimentary rocks were built up gradually, layer upon layer, over many years. It certainly seemed logical at the time, from just looking at rocks, that lower layers would always be older than the layers above them, i.e. that lower layers were always laid down first followed, in time, by successive layers on top.

This was assumed to be true and became known as the superposition principle.

It was also assumed that a layer comprising a different material from a previous layer, represented a change in environmental conditions/factors.

These changes in composition of layers or strata were considered to represent different, geological eras on a global scale, spanning millions of years. This formed the basis for the Geologic Column, which is used to date rocks and also fossils. The evolutionary, 'fossil record' was based on the vast ages and assumed geological eras of the Geologic Column.

There was also circular reasoning applied with the assumed age of 'index' fossils (based on evolutionary beliefs & preconceptions) used to date strata in the Geologic Column. Dating strata from the assumed age of (index) fossils (faunal succession) is known as Biostratigraphy.

We now know that, although these assumptions seemed logical, they are not supported by the evidence.

At the time, the mechanics of stratification were not properly known or studied.

 

An additional factor was that this assumed superposition and uniformitarian model became essential, with the wide acceptance of Darwinism, for the long ages required for progressive microbes-to-human evolution. There was no incentive to question or challenge the superposition, uniformitarian model, because the presumed, fossil 'record' had become dependant on it, and any change in the accepted model would present devastating implications for Darwinism.

This had the unfortunate effect of linking the study of geology so closely to Darwinism, that any study independent of Darwinian considerations was effectively stymied. This link of geology with Darwinian preconceptions is known as biostratigraphy.

 

Some other field evidence, in various situations, can be observed here: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

and also in the links to stunning, experimental evidence, carried out by sedimentologists, given later.

_______________________________________________

GEOLOGIC PRINCIPLES (established by Nicholas Steno in the 17th Century):

What Nicolas Steno believed about strata formation is the basis of the principle of Superposition and the principle of Original Horizontality.

dictionary.sensagent.com/Law_of_superposition/en-en/

“Assuming that all rocks and minerals had once been fluid, Nicolas Steno reasoned that rock strata were formed when particles in a fluid such as water fell to the bottom. This process would leave horizontal layers. Thus Steno's principle of original horizontality states that rock layers form in the horizontal position, and any deviations from this horizontal position are due to the rocks being disturbed later.”)

BEDDING PLANES.

'Bedding plane' describes the surface in between each stratum which are formed during sediment deposition.

science.jrank.org/pages/6533/Strata.html

“Strata form during sediment deposition, that is, the laying down of sediment. Meanwhile, if a change in current speed or sediment grain size occurs or perhaps the sediment supply is cut off, a bedding plane forms. Bedding planes are surfaces that separate one stratum from another. Bedding planes can also form when the upper part of a sediment layer is eroded away before the next episode of deposition. Strata separated by a bedding plane may have different grain sizes, grain compositions, or colours. Sometimes these other traits are better indicators of stratification as bedding planes may be very subtle.”

______________________________________________

 

Several catastrophic events, flash floods, volcanic eruptions etc. have forced Darwinian, influenced geologists to admit to rapid stratification in some instances. However they claim it is a rare phenomenon, which they have known about for many years, and which does nothing to invalidate the Geologic Column, the fossil record, evolutionary timescale, or any of the old assumptions regarding strata formation, sedimentation and the superposition principle. They fail to face up to the fact that rapid stratification is not an extraordinary phenonemon, but rather the prevailing and normal mechanism of sedimentary deposition whenever and wherever there is moving, sediment-laden water. The experimental evidence demonstrates the mechanism and a mass of field evidence in normal (non-catastrophic) conditions shows it is a normal everyday occurrence.

It is clear from the experimental evidence that the usual process of stratification is - that strata are not formed by horizontal layers being laid on top of each other in succession, as was assumed. But by sediment being sorted in the flowing water and laid down diagonally in the direction of flow. See diagram:

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/39821536092/in/dat...

 

The field evidence (in the image) presented here - of rapid, simultaneous stratification refutes the Superposition Principle and the Principle of Lateral Continuity.

 

We now know, the Superposition Principle only applies on a rare occasion where sedimentary deposits are laid down in still water.

Superposition is required for the long evolutionary timescale, but the evidence shows it is not the general rule, as was once believed. Most sediment is laid down in moving water, where particle segregation is the general rule, resulting in the simultaneous deposition of strata/layers as shown in the photo.

 

See many other examples of rapid stratification (with geological features): www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

Rapid, simultaneous formation of layers/strata, through particle segregation in moving water, is so easily created it has even been described by sedimentologists (working on flume experiments) as a law ...

"Upon filling the tank with water and pouring in sediments, we immediately saw what was to become the rule: The sediments sorted themselves out in very clear layers. This became so common that by the end of two weeks, we jokingly referred to Andrew's law as "It's difficult not to make layers," and Clark's law as "It's easy to make layers." Later on, I proposed the "law" that liquefaction destroys layers, as much to my surprise as that was." Ian Juby, www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/

 

The example in the photo is the result of normal, everyday tidal action formed in a single incident. Where the water current or movement is more turbulent, violent, or catastrophic, great depths (many metres) of stratified sediment can be laid down in a short time. Certainly not requiring the many millions of years assumed by evolutionists.

 

The composition of strata formed in any deposition event. is related to whatever materials are in the sediment mix, not to any particular timescale. Whatever is in the mix will be automatically sorted into strata/layers. It could be sand, or other material added from mud slides, erosion of chalk deposits, coastal erosion, volcanic ash etc. Any organic material (potential fossils), alive or dead, engulfed by, or swept into, a turbulent sediment mix, will also be sorted and buried within the rapidly, forming layers.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/39821536092/in/alb...

 

See many other examples of rapid stratification with geological features: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

Stratified, soft sand deposit. demonstrates the rapid, stratification principle.

Important, field evidence which supports the work of the eminent, sedimentologist Dr Guy Berthault MIAS - Member of the International Association of Sedimentologists.

(Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/)

And also the experimental work of Dr M.E. Clark (Professor Emeritus, U of Illinois @ Urbana), Andrew Rodenbeck and Dr. Henry Voss, (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/)

 

Other experimental work:

arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/9809432.pdf

 

www.nature.com/articles/386379a0

 

Location: Sandown, Isle of Wight. Photographed: 08/12/2017

This field evidence demonstrates that multiple strata in sedimentary deposits do not need millions of years to form and can be formed rapidly. This natural example confirms the principle demonstrated by the sedimentation experiments carried out by Dr Guy Berthault and other sedimentologists. It calls into question the standard, multi-million year dating of sedimentary rocks, and the dating of fossils by depth of burial or position in the strata.

Mulltiple strata/layers are evident in this example.

 

Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/) and other experiments (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/) and field studies of floods and volcanic action show that, rather than being formed by gradual, slow deposition of sucessive layers superimposed upon previous layers, with the strata or layers representing a particular timescale, particle segregation in moving water or airborne particles can form strata or layers very quickly, frequently, in a single event.

youtu.be/wFST2C32hMQ

youtu.be/SE8NtWvNBKI

And, most importantly, lower strata are not older than upper strata, they are the same age, having been created in the same sedimentary episode.

Such field studies confirm experiments which have shown that there is no longer any reason to conclude that strata/layers in sedimentary rocks relate to different geological eras and/or a multi-million year timescale. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PVnBaqqQw8&feature=share&amp.... they also show that the relative position of fossils in rocks is not indicative of an order of evolutionary succession. Obviously, the uniformitarian principle, on which the geologic column is based, can no longer be considered valid. And the multi-million, year dating of sedimentary rocks and fossils needs to be reassessed. Rapid deposition of stratified sediments also explains the enigma of polystrate fossils, i.e. large fossils that intersect several strata. In some cases, tree trunk fossils are found which intersect the strata of sedimentary rock up to forty feet in depth. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Lycopsi... They must have been buried in stratified sediment in a short time (certainly not millions, thousands, or even hundreds of years), or they would have rotted away. youtu.be/vnzHU9VsliQ

 

In fact, the vast majority of fossils are found in good, intact condition, which is testament to their rapid burial. You don't get good fossils from gradual burial, because they would be damaged or destroyed by decay, predation or erosion. The existence of so many fossils in sedimentary rock on a global scale is stunning evidence for the rapid depostion of sedimentary rock as the general rule. It is obvious that all rock containing good intact fossils was formed from sediment laid down in a very short time, not millions, or even thousands of years.

 

See set of photos of other examples of rapid stratification: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

Carbon dating of coal should not be possible if it is millions of years old, yet significant amounts of Carbon 14 have been detected in coal and other fossil material, which indicates that it is less than 50,000 years old. www.ldolphin.org/sewell/c14dating.html

 

www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

 

Evolutionists confidently cite multi-million year ages for rocks and fossils, but what most people don't realise is that no one actually knows the age of sedimentary rocks or the fossils found within them. So how are evolutionists so sure of the ages they so confidently quote? The astonishing thing is they aren't. Sedimentary rocks cannot be dated by radiometric methods*, and fossils can only be dated to less than 50,000 years with Carbon 14 dating. The method evolutionists use is based entirely on assumptions. Unbelievably, fossils are dated by the assumed age of rocks, and rocks are dated by the assumed age of fossils, that's right ... it is known as circular reasoning.

 

* Regarding the radiometric dating of igneous rocks, which is claimed to be relevant to the dating of sedimentary rocks, in an occasional instance there is an igneous intrusion associated with a sedimentary deposit -

Prof. Aubouin says in his Précis de Géologie: "Each radioactive element disintegrates in a characteristic and constant manner, which depends neither on the physical state (no variation with pressure or temperature or any other external constraint) nor on the chemical state (identical for an oxide or a phosphate)."

"Rocks form when magma crystallizes. Crystallisation depends on pressure and temperature, from which radioactivity is independent. So, there is no relationship between radioactivity and crystallisation.

Consequently, radioactivity doesn't date the formation of rocks. Moreover, daughter elements contained in rocks result mainly from radioactivity in magma where gravity separates the heavier parent element, from the lighter daughter element. Thus radiometric dating has no chronological signification." Dr. Guy Berthault www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

 

Radiometric dating based on unverifiable assumptions.

scienceagainstevolution.info/v8i8f.htm

 

Rapid strata formation and rapid erosion at Mount St Helens.

slideplayer.com/slide/5703217/18/images/28/Rapid+Strata+F...

 

Published papers

efficalis.com/sedimentology/paper

 

Visit the fossil museum:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

 

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

www.examiner.com/article/want-to-publish-science-paper-ju...

 

The neo-Darwinian idea that the human genome consists entirely of an accumulation of billions of mutations is, quite obviously, completely bonkers. Nevertheless, it is compulsorily taught in schools and universities as 'science'.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/35505679183

 

Dr James Tour - 'The Origin of Life' - Abiogenesis decisively refuted.

youtu.be/B1E4QMn2mxk

 

Darwinism. An interview with Dr Purdom. youtu.be/hG0MIyySsPQ

 

Rapid stratification refutes evolutionist timescale

evidenceoverignorance.wordpress.com/rapid-stratification-2/ evidenceoverignorance.wordpress.com/rapid-stratification-2/

 

Further reading:

Geology, the dreadful science.

malagabay.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/geology-the-dreadful-s...

malagabay.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/law-of-superpositio...

 

Polystrate fossils prove rapid stratification. kgov.com/list-of-the-kinds-of-polystrate-fossils List of polystrate fossils: kgov.com/list-of-the-kinds-of-polystrate-fossils

 

Rapid stratification refutes evolution timescale:

evidenceoverignorance.wordpress.com/rapid-stratification-2/

 

Soft tissue, including DNA, found in fossils claimed to be millions of years old. Peer-reviewed journal articles on surviving endogenous biological material including tissue and DNA. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eXtKzjWP2B1FMDVrsJ_992ITF...

 

Published paper:

www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=974471

 

Bijou Creek flood.

pubs.geoscienceworld.org/sepm/jsedres/article-abstract/37...

 

Greenland ice core dating.

answersingenesis.org/environmental-science/ice-age/do-gre...

 

The Chinese fossil faking industry.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-fake-fossils-perve...

 

Fake Chinese fossils

www.paleodirect.com/fake-chinese-fossils-fossil-forgery-f...

Photographer: Fred H. Politinsky

Subject: Science Fiction, Fantasy

 

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

---- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

 

View my photography at www.flickr.com/photos/jackpot999 and at www.flickriver.com. (Click on "Users" and enter Bebop18.)

 

View my jazz photography on GOOGLE at NPR JAZZ PHOTOGRAPHY JAZZ POOL - FLICKRIVER. (Click on "Recent.")

 

Please do not publish this or any of my other images without my permission.

Birch Shieldbugs found in the Carlisle area of Cumbria in 2015: Overview

 

As numerous shots of Birch Shieldbug adults and final-instar nymphs were taken last year, my focus for 2015 was mainly on the earlier instars.

 

Nine batches of first-instar nymphs were found between 5 July and 11 September: eight in High Stand Plantation and one in Kingmoor North. All of these were located on the leaves of small, catkin-bearing birch trees. Interestingly, no eggs were found, which presumably means that either these are much harder to spot than the nymphs, or that the eggs hatch out relatively shortly after being laid (I base this inference on the fact that over the same period I found four batches of Bronze Shieldbug eggs, and this species is probably less common).

 

Despite the fact that the total number of first-instars found must have amounted to almost 200, it proved to be surprisingly difficult to keep track of the later instars. On one occasion I failed to find a single nymph on a 4m-high sapling which just a few days earlier had been home to about 40 hatchlings! Nevertheless, I did ultimately manage to achieve my objective and photograph the missing instars. The last adults of the year (two) were found on 4 December in Finglandrigg Wood, compared with 13 November last year at the same site.

 

The following length measurements were taken on a variety of nymphs, and are discussed further in the Note on Identification below.

 

First-instar: 1.4 mm (13 Sep)*

Second-instar: 1.4mm (12 Jul), 1.5mm (18 Sep)

Third-instar: 2.6mm, 2.6mm, 3.2mm, 3.3mm (24 Jul)

Fourth-instar: 4.7mm (30 Aug), 4.5mm (teneral, 7 Sep)

Fifth-instar: 7.4mm (23 Sep)

 

(*Estimated by photographing the leaf held against my measurement grid)

 

All Birch Shieldbug photos taken this year and submitted to Flickr are included in my Birch Shieldbug (Year 2015) album, where more detailed information can be found. All of the shots included in the montage - with the exception of Photo 9 - are taken from here. This particular photo was taken last year, and is included in my Shieldbugs of Cumbria album. (Once I'd knocked off all the nymphs I rather lost interest in this species, and didn't take any decent quality shots of any of this year's adults!) The contents of the montage are as follow:

 

Photo 1: Adult (overwintered), Finglandrigg Wood, 8 May

 

Photo 2 (A): First-instar nymphs, High Stand Plantation, 9 July

 

Photo 2 (B): First-instar nymphs, High Stand Plantation, 9 July

 

Photo 2 (C): First-instar nymphs, High Stand Plantation, 11 August

 

Photo 2 (D): First-instar nymphs, Kingmoor North, 11 September

 

Photo 3: Second-instar nymphs and tenerals, Kingmoor North, 18 September

 

Photo 4: Second-instar nymphs, High Stand Plantation, 12 July

 

Photo 5: Third-instar nymph, High Stand Plantation, 24 July

 

Photo 6: Fourth-instar nymph, Finglandrigg Wood, 30 August 15

 

Photo 7: Final-instar nymph, High Stand Plantation, 4 September

 

Photo 8: Final-instar nymph, Kingmoor North, 23 September

 

Photo 9: Adult, Glasson Moss, 23 August 2014

 

Note on identification: Although I saw my first early-instar nymphs on 5 July, it wasn't till mid-September that I felt I could identify all of the first three nymphal stages with any confidence! This was partly due to the fact that there seems to be some confusion elsewhere on exactly what constitutes a first-instar Birch Shieldbug nymph. In order to avoid any ambiguity, I've explained my reasoning below.

 

Working on the assumption that a first-instar nymph is the nymph that first appear when an egg hatches - even if it doesn't actually move - then clearly the four batches of nymphs show in Photo 2 are first-instars. The last one of these batches was monitored on a daily basis for a week (from 11 September) till the nymphs started to moult into the second nymphal stage, as shown in Photo 3. So despite the fact that these don't appear to be noticeably larger than the first-instars, it is my understanding they still constitute second-instar nymphs. The nymphs shown in Photo 4 were found to be essentially the same size as those of Photo 3, and so largely on that basis, they were also classified as second-instars.

 

The nymphs shown in Photos 7 and 8 are obviously final-instars, and it can be inferred from the degree of development of the wing buds that the one shown in Photo 6 is a fourth-instar. The nymph shown in Photo 5 was assumed to be a third-instar largely on the basis of its length measurement, as it neatly spanned the size gap between second and fourth-instars.

  

Brian Passed Feb. 20, 2016.

 

As the winds carry, reasoning slow, acceptance endearing, palpably low.

  

May there be a torch, Drums, a file, and an airbrush for Brian, wherever he is now... But most of all peace

Rapid strata formation in soft sand (field evidence).

Photo of samples taken from rapidly, stratified deposits on a beach, created by tidal action of the sea.

 

Stunning evidence which displays multiple strata/layers. These samples, taken from rapidly formed, stratified deposits, show evidence of rapid consolidation.

Beginning to turn into rock, they are solid enough to be handled quite roughly without breaking.

They would crumble under pressure or if hit with a hard object. However, the process of petrification has clearly commenced within just a few months.

Rapidly formed in a tidal event during winter, the deposits laid undisturbed until these samples were taken at the beginning of June.

This is evidence that, given the right conditions, undisturbed sediment can rapidly solidify into rock, it does not need millions of years.

An interesting feature is the embedded stones in the large sample. This demonstrates how objects such as shells, bones etc. could be rapidly buried in a deposit, forming fossils as the sediment solidifies.

 

Field evidence now shows that:

1. Multiple strata can be formed rapidly.

2. Stratified deposits can rapidly solidify into rock.

 

Why this is so important ....

It has long been assumed, ever since the 17th century, that layers/strata observed in sedimentary rocks were built up gradually, layer upon layer, over many years. It certainly seemed logical at the time, from just looking at rocks, that lower layers would always be older than the layers above them, i.e. that lower layers were always laid down first followed, in time, by successive layers on top.

This was assumed to be true and became known as the superposition principle.

It was also assumed that a layer comprising a different material from a previous layer, represented a change in environmental conditions/factors.

These changes in composition of layers or strata were considered to represent different, geological eras on a global scale, spanning millions of years. This formed the basis for the Geologic Column, which is used to date rocks and also fossils. The evolutionary, 'fossil record' was based on the vast ages and assumed geological eras of the Geologic Column.

There was also circular reasoning applied with the assumed age of 'index' fossils (based on evolutionary beliefs & preconceptions) used to date strata in the Geologic Column. Dating strata from the assumed age of (index) fossils is known as Biostratigraphy.

We now know that, although these assumptions seemed logical, they are not supported by the evidence.

At the time, the mechanics of stratification were not properly known or studied.

 

An additional factor was that this assumed superposition and uniformitarian model became essential, with the wide acceptance of Darwinism, for the long ages required for progressive microbes-to-human evolution. There was no incentive to question or challenge the superposition, uniformitarian model, because the presumed, fossil 'record' had become dependant on it, and any change in the accepted model would present devastating implications for Darwinism.

This had the unfortunate effect of linking the study of geology so closely to Darwinism, that any study independent of Darwinian considerations was effectively stymied. This link of geology with Darwinian preconceptions is known as biostratigraphy.

 

Other (field) evidence, in various situations, can be observed here: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

and also in the links to stunning, experimental evidence, carried out by sedimentologists, given later.

_______________________________________________

GEOLOGIC PRINCIPLES (established by Nicholas Steno in the 17th Century):

What Nicolas Steno believed about strata formation is the basis of the principle of Superposition and the principle of Original Horizontality.

dictionary.sensagent.com/Law_of_superposition/en-en/

“Assuming that all rocks and minerals had once been fluid, Nicolas Steno reasoned that rock strata were formed when particles in a fluid such as water fell to the bottom. This process would leave horizontal layers. Thus Steno's principle of original horizontality states that rock layers form in the horizontal position, and any deviations from this horizontal position are due to the rocks being disturbed later.”)

BEDDING PLANES.

'Bedding plane' describes the surface in between each stratum which are formed during sediment deposition.

science.jrank.org/pages/6533/Strata.html

“Strata form during sediment deposition, that is, the laying down of sediment. Meanwhile, if a change in current speed or sediment grain size occurs or perhaps the sediment supply is cut off, a bedding plane forms. Bedding planes are surfaces that separate one stratum from another. Bedding planes can also form when the upper part of a sediment layer is eroded away before the next episode of deposition. Strata separated by a bedding plane may have different grain sizes, grain compositions, or colours. Sometimes these other traits are better indicators of stratification as bedding planes may be very subtle.”

______________________________________________

 

Several catastrophic events, flash floods, volcanic eruptions etc. have more recently forced Darwinian, influenced geologists to admit to rapid stratification in some instances. However, they claim it is a rare phenomenon, which they have known about for many years, and which does nothing to invalidate the Geologic Column, the fossil record, evolutionary timescale, biostratigraphy, or any of the old assumptions regarding strata formation, sedimentation and the superposition principle.

They refuse to face up to the fact that rapid stratification is not an extraordinary phenonemon, but rather the prevailing and normal mechanism of sedimentary deposition, whenever and wherever there is moving, sediment-laden water. Experimental evidence demonstrates the mechanism, and a mass of field evidence in normal (non-catastrophic) conditions shows it can be a normal, everyday occurrence.

It is clear from the experimental evidence that the usual process of stratification (strata formation) is - that strata are not formed by horizontal layers being laid on top of each other in succession over a long period of time, as was assumed. But by sediment being sorted in the flowing water and laid down diagonally in the direction of flow. See diagram:

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/39821536092/in/dat...

 

See many examples of rapid stratification (with geological features): www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

The field evidence presented here - of rapid, simultaneous stratification refutes the Superposition Principle, the Principle of Original Horizontality and the Principle of Lateral Continuity.

 

We now know, the Superposition Principle only applies on a rare occasion where sedimentary deposits are laid down in still water.

Superposition is required for the long evolutionary timescale, but the evidence shows it is not the general rule, as was once believed. Most sediment is laid down in moving water, where particle segregation is the general rule, resulting in the simultaneous deposition of strata/layers as shown in the photos.

 

Rapid, simultaneous formation of layers/strata, through particle segregation in moving water, is so easily created it has even been described by sedimentologists (working on flume experiments) as a law ...

"Upon filling the tank with water and pouring in sediments, we immediately saw what was to become the rule: The sediments sorted themselves out in very clear layers. This became so common that by the end of two weeks, we jokingly referred to Andrew's law as "It's difficult not to make layers," and Clark's law as "It's easy to make layers." Later on, I proposed the "law" that liquefaction destroys layers, as much to my surprise as that was." Ian Juby, www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/

 

The examples in the photos are the result of normal, everyday tidal action in a single incident. Where the water current or movement is more turbulent, violent, or catastrophic, great depths (many metres) of stratified sediment can be laid down in a short time. Certainly not the many millions of years assumed by evolutionists.

 

The varying composition of strata formed in any deposition event. is related to whatever materials are in the sediment mix, not to any particular timescale. Whatever is in the mix will be automatically sorted into strata/layers. It could be sand, or other material added from mud slides, erosion of chalk deposits, coastal erosion, volcanic ash etc. Any organic material (potential fossils), alive or dead, engulfed by, or swept into, a turbulent sediment mix, will also be sorted and buried within the rapidly, forming layers.

 

Stratified, soft sand deposits. demonstrate the rapid, stratification principle.

Important, field evidence which supports the work of the eminent, sedimentologist Dr Guy Berthault MIAS - Member of the International Association of Sedimentologists.

(Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/)

And also the experimental work of Dr M.E. Clark (Professor Emeritus, U of Illinois @ Urbana), Andrew Rodenbeck and Dr. Henry Voss, (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/)

 

Dr Berthault's experiments (www.sedimentology.fr/) and other experiments (www.ianjuby.org/sedimentation/) and field studies of floods and volcanic action show that, rather than being formed by gradual, slow deposition of sucessive layers superimposed upon previous layers, with the strata or layers representing a particular timescale, particle segregation in moving water or airborne particles can form strata or layers very quickly, frequently, in a single event.

youtu.be/wFST2C32hMQ

youtu.be/SE8NtWvNBKI

And, most importantly, lower strata are not older than upper strata, they are the same age, having been created in the same sedimentary episode.

Such field studies confirm experiments which have shown that there is no longer any reason to conclude that strata/layers in sedimentary rocks relate to different geological eras and/or a multi-million year timescale. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PVnBaqqQw8&feature=share&amp.... they also show that the relative position of fossils in rocks is not indicative of an order of evolutionary succession. Obviously, the uniformitarian principle, on which the geologic column is based, can no longer be considered valid. And the multi-million, year dating of sedimentary rocks and fossils needs to be reassessed. Rapid deposition of stratified sediments also explains the enigma of polystrate fossils, i.e. large fossils that intersect several strata. In some cases, tree trunk fossils are found which intersect the strata of sedimentary rock up to forty feet in depth. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Lycopsi... They must have been buried in stratified sediment in a short time (certainly not millions, thousands, or even hundreds of years), or they would have rotted away. youtu.be/vnzHU9VsliQ

 

In fact, the vast majority of fossils are found in good, intact condition, which is testament to their rapid burial. You don't get good fossils from gradual burial, because they would be damaged or destroyed by decay, predation or erosion. The existence of so many fossils in sedimentary rock on a global scale is stunning evidence for the rapid depostion of sedimentary rock as the general rule. It is obvious that all rock containing good intact fossils was formed from sediment laid down in a very short time, not millions, or even thousands of years.

 

See set of photos of other examples of rapid stratification: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

Carbon dating of coal should not be possible if it is millions of years old, yet significant amounts of Carbon 14 have been detected in coal and other fossil material, which indicates that it is less than 50,000 years old. www.ldolphin.org/sewell/c14dating.html

 

www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

 

Evolutionists confidently cite multi-million year ages for rocks and fossils, but what most people don't realise is that no one actually knows the age of sedimentary rocks or the fossils found within them. So how are evolutionists so sure of the ages they so confidently quote? The astonishing thing is they aren't. Sedimentary rocks cannot be dated by radiometric methods*, and fossils can only be dated to less than 50,000 years with Carbon 14 dating. The method evolutionists use is based entirely on assumptions. Unbelievably, fossils are dated by the assumed age of rocks, and rocks are dated by the assumed age of fossils, that's right ... it is known as circular reasoning.

 

* Regarding the radiometric dating of igneous rocks, which is claimed to be relevant to the dating of sedimentary rocks, in an occasional instance there is an igneous intrusion associated with a sedimentary deposit -

Prof. Aubouin says in his Précis de Géologie: "Each radioactive element disintegrates in a characteristic and constant manner, which depends neither on the physical state (no variation with pressure or temperature or any other external constraint) nor on the chemical state (identical for an oxide or a phosphate)."

"Rocks form when magma crystallizes. Crystallisation depends on pressure and temperature, from which radioactivity is independent. So, there is no relationship between radioactivity and crystallisation.

Consequently, radioactivity doesn't date the formation of rocks. Moreover, daughter elements contained in rocks result mainly from radioactivity in magma where gravity separates the heavier parent element, from the lighter daughter element. Thus radiometric dating has no chronological signification." Dr. Guy Berthault www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

 

Visit the fossil museum:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

 

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

www.examiner.com/article/want-to-publish-science-paper-ju...

 

The neo-Darwinian idea that the human genome consists entirely of an accumulation of billions of mutations is, quite obviously, completely bonkers. Nevertheless, it is compulsorily taught in schools and universities as 'science'.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/35505679183

St Andrew, Framingham Pigot, Norfolk

 

In 2006 I wrote: 'I know I go on about this, but it never ceases to impress me that you can be barely half a dozen miles from Norwich and still feel as if you are in the middle of nowhere. Take St Andrew, for instance; its minaret-like tower, peeping above distant trees as you negotiate the narrow lanes to the north and east of the town of Poringland, eventually resolves into this grand 19th century confection in the fields. There are a couple of cottages in view, but that's all.

 

Until the 19th century there was a ramshackle round-towered church here, but what you see today is all of a piece, the 1859 work of Robert Kerr. George Christie, who lived at the hall, paid for it. Christie is a good example of the kind of energetic, beneficent squire you occasionally got in East Anglia. He was the principal land owner and employer, and there was no doubt who was in charge in the parish. Paternalistic and earnest, he rebuilt all the cottages on his estates, as well as providing a lecture room and a schoolroom. Reasoning that a rundown church was not giving the right impression of the Kingdom of God to his workers, he had it demolished. In its place he commissioned one of the grandest and most ornate rural 19th century churches in East Anglia.

 

The nave and chancel are tall, with great ridge-backed roofs. The tower is offset on the north side, rather unusually, as if this was a church designed for some shoe-horned plot in Kentish Town, but came to earth in deepest rural Norfolk instead. Pleasingly, the main material is flint, with freestone details. The only exception is the tower, which is built of stone. It's the only thing about it that doesn't really work.

 

As I say, Framingham Pigot is on the outskirts of Poringland; but it has fortunately managed to escape being part of that most cold and unwelcoming of all Norfolk benefices, and you'll find it open or accessible. Because of this, you can step inside to an interior that is fully High Church, Tractarian in design, a relatively early example for East Anglia. This is enhanced by an excellent collection of windows, most of which appear to be by Hardman & Co.

 

Directly opposite the south doorway is what seems to be a split-level transept, but is actually the base of the tower. I assume that originally it was intended that the lower storey be a baptistery, and the upper storey an organ loft. However, neither are now in use for that purpose. On the ground floor is a delicious little Lady altar, and the organ now sits at the west end, blocking the main west doors. On either side of it there are college seats, as if Christie originally had even grander plans. Today they are inaccessible, and used for storage. High above the chancel arch is a stylised doom, with Christ seated in judgement, St Michael and two flanking angels. They won't be to everyone's taste, and you wouldn't want to see them everywhere, but I am glad that they exist here at least. Beyond, the chancel is similarly ornate, with a gorgeous painted roof and impressive heads in the corbels. In the sanctuary itself is a pillar piscina which appears to be old. Could it be the last remaining survival from the old church? I suppose that it is as likely that Kerr got it from elsewhere. But there is also a medieval brass inscription, another touchstone to the past.

 

In this part of Norfolk there are several grand Victorian rebuildings, but this one is the best. The grandness of the features is to scale, and you have to remind yourself that this is not huge. It is a smashing church, at once magnificent and intimate. You know that a wholly 19th century building that continues to feel alive, and which still offers something to modern worship, is a rare beast; this is one of them.'

Life through a childrens eyes. Every way of perception generates sensations. And how she responds to those sensations (which evolves as how she learns) results in feelings.

 

Talking about us, to change the way we feel about life's circumstances we have to go back to sensations, to feel them in their purest state, letting go of our learning processes, letting go of prejudice, letting go of the fear to fall.

 

Remake your life, living all sensations freely, without reasoning, without vices. You can feel what you want about any circumstance in life. Enjoy your life, wherever you are.

Another good-bye to my son as he left early this morning to return to the land of books and intellectual reasoning.

 

I miss him already.

Reasoning that the smoke-filled air of Yosemite might be cleaner at higher elevations, my I drove up to Tuolumne Meadows, where I found the smoke was just as thick from fires burning on the East side. Still, it was cooler. The landscape took on muted tones of warm light and by late afternoon, the air had cleared a bit.

A beautifully produced brochure, resplendent in a presentation envelope, and issued by the County of London Electric Supply Company to commemorate the opening of their new power house (power station) on the banks of the River Thames at Creekmouth in Barking. This great event took place on 19 May 1925 and, one strongly suspects, was the one time Royalty set foot at Creekmouth! The brochure has a potted history of the company that has been incorporated in 1891 to serve parts of South West London and some inner parishes adjacent to the City of London itself. These two supply areas were the reasoning behind their first two power stations at City Road, Islington and in Wandsworth.

 

The UK's fledgling electricial supply industry was rather an unholy mess with not just a multiplicity of supply undertakings (private and municipal) but also a wide range of supply voltages and phases. Some consolidation took place and the County of London Company was typical of the larger players in that they extended their supply area serviving a multiplicity of administrative areas that did not develop undertakings of their own as well as becoming 'bulk' suppliers of power to 'independent' undertakings. By the early 1920s their supply area had grown to cover much of East London and South Essex as seen on the map.

 

The construction fo Barking "A" as it would become known was first mooted in post-WW1 years to firstly increase capacity and also to ensure more thermally efficient production of supply than their older and smaller stations could obtain. The riverside plant allowed easy delivery of the coal fuel by river and allowed for the necessary cooling water. The designers and consultants were Merz & McLellan, the bulk of the equipment supplied by Vickers of Barrow and the turbines were by C A Parsons.

 

Barking was also effectively the outcome of increased co-operation the company had with three other closely connected concerns - the City of London Electric Lighting Company; the South London Electric Supply Corporation Limited; and the South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power Company Limited. This cooperation was something increasingly demanded of the industry by increased legislation and in 1926 the Central Electricity Board was formed. The CEB not only instituted the National Grid, interconnection requiring a national standard of production, but also 'designated' efficient stations. City Road was not, and closed in 1929, Wandsworth was and Barking saw expansion with the construction of the "B" section stage that was commissioned in 1933 and reached full capacity in 1939. The Company was nationalised in 1948 and it fell to the state to construct what was Barking "C" in 1954. Barking "A" was decommissioned in 1969, "B" in 1976 and finally "C" in 1981. The whole site was then cleared.

 

The brochure has a number of colour plates and sketches by artist Norman Howard as well as photographs of the plant. It is spledidly printed and produced by one of the better printing houses of the day, the esteemed George W Jones, at "The Sign of the Dolphin" in Gough Square, Fleet Street.

We were heading along the South Eastern freeway today.

I suddenly noticed this giant Fish in the sky heading towards the Monarto Zoological Park. I pointed it out to my wife. She said she would get some photos of it with the phone camera while I was driving along.

The cloud remained this shape for quite a while after.

I thought the best shot she got was this one.

My reasoning was that I thought it was an uncanny juxtaposition of objects and places.

 

Only basic editing of exposure / contrast, no photoshopping of shape.

The Challenger crewmember remains are being transferred from 7 hearse vehicles to a MAC C-141 transport plane at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility for transport to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. The STS-51L crew consisted of: Mission Specialist, Ellison S. Onizuka, Teacher in Space Participant Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist, Greg Jarvis and Mission Specialist, Judy Resnik. In the front row from left to right: Pilot Mike Smith, Commander, Dick Scobee and Mission Specialist, Ron McNair.

  

As we investigate the reasoning of the STS-107 breakup, we cannot ignore the horrible fate of the crew. Here is an account of the final moments of not only the Columbia, but the Challenger crew.

 

_______________________________

  

Was Columbia in reentry LOS at the time of breakup?

 

No. Both voice communication and data telemetry were still being received right up to the breakup of Columbia. Unlike previous manned programs - Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, as well as the Russian Soyuz vehicles - the Shuttle does not have a loss-of-signal phase during reentry. The reason is actually pretty simple.

 

First off, understand that the blackout period is caused by a sheath of ionized air, formed during the high-heating, high-deceleration phase of re-entry, through which radio waves cannot penetrate. This is what every manned flight from Mercury thru Apollo experienced, and provided much of the suspense and drama during the reentry phase of John Glenn's Friendship 7 Mercury flight. Even the Shuttle experienced the same effect during its early flights.

 

The communications loss due to the blackout period was resolved after the second Tracking Data and Relay Satellite (TDRS) was placed in orbit. The reason is that the ionization sheath is open at the trailing end behind the Shuttle, providing a hole through which communication with the shuttle can be maintained with the favorably positioned TDRS. This second TDRS also allows communication during the other portions of entry that did not exist prior to its placement in 1988 - a period roughly from the time of the de-orbit OMS burn to an altitude of 200,000 feet for a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, barring passes over ground sites.

 

So, with two functioning TDRS satellites in operation, communications with the Shuttle can be maintained throughout the entire reentry phase of the mission.

  

What happened to the crew when Columbia broke up?

 

Actually, it's better to speculate on the fate of the crew cabin, and then decide for yourself what probably happened to the crew.

 

Once the cabin tore loose from the rest of the fuselage and all electrical power was lost, the cabin was probably hammered, buffeted and braked by atmospheric drag as it continued its re-entry. The cabin would have been heated by the surrounding shock-induced plasma, and as G-forces built up the integrity of the heat-weakened aluminum infrastructure would have been compromised and the cabin would eventually collapse in on itself. Some fragmentation would have no doubt taken place, and pieces would have broken loose and fallen behind and below the cabin's path as they slowed down quicker in the atmospheric drag.

 

This speculation is based on some of the findings of the investigation into the loss of Challenger in 1986. As with Columbia, the initial impressions on the fate of the Challenger crew was that they had perished instantly when the shuttle came apart a minute after launch. However, when the crew cabin was found relatively intact a few months later did it become apparent that the cabin had in fact separated cleanly from the fuselage, continued on a parabolic arc to an altitude of ~65,000 feet, and then fell back to impact in the Atlantic Ocean with a force of 200 G’s. Even then, the cabin was still relatively intact despite hitting the surface of the ocean with that degree of force.

 

When the cabin broke loose from the rest of Challenger, it became separated from all electrical and life support resources. Save for a few seconds of air in the lines, very shortly after separation the crew would have been without any life support. Upon recovery it was found that the state of some life-support equipment indicated that at least some of the crew had survived the initial breakup were able to activate their safety equipment. Three of the four Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAP) located behind each seat on the Shuttle had in fact been activated. However, because the crew were not wearing any sort of pressure suits, the PEAPs would not have provided the required amount of breathable air necessary to retain consciousness at the altitudes the cabin reached. The team of coroners and medical specialists that performed the autopsies of the remains concluded that that the crew were soon all unconscious shortly after the cabin began its final arc of transit, and were most likely not killed until the impact with the ocean, two minutes after the External Tank exploded.

 

It should be noted that since the loss of Challenger, many of the contingency plans were revised extensively. As a result, Columbia’s crew were equipped with better survival gear, including pressure suits and personal parachutes. Assuming they were conscious of the emergency, the Columbia crew would have closed their visors when cabin pressure was lost, which would have automatically pressurized the suits. At that point, the only thing the crew would have needed to do would have been to wait until the cabin fell below 15,000', blow the escape hatch, extend the egress pole, slide out and away from the orbiter down the pole, and parachute to safety. This is how the procedure works in theory, and provided the cabin stayed relatively intact until 15,000'. Since this did not happen, it can be assumed that the cabin was compromised in such a way that the crew had no opportunity to attempt any sort of egress.

 

In Hemphill, searchers found what are believed to be human remains, and what appeared to be gauges and other Columbia components in a farmer's field on 2/10/03. Although no details were given on the human remains, over 100 pieces of debris ranging from gauges to switches and other components, many of which still had the wires attached to them. Remains that a hospital employee identified as charred torso, thigh bone and skull on a rural road near other unspecified debris in Hemphill, east of Nacogdoches. Remains identified as a charred human leg on a farm in Sabine County, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Nacogdoches.

 

"Elsewhere around Norwood, even grimmer discoveries were being made. Deputy Faron Howell was in charge of search teams that soon began stumbling across human remains.

"There was a hand, and a foot, then a leg from the knee down. One of my men found a human heart. The biggest piece was a torso, the upper bit with the chest ripped in half." A thigh bone and a skull, the flesh torn away, were also located."

  

The Unthinkable Fate of the Challenger Crew

  

The last words captured by the fight voice recorder in Challenger were not Commander Francis Scobee's haunting, "Go at throttle up." Three seconds later, Pilot Michael Smith uttered, "Uh oh," at the very moment that all electronic data from the spacecraft was lost.

 

The public has never heard the inflection of Smith's words, nor the ambient noise in the cabin that underscored them (you can read a transcript here). Despite the existence of evidence of what happened after Challenger's 73 seconds of flight, little of that reality is part of the public's consciousness, understanding, or recollection of the events of January 28, 1986. In part, this can be attributed to a justifiable desire to believe in a merciful outcome: that Christa McAuliffe and the shuttle astronauts all died instantly in what appeared from the ground to be an explosion. But like Smith's instinctive interjection, telltale signs exist that our worst nightmare about the Challenger disaster may have been true. It was very likely that the mid-air blast was not strong enough to kill the crew - and that at least some of the seven astronauts were terrifyingly aware of the impending fate.

 

More about Challenger

 

On July 28, 1986, Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin, director of Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center, submitted his report on the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts. The crew module was found that March in 100 feet of water, about 18 miles from the launch site in a location coded "contact 67." While references to the crew were stricken from the report, details about the condition of the module provide many clues about the fate of the astronauts. Kerwin wrote that the cause of the crew's death was inconclusive, but that the force of the initial explosion was too weak to have caused death or even serious injury. This was a direct contradiction to NASA's standard line about the crew's fate, that they were vaporized in the explosion and suffered no further.

 

If the astronauts were not killed by the blast, then how long did they survive? Challenger as a whole was destroyed at 48,000 feet, but the crew module continued its flight upward for 25 more seconds (to 65,000 feet) before pitching straight down and falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Evidence that at least some of the crew survived included the recovered personal egress air packs, or PEAPs, designed to provide oxygen to the crew in case they had to ditch the craft in a ground emergency. (NASA had no protocol for in-flight shuttle emergencies in 1986.) Each pack contained several minutes of breathing air, but the tanks had to be opened manually. Salvagers recovered four PEAPs; three of them had been opened. The one belonging to Michael Smith was mounted behind his seat, so it's likely another crewmember had leaned forward to activate it.

 

Kerwin and his experts theorized that the loss of cabin pressure inside the module could have knocked out the crew within a matter of seconds, but damage from the 200-mph impact made determining the rate of depressurization impossible. The air from the PEAPs would not be enough to keep the crew conscious during a rapid drop in pressure. But a rapid drop in pressure would likely have ripped up the middeck floor, which did not occur. A slow or gradual drop in pressure would keep the crew conscious much longer, and the impact at the bottom of that tumble was harsher on the crew's bodies than any car or plane crash would have been.

 

In either scenario, it is likely that some - if not all - of the crew were awake and coherent after the disintegration of Challenger, and were conscious long enough to feel the module pitch its nose straight down, to see the blue sky in the cockpit window rotate away in favor of the continent below, and to experience a weightless free fall toward the ocean that lasted a full two minutes and 55 seconds. It is a horrifying scenario so extreme that it's unlikely that even 25 more years will be enough to contemplate it objectively.

 

For now, many still choose to believe that the men and women aboard the Challenger didn't survive the explosion and were unaware that their loved ones on the ground were watching them descend in a plume of smoke to their deaths. Perhaps that belief holds some truth. Or perhaps, it simply serves to bring some peace to the earthbound souls left in the wake of the Challenger's loss.

   

Challenger was one of NASA's greatest successes - but also one of its darkest legacies.

It was initially built between 1975 and 1978 to be a test vehicle, but was later converted into a fully fledged spacecraft.

In its heyday, it completed nine milestone missions - from launching the first female astronaut into space to taking part in the first repair of a satellite by an astronaut.

But it was also the vehicle that very nearly ended the space program when a probe into the 1986 disaster found that the shuttle was doomed before it had even taken off.

Roger Boisjoly, a NASA contractor at rocket-builder Morton Thiokol Inc, warned in 1985 that seals on the booster rocket joints could fail in freezing temperatures.

'The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order — loss of human life,' he wrote in a memo.

On the eve of the ill-fated flight, Boisjoly and several colleagues reiterated their concerns and argued against launching because of predicted cold weather at the Kennedy Space Center.

But they were overruled by Morton Thiokol managers, who gave NASA the green light.

After the accident, Boisjoly testified to a presidential commission investigating the Challenger accident.

The group determined that hot gases leaked through a joint in one of the booster rockets shortly after blastoff that ended with the explosion of the shuttle's hydrogen fuel.

Boisjoly died in 2012 aged 73.

    

HOW CREW DIED ACCORDING TO NASA STUDY

 

(The following information appeared on the NASA Headquarters Website.)

 

On July 28, 1986 Rear Admiral Richard H. Truly, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight and a former astronaut, released this report from Joseph P. Kerwin, biomedical specialist from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, relating to the deaths of the astronauts in the Challenger accident. Dr. Kerwin had been commissioned to undertake this study soon after the accident on January 28, 1986. A copy of this report is available in the NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.]

 

****************************************************************

 

RADM Richard H. Truly

 

Associate Administrator for Space Flight

 

NASA Headquarters

 

Code M

 

Washington, DC 20546

 

Dear Admiral Truly:

 

The search for wreckage of the Challenger crew cabin has been completed. A team of engineers and scientists has analyzed the wreckage and all other available evidence in an attempt to determine the cause of death of the Challenger crew. This letter is to report to you on the results of this effort. The findings are inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the explosion was masked. Our final conclusions are:

 

·the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined;

 

·the forces to which the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury; and

 

·the crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following Orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.

 

Our inspection and analyses revealed certain facts which support the above conclusions, and these are related below: The forces on the Orbiter at breakup were probably too low to cause death or serious injury to the crew but were sufficient to separate the crew compartment from the forward fuselage, cargo bay, nose cone, and forward reaction control compartment. The forces applied to the Orbiter to cause such destruction clearly exceed its design limits. The data available to estimate the magnitude and direction of these forces included ground photographs and measurements from onboard accelerometers, which were lost two-tenths of a second after vehicle breakup.

 

Two independent assessments of these data produced very similar estimates. The largest acceleration pulse occurred as the Orbiter forward fuselage separated and was rapidly pushed away from the external tank. It then pitched nose-down and was decelerated rapidly by aerodynamic forces. There are uncertainties in our analysis; the actual breakup is not visible on photographs because the Orbiter was hidden by the gaseous cloud surrounding the external tank. The range of most probable maximum accelerations is from 12 to 20 G's in the vertical axis. These accelerations were quite brief. In two seconds, they were below four G's; in less than ten seconds, the crew compartment was essentially in free fall. Medical analysis indicates that these accelerations are survivable, and that the probability of major injury to crew members is low.

 

After vehicle breakup, the crew compartment continued its upward trajectory, peaking at an altitude of 65,000 feet approximately 25 seconds after breakup. It then descended striking the ocean surface about two minutes and forty-five seconds after breakup at a velocity of about 207 miles per hour. The forces imposed by this impact approximated 200 G's, far in excess of the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels.

 

The separation of the crew compartment deprived the crew of Orbiter-supplied oxygen, except for a few seconds supply in the lines. Each crew member's helmet was also connected to a personal egress air pack (PEAP) containing an emergency supply of breathing air (not oxygen) for ground egress emergencies, which must be manually activated to be available. Four PEAP's were recovered, and there is evidence that three had been activated. The nonactivated PEAP was identified as the Commander's, one of the others as the Pilot's, and the remaining ones could not be associated with any crew member. The evidence indicates that the PEAP's were not activated due to water impact.

 

It is possible, but not certain, that the crew lost consciousness due to an in-flight loss of crew module pressure. Data to support this is:

 

·The accident happened at 48,000 feet, and the crew cabin was at that altitude or higher for almost a minute. At that altitude, without an oxygen supply, loss of cabin pressure would have caused rapid loss of consciousness and it would not have been regained before water impact.

 

·PEAP activation could have been an instinctive response to unexpected loss of cabin pressure.

 

·If a leak developed in the crew compartment as a result of structural damage during or after breakup (even if the PEAP's had been activated), the breathing air available would not have prevented rapid loss of consciousness.

 

·The crew seats and restraint harnesses showed patterns of failure which demonstrates that all the seats were in place and occupied at water impact with all harnesses locked. This would likely be the case had rapid loss of consciousness occurred, but it does not constitute proof.

 

Much of our effort was expended attempting to determine whether a loss of cabin pressure occurred. We examined the wreckage carefully, including the crew module attach points to the fuselage, the crew seats, the pressure shell, the flight deck and middeck floors, and feedthroughs for electrical and plumbing connections. The windows were examined and fragments of glass analyzed chemically and microscopically. Some items of equipment stowed in lockers showed damage that might have occurred due to decompression; we experimentally decompressed similar items without conclusive results.

 

Impact damage to the windows was so extreme that the presence or absence of in-flight breakage could not be determined. The estimated breakup forces would not in themselves have broken the windows. A broken window due to flying debris remains a possibility; there was a piece of debris imbedded in the frame between two of the forward windows. We could not positively identify the origin of the debris or establish whether the event occurred in flight or at water impact. The same statement is true of the other crew compartment structure. Impact damage was so severe that no positive evidence for or against in-flight pressure loss could be found.

 

Finally, the skilled and dedicated efforts of the team from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and their expert consultants, could not determine whether in-flight lack of oxygen occurred, nor could they determine the cause of death.

 

/signed/

 

Joseph P. Kerwin

  

"Exactly what happened..."

 

In February 2001 a visitor to my "Icarus Rising" site asked if I could tell her "exactly what happened" in the Challenger disaster. After chuckling for a moment over the fact that whole books have been written on that topic, I sat down and typed out for her the following summary of events, which is based upon my examination of print and video records of the disaster.

The extreme cold of the night before had chilled the rubber insulating O-rings in the right solid rocket booster's aft field joint (the joint near the SRB's lower supporting strut that attached it to the external fuel tank) well below their specified operating temperature. Because no shuttle had ever been launched in such cold weather, engineers at Morton Thiokol (the company that manufactures the boosters) had no data to say just what would happen in such conditions, although their examination of retrieved boosters from previous launches had led them to conclude that lower launch temperatures directly affected the O-rings' ability to seal the joints properly upon SRB ignition. This sealing failure was called "blow-by" and was indicated by evidence of hot gases from the firing of the SRBs having eroded the O-rings during flight. The lower the temperature, the greater the blow-by. In fact, one SRB used on a 1983 Challenger launch had actually sustained a complete O-ring failure resulting in hot gases escaping from the joint, but the moment of failure had occurred after the SRBs had separated from the external tank. If it had happened half a minute or so earlier, we would today be talking about the 1983 Challenger disaster. Nevertheless, Morton Thiokol engineers could not categorically say that the seal would fail if the shuttle were launched in sub-freezing temperatures, only that it might, and so their "no-go" recommendation was overruled by Morton Thiokol managers, who in turn gave the "go" to NASA managers. In fairness to those who approved the launch, evidence of "blow-by" had been observed during launches when the air temperature was as high as 73 degrees, and they argued that "blow-by" appeared to happen no matter what the temperature was (of course, this should have been taken as evidence that the entire O-ring and joint configuration needed to be redesigned anyway).

 

When the SRBs were ignited at liftoff on January 28, both the primary and the secondary O-rings at the right SRB's aft field joint failed as engineers had feared they would. Evidence of this failure took the form of high-speed video images that showed seven discrete puffs of dark black smoke emanating from the area of the right SRB's aft field joint during the first two seconds after liftoff. However, the leak apparently sealed itself after that, probably plugged by debris from burned fuel and the failed O-ring seals.

 

This temporary plug appeared to stay in place for the next 56 seconds until the shuttle entered the zone of maximum dynamic pressure, called Max Q, during which shuttles ordinarily experience increased atmospheric stress as they climb toward orbit (later data showed that the stress Challenger endured that day was greater than on any previous launch but still within design specifications). At 58 seconds after launch, however, long-range video showed a flicker appearing in the area of the right SRB's aft field joint and quickly expanding to a continuous plume of flame; the stress of going through Max Q coupled with the throttling up of the shuttle's main engines apparently had broken the debris plug at the joint, allowing a 6,000 degree flame to escape through the side of the booster. The slip stream caused by the shuttle's nearly 1,500 mile-per-hour speed deflected the plume toward the SRB's lower supporting strut and the external fuel tank. The increasing loss of chamber pressure in the right SRB due to the leak caused the shuttle's guidance system to compensate for the loss of thrust on the right side by swiveling the shuttle's engines and the SRBs' nozzles in an attempt to keep Challenger on course. At 66 seconds after liftoff, data showed a significant loss of fuel pressure from the external tank to the main engines, indicating a growing hydrogen fuel leak, which fed the growing flame from the right SRB's failed joint. By this time the SRB's supporting strut had been severely weakened by exposure to the flame, as had the surface of the external tank. At 70 seconds after liftoff, long-range video showed a circumferential leak of hydrogen gas about a third of the way up on the external tank, indicating that the hydrogen innertank had failed. A bright, sustained glow also appeared between the external tank and the underside of the shuttle. At 72 seconds, data showed extreme movement of the right SRB relative to the left booster and the shuttle, indicating that the lower supporting strut had broken away completely.

 

At this point several simultaneous events occurred that resulted in the destruction of the shuttle. Probably at the same time that the SRB supporting strut failed, the lower third of the external tank fell away, releasing the hydrogen innertank's remaining load of liquid hydrogen. This release propelled the upper part of the hydrogen innertank upward into the liquid oxygen tank above it. At about the same moment, the right SRB pivoted around its remaining upper strut, its nose cone smashing into the top of the external tank. This resulted in the release of all of the remaining liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel, which vaporized instantly in the thin atmosphere nine miles up. This sudden fuel vaporization produced what appeared to be a fireball or fiery explosion but was really a combination of reflected sunlight, radiance from the brightness of the SRBs' exhaust nozzles and some local burning of gases within the expanding vapor cloud. Because of the right SRB's pivoting around its upper attachment, its motion suddenly pointed Challenger to the left, with the result that the shuttle was no longer pointed in the same direction that it was flying. The resulting aerodynamic stress from this "broadside" effect at nearly 2,000 miles per hour was more than the shuttle was built to withstand, and the forward part of the shuttle broke away from the payload bay. The nose of the shuttle became separated from the crew cabin, the steering rockets in the nose releasing their fuel in an explosive burn. The rest of the shuttle, its forward end suddenly opened like a tube to the supersonic wind, blew apart from the inside out. All of this happened within the space of a second or so. Contrary to initial speculation, there was no actual explosion (in spite of Tom Brokaw's citing of scientists at the time who likened the force of the "explosion" to that of "a small nuclear blast"); what we saw was the dramatic vaporization of Challenger's liquid fuel in the thin atmosphere as the shuttle broke up under severe aerodynamic stress. Challenger was not blasted to pieces by an explosion; it was blown apart by aerodynamics.

 

The crew cabin's momentum after the breakup quickly carried it upward to an altitude of around twelve miles before aerodynamics and gravity slowed its ascent and the cabin began the long fall to the ocean. What happened to the crew after the breakup and during the fall will never be fully answered. When the cabin broke away from the rest of the shuttle, it lost all its electrical power and oxygen supplies. If the cabin depressurized due to the breakup, then the crew would have quickly begun losing consciousness due to lack of oxygen. The fact that three out of four recovered PEAPs (Personal Egress Air Packs) had been activated and partially used indicates that at least some of the crew survived the breakup long enough to take some action to try to stay alive. Their having turned on the PEAPs does not prove that the cabin lost pressure but does show that at least some of the crew, all of whom were wearing air-tight flight helmets, believed that pressure had been lost or was being lost (otherwise, the packs wouldn't have been activated). If the cabin indeed lost pressure after the breakup, then the crew in all likelihood lost consciousness, although the short time between breakup and the cabin's impact with the ocean means that, barring cardiac arrest, they were alive but unconscious when the cabin hit the water. If, on the other hand, the cabin maintained its pressure, then they were likely alive and awake until the end. A third possibility is that the cabin depressurized at the altitude of shuttle breakup but repressurized as it fell into the denser atmosphere near sea level, which raises the nightmarish possibility that the astronauts passed out after the breakup only to regain consciousness in time to see the ocean's surface racing toward them at 200 miles per hour. Regardless of whether they were conscious or unconscious during the fall, any astronauts still alive died instantly upon impact with the ocean's surface. Damage to the cabin from its hitting the ocean's surface made it impossible to determine what damage, if any, had happened to the cabin during the breakup, which is why it's impossible to say just what happened to the crew during the fall. (The alleged "transcript" of the crew's fall to the ocean that has been published in tabloid magazines and on some Internet sites is only a hoax.)

If you say San Giovanni in Turin 'll respond immediately "fireworks " and " Bonfire ." On June 24, is in fact the expected date on which the town of Savoy , everything stops , take to the streets and they party . Continuing , perhaps unconsciously , a tradition thousands of years. The feast of St. John shall be the same reasoning as the pagan ritual of the summer solstice , a step that brings the Earth from the predominance of the lunar to the solar calendar, the shortest night of the year. The rite served to exorcise the fear of change, to cross what was considered a night full of energy : the hills and the mountains were lit fires to hunt demons and witches and prevent disease. And ' typical Piedmontese the belief that the bonfires of Saint John would serve to preserve the fruits of the earth, to ensure good harvests, protect against thunder , hail and livestock diseases . Among the most curious rites of St. John 's to burn the old grass in bonfires and collect new ones to know the future ( as the saying goes , "Saint John does not want to deceive "); to buy garlic for ensure a good year , to collect a branch of fern at midnight and keep it at home to increase their earnings . The night of June 23 is also the right time to harvest the nuts still immature and prepare the " walnut " . St. John is the patron saint of Turin almost since time immemorial : as early as 602 , at the time of the Duke Agilulfo , existed in the city a church dedicated to him. Turin , since the Middle Ages , stopped in honor of the patron for two days at that time citizens and peasants of the surrounding countryside flocked to watch the traditional running of the bulls in the Borgo Dora . The bonfire was lit by the youngest son of the prince and the central square lit up the night of June 23. The only time Christians were really the procession from the Cathedral to the Town Hall with the relics of the saint and the blessing that put an end to the games and competitions of the festival ( XV- XVI century ) . The tradition was interrupted in mid-nineteenth century and resumed in 1971 on the initiative of Associassion PIEMONTEISA : today the feast is channeled in the most harmless rituals , with historical parades in costume, offering of candles in the Cathedral by the couple , the gift of Charity ( blessed bread seasoned with pepper and saffron offered to civil authorities , military and religious ) and the traditional large bonfire omen.