phaedrap1

Author Archive

Pentillie Castle: Body found in knight’s grave hunt

Posted: February 12, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Monuments, News

Human remains, found at a stately home in Cornwall, are thought to be those of the man who built it.

Sir James Tillie, who built Pentillie Castle in 1698, instructed his staff to place him in a chair with his pipe when he died.

The instructions were followed before he was removed, but no burial information has ever been found.

Archaeologists who examined a mausoleum built in 1713, upon his death, said a body had been found in a vault.

In his will, Sir James demanded that he should not be buried, but dressed in his best clothes, bound to a stout chair and placed with his books, wine and pipe on Mount Ararat on the estate.

‘Resurrection’ plan

Archaeologist Oliver Jessop said: “It would appear that potentially we do have real evidence that the story or the myth actually was true.

“In the early 19th Century it has been suggested that the bones were removed to the local churchyard.

“I can confirm that that’s not the case and there is a body actually still inside the vault.”

Mr Jessop said the vault was found after archaeologists dug an exploratory hole in the internal floor of the mausoleum and discovered a brick-built roof.

Inside it a structure with leather studs and woodwork with handles on it was found, which are thought to be either a chair or coffin.

Ted Coryton, the owner of Pentillie Castle, said: “It’s an extraordinary legacy really, 300 years after his death and we’re all talking about it, it doesn’t happen to many people so maybe he decided to be resurrected, then maybe this is his resurrection.”

The team had also hoped to find out if Sir James’ wife, Elizabeth, was buried with him, but this is yet to be discovered.

The Hexham Heads

Posted: February 10, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Occult
Tags: Occult, paranormal

It was 1972, and at the Robson family home in Hexham, only ten minutes walk away from where the legendary Wolf of Allendale had roamed the woods, the two young Robson brothers dug up two small, carved stone heads whilst they were tending the garden.

Several nights after the discovery of the stone heads, neighbour Ellen Dodd and her daughter were sitting up late one evening when both of them witnessed a “half-man, half beast” entering the bedroom. The pair screamed in terror but, the creature seemed indifferent to them and simply left the room, heard to be “padding down the stairs as if on its hind legs” . Later on, the front door was found open. It has been thought that the creature had been in search of something, and had left the house to continue searching elsewhere.¹

Interest in the local legend of The Wolf of Allendale was rekindled by this event and the stone heads became associated with the possible re-appearance of the wolf.

The two stone heads, each about the size of an orange, were thought to be Celtic in origin and collector Dr Anne Ross took possession of the heads, as she had several other stone heads in her collection and wished to compare them to the Hexham pair. A few nights after taking possession of the heads, Dr Ross awoke at 2am one morning, feeling cold and frightened. Looking up, she saw a strange creature standing in her bedroom doorway:

“It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black, against the white door, and it was half animal and half man. The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human and, I would have again said, that it was covered with a kind of black, very dark fur. It went out and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared, and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn’t normally have done, but I felt compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, then it disappeared towards the back of the house.”

Living and working in Southampton, Dr Ross knew nothing of The Wolf of Allendale legend and the association of The Hexham Heads with the possible return of the wolf and, she attributed the experience to a nightmare. Dr Ross came home with her archaeologist husband Richard Feacham one day, only to find their teenage daughter Berenice in a distressed state. Berenice explained that she had used her key to unlock the front door and entered the house that afternoon to witness a large, black shape rushing down the stairs; halfway downstairs the creature vaulted the bannister, landing with a soft, heavy thud like a large animal with padded feet.

Believing the presence of the stone heads to be responsible for these events, Dr Ross passed on her whole collection of stone heads, along with the Hexham pair to other collectors. The Hexham Heads found their way to the British Museum for public display, though were soon removed from display and mothballed, amid reports of unsettling events associated with the heads.

There have been claims that The Hexham Heads were not Celtic in origin and had simply been carved as toys by the previous occupants of the Robson family home only twenty years previously, and had subsequently become lost in the garden. It has also been said that the heads were examined by the Universities of Newcastle and Southampton for dating. For now, the current whereabouts of The Hexham Heads remains unknown. Despite this, the legend of The Hexham Heads and its association with The Wolf of Allendale has become a cornerstone of the local folklore of the area.

Sources
¹Nationwide, TV programme, 1976
Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland – Graham J. McEwan, 1986
Authorship

Neil Boothman

35 Ancient Pyramids Discovered in Sudan Necropolis

Posted: February 6, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Monuments, News
Tags: Archeology

pyramids discovered at Sedeinga in Sudan

Among the discoveries are pyramids with a circle built inside them, cross-braces connecting the circle to the corners of the pyramid. Outside of Sedeinga only one pyramid is known to have been built in this way.
CREDIT: Photo copyright Vincent Francigny/SEDAU

View full size image

At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.

Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.

They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.

At Sedeinga, researchers say, pyramid building continued for centuries. “The density of the pyramids is huge,” said researcher Vincent Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an interview with LiveScience. “Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis.” [See Photos of the Newly Discovered Pyramids]

This aerial photo shows a series of pyramids and graves that a team of archaeologists has been exploring at Sedeinga in Sudan. Since 2009 they have discovered at least 35 small pyramids at the site, the largest being 22 feet (7 meters) in width.
CREDIT: Photo copyright B-N Chagny, SEDAU/SFDAS

View full size image

The biggest pyramids they discovered are about 22 feet (7 meters) wide at their base with the smallest example, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being only 30 inches (750 millimeters) long. The tops of the pyramids are not attached, as the passage of time and the presence of a camel caravan route resulted in damage to the monuments. Francigny said that the tops would have been decorated with a capstone depicting either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb.

The building continued until, eventually, they ran out of room to build pyramids. “They reached a point where it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest one,” Francigny said.

Francigny is excavation director of the French Archaeological Mission to Sedeinga, the team that made the discoveries. He and team leader Claude Rilly published an article detailing the results of their 2011 field season in the most recent edition of the journal Sudan and Nubia.

The inner circle

Among the discoveries were several pyramids designed with an inner cupola (circular structure) connected to the pyramid corners through cross-braces. Rilly and Francigny noted in their paper that the pyramid design resembles a “French Formal Garden.”

Only one pyramid, outside of Sedeinga, is known to have been constructed this way, and it’s a mystery why the people of Sedeinga were fond of the design. It “did not add either to the solidity or to the external aspect [appearance] of the monument,” Rilly and Francigny write.

A discovery made in 2012 may provide a clue, Francigny said in the interview. “What we found this year is very intriguing,” he said. “A grave of a child and it was covered by only a kind of circle, almost complete, of brick.” It’s possible, he said, that when pyramid building came into fashion at Sedeinga it was combined with a local circle-building tradition called tumulus construction, resulting in pyramids with circles within them.

skeletal remains of a child found at pyramids in sudan

People were buried beside the pyramids in tomb chambers that often held more than one individual. This image shows a child who was buried with necklaces.
CREDIT: Photo copyright Vincent Francigny/SEDAU

An offering for grandma?

The graves beside the pyramids had largely been plundered, possibly in antiquity, by the time archaeologists excavated them. Researchers did find skeletal remains and, in some cases, artifacts.

One of the most interesting new finds was an offering table found by the remains of a pyramid. . It appears to depict the goddess Isis and the jackal-headed god Anubis and includes an inscription, written in Meroitic language, dedicated to a woman named “Aba-la,” which may be a nickname for “grandmother,” Rilly writes.

It reads in translation:

Oh Isis! Oh Osiris!

It is Aba-la.

Make her drink plentiful water;

Make her eat plentiful bread;

Make her be served a good meal.

The offering table with inscription was a final send-off for a woman, possibly a grandmother, given a pyramid burial nearly 2,000 years ago.

By Owen Jarus

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Verdict issued on skeleton found under parking lot: It’s King Richard III

Posted: February 5, 2013 by phaedrap1 in News
Tags: England, Royalty

Experts say DNA analysis supports their claim that the bones dug up last year under a parking lot in the English city of Leicester are the last mortal remains of England’s King Richard III.

“It’s the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that beyond reasonable doubt the individual exhumed at Greyfriars in September 2012 is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England,” Richard Buckley, the project’s lead archaeologist, said during a Monday news briefing in Leicester.

The project used 21st-century forensic science to solve a 500-year-old mystery surrounding one of William Shakespeare’s best-known villains. Shakespeare’s play, “Richard III,” made the king out to be a scheming monster who killed children to get to the English throne. The bard gave Richard III dramatic lines that are still evoked today, ranging from “the winter of our discontent” to “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

In real life, Richard III’s battlefield death in 1485 marked the end of England’s Wars of the Roses, a decades-long conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster. Tradition held that he was buried in the choir of Leicester’s Greyfriars Church, but the precise location of his remains was lost in the mists of time. Some even speculated that Richard’s bones were thrown into the River Soar during Henry VIII’s reign.

It was only in the past few years that archaeologists have been able to zero in on the location of the Greyfriars site again. Last year, a team led by the University of Leicester excavated a city parking lot and found a wealth of intriguing evidence — including a skeleton with a battle-scarred skull and a spine that was curved due to scoliosis. There was no evidence of a coffin, a shroud or clothing that was buried with the body.

All those clues suggested that the skeleton could have been that of the historical Richard III, but to firm up the connection, scientists put the bones through genetic tests, radiocarbon dating and more detailed osteological analysis.

“The skull was in good condition, although fragile, and was able to give us detailed information about this individual,” University of Leicester archaeologist Jo Appleby reported Sunday in a news release. During Monday’s news briefing, Appleby said experts identified 10 injuries to the bones, including eight wounds to the skull and “postmortem humiliation injuries.” Such wounds are “highly consistent” with the accounts of Richard III’s death, she said.

“Historical sources tell us that Richard’s body was stripped,” hacked and put on public display after the battle, Appleby noted.

The skeleton’s relatively delicate structure was consistent with descriptions of Richard III’s physical appearance, University of Leicester historian Lin Foxhall said.

University of Leicester

A photo shows the Greyfriars skeleton lying in the site where it was found.

University of Leicester

The Greyfriars skeleton is laid out for forensic analysis. Experts believe the foot bones were separated from the rest of the body after burial.

University of Leicester

The Greyfriars skull was found by researchers during a search for the remains of King Richard III.

Buckley told journalists that the position of the hands suggested that they might have been bound together. Initially, the team reported that an arrowhead was found among the bones, but Buckley said a closer look determined that the object was a nail that was apparently mixed in with the remains.

Radiocarbon dating showed that “the individual could have died in 1485,” Buckley said. Two tests yielded dates possibly ranging from 1455 to 1540.

The team’s genetic analysis reinforced the link to Richard III: DNA was extracted from bone samples and compared with modern-day mitochondrial DNA from two direct descendants of Richard III’s family, including an anonymous donor as well as Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born cabinetmaker who is a 17th-generation descendant of Richard III’s eldest sister, Anne of York.

“The DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III,” said Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester. She said additional DNA tests were still in progress.

Genetic matches based on mitochondrial DNA aren’t as clear-cut as, say, a paternity test — but a mismatch would have ruled out any family connection. Similar techniques were used to identify the remains of Czar Nicholas II and other members of Russia’s royal family, who were killed in 1918 during the Russian Revolution.

A documentary about the Leicester project, “Richard III: The King in the Car Park,” is to be aired by Britain’s Channel 4 on Monday night. But this isn’t the end of the story. For one thing, the results announced on Monday will have to go through review and publication in scientific journals. The announcement also could lead to a reassessment of Richard III’s reign, which some historians say wasn’t nearly as terrible as Shakespeare made it out to be.

“It will be a whole new era for Richard III,” Lynda Pidgeon of the Richard III Society told The Associated Press. “It’s certainly going to spark a lot more interest. Hopefully people will have a more open mind toward Richard.”

And then there’s the matter of reburying the remains: Authorities said the skeleton would get a proper interment in Leicester Cathedral, not far from the parking lot where it was found. The cathedral’s canon chancellor, David Monteith, said planning for an interment ceremony in 2014 has already begun, and he expressed the hope that after more than 500 years, Richard III “may come to rest in peace, and rise in glory.”

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The brilliant beads of ‘Cleopatra’s necklace’: Ancient Egyptian jewellery plucked from burial mound of Siberian ‘virgin princess’

Posted: February 3, 2013 by phaedrap1 in News, Science
Tags: Archeology

Glass necklace discovered inside 2,400-year-old burial mound
Jewellery thought to have belonged to a 25-year-old virgin priestess
Experts want to pinpoint precise origin of priceless beads

Extraordinary brightly-coloured glass jewellery believed to be from Ancient Egypt has been found in a 2,400-year-old burial mound in Siberia.

Nicknamed ‘Cleopatra’s Necklace’ by the Russians who found it, the jewellery was discovered on the skeleton of a 25-year-old woman, believed to have been a virgin priestess.

Although it was discovered during a dig nine years ago, this is the first time a picture of the priceless 17-bead necklace has been shown since it was found in the Altai Mountains by archaeologist Yelena Borodovskya.

Rare find: The necklace was discovered around the neck of a skeleton in a 24,000-year-old burial mound

Valued: The intricate beads are believed to have belonged to a 25-year-old virgin priestess

Intricate: The beads were created using the ‘Millefiori technique’ where glass canes or rods are combined to produce multicoloured patterns

Siberian academics have released the images in the hope of finding experts from across the world who may be able to pinpoint the necklace’s exact origin.

‘It has a striking variety of colours, beautiful shades of deep and light yellow and blue, said Professor Andrey Borodovsky, 53, of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Novosibirsk.

‘I have worked with Altai antiquities for more than 30 years, and this necklace is probably the most beautiful find I’ve ever seen.’

Discovery: The precious necklace was found by archeologist Yelena Borodovskaya in the Altai mountains

Investigating: Professor Andrey Borodovsky is keen to discover how the necklace came to Siberia

Professor Borodovsky said that the intricate beads were made using the ‘Millefiori technique’, which involves production of glass canes or rods with multicoloured patterns that can only be seen from the cut ends.

It is believed that the jewellery pre-dates Egyptian queen Cleopatra, who died in 30BC, but Professor Borodovsky wants to find experts to help him date the piece, according to the Siberian Times.

The owner of the necklace was believed to have been 25-years-old when she was buried with the beads around her neck.

Unusual: Professor Borodovsky, pictured left, said the skeleton was also found with a bronze mirror

She was believed to have been a ‘blue-blooded’ woman, who was likely to have come from a highly regarded tribe or clan.

‘It is quite likely she was a priestess,’ said Professor Borodovsky.

‘What points to this status is a bronze mirror which was packed into her “burial bag”.

‘The mirror had a chain of bronze pendants attached to it, also there was a set of sacrificial bones with a little butcher knife.

‘It shows that the mirror was treated as a living creature, which points to its magical function.

‘If she performed some priestly functions, she could have been a virgin, not having a family and belonging to a completely different social sphere.’

Academics also suspect the mystery necklace owner was a kinswoman of the famous tattooed ‘Princess Ukok’, whose body artwork was preserved in ice following her death.

An artifact such as the necklace has never been found in Russia before, although Professor Borodovsky said that he was not surprised that the jewellery reached remote Siberia from Egypt more than two millennia ago during the Scythian period.

‘Siberia has always been a kind of ‘stream of civilization’ – a transit territory, rich with resources and attractive for migration,’ he said.

He added that the necklace, and its owner had probably come to Siberia via present-day Kazakhstan, along an old silk road.

‘It is most likely by this route that those beads got to Altai,’ he said.

‘Obviously, this area was a very busy place.’

Intrigue: Professor Borodovsky suspects that the necklace arrived in Siberia via silk road through modern-day Kazakhstan

Ancient: The necklace and skeleton were discovered at this Siberian burial ground, believed to be around 2,400-years-old

Amazing Secret Properties Of Plants – Why Humans And Plants Resemble Each Other!

Posted: February 2, 2013 by phaedrap1 in News, Science
Tags: botany, nature, Plants, science

What do plants and humans have in common? Actually, more than most people realize.

Plants possess a number of amazing properties and they can “behave” similar to us.

Plants are very much alive. Not only do they dislike human noise but they also posses the capacity to learn and communicate. Perhaps even more astonishing is that plants can also make music and they can sing.

Plants can also sense danger and know exactly how to avoid predators.

In recent years, scientists have uncovered surprising biological connections between humans and other forms of life.Researchers have revealed that plant and human biology is much closer than has ever been understood and the study of these similarities could uncover the biological basis of diseases like cancer as well as other “animal” behaviors.

Not long ago, a group of researchers discovered that although plants are deaf they can feel, see, smell and remember

Now, according to a recent study plants can also be altruistic!

The researchers looked at corn, in which each fertilized seed contained two “siblings” — an embryo and a corresponding bit of tissue known as endosperm that feeds the embryo as the seed grows, said CU-Boulder Professor Pamela Diggle. They compared the growth and behavior of the embryos and endosperm in seeds sharing the same mother and father with the growth and behavior of embryos and endosperm that had genetically different parents.

Plants and humans can behave in a similar way!

“The results indicated embryos with the same mother and father as the endosperm in their seed weighed significantly more than embryos with the same mother but a different father,” said Diggle, a faculty member in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. “We found that endosperm that does not share the same father as the embryo does not hand over as much food — it appears to be acting less cooperatively.”

“One of the most fundamental laws of nature is that if you are going to be an altruist, give it up to your closest relatives,” said Friedman.

“Altruism only evolves if the benefactor is a close relative of the beneficiary. When the endosperm gives all of its food to the embryo and then dies, it doesn’t get more altruistic than that.”

In corn reproduction, male flowers at the top of the plants distribute pollen grains two at a time through individual tubes to tiny cobs on the stalks covered by strands known as silks in a process known as double fertilization. When the two pollen grains come in contact with an individual silk, they produce a seed containing an embryo and endosperm. Each embryo results in just a single kernel of corn, said Diggle.

Studies show plants can be altruisti.

The team took advantage of an extremely rare phenomenon in plants called “hetero-fertilization,” in which two different fathers sire individual corn kernels, said Diggle, currently a visiting professor at Harvard. The manipulation of corn plant genes that has been going on for millennia — resulting in the production of multicolored “Indian corn” cobs of various colors like red, purple, blue and yellow — helped the researchers in assessing the parentage of the kernels, she said.

Wu, who cultivated the corn and harvested more than 100 ears over a three-year period, removed, mapped and weighed every individual kernel out of each cob from the harvests. While the majority of kernels had an endosperm and embryo of the same color — an indication they shared the same mother and father — some had different colors for each, such as a purple outer kernel with yellow embryo.

Wu was searching for such rare kernels — far less than one in 100 — that had two different fathers as a way to assess cooperation between the embryo and endosperm.

“It was very challenging and time-consuming research,” said Friedman. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, or in this case, a kernel in a silo.”

Endosperm — in the form of corn, rice, wheat and other crops — is critical to humans, providing about 70 percent of calories we consume annually worldwide.

“The tissue in the seeds of flowering plants is what feeds the world,” said Friedman, who also directs the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard.

“If flowering plants weren’t here, humans wouldn’t be here.”

© MessageToEagle.com

The Primacy of Consciousness: Mind over Matter

Posted: January 31, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Science, Spirituality
Tags: conciousness

“Matter is derived from mind, not mind from matter.” -Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation

More and more, scientists are catching up with ancient mystics regarding the primacy of consciousness, the fact that consciousness is an a priori facet of reality, and not some emergent property of materiality. One of the fathers of modern brain research, Wilder Penfield wrote The Mystery of Mind in which he argues his opinion as a neurosurgeon that consciousness does not have its source in the brain. The prestigious VISION 97 award-winning psychiatrist Dr. Stanislav Grof M.D., Ph.D. also agrees that consciousness is a primary, non-local phenomenon that precedes and transcends time and space:

“Over three decades of systematic studies of the human consciousness have led me to conclusions that many traditional psychiatrists and psychologists might find implausible if not downright incredible. I now firmly believe that consciousness is more than an accidental by-product of the neurophysiological and biochemical processes taking place in the human brain. I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence. We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.” -Stanislav Grof, “The Holotropic Mind” (17-18)

The idea that consciousness mysteriously arises from the nervous system or brain functioning is proven erroneous by the plethora of organisms which exhibit clear signs of consciousness without having a brain or nervous system. Plants, bacteria, single-cell and many multi-cellular organisms all seem quite conscious without these. Are we to believe these life-forms are insentient just because they don’t have a brain or nerves?

“While new technologies are enabling scientists to understand more and more of the mechanics of how mind is expressed through the brain, after many years of research this still sheds no light on their central quest – one that we believe is fruitless because the premise on which it is based is wrong. We agree with transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof, who, for more than 50 years, has studied human consciousness. Grof has compared the effort of trying to discover how mind arises from the brain to an engineer trying to understand the content of a television program solely by watching what components light up in the interior of the TV set. If someone sought to do such a thing, we’d laugh, yet this is the approach that mainstream science has taken and insisted is correct, despite no evidence to support it and a great deal that contradicts it.” -Ervin Laszlo and Jude Currivan, “Cosmos” (76-77)

“New scientific findings are beginning to support beliefs of cultures thousands of years old, showing that our individual psyches are, in the last analysis, a manifestation of cosmic consciousness and intelligence that flows through all of existence. We never completely lose contact with this cosmic consciousness because we are never fully separated from it.” -Stanislav Grof, “The Holotropic Mind” (195-6)

There are documented cases of hydrocephalus, otherwise known as “water in the brain,” where people have lived perfectly normal lives with almost no cerebral cortex or neocortex whatsoever. This is quite significant considering that classical science has always assumed the neocortex to be the supposed “center of consciousness.” British neurologist John Lorber recorded one case in which a young man’s hydrocephalus was so extreme that his brain was virtually nonexistent. Inside his skull was just a thin layer of brain cells surrounding a mass of cerebrospinal fluid. Amazingly, everything else about the young man was normal; he was even an honor student. If consciousness arises from brain functioning, how is this possible?

“The underlying assumption of the current meta-paradigm is that matter is insentient. The alternative is that the faculty of consciousness is a fundamental quality of nature. Consciousness does not arise from some particular arrangement of nerve cells or processes going on between them, or from any other physical features; it is always present. If the faculty of consciousness is always present, then the relationship between consciousness and nervous systems needs to be rethought. Rather than creating consciousness, nervous systems may be amplifiers of consciousness, increasing the richness and quality of experience.” -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

Peter Russell asks us to consider a couple simple thought experiments to prove to ourselves the non-locality of consciousness beyond space and time. When asked to locate their consciousness most people sense it to be somewhere in their heads. Since our brains are in our heads, and the brain is often associated with consciousness, many people assume their consciousness is located in the middle of their heads, but actually the apparent location of ones consciousness has nothing to do with the placement of ones brain, and rather depends on the placement of sense organs. Since your primary senses (eyes and ears) are in your head, the central point of your perception, the place from which you seem to be experiencing the world is somewhere behind your eyes and between your ears (in your head). However, the fact that your brain is also in your head is merely coincidence as shown by the following thought experiment: Imagine that your eyes and ears were somehow transplanted to your knees so you now observed the world from this new vantage point. Now if asked to locate your consciousness where would you point? If your eyes and ears were on your knees, would you still experience your “self” to be in your head?

“I don’t think consciousness is in the brain. The brain receives consciousness. Consciousness is probably a non-local function of the space-time continuum and every individual brain is an individual receiver. Just like the world is full of television signals and each television set is a receiver. The delusion that you are in your body is a primitive, savage kind of logic, taking the data of perception at face value, similar to the delusion that Johnny Carson is inside your television set. Johnny Carson is not in your television set. Johnny Carson is in Hollywood. Your television set just receives Johnny Carson’s signals. And consciousness is not in the brain, the brain just receives signals from the vast undifferentiated ocean of consciousness that makes up the space-time continuum.” -Robert Anton Wilson

“The faculty of consciousness can be likened to the light from a video projector. The projector shines light on to a screen, modifying the light so as to produce any one of an infinity of images. These images are like the perceptions, sensations, dreams, memories, thoughts, and feelings that we experience – what I call the ‘contents of consciousness.’ The light itself, without which no images would be possible, corresponds to the faculty of consciousness. We know all the images on the screen are composed of this light, but we are not usually aware of the light itself; our attention is caught up in the images that appear and the stories they tell. In much the same way, we know we are conscious, but we are usually aware only of the many different perceptions, thoughts and feelings that appear in the mind. We are seldom aware of consciousness itself.” -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

In deep meditation, during spontaneous OBE, or under the effects of entheogens many people temporarily transcend their contents of consciousness completely and achieve a lucid state of awareness that is purely the faculty of consciousness. In this state there is no space and time, just the infinite here and now, no “me” and “not me” division, just one universal awareness. Such experiences are referred to as “mystical” and deemed “unscientific” because they are subjective and unrepeatable under laboratory conditions, but for those who experience such transcendental states, this first-hand gnosis provides them with an intuitive knowingness of the primacy of consciousness beyond all space, time, and matter.

“The Eastern mystics link the notions of both space and time to particular states of consciousness. Being able to go beyond the ordinary state through meditation, they have realized that the conventional notions of space and time are not the ultimate truth. The refined notions of space and time resulting from their mystical experiences appear to be in many ways similar to the notions of modern physics, as exemplified by the theory of relativity.” -Fritjof Capra, “The Tao of Physics” (164)

“In short, the impression that your consciousness is located in space is an illusion. Everything you experience is a construct within consciousness. Your sense of being a unique self is merely another construct of the mind. Quite naturally, you place this image of your self at the center of your picture of the world, giving you the sense of being in the world. But the truth is just the opposite. It is all within you. You have no location in space. Space is in you.” -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

Disclose TV

Black Country crop circles prove phenomenon is no hoax, claims Australian expert

Posted: January 30, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Conspiracy, Occult
Tags: Crop Circles

Aerial shot of crop circles in the Black Country

Crop circles are not the work of hoaxers and aerial photos of the Black Country can prove it, says Australian boffin.

An Aussie historian believes he has buried forever the ‘cereal’ lie that crop circles are the work of hoaxers – by unearthing Black Country images of them dating back to 1945 and beyond.

It’s ‘barley’ believable, but Greg Jefferys has also uncovered evidence of the phenomenon in scientific documents dating back to 1880.

The boffin, from Hobart, Tasmania, says his findings prove there’s more to the mysterious circles than hoaxers playing silly tricks.

“This discovery proves that claims by various artists to be the sole creators of crop circles are themselves a hoax,” he says.

“It just goes to show that the circles remain unexplained.

“I hope this discovery will stimulate renewed interest in crop circles by serious scientific researchers who have been fooled by the hoax claims.”

Greg, aged 59, who cut his teeth locating shipwrecks, used Google Earth’s new 1945 overlay – images of places taken 68 years ago – to make the breakthrough.

He spent more than 300 hours scouring the English countryside using the technology – and found a large number of crop circles.

Two of the most significant were on the outskirts of Stourbridge.

“Searching the old images presented many challenges,” Greg told the Sunday Mercury. “Some of the original photographs had physical and chemical damage that produced circular flaws on the Google images.

“I had to develop a methodology to distinguish between flaws on the film and genuine crop circles.”

Greg began his quest after reading an article in an 1800 edition of science journal Nature.

It suggested that crop circles had, in fact, been around since the 1700s.

And Stourbridge, believed to be a paranormal hotbed, was an obvious area to search.

In 2010 the town, once famed for glass-making, made headlines when a BBC journalist filmed a strange, orange orb in the skies over Wollaston.

But crop circles were not the only thing Greg uncovered while scrutinising the old aerial photographs.

“I also found a number of circular prehistoric structures similar to ‘Woodhenge’ – a timber, Neolithic monument close to Stonehenge,” he says. “But these were outside the Midlands.

“The aerial photographs from 1945 are particularly useful for finding prehistoric remains because they were taken at a time before farmers began the extensive use of heavy machinery in their fields, which disturbs the soil to a deeper level than previous farming methods.”

But there is one question Greg’s laborious research has failed to answer: if crop circles are not a hoax, what are they?

He has an idea of how to unravel this mystery.

“Firstly, I believe that the claims of various ‘artists’ to have created them all is patently false,” he says.

“That is itself probably one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the scientific community, and I think that my 1945 Google Earth work does this.

“Secondly, there is a significant body of evidence that indicates high frequency electromagnetic energy is involved in the creation of crop circles.

“What is not clear is what generates that energy and organises it into circular patterns. This is one of the questions I hope to answer, at least partially.”

Those who have previously made a study of the strange symmetrical shapes – Reg Presley, former lead singer of 60s band The Troggs among them – already have their own theories as to how they are created.

They say that they are a warning about the perils of plundering our planet’s resources, not just two blokes with a plank and piece of rope.

In a blog, expert Freddy Silva explains: “Crop circles are organised harmonic forms that manifest around the world, the result of an energy interacting with the physical world – in this case plants. This energy is comprised of light, sound and magnetism.”

That’s one in the eye for the Ministry of Defence who, up to 1990, blamed all crop circles on two pensioners named Doug and Dave.

The theory was debunked when the structures, which some claim have healing qualities, appeared as far afield as California and Western Australia.

In fact, they have been spotted in 29 countries, created out of wheat, barley, linseed, rice paddies and even ice.

Doug and Dave only had bus passes.

And cynics still cannot explain what happened at Stonehenge on July 7, 1996.

At 4.15pm an RAF pilot reported nothing unusual below. Just 15 minutes later, a second airman reported a 900ft formation, comprising 149 circles aligned along a spiral curve.

The media may have lost interest in them, but crop circles are still out there. Last year provided a bumper harvest, with 18 recorded in August alone.

Reg, the country’s best known circle investigator, believes the striking agricultural artworks are messages from space.

Twenty years ago, he shocked the world by revealing: “A 200 foot long penis turned up in a crop formation just by Chequers.

“Everybody laughed – so did I.

“But one week after that appeared near the Prime Minister’s home, we discovered that the American male had lost half of his sperm count.

“Two months after that it came out that we’re losing it over here, too.

“I don’t believe that crop formation was a hoax. I think somebody was trying to tell us something.

“It’s all so bloody weird.”

A French-Peruvian-Spanish Team Discovers a Chamber in Machu Picchu

Posted: January 27, 2013 by phaedrap1 in Monuments, News, Science
Tags: Archeology, Machu Picchu

For more than fifteen years, Thierry Jamin, French Archaeologist and adventurer, explores the jungles of South Peru in every possible direction, searching for clues of the permanent presence of the Incas in the Amazonian forest, and the legendary lost city of Paititi.
After the discovery of about thirty incredible archeological sites, located in the North of the department of Cuzco, between 2009 and 2011, which include several fortresses, burial and ceremonial, centers, and small Inca cities composed by hundreds of buildings, and many streets, passages, squares…, Thierry Jamin embarks on an incredible journey in Machu Picchu.

A few months ago, Thierry Jamin and his team think they have realized an extraordinary archaeological discovery in the Inca city discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911. This discovery was made possible thanks to the testimony of a French engineer who lives in Barcelona-Spain, David Crespy. In 2010, while he was visiting the lost city, David Crespy noticed the presence of a strange “shelter” located in the heart of the city, at the bottom of one of the main buildings.

For him, there was no doubt about it, he was looking at a “door”, an entrance sealed by the Incas. In August, 2011, David Crespy, found by chance an article about Thierry Jamin and his work in the French newspaper the Figaro magazine. Immediately he decided to contact the French researcher.

Thierry Jamin, who has investigated several burial sites in the North of Cusco, listened carefully the story of David Crespy. Quickly he wants to confirm the facts behind the story. Accompanied by archaeologists of the Regional Office of the Culture in Cusco, he was able to visit the site several times. His preliminary findings are unequivocal: it is indeed an entrance, blocked by the Incas at an undetermined moment of History. This one is strangely similar to a burial site, such as the ones Thierry Jamin and his companions often find in the valleys of Lacco and Chunchusmayo.

In order to confirm the existence of cavities in the basement of the building, in December 2011 Thierry and his team submit and official request to the Ministry of Culture in Lima, to perform a geophysical survey with the help of electromagnetic (EM) conductivity instruments. This license was granted a few months later.

Realized between April 9th and April 12th 2012, the electromagnetic survey not only confirmed the presence of an underground room but several! Just Behind the famous entrance, a staircase was also discovered. The two main paths seem to lead to specific chambers, including to the main squared one. The different techniques used by the French researcher(s), (Molecular Frequencies Discriminator) allowed them to highlight the presence of important archaeological material, including deposits of metal and a large quantity of gold and silver!

Thierry Jamin is now preparing the next step: the opening of the entrance sealed by the Incas more than five centuries ago. On May 22nd 2012, he officially submitted a request for authorization to the Peruvian authorities which would allow his team to proceed with the opening of the burial chambers.

This project, “Machu Picchu 2012″, is now extended to a period of six months. At stake, an extraordinary archaeological treasure and some new revelations about the forgotten History of the Inca Empire. Soon you will see Machu Picchu from a brand new perspective…

By HeritageDaily

Mass human sacrifice? Ancient skulls found in Mexican field

Posted: January 26, 2013 by phaedrap1 in News, Science
Tags: Archeology, Mexico

Image: Tlaloc
Archaeologists surprised to find 150 skulls lined up in the middle of nowhere
Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between the year 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.

The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.

“It’s absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Mesoamerica,” Morehart said.

Middle of nowhere
Morehart and his colleagues were using satellite imagery to map ancient canals, irrigation channels and lakes that used to surround the kingdom of Teotihuacan (home to the Pyramid of the Sun), about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Mexico City. The vast ancient kingdom flourished from around the year 200 to 650, though who built it remains a mystery. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]

In a now-drained lake called Lake Xaltocan, around which was essentially rural farmland at the time, Morehart stumbled upon a site with evidence of looting.

When the team investigated, they discovered lines of human skulls with just one or two vertebra attached. To date, more than 150 skulls have been discovered there. The site also contained a shrine with incense burners, water-deity figurines and agricultural pottery, such as corncob depictions, suggesting a ritual purpose tied to local farming. [See images from the grisly excavation]

Carbon dating suggested that the skulls were at least 1,100 years old, and the few dozen analyzed so far are mostly from men, Morehart told LiveScience. The researchers did not release photos of the skulls because the sacrifice victims may have historic ties to modern-day indigenous cultures.

The findings shake up existing notions of the culture of the day, because the site is not associated with Teotihuacan or other regional powers, said Destiny Crider, an archaeologist at Luther College in Iowa, who was not involved in the study.

Big event in a little place
Human sacrifice was practiced throughout the region, both at Teotihuacan and in the later Aztec Empire, but most of those rituals happened at great pyramids within cities and were tied to state powers.

By contrast, “this one is a big event in a little place,” Crider said.

The shrines and the fact that sacrifice victims were mostly male suggest that they were carefully chosen, not simply the result of indiscriminate slaughter of a whole village, Crider told LiveScience.

Many researchers believe that massive drought caused the fall of Teotihuacan and ushered in a period of warfare and political infighting as smaller regional powers sprang up, Morehart said. Crider said those tumultuous times could have spurred innovative — and bloody — practices.

“Maybe they needed to intensify their activities because everything was changing,” she said. “When things are uncertain, you try new strategies.

By Tia Ghose