MacKinley - a Lennox district clan; records are obscure, but claim descent from Fidlay, son of Buchanan of Drumikill. Associated with Clans Buchanan and Farquharson. The surname is also found in Ireland, originating with Scots who were taken there to inhabit Ulster. Donleavy, Finlay, Findlay, Finlayson, MacInally, MacCinfhaolaidh, MacKinlay.
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What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us? Two neuroscientists say that a now-extinct race of humans had big eyes, child-like faces, and an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens.
by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger The following text is an excerpt from the book Big Brain by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger, and it represents their own theory about the Boskops. The theory is a controversial one; see, for instance, paleoanthropologist John Hawks' much different take. Copyright © 2008 by the authors and reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. In the autumn of 1913, two farmers were arguing about hominid skull fragments they had uncovered while digging a drainage ditch. The location was Boskop, a small town about 200 miles inland from the east coast of South Africa. These Afrikaner farmers, to their lasting credit, had the presence of mind to notice that there was something distinctly odd about the bones. They brought the find to Frederick W. FitzSimons, director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, in a small town at the tip of South Africa. The scientific community of South Africa was small, and before long the skull came to the attention of S. H. Haughton, one of the country’s few formally trained paleontologists. He reported his findings at a 1915 meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa. “The cranial capacity must have been very large,” he said, and “calculation by the method of Broca gives a minimum figure of 1,832 cc [cubic centimeters].” The Boskop skull, it would seem, housed a brain perhaps 25 percent or more larger than our own. The idea that giant-brained people were not so long ago walking the dusty plains of South Africa was sufficiently shocking to draw in the luminaries back in England. Two of the most prominent anatomists of the day, both experts in the reconstruction of skulls, weighed in with opinions generally supportive of Haughton’s conclusions. The Scottish scientist Robert Broom reported that “we get for the corrected cranial capacity of the Boskop skull the very remarkable figure of 1,980 cc.” Remarkable indeed: These measures say that the distance from Boskop to humans is greater than the distance between humans and their Homo erectus predecessors. Might the very large Boskop skull be an aberration? Might it have been caused by hydrocephalus or some other disease? These questions were quickly preempted by new discoveries of more of these skulls. As if the Boskop story were not already strange enough, the accumulation of additional remains revealed another bizarre feature: These people had small, childlike faces. Physical anthropologists use the term pedomorphosis to describe the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. This phenomenon is sometimes used to explain rapid evolutionary changes. For example, certain amphibians retain fishlike gills even when fully mature and past their water-inhabiting period. Humans are said by some to be pedomorphic compared with other primates.Our facial structure bears some resemblance to that of an immature ape. Boskop’s appearance may be described in terms of this trait. A typical current European adult, for instance, has a face that takes up roughly one-third of his overall cranium size. Boskop has a face that takes up only about one-fifth of his cranium size, closer to the proportions of a child. Examination of individual bones confirmed that the nose, cheeks, and jaw were all childlike. The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. The naturalist Loren Eiseley made exactly this point in a lyrical and chilling passage from his popular book, The Immense Journey, describing a Boskop fossil: The history of evolutionary studies has been dogged by the intuitively attractive, almost irresistible idea that the whole great process leads to greater complexity, to animals that are more advanced than their predecessors. The pre-Darwin theories of evolution were built around this idea; in fact, Darwin’s (and Wallace’s) great and radical contribution was to throw out the notion of “progress” and replace it with selection from among a set of random variations. But people do not easily escape from the idea of progress. We’re drawn to the idea that we are the end point, the pinnacle not only of the hominids but of all animal life. Boskops argue otherwise. They say that humans with big brains, and perhaps great intelligence, occupied a substantial piece of southern Africa in the not very distant past, and that they eventually gave way to smaller-brained, possibly less advanced Homo sapiens—that is, ourselves. We have seen reports of Boskop brain size ranging from 1,650 to 1,900 cc. Let’s assume that an average Boskop brain was around 1,750 cc. What does this mean in terms of function? How would a person with such a brain differ from us? Our brains are roughly 25 percent larger than those of the late Homo erectus. We might say that the functional difference between us and them is about the same as between ourselves and Boskops. Expanding the brain changes its internal proportions in highly predictable ways. From ape to human, the brain grows about fourfold, but most of that increase occurs in the cortex, not in more ancient structures. Moreover, even within the cortex, the areas that grow by far the most are the association areas, while cortical structures such as those controlling sensory and motor mechanisms stay unchanged. Going from human to Boskop, these association zones are even more disproportionately expanded. Boskop’s brain size is about 30 percent larger than our own—that is, a 1,750-cc brain to our average of 1,350 cc. And that leads to an increase in the prefrontal cortex of a staggering 53 percent. If these principled relations among brain parts hold true, then Boskops would have had not only an impressively large brain but an inconceivably large prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is closely linked to our highest cognitive functions. It makes sense out of the complex stream of events flowing into the brain; it places mental contents into appropriate sequences and hierarchies; and it plays a critical role in planning our future actions. Put simply, the prefrontal cortex is at the heart of our most flexible and forward-looking thoughts. While your own prefrontal area might link a sequence of visual material to form an episodic memory, the Boskop may have added additional material from sounds, smells, and so on. Where your memory of a walk down a Parisian street may include the mental visual image of the street vendor, the bistro, and the charming little church, the Boskop may also have had the music coming from the bistro, the conversations from other strollers, and the peculiar window over the door of the church. Alas, if only the Boskop had had the chance to stroll a Parisian boulevard! Expansion of the association regions is accompanied by corresponding increases in the thickness of those great bundles of axons, the cable pathways, linking the front and back of the cortex. These not only process inputs but, in our larger brains, organize inputs into episodes. The Boskops may have gone further still. Just as a quantitative increase from apes to humans may have generated our qualitatively different language abilities, possibly the jump from ourselves to Boskops generated new, qualitatively different mental capacities. We internally activate many thoughts at once, but we can retrieve only one at a time. Could the Boskop brain have achieved the ability to retrieve one memory while effortlessly processing others in the background, a split-screen effect enabling far more power of attention? Even if brain size accounts for just 10 to 20 percent of an IQ test score, it is possible to conjecture what kind of average scores would be made by a group of people with 30 percent larger brains. We can readily calculate that a population with a mean brain size of 1,750 cc would be expected to have an average IQ of 149. This is a score that would be labeled at the genius level. And if there was normal variability among Boskops, as among the rest of us, then perhaps 15 to 20 percent of them would be expected to score over 180. In a classroom with 35 big-headed, baby-faced Boskop kids, you would likely encounter five or six with IQ scores at the upper range of what has ever been recorded in human history. The Boskops coexisted with our Homo sapiens forebears. Just as we see the ancient Homo erectus as a savage primitive, Boskop may have viewed us in somewhat the same way. They died and we lived, and we can’t answer the question why. Why didn’t they outthink the smaller-brained hominids like ourselves and spread across the planet? Perhaps they didn’t want to. Longer brain pathways lead to larger and deeper memory hierarchies. These confer a greater ability to examine and discard more blind alleys, to see more consequences of a plan before enacting it. In general this enables us to think things through. If Boskops had longer chains of cortical networks—longer mental assembly lines—they would have created longer and more complex classification chains. When they looked down a road as far as they could, before choosing a path, they would have seen farther than we can: more potential outcomes, more possible downstream costs and benefits. As more possible outcomes of a plan become visible, the variance among judgments between individuals will likely lessen. There are far fewer correct paths—intelligent paths—than there are paths. It is sometimes argued that the illusion of free will arises from the fact that we can’t adequately judge all p ossible moves, with the result that our choices are based on imperfect, sometimes impoverished, information. Perhaps the Boskops were trapped by their ability to see clearly where things would head. Perhaps they were prisoners of those majestic brains. There is another, again poignant, possible explanation for the disappearance of the big-brained people. Maybe all that thoughtfulness was of no particular survival value in 10,000 B.C. The great genius of civilization is that it allows individuals to store memory and operating rules outside of their brains, in the world that surrounds them. The human brain is a sort of central processing unit operating on multiple memory disks, some stored in the head, some in the culture. Lacking the external hard drive of a literate society, the Boskops were unable to exploit the vast potential locked up in their expanded cortex. They were born just a few millennia too soon. In any event, Boskops are gone, and the more we learn about them, the more we miss them. Their demise is likely to have been gradual. A big skull was not conducive to easy births, and thus a within-group pressure toward smaller heads was probably always present, as it still is in present-day humans, who have an unusually high infant mortality rate due to big-headed babies. This pressure, together with possible interbreeding with migrating groups of smaller-brained peoples, may have led to a gradual decrease in the frequency of the Boskop genes in the growing population of what is now South Africa. Then again, as is all too evident, human history has often been a history of savagery. Genocide and oppression seem primitive, whereas modern institutions from schools to hospices seem enlightened. Surely, we like to think, our future portends more of the latter than the former. If learning and gentility are signs of civilization, perhaps our almost-big brains are straining against their residual atavism, struggling to expand. Perhaps the preternaturally civilized Boskops had no chance against our barbarous ancestors, but could be leaders of society if they were among us today. Maybe traces of Boskops, and their unusual nature, linger on in isolated corners of the world. Physical anthropologists report that Boskop features still occasionally pop up in living populations of Bushmen, raising the possibility that the last of the race may have walked the dusty Transvaal in the not-too-distant past. Some genes stay around in a population, or mix themselves into surrounding populations via interbreeding. The genes may remain on the periphery, neither becoming widely fixed in the population at large nor being entirely eliminated from the gene pool. Just about 100 miles from the original Boskop discovery site, further excavations were once carried out by Frederick FitzSimons. He knew what he had discovered and was eagerly seeking more of these skulls. At his new dig site, FitzSimons came across a remarkable piece of construction. The site had been at one time a communal living center, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago. There were many collected rocks, leftover bones, and some casually interred skeletons of normal-looking humans. But to one side of the site, in a clearing, was a single, carefully constructed tomb, built for a single occupant—perhaps the tomb of a leader or of a revered wise man. His remains had been positioned to face the rising sun. In repose, he appeared unremarkable in every regard...except for a giant skull. Each of us balances the world that is actually out there against our mind’s own internally constructed version of it. Maintaining this balance is one of life’s daily challenges. We occasionally act on our imagined view of the world, sometimes thoroughly startling those around us. (“Why are you yelling at me? I wasn’t angry with you—you only thought I was.”) Our big brains give us such powers of extrapolation that we may extrapolate straight out of reality, into worlds that are possible but that never actually happened. Boskop’s greater brains and extended internal representations may have made it easier for them to accurately predict and interpret the world, to match their internal representations with real external events. Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine. “There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.” Boskops, then, were much talked and written about, by many of the most prominent figures in the fields of paleontology and anthropology. Yet today, although Neanderthals and Homo erectus are widely known, Boskops are almost entirely forgotten. Some of our ancestors are clearly inferior to us, with smaller brains and apelike countenances. They’re easy to make fun of and easy to accept as our precursors. In contrast, the very fact of an ancient ancestor like Boskop, who appears un-apelike and in fact in most ways seems to have had characteristics superior to ours, was destined never to be popular. To paraphrase Andrew Cohen, imagine for a moment that the fate of
the entire human race rested on your shoulders alone. That humanity's evolution out of brute self-interest depended entirely on your willingness to transform your consciousness, to rise above your smallness, to evolve beyond your negative conditioning, and become an exemplar of humanity's highest potential for the world. Imagine, in other words, that for you, evolving beyond ego became an evolutionary imperative. Would you approach your path any differently? Would the energy you brought to your spiritual practice intensify? Would the quality of awareness and care with which you approached your interactions with others become more profound? Would you find yourself reaching with inner muscles you didn't even know you had to be awake to the depth you've tasted in your most profound spiritual moments? If you knew it all rested on you, would you have any choice but to change? The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi once said that the spiritual aspirant must want liberation like a drowning man wants air. But the painful truth is that even when we recognize that we are drowning spiritually, most of us don't care enough to struggle to keep our head above water. The challenges of authentic spiritual transformation are so great that most of us will choose to continue suffering in our smallness over feeling the pain of allowing that smallness to die forever. But how many of us would do the same if we realized that it wasn't only our own suffering we were perpetuating, but the suffering of the entire human race? Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "That's a nice thought experiment. Sure, it makes me realize I could be more earnest on my path, but what does it really have to do with me? I'm no megalomaniac. I know that my transformation alone isn't enough to liberate the human race." And it is here that I would ask you to reconsider. Modern science has in recent decades been verifying what the ancient traditions intuited long ago: that, in both tangible and mysterious ways, we are all interconnected, and any one of us can have a profound effect on the whole. And, if you accept the perennial mystical teaching that, at the level of consciousness, we are not only interconnected, but are actually one Self seeing through many eyes, then it should be clear that, like it or not, in the way we conduct our inner and outer lives, each of us is in fact always having an effect on the whole. Add to that the reality that we are evolving beings living in an evolving universe, that we are all part of a grand, cosmic evolutionary process, and the question of our obligation to the whole starts to cut close to the bone. To reframe my earlier question: What would you do if you realized that the entire human endeavor, the evolution of consciousness itself, depended on your willingness to evolve your own consciousness? How would it affect the choices you make every day if you knew that those choices were, in a very real sense, either contributing to the evolution of the whole or holding it back? At this time when it seems that our very future depends on our willingness to evolve as a species, would you have any choice but to act in alignment with the greatest evolutionary good? The point I'm trying to make is that when we take a closer look at what spiritual transformation is actually for, it quickly becomes clear that the path of awakening is not primarily about freeing ourselves from suffering and securing our own happiness. Sure, that's a nice by-product. But, as long as that's all we're seeking, we probably won't get very far. Where the spiritual path really begins to get interesting is when we recognize that transforming ourselves in the deepest possible way is in fact an evolutionary imperative with profound consequences far beyond ourselves. When we begin to embrace the fact that our lives really are not our own to do with as we please, that in everything we do, we are in fact accountable to the Whole, something truly miraculous begins to happen. Faced with the palpable responsibility to transform for a greater good, we find that we suddenly have access to a seemingly infinite source of energy, intention, passion and courage to confront whatever challenges present themselves on our path. What's more, all of the personal issues and problems, all of the fears and doubts and resistances that once seemed so insurmountable begin to seem a lot less significant. Why? Because our attention is now captivated by something much bigger than ourselves. Ignited by a noble calling to participate in the grand adventure of conscious evolution, we find we no longer have time to worry about ourselves. And in this freedom from self-concern, before long we discover that the deep inner peace and joy we were seeking all along has become the very ground we are walking on. To get a taste of the liberating context I'm pointing to, try the following experiments: 1) Before you meditate or engage in any spiritual practice, take 10 minutes to reflect on the profound significance of your practice. Ask yourself: -Why do I need to awaken for myself? -Why do other people need me to awaken? -Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to awaken? Allow yourself to feel deeply into the most authentic answer you can find. Then, invite that deeper answer to come forward as a clear and present intention to engage your spiritual practice wholeheartedly, as if the universe depended on it. And engage your practice from this deeper intention. Notice how this exercise impacts the quality of your spiritual practice. 2) When you encounter a challenging and emotionally charged situation in your life, before you respond, take a few minutes to ask yourself: -What is the most enlightened or evolved response I could have in this situation? -Why is it important for my own evolution for me to respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can? -Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can? Allow yourself to feel into the larger significance of your response to this challenging moment. Ground yourself in an intention to show up as an exemplar of humanity's potential. And then respond from this deeper intention. Notice how your perspective on the situation and your ability to show up changes when you approach it in this way. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/full/474272a.html? On the face of it, quantum effects and living organisms seem to occupy utterly different realms. The former are usually observed only on the nanometre scale, surrounded by hard vacuum, ultra-low temperatures and a tightly controlled laboratory environment. The latter inhabit a macroscopic world that is warm, messy and anything but controlled. A quantum phenomenon such as 'coherence', in which the wave patterns of every part of a system stay in step, wouldn't last a microsecond in the tumultuous realm of the cell. Or so everyone thought. But discoveries in recent years suggest that nature knows a few tricks that physicists don't: coherent quantum processes may well be ubiquitous in the natural world. Known or suspected examples range from the ability of birds to navigate using Earth's magnetic field to the inner workings of photosynthesis — the process by which plants and bacteria turn sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into organic matter, and arguably the most important biochemical reaction on Earth. Biology has a knack for using what works, says Seth Lloyd, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. And if that means "quantum hanky-panky", he says, "then quantum hanky-panky it is". Some researchers have even begun to talk of an emerging discipline called quantum biology, arguing that quantum effects are a vital, if rare, ingredient of the way nature works. And laboratory physicists interested in practical technology are paying close attention. "We hope to be able to learn from the quantum proficiency of these biological systems," says Lloyd. A better understanding of how quantum effects are maintained in living organisms could help researchers to achieve the elusive goal of quantum computation, he says. "Or perhaps we can make better energy-storage devices or better organic solar cells." Energy routefinder Researchers have long suspected that something unusual is afoot in photosynthesis. Particles of light called photons, streaming down from the Sun, arrive randomly at the chlorophyll molecules and other light-absorbing 'antenna' pigments that cluster inside the cells of every leaf, and within every photosynthetic bacterium. But once the photons' energy is deposited, it doesn't stay random. Somehow, it gets channelled into a steady flow towards the cell's photosynthetic reaction centre, which can then use it at maximum efficiency to convert carbon dioxide into sugars. Since the 1930s, scientists have recognized that this journey must be described by quantum mechanics, which holds that particles such as electrons will often act like waves. Photons hitting an antenna molecule will kick up ripples of energized electrons — excitons — like a rock splashing water from a puddle. These excitons then pass from one molecule to the next until they reach the reaction centre. But is their path made up of random, undirected hops, as researchers initially assumed? Or could their motion be more organized? Some modern researchers have pointed out that the excitons could be coherent, with their waves extending to more than one molecule while staying in step and reinforcing one another. “Nature knows a few tricks that physicists don't.”If so, there is a striking corollary. Coherent quantum waves can exist in two or more states at the same time, so coherent excitons would be able to move through the forest of antenna molecules by two or more routes at once. In fact, they could simultaneously explore a multitude of possible options, and automatically select the most efficient path to the reaction centre. Four years ago, two teams working under Graham Fleming, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, were able to obtain experimental proof to back up this hypothesis (See 'Quantum fact meets fiction'). One team used a string of very short laser pulses to probe the photosynthetic apparatus of the green sulphur bacterium Chlorobium tepidium1. The researchers had to chill their samples to 77 K with liquid nitrogen, but the data from their laser probes showed clear evidence of coherent exciton states. The second team carried out a similar study of the purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides2, and found much the same electronic coherence operating at temperatures up to 180 K. In 2010, researchers from the first group published evidence of quantum coherence in their bacterial complex at ambient temperatures3 — showing that coherence is not just an artefact of cryogenic laboratory conditions, but might actually be important to photosynthesis in the real world. Around the same time, a team led by Gregory Scholes, a chemist at the University of Toronto in Canada, also reported coherence effects at ambient temperatures4 — this time not in bacteria, but in photosynthetic cryptophyte algae, evolutionarily distinct organisms that are more closely related to plants and animals, and that use completely different light-absorbing chemical groups. But how can quantum coherence last long enough to be useful in photosynthesis? Most physicists would have assumed that, at ambient temperatures, the surrounding molecular chaos in the cell destroys the coherence almost instantly. Computer simulations carried out by Lloyd and some of his colleagues suggest an answer: random noise in the environment might actually enhance the efficiency of the energy transfer in photosynthesis rather than degrade it5. It turns out that an exciton can sometimes get trapped on particular sites in the photosynthetic chain, but simulations suggest that environmental noise can shake it loose gently enough to avoid destroying its coherence. In effect, says Lloyd, "the environment frees up the exciton and allows it to get to where it's going". Photosynthesis is not the only example of quantum effects in nature. For instance, researchers have known for several years that in some enzyme-catalysed reactions6, protons move from one molecule to another by the quantum-mechanical phenomenon of tunnelling, in which a particle passes through an energy barrier rather than having to muster the energy to climb over it. And a controversial theory of olfaction claims that smell comes from the biochemical sensing of molecular vibrations — a process that involves electron tunnelling between the molecule responsible for the odour and the receptor where it binds in the nose7. Are such examples widespread enough to justify a whole new discipline, though? Robert Blankenship, a photosynthesis researcher at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and a co-author with Fleming on the C. tepidium paper, admits to some scepticism. "My sense is that there may well be a few cases, like the ones we know about already, where these effects are important," he says, "but that many, if not most, biological systems will not utilize quantum effects like these." But Scholes believes that there are grounds for optimism, given a suitably broad definition of quantum biology. "I do think there are other examples in biology where an understanding at the quantum-mechanical level will help us to appreciate more deeply how the process works," he says. The bird's-eye compass One long-standing biological puzzle that might be explained by exotic quantum effects is how some birds are able to navigate by sensing Earth's magnetic field. The avian magnetic sensor is known to be activated by light striking the bird's retina. Researchers' current best guess at a mechanism is that the energy deposited by each incoming photon creates a pair of free radicals8 — highly reactive molecules, each with an unpaired electron. Each of these unpaired electrons has an intrinsic angular momentum, or spin, that can be reoriented by a magnetic field. As the radicals separate, the unpaired electron on one is primarily influenced by the magnetism of a nearby atomic nucleus, whereas the unpaired electron on the other is further away from the nucleus, and feels only Earth's magnetic field. The difference in the fields shifts the radical pair between two quantum states with differing chemical reactivity. "One version of the idea would be that some chemical is synthesized" in the bird's retinal cells when the system is in one state, but not when it's in the other, says Simon Benjamin, a physicist at the University of Oxford, UK. "Its concentration reflects Earth's field orientation." The feasibility of this idea was demonstrated in 2008 in an artificial photochemical reaction, in which magnetic fields affected the lifetime of a radical pair9. “This might just give us a few clues in the quest to create quantum technology.”Benjamin and his co-workers have proposed that the two unpaired electrons, being created by the absorption of a single photon, exist in a state of quantum entanglement: a form of coherence in which the orientation of one spin remains correlated with that of the other, no matter how far apart the radicals move. Entanglement is usually quite delicate at ambient temperatures, but the researchers calculate that it is maintained in the avian compass for at least tens of microseconds — much longer than is currently possible in any artificial molecular system10. This quantum-assisted magnetic sensing could be widespread. Not only birds, but also some insects and even plants show physiological responses to magnetic fields — for example, the growth-inhibiting influence of blue light on the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana is moderated by magnetic fields in a way that may also use the radical-pair mechanism11. But for clinching proof that it works this way, says Benjamin, "we need to understand the basic molecules involved, and then study them in the lab". Selected benefits Quantum coherence in photosynthesis seems to be beneficial to the organisms using it. But did their ability to exploit quantum effects evolve through natural selection? Or is quantum coherence just an accidental side effect of the way certain molecules are structured? "There is a lot of speculation about the evolutionary question, and a lot of misunderstanding," says Scholes, who is far from sure about the answer. "We cannot tell if this effect in photosynthesis is selected for, nor if there is the option not to use coherence to move the electronic energy. There are no data available at all even to address the question." He points out that it isn't obvious why selection would favour coherence. "Almost all photosynthetic organisms spend most of the day trying to moderate light-harvesting. It is rare to be light-limited. So why would there be evolutionary pressure to tweak light-harvesting efficiency?" Fleming agrees: he suspects that quantum coherence is not adaptive, but is simply "a by-product of the dense packing of chromophores required to optimize solar absorption". Scholes hopes to investigate the issue by comparing antenna proteins isolated from species of cryptophyte algae that evolved at different times. But even if quantum coherence in biological systems is a chance effect, adds Fleming, its consequences are extraordinary, making systems insensitive to disorder in the distribution of energy. What is more, he says, it "enables 'rectifier-like' one-way energy transfer, produces the fastest [energy-transfer] rate, is temperature-insensitive and probably a few other things I haven't thought of". These effects, in turn, suggest practical uses. Perhaps most obviously, says Scholes, a better understanding of how biological systems achieve quantum coherence in ambient conditions will "change the way we think about design of light-harvesting structures". This could allow scientists to build technology such as solar cells with improved energy-conversion efficiencies. Seth Lloyd considers this "a reasonable expectation", and is particularly hopeful that his discovery of the positive role of environmental noise will be useful for engineering photonic systems using materials such as quantum dots (nanoscale crystals) or highly branched polymers studded with light-absorbing chemical groups, which can serve as artificial antenna arrays. Another area of potential application is in quantum computing. The long-standing goal of the physicists and engineers working in this area is to manipulate data encoded in quantum bits (qubits) of information, such as the spin-up and spin-down states of an electron or of an atomic nucleus. Qubits can exist in both states at once, thus permitting the simultaneous exploration of all possible answers to the computation that they encode. In principle, this would give quantum computers the power to find the best solution far more quickly than today's computers can — but only if the qubits can maintain their coherence, without the noise of the surrounding environment, such as the jostling of neighbouring atoms, destroying the synchrony of the waves. But biology has somehow solved that challenge: in effect, quantum coherence allows a photosystem to perform a 'best-path' quantum computation. Benjamin, whose main interest is in designing materials systems for quantum computation and information technology, sees the ambient-temperature avian compass as a potential guide. "If we can figure out how the bird's compass protects itself from decoherence, this might just give us a few clues in the quest to create quantum technologies," he says. Learning from nature is an idea as old as mythology — but until now, no one has imagined that the natural world has anything to teach us about the quantum world. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-population-genetics-reveals-ancestries.html More than just a tool for predicting health, modern genetics is upending long-held assumptions about who we are. A new study by Harvard researchers casts new light on the intermingling and migration of European, Middle Eastern and African and populations since ancient times. In a paper titled "The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines and Jews," published in PLoS Genetics, HMS Associate Professor of Genetics David Reich and his colleagues investigated the proportion of sub-Saharan African ancestry present in various populations in West Eurasia, defined as the geographic area spanning modern Europe and the Middle East. While previous studies have established that such shared ancestry exists, they have not indicated to what degree or how far back the mixing of populations can be traced. Analyzing publicly available genetic data from 40 populations comprising North Africans, Middle Easterners and Central Asians were doctoral student Priya Moorjani and Alkes Price, an assistant professor in the Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology within the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Moorjani traced genetic ancestry using a method called rolloff. This platform, developed in the Reich lab, compares the size and composition of stretches of DNA between two human populations as a means of estimating when they mixed. The smaller and more broken up the DNA segments, the older the date of mixture. Moorjani used the technique to examine the genomes of modern West Eurasian populations to find signatures of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. She did this by looking for chromosomal segments in West Eurasian DNA that closely matched those of Sub-Saharan Africans. By plotting the distribution of these segments and estimating their rate of genetic decay, Reich's lab was able to determine the proportion of African genetic ancestry still present, and to infer approximately when the West Eurasian and Sub-Saharan African populations mixed. "The genetic decay happens very slowly," Moorjani explained, "so today, thousands of years later, there is enough evidence for us to estimate the date of population mixture." While the researchers detected no African genetic signatures in Northern European populations, they found a distinct presence of African ancestry in Southern European, Middle Eastern and Jewish populations. Modern southern European groups can attribute about 1 to 3 percent of their genetic signature to African ancestry, with the intermingling of populations dating back 55 generations, on average—that is, to roughly 1,600 years ago. Middle Eastern groups have inherited about 4 to 15 percent, with the mixing of populations dating back roughly 32 generations. A diverse array of Jewish populations can date their Sub-Saharan African ancestry back roughly 72 generations, on average, accounting for 3 to 5 percent of their genetic makeup today. According to Reich, these findings address a long-standing debate over African multicultural influences in Europe. The dates of population mixtures are consistent with documented historical events. For example, the mixing of African and southern European populations coincides with events during the Roman Empire and Arab migrations that followed. The older-mixture dates among African and Jewish populations are consistent with events in biblical times, such as the Jewish diaspora that occurred in 8th to 6th century BC. "Our study doesn't prove that the African ancestry is associated with migrations associated with events in the Bible documented by archeologists," Reich says, "but it's interesting to speculate." Reich was surprised to see any level of shared ancestry between the Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups. "I've never been convinced they were actually related to each other," Reich says, but he now concludes that his lab's findings have significant cultural and genetic implications. "Population boundaries that many people think are impermeable are, in fact, not that way." Provided by Harvard Medical School by Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf
Russian DNA Discoveries: Original version THE HUMAN DNA IS A BIOLOGICAL INTERNET and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), mind’s influence on weather patterns and much more. In addition, there is evidence for a whole new type of medicine in which DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies WITHOUT cutting out and replacing single genes. Only 10% of our DNA is being used for building proteins. It is this subset of DNA that is of interest to western researchers and is being examined and categorized. The other 90% are considered “junk DNA.” The Russian researchers, however, convinced that nature was not dumb, joined linguists and geneticists in a venture to explore those 90% of “junk DNA.” Their results, findings and conclusions are simply revolutionary! According to them, our DNA is not only responsible for the construction of our body but also serves as data storage and in communication. The Russian linguists found that the genetic code, especially in the apparently useless 90%, follows the same rules as all our human languages. To this end they compared the rules of syntax (the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences), semantics (the study of meaning in language forms) and the basic rules of grammar. They found that the alkalines of our DNA follow a regular grammar and do have set rules just like our languages. So human languages did not appear coincidentally but are a reflection of our inherent DNA. The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues also explored the vibrational behavior of the DNA. [For the sake of brevity I will give only a summary here. For further exploration please refer to the appendix at the end of this article.] The bottom line was: “Living chromosomes function just like solitonic/holographic computers using the endogenous DNA laser radiation.” This means that they managed for example to modulate certain frequency patterns onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself. Since the basic structure of DNA-alkaline pairs and of language (as explained earlier) are of the same structure, no DNA decoding is necessary. One can simply use words and sentences of the human language! This, too, was experimentally proven! Living DNA substance (in living tissue, not in vitro) will always react to language-modulated laser rays and even to radio waves, if the proper frequencies are being used. This finally and scientifically explains why affirmations, autogenous training, hypnosis and the like can have such strong effects on humans and their bodies. It is entirely normal and natural for our DNA to react to language. While western researchers cut single genes from the DNA strands and insert them elsewhere, the Russians enthusiastically worked on devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects. Garjajev’s research group succeeded in proving that with this method chromosomes damaged by x-rays for example can be repaired. They even captured information patterns of a particular DNA and transmitted it onto another, thus reprogramming cells to another genome. So they successfully transformed, for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns! This way the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects or disharmonies encountered when cutting out and re-introducing single genes from the DNA. This represents an unbelievable, world-transforming revolution and sensation! All this by simply applying vibration and language instead of the archaic cutting-out procedure! This experiment points to the immense power of wave genetics, which obviously has a greater influence on the formation of organisms than the biochemical processes of alkaline sequences. Esoteric and spiritual teachers have known for ages that our body is programmable by language, words and thought. This has now been scientifically proven and explained. Of course the frequency has to be correct. And this is why not everybody is equally successful or can do it with always the same strength. The individual person must work on the inner processes and maturity in order to establish a conscious communication with the DNA. The Russian researchers work on a method that is not dependent on these factors but will ALWAYS work, provided one uses the correct frequency. But the higher developed an individual’s consciousness is, the less need is there for any type of device! One can achieve these results by oneself, and science will finally stop to laugh at such ideas and will confirm and explain the results. And it doesn’t end there. The Russian scientists also found out that our DNA can cause disturbing patterns in the vacuum, thus producing magnetized wormholes! Wormholes are the microscopic equivalents of the so-called Einstein-Rosen bridges in the vicinity of black holes (left by burned-out stars). These are tunnel connections between entirely different areas in the universe through which information can be transmitted outside of space and time. The DNA attracts these bits of information and passes them on to our consciousness. This process of hypercommunication is most effective in a state of relaxation. Stress, worries or a hyperactive intellect prevent successful hypercommunication or the information will be totally distorted and useless. In nature, hypercommunication has been successfully applied for millions of years. The organized flow of life in insect states proves this dramatically. Modern man knows it only on a much more subtle level as “intuition.” But we, too, can regain full use of it. An example from Nature: When a queen ant is spatially separated from her colony, building still continues fervently and according to plan. If the queen is killed, however, all work in the colony stops. No ant knows what to do. Apparently the queen sends the “building plans” also from far away via the group consciousness of her subjects. She can be as far away as she wants, as long as she is alive. In man hypercommunication is most often encountered when one suddenly gains access to information that is outside one’s knowledge base. Such hypercommunication is then experienced as inspiration or intuition. The Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini for instance dreamt one night that a devil sat at his bedside playing the violin. The next morning Tartini was able to note down the piece exactly from memory, he called it the Devil’s Trill Sonata. For years, a 42-year old male nurse dreamt of a situation in which he was hooked up to a kind of knowledge CD-ROM. Verifiable knowledge from all imaginable fields was then transmitted to him that he was able to recall in the morning. There was such a flood of information that it seemed a whole encyclopedia was transmitted at night. The majority of facts were outside his personal knowledge base and reached technical details about which he knew absolutely nothing. When hypercommunication occurs, one can observe in the DNA as well as in the human being special phenomena. The Russian scientists irradiated DNA samples with laser light. On screen a typical wave pattern was formed. When they removed the DNA sample, the wave pattern did not disappear, it remained. Many control experiments showed that the pattern still came from the removed sample, whose energy field apparently remained by itself. This effect is now called phantom DNA effect. It is surmised that energy from outside of space and time still flows through the activated wormholes after the DNA was removed. The side effect encountered most often in hypercommunication also in human beings are inexplicable electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of the persons concerned. Electronic devices like CD players and the like can be irritated and cease to function for hours. When the electromagnetic field slowly dissipates, the devices function normally again. Many healers and psychics know this effect from their work. The better the atmosphere and the energy, the more frustrating it is that the recording device stops functioning and recording exactly at that moment. And repeated switching on and off after the session does not restore function yet, but next morning all is back to normal. Perhaps this is reassuring to read for many, as it has nothing to do with them being technically inept, it means they are good at hypercommunication. In their book “Vernetzte Intelligenz” (Networked Intelligence), Grazyna Gosar and Franz Bludorf explain these connections precisely and clearly. The authors also quote sources presuming that in earlier times humanity had been, just like the animals, very strongly connected to the group consciousness and acted as a group. To develop and experience individuality we humans however had to forget hypercommunication almost completely. Now that we are fairly stable in our individual consciousness, we can create a new form of group consciousness, namely one, in which we attain access to all information via our DNA without being forced or remotely controlled about what to do with that information. We now know that just as on the internet our DNA can feed its proper data into the network, can call up data from the network and can establish contact with other participants in the network. Remote healing, telepathy or “remote sensing” about the state of relatives etc. can thus be explained. Some animals know also from afar when their owners plan to return home. That can be freshly interpreted and explained via the concepts of group consciousness and hypercommunication. Any collective consciousness cannot be sensibly used over any period of time without a distinctive individuality. Otherwise we would revert to a primitive herd instinct that is easily manipulated. Hypercommunication in the new millennium means something quite different: Researchers think that if humans with full individuality would regain group consciousness, they would have a god-like power to create, alter and shape things on Earth! AND humanity is collectively moving toward such a group consciousness of the new kind. Fifty percent of today’s children will be problem children as soon as the go to school. The system lumps everyone together and demands adjustment. But the individuality of today’s children is so strong that that they refuse this adjustment and giving up their idiosyncrasies in the most diverse ways. At the same time more and more clairvoyant children are born [see the book “China’s Indigo Children” by Paul Dong or the chapter about Indigos in my book “Nutze die taeglichen Wunder” (Make Use of the Daily Wonders)]. Something in those children is striving more and more towards the group consciousness of the new kind, and it will no longer be suppressed. As a rule, weather for example is rather difficult to influence by a single individual. But it may be influenced by a group consciousness (nothing new to some tribes doing it in their rain dances). Weather is strongly influenced by Earth resonance frequencies, the so-called Schumann frequencies. But those same frequencies are also produced in our brains, and when many people synchronize their thinking or individuals (spiritual masters, for instance) focus their thoughts in a laser-like fashion, then it is scientifically speaking not at all surprising if they can thus influence weather. Researchers in group consciousness have formulated the theory of Type I civilizations. A humanity that developed a group consciousness of the new kind would have neither environmental problems nor scarcity of energy. For if it were to use its mental power as a unified civilization, it would have control of the energies of its home planet as a natural consequence. And that includes all natural catastrophes!!! A theoretical Type II civilization would even be able to control all energies of their home galaxy. In my book “Nutze die taeglichen Wunder,” I have described an example of this: Whenever a great many people focus their attention or consciousness on something similar like Christmas time, football world championship or the funeral of Lady Diana in England then certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of the random ones. An ordered group consciousness creates order in its whole surroundings! [http://noosphere.princeton.edu/fristwall2.html] [1] When a great number of people get together very closely, potentials of violence also dissolve. It looks as if here, too, a kind of humanitarian consciousness of all humanity is created. At the Love Parade, for example, where every year about one million of young people congregate, there has never been any brutal riots as they occur for instance at sports events. The name of the event alone is not seen as the cause here. The result of an analysis indicated rather that the number of people was TOO GREAT to allow a tipping over to violence. To come back to the DNA: It apparently is also an organic superconductor that can work at normal body temperature. Artificial superconductors require extremely low temperatures of between 200 and 140°C to function. As one recently learned, all superconductors are able to store light and thus information. This is a further explanation of how the DNA can store information. There is another phenomenon linked to DNA and wormholes. Normally, these supersmall wormholes are highly unstable and are maintained only for the tiniest fractions of a second. Under certain conditions (read about it in the Fosar/Bludorf book above) stable wormholes can organize themselves which then form distinctive vacuum domains in which for example gravity can transform into electricity. Vacuum domains are self-radiant balls of ionized gas that contain considerable amounts of energy. There are regions in Russia where such radiant balls appear very often. Following the ensuing confusion the Russians started massive research programs leading finally to some of the discoveries mentions above. Many people know vacuum domains as shiny balls in the sky. The attentive look at them in wonder and ask themselves, what they could be. I thought once: “Hello up there. If you happen to be a UFO, fly in a triangle.” And suddenly, the light balls moved in a triangle. Or they shot across the sky like ice hockey pucks. They accelerated from zero to crazy speeds while sliding gently across the sky. One is left gawking and I have, as many others, too, thought them to be UFOs. Friendly ones, apparently, as they flew in triangles just to please me. Now the Russians found in the regions, where vacuum domains appear often that sometimes fly as balls of light from the ground upwards into the sky, that these balls can be guided by thought. One has found out since that vacuum domains emit waves of low frequency as they are also produced in our brains. And because of this similarity of waves they are able to react to our thoughts. To run excitedly into one that is on ground level might not be such a great idea, because those balls of light can contain immense energies and are able to mutate our genes. They can, they don’t necessarily have to, one has to say. For many spiritual teachers also produce such visible balls or columns of light in deep meditation or during energy work which trigger decidedly pleasant feelings and do not cause any harm. Apparently this is also dependent on some inner order and on the quality and provenance of the vacuum domain. There are some spiritual teachers (the young Englishman Ananda, for example) with whom nothing is seen at first, but when one tries to take a photograph while they sit and speak or meditate in hypercommunication, one gets only a picture of a white cloud on a chair. In some Earth healing projects such light effects also appear on photographs. Simply put, these phenomena have to do with gravity and anti-gravity forces that are also exactly described in the book and with ever more stable wormholes and hypercommunication and thus with energies from outside our time and space structure. Earlier generations that got in contact with such hypercommunication experiences and visible vacuum domains were convinced that an angel had appeared before them. And we cannot be too sure to what forms of consciousness we can get access when using hypercommunication. Not having scientific proof for their actual existence (people having had such experiences do NOT all suffer from hallucinations) does not mean that there is no metaphysical background to it. We have simply made another giant step towards understanding our reality. Official science also knows of gravity anomalies on Earth (that contribute to the formation of vacuum domains), but only of ones of below one percent. But recently gravity anomalies have been found of between three and four percent. One of these places is Rocca di Papa, south of Rome (exact location in the book “Vernetzte Intelligenz” plus several others). Round objects of all kinds, from balls to full buses, roll uphill. But the stretch in Rocca di Papa is rather short, and defying logic sceptics still flee to the theory of optical illusion (which it cannot be due to several features of the location). All information is taken from the book “Vernetzte Intelligenz” von Grazyna Fosar und Franz Bludorf, ISBN 3930243237, summarized and commented by Baerbel. The book is unfortunately only available in German so far. You can reach the authors here: www.fosar-bludorf.com [2]; Transmitted by Vitae Bergman [ www.ryze.com/view.php?who=vitaeb ] [3] References: 1. http://noosphere.princeton.edu/fristwall2.html 2. http://www.fosar-bludorf.com 3. http://www.ryze.com/view.php?who=vitaeb Scientists say they have identified an embalmed head as belonging to King Henri IV of France, who was assassinated in 1610 at the age of 57.
The head was lost after revolutionaries ransacked the royal chapel at Saint Denis, near Paris, in 1793. A head, presumed to be that of Henri IV, has passed between private collectors since then. A team of scientists used the latest forensic techniques to identify features seen in portraits of the king. A lesion near his nose, a pierced ear and a healed facial wound - from a previous assassination attempt - were among the marks that identified the head. The methods used to embalm the head also matched techniques in use at the time of his death, said the scientists in a report published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). 'Worth a Mass' It was not possible to use DNA evidence to identify the head because it was impossible to find a sample from it that could be guaranteed to be uncontaminated. "The human head had a light brown colour, open mouth and partially closed eyes," said the scientists, led by forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier. Henri IV was one of France's most popular monarchs "The preservation was excellent, with all soft tissues and internal organs well conserved." King Henri IV was one of France's favourite monarchs. He converted to Catholicism to end France's wars of religion, declaring "Paris is worth a Mass", but was later killed by a Catholic fundamentalist. He built the Pont Neuf bridge and the Place des Vosges in Paris. Henri was the first of the Bourbon line of monarchs, which included his grandson Louis XIV, the Sun King. His head will now be reinterred in the Basilica of Saint Denis after a national Mass and funeral next year. Occult Genetic Code
Steve KrakowskiThe Great Primordial Languange Rediscovered Throughout recorded history there have been many myths of a great primordial language which was once shared by all beings. This language was more than just grammar or syntax, it was the essential structure of all existence � the ursprache code that God used to create the universe, the world, and life itself. Some might argue that this is the pure language of science � a language of numbers and formulas to which the universe constrains itself. Others would say that this is a language of poetry and metaphor, an ancient cant which contains the power of both creation and destruction. Either way, this mythical language has been woven into our collective psyches since the dawn of time � and the search to unravel it has long been a "Holy Grail" for both scholars and mystics alike. For at least 2000 years, Hebrew numerologists and students of the Qabala have been searching the Old Testament for God's grand code. The following verse of the Bible is especially interesting to students of the Qabala, since it is the only verse which contains all twenty-two Hebrew letters and their five final forms. Zephaniah 3:8 "Therefore wait ye for Me, saith the Lord, until that day that I rise up to the prey; for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy." The verse directly following this prophesy then goes on to speak of a "pure language" which will allow all of humanity to serve Yahweh with one speech. Zephaniah 3:9 "For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent." Interestingly, these two verses are a complete reversal of the events described in Genesis 11:1-9; the story of the tower of Babel. It is generally assumed that the pure language mentioned in Zephaniah 3:9 is Hebrew, but what are the odds that Hebrew will eventually become the one common language spoken by all people? Perhaps Zephaniah is prophesying something more than a mere spoken or written language, but the pure language of creation that we already share. Scientists often use language as a metaphor when describing the structures and processes of DNA replication and cell biology. Scientists refer to nucleotides and amino acids (the basic chemical components of life) as "alphabets"; and the larger chemical structures made of genetic alphabets are called "words" or "genetic sentences." The process of creating messenger RNA is called "transcription" and the process of turning "messenger" RNA into proteins is termed "translation." To science, DNA is the essential language spoken by all living things. By unlocking the intricate mysteries of DNA, scientists will soon have the godlike powers to create new life from scratch. DNA is the code for life, and that code replicates itself into everything we are. The oldest book in the Hebrew occult tradition is the Sefer Yetzirah or "Book of Creation." It describes, in a magical way, how Yahweh created the universe and all living things using the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is said that God molded the letters as bits of clay into parallel and complementary strings � much like the lattices of DNA. The text goes on to say that those who learn this creation magic can also create living things � like golems and small animals. This sounds very much like a description of genetic engineering. Following this genetic language metaphor a little further, it is interesting to note that the 64 unique codons of the DNA "alphabet" are always found in groups which code for 22 specific genetic "letters." Each one of these genetic letters codes for a specific amino acid or a start/stop punctuation message in the chain. Since the Hebrew alphabet also has 22 letters � some which contain full stops and punctuation � I decided to see if I could find a meaningful isomorphism between the chemical language of life and the written language of one of Earth's oldest cultures. divining the isomorphism In G�del, Escher, Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter defines an isomorphism as "an information preserving transformation." His deeper definition is: "The word 'isomorphism' applies when two complex structures can be mapped onto each other, in such a way that to each part of one structure there is a corresponding part in the other structure, where 'corresponding' means that the two parts play similar roles in their respective structures." In trying to find an isomorphism between Hebrew and DNA structuring, I decided to start by studying the isomorphisms already noticed between DNA and the ancient Chinese system of divination, the I Ching. In recent years, there have been many books which successfully establish very detailed isomorphic maps between the 64 hexagrams (or kua) of the I Ching and the 64 codons which compose the complete genetic code. (see references on page 49) According to Hofstadter an isomorphism has at least two levels: the "lower level" is a mapping between physical structures and mechanics in the two systems; and the "higher level" is where deeper mapping of meaning either emerges or is extracted. On the lower level of the DNA/I Ching isomorphism, we find a few similarities right off the top. The 64 kua of the I Ching are constructed by using four emblematic symbols: Old Yang, Young Yang, Old Yin, and Young Yin. DNA codons are also made up of four essential nucleic acids: Adenine, Guanine, Cystosine, and Uracil. When comparing them, they can be logically grouped into the following order: Adenine is the main component of adenosine triphosphate, the chemical which generates the energy for cellular metabolism, and the purines have a common atomic structure based on 9 atoms. I assigned Old Yang to Adenine because Old Yang's "ritual number" is 9 and yang represents energy in the I Ching (yin represents matter). The other 3 emblem/ nucleotide assignments follow logically because of similar correspondences in their natures (At my web site you can examine the entire line of reasoning which leads to these particular mappings, but in this article I can only give you the highlights). Using this particular table, you can assign any hexagram of the I Ching to its own unique DNA codon by substituting 9 for Adenine (A), 6 for Uracil (U), 7 for Guanine (G), and 8 for Cystosine (C). Now that we've created a structural mapping between DNA and the I Ching, we can stretch the isomorphism to another level. The 64 codons of DNA form groups of groups which code for 22 separate amino acid or punctuation groups. The 22 codon groups of the genetic code can be broken down into 3 classes: 3 codons code for punctuation (Start or Stop); 7 codon groups code for hydrophobic amino acids; 12 codon groups code for hydrophilic amino acids. Amazingly, assigning Hebrew letters to the codon groups was made quite easy by the coincidence that in the Sefer Yetzirah, the 22 Hebrew letters are also broken down into 3 classes: 3 letters are "mothers"; 7 letters are "doubles"; 12 letters are "simples". Suddenly the isomorphism was clear. I was constrained in making my letter to amino acid assignments by staying within the corresponding groups of 3, 7, and 12. In other words, if I wanted to match one of the 7 double letters of the Hebrew alphabet to a corresponding DNA codon group, I could only look at the 7 codon groups which code for the 7 hydrophobic amino acids. Yet from which of these 7 should I chose? Since the lower level structural isomorphism between the Hebrew alphabet and codon groups has led us this far, I thought it might be helpful to start looking for a higher level correspondence to provide the symbolic meaning necessary to make the final assignments between the Hebrew letters and the codon group/kua assignments. Since there is insufficient symbolic content assigned to the Hebrew letters all by themselves, it is difficult to map a deeper meaning onto the complex messages of the 64 kua of the I Ching. However, the 22 major arcana cards of the divination system known as the Tarot have had Hebrew letters assigned to them since at least the late 19th century. By matching the Tarot card which corresponds with a specific Hebrew letter to the 7 DNA codons and corresponding I Ching kua, I hypothesized that I could create a meaning isomorphic bridge between symbolic concepts in both the I Ching and the Tarot through the filter of genetic code. In this isomorphic occult translation I have devised, the 22 trumps of the Tarot perform roughly the same function as transfer RNA does within the replication of a cell � it helps to translate raw data into a form that can be interpreted, processed, and replicated. Each tRNA molecule contains an amino acid at one end and an anticodon at the other end. Each major arcana card of the Tarot has a Hebrew letter at one end and a set of symbols, images, and concepts at the other. But for there to be a true isomorphism between the systems we are comparing, there would need to be a higher level mapping of meaning between the symbolic content of a Hebrew/Tarot card group and their corresponding I Ching kua and DNA codon groups. Since there are possibly hundreds of ancient and modern interpretations of the I Ching; and literally thousands of different Tarot decks, I pondered which ones I should use. To simplify, I chose those two interpretations which, I believe, represent the best and most widely studied in their field. The Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching is probably the most widely used English translation of this ancient divination system, and critics laud it for its comprehensiveness and fidelity to Chinese thought. For the Tarot, Aleister Crowley is considered by many who study the occult to be the preeminent authority and compiler of symbolic knowledge. His Thoth Tarot is both widely used and highly regarded. In addition, Crowley also wrote his own interpretation of the I Ching; and so it was reasonable to include his thoughts in my comparison of both divination systems. Amazingly, the task of content comparison was not as difficult as I first thought it would be. In fact, the correspondences fairly fell into place! I now had a Hebrew letter assignment for every one of the 64 codons, 20 amino acids, and 2 termination codon groups. In the end I had an occult artifact that was, part for part, isomorphic with the universal genetic code. I called it the "Occult Genetic Code". If an isomorphism is an information preserving transformation, then what information served? Do the messenger RNA strands carry a message written in ancient Hebrew or a Proto-Canaanite precursor of Hebrew? I don't have space enough to give you a content comparison for all of the Tarot/I Ching correspondences I found through the occult genetic code, so one example will have to suffice. But be aware that when viewed through the filter of genetic transcription, the similarity of content in the sample below is repeated for the other 21 letter groups in the occult genetic code. pe, the tower he card called "The Tower" has the "double" letter Pe assigned to it. Therefore, when trying to make a content match, I am restrained to look among the 7 kua/codon groups which correspond to the hydrophobic amino acids. Among those codon groups is one which contains the following kua/codons which code for the amino acid leucine. CUC=868=kua 3 "Difficulty in the Beginning" UUA=667=kua 20 "Contemplation (View)" UUG=667=kua 23 "Splitting Apart" CUU=866=kua 24 "Return (The Turning Point)" CUG=867=kua 27 "The Corners of the Mouth" CUA=869=kua 42 "Increase" We will first examine the kua to see if they contain any imagery found in The Tower, and later we will compare the conceptual content to determine if the symbols stand for or illustrate the same set of concepts. The Tower is a tall, strong human-made edifice, but its roof is shattered by lightning and its foundation is assaulted by the mouth of Dis (a god of chaos). Weakened by attacks from both sides, it splits apart and falls into ruins. Human figures are seen falling. Its Hebrew letter is Pe; which coincidently means "a mouth". Now let's check to see if there is any overlapping Tower imagery in the I Ching: Wilhelm: (kua 3) ... The situation points to teeming, chaotic profusion; ... But the chaos clears up. A thunderstorm brings release from tension, ... Wilhelm: (kua 20) The hexagram can be understood as picturing a type of tower characteristic of ancient China. Wilhelm: (kua 23) The lines of the hexagram present the image of a house,... and because the roof is being shattered the house collapses. Wilhelm: (kua 27) This hexagram is a picture of an open mouth; ... So, with just these four kua, we have all of the salient images and symbols incorporated in the Tarot card the Tower. We now turn our attention to the concepts associated with these symbols. According to Crowley, The Tower represents ruin, destruction, danger, and sudden death. Kua 23, The sequence: Splitting apart means ruin. Crowley: (I Ching, kua 23) "Overthrow" Falling; over- turning; ... Destroy, ... the small man digs his grave. Crowley names kua 3 "Danger and Obscurity". What is the meaning of all this danger, destruction and ruin? What significance can this imagery have for an individual or for a society? Crowley: Breakdown the fortress of thine individual self, that the truth may spring free from the ruins. Wilhelm: (kua 23) The thought, here taken together with that in the next hexagram (24), shows the connection between decay and resurrection. Wilhelm: (kua 24) ... the hexagram counsels turning away from the confusion of external things, turning back to one's inner light. Kua 24, Appended judgements: Return leads to self-knowledge. Crowley: (I Ching, kua 24) Coming back; thou'rt free to come and go. Crowley: ... escape from prison. All of kua 20, in Wilhelm's translation, deals with the viewing or contemplation of one's life and times. It counsels self-knowledge, self-examination and the overcoming of naive egotism. Crowley: (I Ching, kua 20) Consider thy life's course, lest action err, and criticize thy soul's true character. To summarize, both systems use the same imagery to illustrate the same set of concepts; i.e. a chaotic storm splitting apart a large human-made edifice. This symbolizes the necessity to destroy the structure of ego in preparation for the reconstruction of a new broader-based conception of self suited to the ever-changing times. These same symbols and concepts used on the personal level also apply to social and historical levels. The "tower syndrome" always leads to the death of naive egotism and the subsequent resurrection, from its ruins, of a more fully functional self. Crowley also interprets this card as symbolizing the death or destruction of an era and its subsequent resurrection in a new civilization more in tune with the will of heaven. The persons who have experienced their own "tower syndrome" and learned the necessary lessons will be in a position to understand and deal with, in an appropriate way, the simultaneous dissolution of one world view and its replacement with a new and more functional world view. The kua give advice for ameliorating the worst effects of such a transition. Wilhelm: (kua 42) To rule truly is to serve. This conception also expresses the fundamental idea on which the book of changes is based. Crowley: (I Ching, kua 42) Increase; now's no time to sit and shiver; but to move on, even to cross the river. ... Let all men share in thine improved estate! By soul's disorders realms disintegrate. It is widely accepted by students of the Tarot that the story of "The Tower" is based on the biblical tower of Babel. The mouth symbol represents the confusion of languages that was a deity's response to human arrogance. In the biblical story, Yahweh undoes the work of an ambitious civilization in a fit of jealousy and fear. Then, to keep the advancing society from reorganizing against him, he confounds their common language and scatters the peoples to the far corners of the earth. Unlike biblical scholars, the philosophers of the I Ching didn't require a vengeful deity to understand why prosperous peoples got punished. They understood, from their observations of the cycles of nature, that times of relative abundance are invariably followed by times of relative scarcity; and so they warned those in positions of authority to prepare for this eventuality. If the leadership does not heed this advice, the punishment is swift and all encompassing. The fall from the heights of prosperity can wipe out generations of progress and compel all concerned to start again. Kua 42, "Increase," marks the beginning of decline. To soften the worst effects of the time to come one should work on broadening the base of participation in the relative abundance occurring in the time of increase. To do otherwise leads to the "tower syndrome" for the entire society. To continue the material growth of society for the benefit of only those at the top of the economic and social pyramid (and at the expense of those composing its base) is to persist in a process which will bring inevitable and irrevocable destruction to that society. With the powers now available to us, this destruction (fire is often the agent predicted) will, with high probability, end the human experiment on this planet. The Hebrew name Zephaniah means "God has hidden (something)." If that something was knowledge of the genetic code, and that knowledge was secreted away within the occult Qabala ("hidden tradition") of Earth's ancient cultures; then its rediscovery at this time may be the fulfillment of a portion of Zephaniah's prophecy. If so, what comes next? If you study all 22 of the trot/kua comparisons you will see that the content of the two divination systems is identical; and that the isomorphism between the two systems manifests only when the 64 kua of the I Ching and the 22 major arcana of the Tarot are arranged in the same way as the 64 codons and 22 amino acid and punctuation codons are arranged in the genetic code. This is too much coincidence for me; and the only conclusion I can draw from its existence is that it is somehow intentional. The occult genetic code is a meta-message, a pointer to the existence of a genuine message from its designers within the encyclopedic text called the human genome. Do we have the courage to find and decipher it? Steve Krakowski is a management sciences consultant and computer programmer currently working in the security field. He is a self-styled guerrilla ontologist who plays seriously with the ancient traditions. You can find out more about the Occult Genetic Code at: http://ddi.digital.net/~krakowss/index.htm. references: Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation; Aryeh Kaplan, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach Maine, 1990. DNA and the I Ching: The Tao of Life; Jonathan F. Yan, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA., 1991 The I Ching & the Genetic Code: The Hidden Key to Life; Martin Schonberger, ASI Publishers Inc., New York N.Y., 1979. The I Ching or Book of Changes; Richard Wilhelm translator, rendered from the German into English by C.F. Baynes, Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J., 1976 G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid; Douglas R. Hofstadter, Vintage Books, New York, N. Y., 1980 The Book of Thoth (Egyptian Tarot); Aleister Crowley, U.S. Game Systems, Inc., New York N.Y., 1979 The I Ching; Aleister Crowley, Level Press, San Francisco, Calif., 1974 Magali Bailliot, Magie et sortilèges dans l'Antiquité romaine: archéologie des rituels et des images. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2010. Pp. 212; xix p. of plates. ISBN 9782705670498. €44.00 (pb).
Reviewed by David Frankfurter, Boston University ([email protected] ) Anglo-American scholarship on ancient magic in recent decades has been preoccupied, first, with the relationship of literary representations of witches and wizards to the documents of real magic—amulets, binding spells, and the such—and second, to the evolving construction of mageia as a category of subversion. Magali Bailliot’s insightful and well-documented little book, however, is interested in the practice and efficacy of the rituals, symbols, and ingredients used in actual magical practice. Informed by anthropological theory (Austin, Tambiah, Augé) and the most recent archaeology (including recent discoveries at Reims and Rome), and supplemented with an extensive series of rare and instructive color plates of magical objects and sites, the book offers a refreshing and genuinely interesting attempt to reframe the discussion of ancient magic. Classical sources (literary, legal), while not the main focus of discussion, are competently deployed to give magical practices cultural context. By restricting herself to Roman antiquity Bailliot manages to avoid strict historical considerations—e.g., the evolution of Greek or Christian ideas or the impact of multiculturalism—to develop out of archaeological sources a synchronic cultural dimension in which magical practices made sense. An Introduction briefly critiques earlier notions of “magic worldview” before defending an approach based primarily on magical papyri, gems, and binding tablets. Bailliot situates herself in a scholarly trajectory (Graf, Scheid, Faraone, Versnel) that tries to avoid past prejudices about a “magic underworld” of secrecy and subversion and to discern the rationality and, indeed, the social implications of private ritual actions. More than literature, she argues, archaeological discoveries have shown much local variation in magical practices, implying their reflection of immediate cultural contexts rather than some universal underworld of magic. In an effort to shift the discussion of magic away from its torrid depictions in classical literature Bailliot gives considerable weight to the efficacy of images and symbols. Chapter Two, “Beliefs and Iconography: Prophylactic Symbols and Amulets,” reviews a great diversity of apotropaic images and gestures that dominated the imagination, households, and cityscapes of people across the Roman empire, addressing a general fear of evil eye and sorcery. Drawing on grafitti, floor mosaics, and literary evidence she discusses the apotropaic eye, phallus, horn, Medusa-head, various animals and birds, as well as potent apotropaic gestures like spitting, urinating, and even defecating. Some images, like the mosaic representation of an unswept floor, Bailliot decodes in connection to beliefs about ghosts. The chapter is abundantly illustrated from archaeological sites around the Roman empire. The third chapter addresses the ritual process of “binding” rivals and opponents through the preparation and depositing of lead tablets, figurines, or other media. It is “performative” in the sense of assembling materials and declaring ideal scenarios that would affect a social situation—resolve a crisis—through proper ritual performance. The very vocabulary of binding, Bailliot argues, implies a series of ritual stages, some oral, some involving materials and gestures. Archaeology shows considerable diversity in binding practices, from the media for inscribing spells (lead, wax) to the sites chosen for depositing them (wells, cemeteries, even the sea), and of course the great variety of deities and spirits invoked in the spells. Archaeology also reveals how little evidence we have of the total ritual process. Various binding assemblages include everything from tablets and figurines to bowls and lamps and even some bone fragments, indicating that animal slaughter occasionally accompanied the rite. A particularly rich discussion of ritual figurines and their treatment, informed by the most recent finds from the Anna Perenna fountain in Rome and elsewhere, is supplemented by ten excellent photographs, and one may be grateful that Bailliot here eschews the needlessly confusing and exoticizing term “voodoo doll.” The subsequent discussion of iconography on curse tablets demonstrates the integral function of magical drawing in the course of binding ritual, but a protracted description of sketches of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Seth begs the larger question of mythological eclecticism or syncretism in binding rituals. Why use this crude Seth iconography in binding rituals in the Latin West? Finally, Bailliot describes a sequence of ritual stages in the binding rite, from initial invocations and offerings, to the dedication of the targeted individual, and finally the manipulation and depositing of the tablets and figurines. The final chapter revolves around the ambiguity of magic. Despite its popularity and regular deployment in every situation of competition or rivalry, civic institutions disapproved of magical intervention and often levied strict legal penalties. Bailliot reviews primary witnesses to anti-sorcery persecutions (Tacitus, Ammianus) and then the evidence for the popularity of binding rites across class, profession, region, and scale of crisis. As one might expect, local professionals—ritual experts, scribes—facilitated the production of efficacious rituals in most areas. Thus magic had a social ambiguity: in no way restricted to a “demi-monde,” yet suspicious nonetheless. It also, Bailliot argues, had a discursive ambiguity. An indigenous term implying magical efficacy like amuletum might also have a medical sense. A bulla worn around the neck and a beautiful floor mosaic both displayed social status and carried apotropaic efficacy. Certain terms for official religious speech--carmen , evocatio —also carried magical capacity, and “religious” speech operated on the same illocutionary principles as “magical” speech. Apotropaic symbols—eyes, phalluses—pervaded the cityscape, in no way private or secret. It is on the basis of this ambiguity that Bailliot explains the efficacy of magic. Magic “works” not because of some kind of private cathartic drama, as Malinowski and Winkler proposed, but because the ritual expert, the client/performer, and the targeted individual all operate within a common system of symbolic limits, in particular the boundaries of the private and the separation of the dead and the living. The expert and client ritually transgress those limits, while the target— who might, like Libanius, find a weird ritual object hidden in his chambers, or, like Gemellus Horion of Karanis, encounter a fetus thrown at him1 — will impute ritual potency to the anomalies he encounters. This idéologie communeacross society will inevitably be shaped by local traditions as well: say, about the apotropaic or impure potency of various local animal or gestural symbols. Thus Bailliot proposes a kind of discourse of efficacy continuous with (public) religion and based in a kind of structuralism instead of notions of “magic worldview” or “degenerate religion.” Magie et sortilèges has its limitations, of course. Bailliot asserts rather than explores the overlaps of magical efficacy with the efficacy of public ceremonies and animal slaughter, and she leaves aside the larger belief-systems about witches and ghosts against which apotropaiawere meant to work and out of which binding spells sought to employ spirits. While using the Greek Magical Papyri to explicate binding spells Bailliot ignores entirely the revelation spells, an enormous component of the larger PGM manuals. There may be good reason to give these rituals less historical significance, but this should be explained. Furthermore, while making use of Christian authors and late antique sources, Bailliot ignores the impact of Christianity or Judaism on the construction of magical efficacy and demonic dangers. (Certainly a study like hers invites a new consideration of what Christian and Jewish might mean for the topic of magic). Finally, her conclusion about a common discourse of efficacy and symbolic limits struck this reader as curiously under-developed, given the voluminous theoretical literature on liminality, impurity, and ambiguity in social experience. Overall, it is a book that might, in size and coverage, helpfully complement any course on ancient magic or religion in the Roman world, especially if translated into English, but at forty-four Euros for a short paperback it may remain only “suggested reading.” Libraries would do well to buy it for the invaluable illustrations and unusual approach to magic. Meanwhile, anglophone readers will look forward to Andrew Wilburn’s forthcoming Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Egypt, Spain and Cyprus (University of Michigan Press, 2011?), which likewise puts the evidence of material culture at the center. Notes: 1. P. Michigan VI.423-24, on which see David Frankfurter, “Fetus Magic and Sorcery Fears in Roman Egypt,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 46 (2006): 37-62, and Ari Z. Bryen and Andrzej Wypustek,"Gemellus' Evil Eyes (P.Mich. VI 423-424)," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 49 (2009): 535-555. The Spirit of Magic
`…..I held a new sword in one hand, and in the other the ritual. I kindled two fires…and began reading the evocations of the ritual in a voice at first low, then rising by degrees…and as the flame again burst up, I beheld distinctly before the altar the figure of a man of more than normal size, which dissolved and vanished away…' (Levi: `Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie') Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant) is famous for his exquisitely written works on the history and practice of High Magic. In the middle of his career, in July 1854, he was invited to London to perform a magical evocation of a phantom, that of Apollonius of Tyana the ancient Greek magician and philosopher. Given as a lecture at the Hell Fire Club, this is an account of the legendary Apollonius and the nature and origin of the obscure ritual used by Levi over three weeks isolated study, prayers and intense fasting. First edition limited to: 36 copies bound in quarter black goatskin with emerald cloth, scarlet title label with Eliphas Levis pentagram, scarlet endpapers. http://www.amazon. co.uk/gp/ product/B0050NQS B2 777 copies bound in French navy cloth with a scarlet title label bearing Levi's pentagram design and scarlet endpapers. http://www.amazon. co.uk/gp/ product/B0050NRW M6 |
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