Sunday, July 27, 2008

Nick Removes a Magnetron


Beautiful artifact 
From the Nuclear Age:
These things were a military secret in WW II.
Now there's one inside every microwave oven.

4 comments:

iona miller said...

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
--Thomas Henry Huxley

iona miller said...

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion." --Albert Einstein

iona miller said...

In the Qabala, the Ruach is an aspect of soul which reflects the intellectual and moral capacity. As a vehicle of consciousness, the Ruach allows us the possibility of consciousness journeys through the realm of Universal Mind. Since this aspect of soul dies with the body, it is not the ultimate vehicle of spiritual liberation. That final transcendence takes place in the Neshamah.
But the Ruach does allow us to make conceptual models of our experience of reality. These Ruachian models help us navigate our own local space/time continuum. We can be thinking, contemplating, or meditating in our own homes, and mentally be far, far away. Which truth is real? Imaginal journeys are as old as the human race. They have helped us make advances in both mysticism and science.
Scientists may know nothing about the Ruach, as such. Yet when they make their "thought-experiments" and speculate on the nature of the universe, they enter the same realm as the mystics and philosophers: the causal plane. These thought-experiments are virtual experiences in a mental/imaginal reality. They can have real consequences in real-time. They yield previously enfolded information about the nature of consensus reality. Sometimes they happen in the dreaming state. They are equally revealing in the waking and waking-dream states.
Einstein made a thought-experiment that was experiential and instructive. He imagined himself riding along on a beam of light, and "discovered" the theory of relativity. By keeping the parameters of his postulated world consistent, he simply went on this journey and noticed what happened along the way. This is not so different from the process of magical pathworking. We wonder how Einstein imagined his "astral body" and "causal body"?
The Ruach, and its conceptual models allow us to roam widely through the universe, from sub-atomic to macrocosmic realms. Consciousness maps allow us to "familiarize" ourselves with the territory. They describe the signposts, milestones, and landmarks of our imaginal journeys. The Tree of Life is one such roadmap from the grossly physical to the sublime. Another model of reality is that offered by current sciences such as physics and astronomy.
Sometimes the scientific and the mystical find a common boundary or area of interest. The prospect of time travel or escape from time is one such area. Come now, out of your physical body, into a realm of speculative potential. Journey with us to a vision of reality which transcends our physical constraints. Here science and philosophy overlap. We invite you to "Look at it this way..."
http://zero-point.tripod.com/cosmictime.html#RE-VISIONING%20MIDDLE%20PILLAR%20EXERCISE:


Iona

nick herbert said...

The Founding Myth of science is that it emerged out of a background of Theological Speculation in which millions of words were spilled on the nature of God, Creation and the Soul without a single experimental fact.

Science, on the other hand, is supposed to be based on FACT. If you can't connect your speculations with experiment, you ain't doing science. In this vein the motto of the Royal Society of London is "Nullus in Verba" = Words are nothing (Let's see your data.)

Despite the efforts of science, we know relatively little about the nature of mind, consciousness, the soul. Courageous indeed are those who explore these realms by seeking NEW FACTS outside the realms of conventional experience and who have the motivation and skill to record these NEW FACTS and share them with others. Such are the true heroes and heroines of these times--the modern Dark Age of the Soul.