THE TAOS HUM....THE VOICE OF EARTH

The frequency of the Hum

The Places wher this Hum is often heard

The Taos Hum .....Is truly the voice of Earth or is it the warning for upcoming something???

The most famous of all the hums is the Taos Hum.The Taos Hum is a faint, low-frequency humming noise heard in and near the town of Taos, New Mexico. Not only is the hum's source a mystery, but its peculiar qualities are as well: only about 2 percent of Taos residents - about 1,400 people - can hear it. The low hum - between 30 and 80 Hz on the frequency scale - has been described by hearers as sounding like a diesel engine idling in the distance or having a slow beat-note sound. Some people perceive it as being louder indoors than outdoors. More mysterious still, some hearers who are bothered by the sound have tried earplugs and other acoustic quieting devices to block it out - to no effect. Investigations by scientists, have failed to find a source or even a plausible explanation for the phenomenon.
Taos isn't the only town afflicted with an annoying hum. According to The Taos Hum Homepage, "Nearly every state in the U.S. has at least one 'hum hearer' report, including Alaska and Hawaii. The largest number of reports come from the southwestern U.S., the Pacific Northwest, and southeastern states. Worldwide, the hum has caused such problems in the U.K. and Sweden that hum-hearer support groups have formed there. There are hum-hearer reports from Italy and from Mexico."The Bristol Hum is the most widely reported hum in the U.K. Some of the features of the Bristol Hum are: * Sounds like an idling diesel engine. * Most "hummers" are over the age of 50 * At least one partially deaf person hears the hum without using a hearing aid * "Hearing" of radar signals can be ruled out, since aluminum foil enclosures do not attenuate the Hum. * If a signal generator and loudspeaker is used, a zero beat can be heard around 100Hz * Steel enclosures (such as cars, vehicles, some buildings) slightly attenuate the perceived hum, but only if greater than 1/8" wall thickness. * J. Hall of Bristol UK committed suicide in 10/96 after having been driven crazy by the hum. * The Hum can be detected and recorded using coil detectors.So what do it implies something really dreadful?

VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT---THE MYSTRY UNSOLVED

The pages from the Manuscript





















The Voynich Manuscript is it truly a mysterious language or just a Gibbish???
What we KNOW for Sure about it.
So far, the volume called the Voynich Manuscript is one of a kind. No other examples of the language are known to exist. It is known to be about four hundred years old through a fairly well documented chain of possession. It is thought to be somewhat older than that but the exact age is unknown. Everybody from Vatican researchers to ATT/Bell Labs as well as investigators at MIT and Yale University worked on translating the text. It was even gone over by a top team of British and American code breakers from World War 2. And all of them, so far, have failed. Botanists and biologists have tried to identify the plants in it and have been disappointed. The book is currently in the Rare Books Collections in the library at Yale. Its catalog number is MS408.
A description of the object.
The manuscript itself is some two hundred and thirty pages long, but it was a little longer as some pages have been lost. The overall size as presented is approximately six inches by nine inches, but many pages are larger and have been folded to fit the rest of the sheets. A vellum cover and leather bindings were added some time after its production. It was written and drawn by hand on parchment in several different colors of ink with the curving script of the text printed in black. The majority of the illustrations of plants and people and astrological signs have been hand colored with these basic colors. There are several different 'dialects' of basically the same 'language' in its pages which appear to have been written by five or six different scribes. More on the words and letters of the text later. The drawings of plants are carefully made as if they were done by a botanist, many showing root structure and veins in the leaves. The representations of people are almost crude by comparison, all appear to be female and the majority of which are nude. The astrological section includes what appear to be star maps and zodiacs with figures surrounding a central point. Another section shows containers with labels and ingredients and has been labeled the 'recipe section'.
Who did it, when and why?
The theories about its authorship abound. It is a straight up hoax, a fraud, a practical joke perpetrated on a sixteenth century collector. Somebody tried to translate Mongolian or Vietnamese into Latin, or vice versa. Aliens did it. It's from the Ancient Past or Distant Future. It's from The Central Library of Atlantis, and you can't imagine how much the overdue charge is going to be when it's returned.
And there are even more theories about its contents. Some claim it is an Alchemists manual and contains the secret to the Elixir of Life. The Jesuits were interested in it because they thought it might be religious in nature. There are several theories involving early, perhaps even prehistoric voyages to the Far East during which the authors tried to convey the local's culture and flora and fauna into Arabic. A letter that was found in the 'book' some time later that indicated the Emperor who had bought it from the dealer in the 1660's thought it had been written by Roger Bacon, an English monk and mystic who died around 1300 AD. There is no known evidence either in the manuscript or elsewhere as to the actual author or year of production.So do we consider it to be a mystry written by someone who was out of our world?

THE SEA LEGEND CALLED MARY CELESTE--GHOST SHIP

Mary celeste

The remains of Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste--was it the most haunted ship on the sea or was it just frigment of imanigation???

HALIFAX, N.S.- Known throughout history as the fabled Ghost Ship, the MARY CELESTE was found sailing off the Azores in 1872 ghost-like with no one aboard. The MARY CELESTE sailed into oblivion when a boarding party from a passing ship found that her captain, his wife, two-year-old daughter and entire crew had inexplicably vanished.
Clive Cussler, best-selling novelist and adventurer, representing the National Underwater & Marine Agency, (NUMA) and John Davis, president of ECO-NOVA Productions of Canada, announced August 9th, 2001, that they had discovered the remains of MARY CELESTE on a reef off the coast of Haiti.
"With so many stories written about MARY CELESTE," Cussler stated, "it was time to write the final chapter, although the true story of her missing crew may never be solved."
"After her eerie abandonment," explained Davis, "the ship sailed under different owners for twelve years, until her last captain loaded her with a cargo of cheap rubber boots and cat food before deliberately sinking her, and then filing an exorbitant insurance claim for an exotic cargo that never existed. Unfortunately, for the captain his plan fell apart after running the ship onto Rochelais Reef in Haiti, the ship hung up on the coral and refused to sink. Insurance inspectors investigated and found the worthless cargo. The captain and his first mate were later convicted on charges of what was then known as barratry."
Allan Gardner, skipper of the survey boat, pointed out that the ship left a large trench after she rammed the coral. "The 120 natives, who now live on the reef after building an island of conch shells," he said, "use the old MARY CELESTE's groove as a channel to launch their boats."
Master Diver, Mike Fletcher, quickly found artifacts of the ship's presence that were carefully removed from the sand and coral. Their location was videotaped and they were cataloged for study and conservation. "Very little of the ship is visible," Fletcher reported, "She is covered by some of the most beautiful coral I've ever seen."
Archaeologist James Delgado, comparing the remains of the wreck with historical accounts and carefully studying the fragments, was confidently able to identify the wreck as MARY CELESTE. Detailed research shows no other ship is known to have wrecked on Rochelais Reef, and a systematic survey of the reef revealed only one shipwreck. Other evidence cited by Delgado identifying the wreck as MARY CELESTE were:
* A survey of the wreck revealed its dimensions to be 100 by 25 feet: MARY CELESTE's recorded dimensions at the keel were 99.3 by 25.3 feet.
* The wreck was fastened together with iron "drifts" and bronze spikes commonly used in ships built in the mid-19th century: MARY CELESTE was constructed in 1861.
* The wreck was sheathed with "Muntz metal," also known as "naval brass," which began to replace copper sheathing on ship's hulls after 1850. By the 1860's it had nearly completely replaced copper sheathing.
* Detailed analysis of twelve samples of wood by Dr. David Etheridge, a wood scientist from Victoria, British Columbia, showed the ship was built either in Northern New England or the Maritime Provinces of Canada. MARY CELESTE was built at Spencer's island, Nova Scotia.
"We can safely say the final resting place of the infamous MARY CELESTE has been found," concluded Delgado.
"We were lucky," admitted Cussler, who has found nearly 70 historic shipwrecks, including the Confederate Submarine HUNLEY and the ship that rescued the TITANIC survivors, CARPATHIA, in between writing 20 best-selling novels. "Everything came together for a crew of dedicated people focused on preserving maritime history."
Footage of the MARY CELESTE expedition will be featured in a new National Geographic Channels International television series called "The Sea Hunters," set to air in 2002. Based on Clive Cussler's best-selling novel, the series follows modern-day adventurers as they attempt to solve ancient maritime mysteries and will air on the National Geographic Channels International in at least 129 countries around the world. In Canada, the series will premiere on History Television.
A news conference was held August 9th, 2001 at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia where Cussler, best-selling author and Founder of the National Underwater & Marine Agency (NUMA), and Delgado, Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, displayed artifacts and answered questions concerning the search and discovery of MARY CELESTE.
Then Cussler added, "The enigma of the MARY CELESTE will continue to haunt us all for generations to come. She is a tale of the sea that will never be forgotten."

ROBIN HOOD FOLK FORE OR TRUTH

The grave of john Little

The imagination of Artist

Robin Hood...Was he Legend or Historical figure???

Who was Robin Hood? Was he actually a historical fact or simply a medieval fiction? Why has the Robin Hood Legend become so loved and well known across the world and through the generations captivating audiences from young children, to teen, men, and of course…women.Most of the knowledge concerning the Robin Hood legend derives from the early ballads and tales which have passed through the centuries.Of these, the most significant are: A Gest of Robin Hood, Robin Hood and the Monk,Robin Hood and the Potter, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar, and Robin Hood's Death. All of these tales were written down before 1550.Despite the “legend” status of Robin Hood, there are many reasons to believe that he could have been an actual man. Many researchers have uncovered evidence about this period in Nottingham, and points to the reality of everyone’s favorite outlaw.We have always read that Robin Hood is a gallant hero, robbing the rich to feed the poor and constantly fighting injustice. Everyone immediately recognizes the names: Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, Will Scarlett, and of course…the Sheriff of Nottingham.The legend portrays Robin as a fearless bandit, leading his “merry men,” into victory after victory. We read that Robin was an excellent archer, and lived his life in Sherwood Forest, poaching deer from the King.Most people don’t realize that the earliest Robin Hood tale was about a yeoman, who haunted Barnsdale Forest, not Sherwood. Robin he didn't become some sort of English nobleman fighting oppressors until Sir Walter Scott added a few touches to him in Ivanhoe. The original outlaw supposedly was a once a ragged vagrant moving from place to place, trying to just “make it.”There is something very interesting about this story. A document of court records was found in the London public records office dating from 1226. It states that a man named Robert Hod fled the jurisdiction of the king's justices, and his possessions were seized by the Sheriff of York. (In the Middle Ages, the name Robert was synonymous with Robin.) The document reads that this sheriff "owes 32 shilling 6 pence of chattels of Rob Hod, fugitive." The Sheriff of York later became the Sheriff of Nottingham. In 1227, the sheriff still owed the court the money for Robert Hod's belongings. Eventually Hod was found and hanged.Forty years later, another fugitive was nicknamed Robyn Hod in court records. Rolls of Parliament in 1437 show a petition for the arrest of Piers Venables of Derbyshire who had resorted to violence and robbery and taking refuge in the Forest.Other possibilities of the origins of Robin Hood have been tossed out as well. The name Robin Hood could have come from the title to Grandmasters in a witch coven, who wore hoods. The name Robin was one of the names given to the gods they worshiped, and so the name "Robin with a Hood" could have come about. Fairies and forest elves wore hoods, and one fairy name was Robin Goodfellow, and so the name Robin could have been combined with Hood in mythology. Others think that forest bandits adopted the name, with Robin being a generic form of “thief’s.” Supposedly, Little John's grave is at a church cemetery at Hathersage in Derbyshire, as quoted from a 17th-century text about a Robert Lockesley who met up with a Little John. The Little John grave is 13 ft. 4 in. long, and in 1795 it was written that the grave was exhumed and the bones were of an extremely large man. There is a grave for a “Robin Hood,” in the area of Kirklees Priory at Yorkshire, England. The story of the epitaph is very interesting. In 1665 a drawing of the grave was made and was published in 1786, when the words on the grave marker were no longer completely legible. The grave read "Here lies Roberd Hude, William Goldburgh, Thomas." It is unclear who William Goldburgh and Thomas are A man named Thomas Gale was dean of York from 1697-1702, and he left in his papers the words that were supposedly on Robin Hood's grave. The date of death was recorded as 12-24-1247. A similar epitaph was published at the end of The True Tale of Robin Hood by Martin Parker, which gives the death date as 12-4-1198. The Parker epitaph reads: Robert Earle of Huntington/Lies under this little stone./No archer was like him so good;/His wildnesse named him Robbin Hood./Full thirteene yeares, and something more,/These northerne parts he vexed sore./Such out-lawes as he and his men/May England never know agen Researchers have agreed on the likelihood that the man who became Robin Hood was alive under the reign of Richard I around 1193. Most believe that this man who was deemed an outlaw around the end of the 12th century, and from there, the name became Robin Hood and was used to refer to other outlaws. And so the legend grew .

THE LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS...TRUTH OR LEGEND

The map of the lost city

The city of Atlantis

Atlantis....The lost city....was there any such city....or just a legend???

The Legend of Atlantis
The legend of Atlantis has to be one of the oldest and most spellbinding of all the world's mysteries. It has puzzled both skeptics and believers alike. Where exactly was Atlantis and where is it now? What caused its destruction? Exactly how advanced were the Atlanteans? I hope someday everyone will know the answers to those questions.
Plato, a Greek philosopher, gave us the first known account of Atlantis. Plato was said to have lived from about 428 to 348 B.C. He was a student of Socrates. After studying with Socrates, Plato opened up his own philosophy school. There he began to write his philosophies in a play-type form. These dialogues always featured Socrates as the main character. In the dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he wrote about an amazing place called Atlantis. In Critias, Plato wrote of Atlantis' architecture, engineering, and ceremonies in great detail. Many people, even Plato's own students, thought this place was Plato's own creation, but he argued that Atlantis was real, and filled with more splendors than anyone could imagine.
All races share the story of a great flood that destroyed an entire civilization. The name Atlantis appears in various forms throughout the world. The Canary Islands have a legend involving Atalaya. The Basques of Northern Spain have Atlaintica. The Vikings told the tale of Atli. Northern Africa called it Attala. The Aztecs have Aztlán, and the North American Indians called theirs Azatlán.
Plato said Atlantis was a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere west of the Pillars of Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar). This description has lead to many people believing that Atlantis could have been the Aegean Island of Thera (Santorini) which suddenly blew up. Atlantis was also identified as part of an ancient series of land bridges that stretched across the Atlantic and even out into the Pacific as far as New Zealand. Others say that the Canary Islands are the tops of Atlantis' tallest mountains. Some say that the Bermuda Triangle is the result of Atlantis sinking. The discovery of blue eyes and blondness among some of Africa's Berbers soon led some people to place Atlantis in the Atlas Mountians of modern Morocco and Tunisia. Still others claim that Atlantis was not even on this planet.
According to the continental drift theory, all the continents fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle. If you look at a map, you will see that the continents really do fit together- with the exception of the USA in North America and Western Europe. Could Atlantis be the missing piece?
According to Plato, one of the best splendors of Atlantis was the palace compound located in the heart of its capital. It was ringed by three canals. Plato remarked, "As each king received it [the palace] from his predecessor, he added to its adornment and did all he could to surpass the king before him, until finally they made of it an abode amazing to behold for the magnitude and beauty of its workmanship. The visitors passed through a wall of brass, a wall of tin, and a wall of copper. White and black and red stone quarried from the native rock." He also wrote that the wealth they possessed was so immense that the like had never been seen before in any royal house, nor will ever easily be seen again. This, of course, lead to Atlantis' destruction.
He stated that the Atlanteans appeared to be superlatively fair and blessed, yet they were filled with lawless ambition and power. The Atlanteans started valuing material wealth above goodness-that's where they went wrong. Plato said, "The portion of divinity within them was now becoming faint and weak through being oftentimes blended with a large measure of mortality." The Atlanteans were unable to bear the burden of their possessions. So, "There occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when...the island of Atlantis...was swallowed up by the sea and vanished." Plato doubted that any sign of the lost land would ever be found. "The ocean at that spot, has now become impassable and unsearchable." This contributes to the Bermuda Triangle theory above.
Even though it seems that no one could survive such a tragedy, it is believed that many Atlanteans escaped. One example of this is Edgar Cayce. In April of 1939, he fell into a trance and spoke about Atlantis. "In Atlantis, when there was the breaking up of the land came to what was called the Mayan Land or the what is now Yucatan-entity was the first to cross the water in the plane or air machine of that period." In support of the escape, Atlantis has been hailed for spawning civilizations such as Hellenic Greece, the Mayas & Incas of the New World, and ancient Egypt.
Atlantis has had an impact on every culture. In 1675, Olof Rudbeck, a Swedish scholar, used Homeric sailing directions to Ogygia and located Atlantis in Sweden. English poet William Blake, believed that the Atlantean King, Albion lead the last of his subjects to Britain, where they became Druids. Charles-Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a French scholar, translated a Mayan manuscript in 1864, that described the story of an ancient land that had sunk into the ocean after a great catastrophe. In 1882, Philadelphian politician, and avid reader, Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published his book Atlantis: The Antedefuvian World. The world's reception of his writings was so great, Donnelly was elected to membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Atlantis, The Lost City
Atlantis, the Lost City everyone is talking about. Where is it, is it real? Why are there rumors if it's not true? Here we will explore the myths and realities of the Lost Continent of Atlantis. Sit back, relax and take a wonderful ride!
The city of Atlantis, if you hear about it, one would think that it would be located in the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name. But researchers have been looking for this continent for years. The continent was mentioned in many religions and folklores, that it became a possibility that it truly does exist. But if it does, where is it and has it been found by scientists yet, or have they think they have found the Lost City or Continent of Atlantis?
The great philosopher, Plato, wrote in his Critias, that he believed that a great continent was extremely technologically advanced, and that this continent had been destroyed and lost by a rush of ocean covering the evidence to us to this day. Plato had believed that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. In fact, the reason why the Atlantic Ocean is called such today, is because of the Atlantean theory. Plato believed that Atlantis was a sunken continent approximately the size of Libya and Asia put together. That would be about 5 to 10 million square kilometers hidden below a large oceanic surface!
Monoliths, similar to the monoliths in Easter Island, supposedly are a "signature" of the Atlantean culture. Some believe this culture survived on to Islands and lands such as Easter Island and other various areas still leaving scientists and archeologists befuddled. Pyramids, such like those found in Egypt and other ancient sites, are also a supposed "signature" of the Atlanteans.
Plato believed that Atlantis had a great army, probably of around 1.2 million armed men. He also believed that the army had a vast number of chariots. Horses were definitely used. This was the theory that had caused many to believe that the horse that evolved from Asia became domesticated in Atlantis. This remains a striking detail, because scientists and archeologists cannot determine precisely when the domestication of the horse occurred.
Elephants are supposedly also a very big part of the Atlantean culture. Plato even writes himself:
"There were a great number of elephants in the island, for there was ample provision of food for all sorts of animals...including for the animal which is the largest and the most voracious of all."
The strange part about the elephants, is that the epoch in when the continent of Atlantis was supposedly alive and flourishing, mastodons and mammoths were abundant, and the elephant did not come about until approximately the supposed time when the continent of Atlantis was believed to have "fallen" into the ocean, the same time when mastodons and mammoths became extinct.
It must be remembered, that Plato had written Critias in 360 BCE. This was where it all started, with Plato's words:
"Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Hercules and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. The progress of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to Athens."
Where did Plato's revelation of the continent of Atlantis come from? Plato's revelation was told to him by a man named Solon, who in turn received the information about Atlantis from the ancient Egyptians. If it's just a story, it is one heck of an intriguing one! A thrilling reality to this wonderful piece of writing, is that the end of the transcript has been lost. What was at the end of the transcript...we will never know. He talked of Gods and spirits that made the islanders what they were. An ancient influence that could have come from anywhere. Could it have come from the stars? And is it just plain mythology, or is there a glimpse of truth in the evidence?
What is interesting, is that what Plato described is also described in the Bible as the "Great Flood". Could the continent of Atlantis be the true "Garden of Eden?"
Some scientists believe that the sinking of Atlantis was caused by a great "Ice Age." Pillars are abundant on the oceanic floors, but are these pillars naturally made or manmade?
The "Sleeping Prophet", also known as Edgar Cayce, had believed he was an Atlantean himself. He was a prophet that believed that spirits spoke to him in his dreams. The dreams revealed revelations of great extent for his own life and many others. His prophetic visions attracted many people, which in turn made many seek out his help in life through his "seeing eye." Cayce believed that he was being told his clairvoyances from Atlantean gods and spirits.
One prophecy that Edgar Cayce had made, did not come to pass, this was regarding the lost continent of Atlantis. Cayce prophesized that the lost island of Atlantis would emerge from the ocean in 1968 or 1969. Cayce also suggested that the island was located near the Bermuda island of Bimini.
The lost continent to this day, has many possibilities of where it could "be," however, no scientific evidence that is strong enough to prove Atlantis had existed has been yet found. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!

PLANCHETTE & OUIJA....THE TALKING BOARD OF SPIRITS

The Ouija Boards



The Planchettes

The ancient Planchette & Ouija talking Boards ..... Is it just a Game or the Dangerous spirit rising tools????

As an invention it is very old. It was in use in the days of Pythagoras, about 540 B.C. According to a French historical account of the philosopher's life, his sect held frequent séances or circles at which 'a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from the unseen world.' (- Encyclopedia of Psychic Science )

Writers of occult literature love to talk about the Ouija board's ancient roots. Ouija boards, they tell us, were in use in ancient Greece, Rome, China, or whatever other cultures the authors deem important. They steadfastly maintain that modern Ouija boards are the direct descendants of its more primitive ancestors. If the ancestor wasn't a Ouija board exactly, it was "Ouija-like." This can mean that almost any early divination device qualifies. Few question this and new writers repeat the words of the old without thinking very critically about it. Ancient Ouija boards: fact or fiction? Let's take a look.
The statement between the twin lamps at the top of this page comes from Nandor Fodor's, Encyclopedia of Psychic Science (1934). Fodor takes it word for word from Lewis Spence's earlier book, An Encyclopedia of Occultism (1920). This is the one recurring quote found in almost every academic article on the Ouija board. Spence claims that Ouija boards are ancient and, according to a French historian, a "mystic table on wheels" was in common use among the Pythagoreans. An interesting claim, but is it accurate? Apparently not. Of all the oracles and divination methods mentioned in the writings about Pythagoras and his followers, this "mystic table" isn't among them. Who was the French historian in Spence's account? Spence doesn't say. His description is the first and only one of this ancient Ouija board in any historic record. Spence is also the first to write: "In 1853, a well known French spiritualist, M. Planchette, invented the instrument to which he gave his name." Not only is there no record of a French Spiritualist, well known or otherwise, named M. Planchette, but the word "planchette" means, "little plank" in French. French Spiritist Allan Kardec explains in detail how the planchette evolves in his The Medium's Book (1861). Before it was the little plank (board) it was the little basket. Before that, it was the little table. Neither Kardec nor any other writer of the period credits the planchette to a person with the same name. Perhaps there is something intriguing about these two oft-repeated Ouija legends that keeps them alive. Or, it may be that writers repeat them simply because they believe them to be true. You may draw your own conclusions.
Edmond Gruss describes an ancient Roman Ouija-like board in his, The Ouija Board, A Doorway to the Occult (1994): "Fourth-century Byzantine historian Ammianus Marcellinus records one of the earliest forms of divination, which used a pendulum and a dish engraved with the alphabet." This is an interesting and creditable account from Ammianus Marcellinus' The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378). In his narrative, two sorry individuals, Patricius and Hilarius, under arrest for creating an oracle to define who would succeed the emperor, plead before the court:
My lords, in an unlucky moment we put together out of laurel twigs in the shape of the Delphic tripod the hapless little table before you. We consecrated it with cryptic spells and a long series of magical rites, and at last made it work. The way in which it did so, when we wished to consult it about hidden matters, was this. It was placed in the middle of a room thoroughly fumigated with spices from Arabia, and was covered with a round dish made from the alloys of various metals. The outer rim of the dish was cunningly engraved with the twenty-four letters of the alphabet separated by accurate intervals. A man dressed in linen garments and wearing linen sandals, with a fillet around his head and green twigs from a lucky tree in his hand, officiated as priest. After uttering a set prayer to invoke the divine power which presides over prophecy, he took his place above the tripod as his knowledge of the proper ritual had taught him, and set swinging a ring suspended by a very fine cotton thread which had been consecrated by a mystic formula. The ring, moving in a series of jumps over the marked spaces, came to rest on particular letters, which made up hexameters appropriate to the questions put and in perfect scansion and rhythm, like the lines produced at Delphi or by the oracle of the Branchidae.
Unfortunately for Patricius and Hilarius, things did not go well after their inquisition: "both the accused were fearfully mangled by the torturers hooks and taken away unconscious."
We should mention, in case you didn't read it clearly, that the tripod in the story has everything to do with the Greek oracle at Delphi and nothing to do with the three-legged planchette, as modern writers sometimes mistakenly report. The oracle is clearly a pendulum dish and not a talking board, an important distinction, but why quibble? Could this be an early ancestor of the modern Ouija board? Historically, pendulum devices like this must have been rare since there is little record of common use from Roman times to the 1850's. If we are speaking of evolution, a process in which something passes by degree to a different or advanced state, it's hard to make the connection to modern day Ouija boards. 1500 years is a big leap, even for the spirits to make. It is an ancient alphabet oracle, but it is not a relative of the Ouija board.
Stoker Hunt in his, Ouija the Most Dangerous Game (1985), writes about Ouija boards in ancient China: "In China, centuries before the birth of Confucius (551?-479 B.C.), the use of Ouija-like instruments was commonplace, considered a nonthreatening way to communicate with the spirits of the dead." He is speaking of a well-known form of Chinese spirit writing (Fu Chi, Fuji, Fuluan, or Jiangbi). Some Chinese mystics believe that a divine spirit can take possession of a writing brush or a writing tool similar to the western planchette. Opinions vary among historians about the age of this practice, but it doesn't matter here. This "Ouija-like" instrument is a Ouija-like board without the board, letters, numbers, or sliding message indicator. In other words, it isn't a Ouija board at all.
Hunt goes on to say, "In thirteenth-century Tartary, the Mongols used Ouija-like instruments for purposes of divination and instruction." Although not referenced, this comes directly from Epes Sargent's book, Planchette; or The Despair of Science (1869): "According to Huc, the Catholic missionary, table-rapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the Mongols, in the wilds of Tartary. The Chinese recognize spiritual intervention as a fact, and it is an element in their religious systems." It is fun to ponder where Huc the Catholic missionary got the information that table rapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the Mongols. That paints quite a mental picture, but the message is clear: Huc is talking about table-turning. Almost all scholars agree that table turning originated in 19th century America. All scholars except for Huc the Catholic missionary, Stoker Hunt, and others who repeat such unsubstantiated ideas. And, need we say it? There is absolutely no historical evidence that American spiritualists were influenced by 13th century Mongols.
To be an ancestor of something, there must be some connection, some evolution, some influence. The instrument has to have been in wide enough use to connect to the popular imagination. As relationships go, the talking boards of today most likely grew out the use of the alphabet and alphabetic pasteboards during 19th century spiritualistic séances and not from pendulum oracles or other devices used many centuries earlier.
In 1848, the Fox sisters realized immediately that calling out the individual letters of the alphabet, and having the spirits knock accordingly, was easier than asking lengthy "yes/no" questions. The use of alphabet pasteboards became common among table-tippers who came to the same conclusion. And there were mediums who didn't wait for the spirits to knock but instead relied on a kind of divine intuition: "During a communication between the medium and the supposed spirit, the former passed his hand over the alphabet, until he found his finger sensibly and irresistibly arrested at a certain letter, and so on, until the word, the sentence, was completed." -The Rappers (1854).
Starting in the 1850's, alphabet boards made the transition to the dial-plate instruments, also known as psychographs, first in the United States and then in Europe. The first talking board with a detachable sliding message indicator appeared around 1886. That's a short thirty-eight year time frame. If the Ouija board has relatives they are the devices of this period: the talking tables, the alphabet pasteboards, and the early dial-plate instruments.So the question still hovers what is it Truth or Fable?

THE MYSTRY OF BERMUDA TRIANGLE?????

imagination of artist

Bermuda Triangle---Mystry solved or is it still a mystry baffling millions???

The Bermuda Triangle (sometimes also referred to as the Devil's Triangle) is a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by a line from Florida to the islands of Bermuda, to Puerto Rico and then back to Florida. It is one of the biggest mysteries of our time - that perhaps isn't really a mystery.
The term "Bermuda Triangle" was first used in an article written by Vincent H. Gaddis for Argosy magazine in 1964. In the article, Gaddis claimed that in this strange sea a number of ships and planes had disappeared without explanation. Gaddis wasn't the first one to come to this conclusion, either. As early as 1952, George X. Sands, in a report in Fate magazine, noted what seemed like an unusually large number of strange accidents in that region.
In 1969 John Wallace Spencer wrote a book called Limbo of the Lost specifically about the Triangle and, two years later, a feature documentary on the subject, The Devil's Triangle, was released. These, along with the bestseller The Bermuda Triangle, published in 1974, permanently registered the legend of the "Hoodoo Sea" within popular culture.
Why do ships and planes seem to go missing in the region? Some authors suggested it may be due to a strange magnetic anomaly that affects compass readings (in fact they claim Columbus noted this when he sailed through the area in 1492). Others theorize that methane eruptions from the ocean floor may suddenly be turning the sea into a froth that can't support a ship's weight so it sinks (though there is no evidence of this type of thing happening in the Triangle for the past 15,000 years). Several books have gone as far as conjecturing that the disappearances are due to an intelligent, technologically advanced race living in space or under the sea.
Kusche's Theory
In 1975 Larry Kusche, a librarian at Arizona State University, reached a totally different conclusion. Kusche decided to investigate the claims made by these articles and books. What he found he published in his own book entitled The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved. Kusche had carefully dug into records other writers had neglected. He found that many of the strange accidents were not so strange after all. Often a Triangle writer had noted a ship or plane had disappeared in "calms seas" when the record showed a raging storm had been in progress. Others said ships had "mysteriously vanished" when their remains had actually been found and the cause of their sinking explained. In one case a ship listed missing in the Triangle actually had disappeared in the Pacific Ocean some 3,000 miles away! The author had confused the name of the Pacific port the ship had left with a city of the same name on the Atlantic coast
More significantly, a check of Lloyd's of London's accident records by the editor of Fate in 1975 showed that the Triangle was no more dangerous than any other part of the ocean. U.S. Coast Guard records confirmed this and since that time no good arguments have ever been made to refute those statistics. So many argue that the Bermuda Triangle mystery has disappeared, in the same way many of its supposed victims vanished.
Even though the Bermuda Triangle isn't a true mystery, this region of the sea certainly has had its share of marine tragedy. This region is one of the heaviest traveled areas of ocean in the world. Both small boats and commercial ships ply its waters along with airliners, military aircraft and private planes as they come to and from both the islands and more distant ports in Europe, South America and Africa. The weather in this region can make traveling hazardous also. The summer brings hurricanes while the warm waters of the Gulf Stream promote sudden storms. With this much activity in a relatively small region it isn't surprising that a large number of accidents occur. So is the mystry solved or still the experts are lying in order to prove their points???