THE SHROUD OF TURIN: HOLY SHROUD OR A MASTERPIECE

 

If the Holy Grail is the secret everyone seeks to find, the Shroud of Turin is the mystery that still remains unsolved.

                          

The mystery of the Shroud

    

7 th April 30 CE, the innocent was crucified on the cross, his body covered with wounds, soul tortured to death. yet he sacrificed himself for us. He is regarded as the son of God, the creator of Christianity, Jesus Christ. It is said that when his body was brought down from the cross, it was covered by a piece of cloth to prevent anyone from seeing the gruesome sight.  

      The 15-foot linen cloth that was used to cover his body is the famous Shroud of Turin, which quite naturally bears his bloodstains.

But miracles always find a way to surprise us, in the year 1898 amateur photographer Secondo Pia after examining the reverse negative photographic plate of the shroud was shocked to find a detailed image of a bearded man with scars of torture distinct on his body.

Now the question, is it possible for blood stains, to make such a detailed imprint of the body on cloth?

Umm, not until someone forcefully presses the cloth on the body, and I don't think anyone would be willing to play with the dead.

Interestingly, in the year 1389, the bishop of Troyes claimed it to be a work of art. 

now you will be thinking " then it is fake! the mystery is solved".

No, it is not so simple 

In 1969, after years of playing with photographs, Scientists were at last allowed to perform different tests on pieces of the fabric directly. In 1978 STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) a research team from the U.S. concluded two main points from their experiments.

• The image is not artificial but of a real crucified man.
• the stains are of human blood with the presence of serum albumin, which confirms it to be a human male.

But they failed to explain the formation of the image in any scientific or logical way.

In 1988, the Radiocarbon results confirmed the shroud to be from the years 1260 to 1390, which is a millennium after Jesus died. The age is also too close to the time the shroud first emerged in 1354.

So, the body may not even belong to Jesus. Then whose body is it?  or it is the work of an artist?

Again, to Paolo Di Lazzaro, the most important question is not its age, but how the image was produced or rather created?

According to him the image hue on the fabric is quite unusual, the color penetration is immensely delicate almost 0.7 micrometers.

ina n experiment to produce a replica of the color hue Di Lazzaro and his came to a close approximate hue by using lasers but they failed in creating a human figure or attaining all the physical and chemical properties of the image.

Di Lazzaro states that the UV light required to create the exact hue exceeds the maximum power of any available source found nowadays.

So how could a medieval artist create such a masterpiece? 

not to mention blood coagulates and if an anti-coagulating agent is used then the penetration layer wouldn't be so shallow.

Many people suggest, "divine light" in the tomb of Jesus may have caused the image. But the light of that intensity in a tomb is kind of unbelievable.

So what is our conclusion?

Yes, the mystery still remains unsolved.

Holy light or the handiwork of some cunning artist, It deserves credit for portraying an image, so detailed in representing the suffering of an innocent man.

Even if it is not the real shroud, it is a true masterpiece and is entitled to sit on the pedestal it is sitting on. After roaming a lot, the Shroud presently lays peacefully under protection at the CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST 

                                                                                      blue rose belles

                                                                                            ( Archie)

REFERENCE CORNER

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shroud-of-Turin

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/04/150417-shroud-turin-relics-jesus-catholic-church-religion-science/

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/10489469/Dating_the_Death_of_Jesus_Memory_and_the_Religious_Imagination.pdf

THE SKELETON LAKE MYSTERY

Hill stations and lakes have always been weak spots for tourists, but Roopkund lying on the laps of Trishul massif in Himachal Pradesh is proven to be a horror sight for everyone. You will get chills here and that is obviously not for the weather. Beneath the beautiful glacial lake lies the graveyard for more than 500 skeletons that have been piled up for thousands of years.

Yup you heard me right, 500 skeletons whose origins are yet unknown.

In 1942, these skeletons were discovered by Hari Kishan Madhawal, a ranger of the Nanda Devi forest. Although there were random reports about finding bones near Roopkund, nobody was enthusiastic about digging deeper because the trek to Roopkund was treacherous, and so random deaths were not an uncommon incident.

But what was surprising was the finding of 200 skeletons scattered near the lake that remains frozen for most of the year. At first, the British suspected the skeletons to belong to the Japanese hidden army that suffered casualties, but they were soon relieved to find out that the bones were way older to be Japanese warriors. At that time no logical explanation was found for this mystery. The bodies did not show any sign of epidemic or fatal wounds received during wars, so there was absolutely no clue as to why masses of the body lay deposited at the lake, but that doesn't mean the villagers didn't have a story, a folk song tells the story of victims of goddesses wrath. The story revolves around the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, Once upon a time, a king defiled the pilgrimage by taking dancing girls for his entertainment at the holy trek which enraged the goddess to such an extent that she struck everyone with heavy" iron balls" that fell from the sky.

As absurd as this story sounds the more absurd event is that the skeletons that were examined were found to have holes the size of cricket balls in their skulls or shoulders bones eerily giving fuel to the belief of 'being hit by iron balls'.

In 2004, after a trek and closer inspection, scientists concluded that this set of people were not hit with iron balls rather caught in a hailstorm mostly during the pilgrimage, and thus were victims of bad weather day rather than of someone's wrath. The theory is more logical and reasonable was approved and accepted with open arms.

BUT

BUT

BUT

Some curious-minded people were not completely convinced with the theory, being caught up in a hailstorm is okay but so many being hit in the head is kind of fishy, isn't it?

So they did a little more digging up.

Two things: DNA Analysis, Radiocarbon dating

And that just twisted and complicated everything, making our return to square one, only more clueless than before.

After studying 38 skeletons from Roopkund, researchers revealed that these people did not die in a single incident. There are at least three identifiable distinct groups who died at least thousands of years apart. People dying once in huge numbers, at the hands of nature is believable, twice justifiable but thrice or more than it at the same place, then it is suspicious, that's what makes it more mysterious and creepy.

Out of the 35 skeletons studied 23 closely matched with the DNA of modern-day Indians and is assumed to have died between the seventh to the tenth century, while 14 of them closely resemble the people of Meditterean islands like Crete or Greece. The one left shares ancestry with South Asia, the latter group of fifteen individuals is believed to have died between the 17th to 20th century.

The mystery just goes on being more creepier since more recent bodies were found at the lake, the bodies were frozen with skin attached to them but were still unidentified.

anthropologist Kathleen Morrison suggests, "When you see a lot of human skeletons, usually it's a graveyard," but Harney thinks the area is too remote to be a graveyard beside there were no genetical similarities with the nearby villages.

And even if the area is a graveyard, What is the reason for having holes in the skulls and shoulder bones. Moreover, why would someone come all the way to Roopkund just to dump bodies? There is no logical answer to these questions.

The question that is now roaming in all our minds is what lured these peoples to Roopkund? Was it for the sake of religion? or some other mystery that lies in the depths of the lake, that none of us know about?

The second question is How and Why did they die?

According to Harney the answers to the questions may be achieved by digging deeper into the age-old ancient texts associated with the lake.

Could it be the handiworks of someone or something or maybe some crazy sacrificial event that no one knows about?

No matter what, it seems to be a perilous dark secret buried deep into the icy waters of the skeleton lake. A secret that itself has the capacity of lurings hundreds of lives to its depths from where there is no return. it's the secret that people have sought for ages but still remains buried. Whatever the reason skeleton lake still remains a mystery to all the curious minds out there, and one day this mystery will surely be solved. Until then let's hope the web does not get more tangled than it already is.

                                                                                                   blue rose belles

                                                                                                        ( Archie)

PARALLEL UNIVERSE AND MULTIVERSE

The theory of the parallel universe has been a constant source of science fiction stories, conspiracy theories, scientific debates over the years. Many people believe even the mere idea of the existence of another universe running parallel along with us is absurd but some scientists believe that a parallel universe may exist. The second universe can be within our universe or outside it.

Whenever we hear the word parallel universe certain questions come to our mind.

WHAT IS A PARALLEL UNIVERSE? could such an absurd thing even exist?

can science define the existence of the parallel universe?

Are mirror worlds real?

could there be a universe just like us and yet different from us, in all aspects?

the answer to all these questions is similar to the answer to the question

Do aliens exist?

Yes, we have never seen aliens but could it in any way prove that they don't exist. I don't think so, just like that if we have never seen another universe doesn't mean that they don't exist. 

A parallel universe is not an assumption but a hypothesis based on some crucial theories like the theory of everything, Quantum theory, big bang, etc.

According to scientist Max Tegmark, there can be three types or rather three levels of parallel universe. The first level of the Parallel universe brings us to the concept of multiple universes or multiverse i.e. the existence of more than one universe outside our universe. In this concept, it is imagined that space is much greater than the universe is like a drop of water in the vast ocean called space.

Now many of us contradict the theory that something could exist outside our universe. Well, I can't blame them, from our childhood it had been imprinted in our brains that the universe extends to infinity. Now, infinity is such a word that can very well be synonymous with never-ending. So, if our universe is never-ending then how can something exist outside it. But you see according to the theory of inflation and cosmology our universe is ever-expanding, so if it can expand then there is obviously space outside our universe for it to expand. If there is enough space to accommodate our ever-growing universe then there can also be enough space to accommodate another universe or more than one universe. 

We know that our universe is so large that it takes billions of years for light to reach our earth from distant stars, then how can we expect to see something beyond our universe so easily?

Level two parallel universe is based on string theory, by solving the mathematical equations it is seen that there is more than one solution of space, that gives rise to the existence of more than one level of space or you can say that it proves the existence of dimensions apart from the basic three dimensions. according to the theory we live on just one of these solutions. So if there are more solutions there could be another universe on some of these solutions or maybe on each of these solutions. Another part of this theory tells us about the balance of dark energy in space i.e 68%, according to scientists this balance of dark energy is the cause of the existence of the universe if the number of dark energy increases then galaxies will cease to exist, so it is also said that wherever dark energy, dark matter, and matter are in the ratio 68:27:5 galaxies will form there thus if we consider the space as a desert then the universe will be formed whenever three is the oasis i.e the ratio is present.

The level three parallel universe sprouts from the most famous and honored theory of physics: QUANTUM MECHANICS. according to the theory, a single particle can exist in more than one place at the same time then why can't the body which is made us of these particles exist in more than one place at the same time. This concept is more connected to the idea of an ALTERNATE REALITY, it is said that whenever we make a decision, we create the path to another reality where we take the other option. If this is true then you can imagine just how many alternate realities or parallel universe can exist for example if you can't decide which food to order burger or pizza, in the end, you end up ordering a burger but at the same time, you create another alternate reality where you have ordered pizza instead. See quantum physics is one of the most accepted concepts of physics and if we can accept it then we should also accept all the baggage that comes with it, even if that includes the bizarre concept of parallel universe and alternate realities.

But still, most will be reluctant to accept this fact, well we can't force anyone in believing something they don't want to think about. If people are happy in believing that they are the most intelligent species in the entire universe because of the mere existence of a parallel universe and aliens are baseless then who are we to tell them otherwise. If scientists are successful in creating quantum computers that are computers whose working is based on quantum equations and which can calculate something that would;lt take us billions of years to calculate even with the most advanced gadgets then we can say that we have taken the first step to prove the existence of the parallel universe and if we fail in the expedition then you can throw the idea of the parallel universe out of the window if you want.

                                                                                                         blue rose belles

                                                                                                              (Archie)

The secret society of witches

 Witches- half of us imagine them as teens while the other half imagine them as old hags with a crooked nose.

But all of these types of witches originated from Europe around the middle ages. So what prompted these witches to sprang into existence as evil beings?

Apparently, the male-dominated society was behind spreading the concepts of witches. if you look closely, then witches were thought to be associated with evil doings like making poisonous potions, cursing people, luring souls, practicing dark magic e.t.c.but what actually the witches did?

The old hags or pretty women, all types of witches are pictured as outcasts living alone with their magical ingredients in some desolate and deserted part of the village, practicing dark magic throughout the day and roaming around on broom at night. most of the time witches didn't have any male companion with them though they were accused of salacity. What is more interesting is that while witches are considered as wicked women breaking havoc in people's life, their male counterparts i.e. wizards or warlocks were actually respected around the world. As we already know anyone suspected of witchcraft was burned on a stake, hanged to death, or drowned in water. According to the scholars, there were approximately 40,000 to 100,000 witch executions in Europe during the middle ages. What did the witches do to deserve the horrible deaths?

To answer all these questions we need to go back to the ancient times when witches didn't create such a turmoil, superstitions ruled the hearts of people at that age and many believed that bad spirits cause havoc in the night to frighten newborn babies and make them cry. nightmares were also considered as a part of their mischief. So to protect their families from the hands of these evil beings the women of the house started using protection symbols and some items that can distract these spirits enough to not cause any ill to their family. Some used to mirror and foods to distract them, while others used herbs to keep them away. during that time protection spells, enchantments and magic were not considered as something evil and malicious rather the anyone who could do magic was considered to be gifted by Hecate; the goddess of magic. Even though Hecate was one of the minor goddesses, she was respected by everyone due to her powers. Necromancy or the calling of spirits was very much practiced around the world at that time and even practiced now. I am not only talking about the plan-chit s that but also about large festivities like Halloween and the day of death ( Día de Muertos ). Both the festivals are held to remember dead people and it is even said that the souls visit the land of living during this time, good souls can bless you while bad ones can curse you, so these bad spirits are kept away with the help of jack-o-lanterns.

So, if throughout the ages everyone tried to protect their family from evil then where did those women went wrong? 

Well, the answer is simple they practiced pagan beliefs rather than Christian beliefs.

Confused!

 You see even if Europe was succumbing to Christianity some people still practiced the age-old religions i.e worshipping of roman, greek, Norse gods, and goddesses. these minority was considered as a threat to the Church and so all necessary precaution was taken to subdue them and the very first victim of this cruel discrimination became the woman of the society. Why? because women were weak! No, it was because these women were always looked like a threat to the male dominating Christian society that was beginning to rise. Naturally, they started moving away to desolate places, hiding away to avoid being executed, sometimes they used to form groups and live in a safe place where the church can't find them forming a secret society and helping other women to escape the cruel hands of the church.

Now, some women had an extremely deep knowledge about different herbs, medicinal and poisonous both. They used their knowledge in curing different ailments, going from village to village to help people. They dedicated their lives to gaining knowledge and healing people, they didn't have family and usually lived alone making different concoctions for different ailments, sometimes they were right sometimes not. Their dedication led to villagers worship them like a god because they succeeded when in so called doctors also failed to cure the people.  Now, that became a huge problem for the church and so they started giving the story a little evil twist and that did the job effortlessly. The healers were blamed to practice withcraft to heal people from near death situation and since most of the villagers were illiterate about herbology so they believed the theory and burned these well wishers on stakes claiming them to be witches. Thus began the execution of the so called witches all over Europe.

The church added fuel to the little flame of witchcraft and it soon turned into a wildfire engulfing thousands of innocent souls throughout Europe. Maybe the church didn't want it to take such a massive turn but it did and the old hag picture of witches was actually created to bring out their evil nature through their ugly looks. The images were successful in awaking fear in the hearts of ordinary people.

Urban literature has opened the path of viewing witches in another light rather than evil practitioners of dark magic.

If you think that witches don't exist in the 21st century then you are wrong some people claim to practice witchcraft,  they claim it to be their religion. Though it is not known if they can actually perform magical spells or it is just a modified version of pagan beliefs. their religion is known as Wicca.

Wicca 

The pentacle

Interestingly the symbol of Wicca is quite similar to the pentacle, the very symbol used for the protection from evil spirits. Actually, it is the same symbol. thus giving fuel to the theory that witchcraft is actually the practice of pagan beliefs.

                                                                                                                  blue rose belles

                                                                                                                           (Archie)