Hollowed ground

Do you want to support a unique research project whose goal is to prove a theory hitherto only considered a myth?  A theory for which there is no evidence whatsoever?  A theory which, to believe in it, you'd have to have the IQ of library paste?

Then check out the webpage for the North Pole Inner Earth Expedition, intended to prove the contention that the Earth is hollow.  Under the link for "Science," the authors of the page write the following:

Geologists have been aided by Internet linking of seismographic accelerometers to conduct a CAT Scan of the Earth each time there is an earthquake. Of course, like most modern scientists, they mold the data to fit their current paradigm. The more than 600,000 seismograms have been recently analyzed by Dr. Michael Wysessions and revealed an entire ocean underneath the Atlantic Ocean. Jan Lambrecht authored a reanalysis of the seismographic data and revealed an Earth that looks quite different than the one being taught to geological students today. One with a hollow core.

They then present the following diagram to support this, because everyone knows that if you draw a fancy-looking picture of something, it must be true:

The interesting thing -- although not unsurprising, given that this is the sort of things that woo-woos do all the time -- is that they then go on to quote extensively two actual, legitimate geologists, Xiaodong Song and Xinlei Sun of the University of Illinois, who have researched the composition, structure, and magnetic field of the Earth's core -- but then they claim that this research supports the Earth being hollow!  It's a little like someone quoting from a scholarly paper by Stephen Hawking about quantum mechanics, and then simply saying, "And therefore telepathy exists.  Q.E.D."

"The science is real," the website claims.  "The story is more than 5,000 years old. The legend says that at a certain place above the Arctic Circle, there exists an oceanic depression or an entrance into the Earth. It's a place where the maritime legend claims sea level isn't level anymore."

Because if there was a hole through the Hollow Earth at the North Pole, there would be a giant aquatic dimple.  Because the ocean would be... um, depressed, because the center of gravity is actually not at the center of the Earth, it's a concentric sphere just a little bit under the surface of the Earth.

Okay, now I'm depressed.

The hole, they say, is where the auroras come out of, because after all, it's not like we know what causes auroras, or anything.  Maybe they're not caused by cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere.  Maybe they're, like, the light from the Central Sun shining out through the Polar Holes.

And, needless to say, there's a link on the site that allows you to donate to this groundbreaking expedition.  Allegedly a "Park Avenue documentary producer" has already pledged $1.5 million in support.  So I'm sure that when the expedition happens, and they go up to the Arctic and discover nothing but lots of ice, and no Polar Dimples whatsoever, they still will act like the "theory" was vindicated, because that kind of money does not allow for failure.  And the film chronicling the expedition will end up on The This Is Not Really History Channel, where it can join other valuable scientific studies such as Nostradamus, MonsterQuest, and The Bible Code: Predicting Armageddon.

All of this makes me think that I should come up with my own ridiculous theory, and propose an expedition to prove it.  If I was to do that, though, I'd want to have an expedition to somewhere rather warmer than the North Pole, because I'm really not into potentially freezing off valuable body parts.  So, okay, here goes:  Ancient legends claim that the Earth isn't a rocky sphere with a liquid mantle and an iron/nickel core, it's actually a crispy crust over a huge sphere of butterscotch pudding.  This is supported by geological studies of the Earth's composition, because nowhere in the literature will you find anyone specifically ruling out the Butterscotch Pudding Model.  Actually, the fact that they haven't addressed this theory means that the dull, hidebound scientific establishment is trying to suppress the truth!  So in order to prove this model is correct, I will be leading an expedition to Hawaii, because that is the spot where the crispy crust is the thinnest, and also because I can spend a lot of time clad in nothing but swim trunks and drinking margaritas.  In the end, the research (which will consist of a visit to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and several scuba diving trips) will unfortunately turn up no evidence of butterscotch pudding, a finding that I will label as "inconclusive."

Interested?  Please forward your check for $1.5 million to me at your earliest convenience.

End of the week wrap-up

Well, it's Friday, and TGIF, which I am allowed to say even though technically, I don't believe in G.  Be that as it may, we're going to end the work week with three stories we're carefully following here at Skeptophilia's main offices, nestled in the lovely hills of upstate New York.

The first story comes from the nearby state of West Virginia, where a Pentecostal pastor famous for handling poisonous snakes during his sermons as evidence that god was looking over him has died from a bite from a poisonous snake.  (Source)

Pastor Mark Wolford, 44, was a popular preacher on the revival circuit, drawing large crowds to his outdoor services.  Shortly before what was to be his last Hallelujah, Wolford posted on his Facebook page, "I am looking for a great time this Sunday.  It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good 'ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers."

Wolford's trademark was handling live rattlesnakes during his sermons, because of Mark 16:17-18:  "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

"Anybody can do it that believes it," Wolford said, in an interview in The Washington Post in 2011. "Jesus said, 'These signs shall follow them which believe.' This is a sign to show people that God has the power."

Well, I'm thinking that the rattlesnake might have had a say in the matter, too, because at a service last week, he put one of his snakes down, and it bit him on the leg.  Recalling the part about "they shall recover" from the bible passage quoted above, Wolford refused medical treatment, but was taken to a family member's house, where he died shortly afterwards.

Interestingly, Wolford's father, who was also a Pentecostal preacher, died at the age of 39 of snakebite in exactly the same circumstances.

"(H)e died for what he believed in," the younger Wolford said about his father's death in the interview in The Washington Post.  "I know it's real; it is the power of God.  If I didn't do it, if I'd never gotten back involved, it'd be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real."

Mmmm, okay.  We'll just leave that last statement as is, and move on to our next story.


We next have a story from far-away Zimbabwe, where two witches failed at flying their brooms under the radar.  (Source)

In Shackleton compound, a small mining village near Chinhoyi, a ruckus was raised when two women, Rosemary Kamanga and Esnath Madoza, were found dancing around naked after informing a neighbor that they needed some human flesh for a ritual.

The neighbor, Eneresi Mufunga, was awakened at 4 AM from a sound sleep, and got up to investigate.  She found Kamanga and Madoza running about without any clothes on, and (according to the article) "quizzed them on their mission."

I suspect this latter is just a quaint Zimbabwean way of saying, "what the hell is wrong with you two?", or some stronger variant, but in any case Kamanga and Madoza informed them that they were trying to find some human flesh, and wondered if Mufunga might have any she'd be willing to part with.  "It's a subtle, cunning approach," they were heard to say, earlier.  "It might just work!"

Understandably, Mufunga informed them that, as missions go, this one was a non-starter, and proceeded to raise the camp.  A crowd gathered, including the two unsuccessful witches' husbands, who "whisked them away home" where they were later found by the police.  At that point, they had decided to put on clothes, but they did confess to being witches, so they were then whisked away to a different place, namely jail, and charged with breaking Section 98, Chapter 9:23 of the Zimbabwean Criminal Law Code, wherein it is declared that it is illegal to practice witchcraft, caper about naked, and ask your neighbors for some human flesh.


Our last story hails from New Brunswick, where a farmer named Werner Bock has been charged with animal neglect after losing nearly 250 cattle over the past ten years.  (Source)

Police claim that Bock failed to feed the cattle, so they died of the effects of malnutrition.  Bock, on the other hand, says that the cattle were killed by "alien death rays."

"At least 250 head of cattle have died from what we call a death beam," Bock said on a YouTube video posted in May 2011. "Where the atmospheric air is manipulated into a death beam, focused on the noses of the animals."  The animals "breathe in the death beam" and then slowly die.

Veterinarians in the case have said that there are no signs of burns on the cattle, but that Bock might have been a little more successful with his ranching enterprise had he taken the step of providing his livestock with food.  Bock, who intends to be his own legal defense in the case, has already subpoenaed three veterinarians and one police officer to provide evidence.

Besides the general rule of "animals need to be fed," someone might want to explain to Bock about the concept that a subpoena for the defense only works if the people being subpoenaed can actually provide information that supports the accused's claims.  All three veterinarians have stated that they saw no evidence of "death beams," and the police officer, who was supposed to verify Bock's claims of seeing UFOs hovering over the farm, has said that he knows about no such thing.

So Bock might want to reconsider his legal strategy.  And also find a new career that doesn't involve anything that's alive.


And that's our end-of-the-week wrap-up, here at Skeptophilia.  We'll wish you a lovely Friday, and hope that your weekend is pleasant, and free from snakebite, naked witches after your flesh, or alien cow-killing death beams.  Because all three of those could put a damper on things.

My cup runneth over

As a slightly-past-fifty-year-old, it will come as no surprise to you to hear that I'm seeing some gray hair, and a few more laugh lines than I had ten years ago.  Myself, I'd always thought of this as a natural consequence of reaching this venerated age.  Imagine my surprise when I learned this morning that gray hair and wrinkles are not caused by the death of melanin-producing cells in the hair follicles, and a decrease in the elasticity of the skin, respectively; no, both of these phenomena are caused by an imbalance of energy flow through your kidneys, and can be fixed by applying suction cups to your skin.

I wish I was making this up, but here's the source for this bit of medical wisdom, which comes from the tenets of a practice called "cupping."  The idea is that whatever ails you -- and I do mean whatever, because practitioners claim that cupping can cure everything from sciatica to constipation -- it is due to a combination of improper energy flow and pooling of toxins in the tissues, and it can all be set right by allowing a glass cup attached to a suction pump to give you a giant hickey.

At this site, we get some of our Frequently-Asked Questions answered.  Only "some," because my most frequently-asked questions while I was researching all this were, "Are you people kidding?  Or what?"  But we do find out, for example, that cupping is a "powerful detoxifying, pain relieving and energy building modality that people all over the world use for health maintenance" and can be used to treat "a huge number of conditions," including colds, abscesses, arthritis, insomnia, vertigo, high blood pressure, asthma, and hemorrhoids.  It works because it "drains stagnation."  And also, we shouldn't be worried about any bruising that occurs, because bruising is caused by "tissue compression/injury" and "(t)here is no compression in properly applied suction cup therapy."

No, you morons, of course there isn't.  Compression is the opposite of suction.  And both can cause bruising, which is localized rupture of capillaries.  But not to worry: the site linked above says that the greater the discoloration you see after the procedure, the more you needed it and the better it worked, because "the more (discoloration) is visible, the greater the level of stagnation and toxicity...  This is clearly the result of having internal unwanted toxins systematically purged."

But wait, you might be saying; how can this be drawing out "stagnation" from your body, when there's nothing actually crossing your skin and being sucked away by the suction cup, given that when you take the cup off the "patient's" skin, it's empty?  Well, someone thought of that, too, and they developed "wet cupping," in which they do the whole cupping procedure, but they cut your skin first.

Yes, folks, the cuppers have basically rediscovered bloodletting, a practice that was generally discontinued back in the 18th century, when it was discovered that an unfortunate side-effect was frequently the death of the patient.  But a little historical tragedy like that isn't going to stop these folks.  No way, not when cupping can have benefits like "facilitating the movement of Qi," "promoting the flow of lymphatic fluid," "breaking up and expelling congestion," and "balancing pH."

Now, of course, we've run into the phenomenon before that there's no woo-woo idea so ridiculous that someone can't improve it to make it even more ridiculous, so allow me to introduce you to the idea of "fire cupping."  In fire cupping, instead of being attached to a suction pump, the glass cup has a cotton ball saturated with rubbing alcohol placed into it and ignited, and then the hot cup is placed on the person's skin.  As the air cools, it contracts, and that creates the suction that pulls out the stagnant Qi energy lymph, or whatever the fuck they claim it's doing.  The problem is, hot things have an unfortunate side effect, namely burns, and there have been several cases of victims... oops, sorry, patients... having to be treated for circular burns after being "fire cupped."

Okay.  Let's just get a few things straight, here.  Disease is not caused by "energy stagnation."  If you apply a suction cup to your skin, you are accomplishing nothing but bursting a few capillaries and giving yourself a nice, symmetrical bruise.  Any "toxins" in your body are capable of being handled just fine by your kidneys, which incidentally have nothing whatsoever to do with gray hair.  There is no such thing as "qi."  And if you allow anyone with a glass cup containing a flaming cotton ball anywhere near you, you deserve everything you get.

So that's today's pseudoscience -- an idea which, in every sense of the word, sucks.  Amazing how after three years of writing daily on this blog, I'm still running into goofy ideas I'd never heard of before.  It's really kind of a depressing thought, isn't it?  Oh, wait -- depression is something that can be cured by cupping!  Yay!  If I show up later today with a giant circular bruise on the side of my head, don't worry -- it's just that I had all of those stagnant toxic thoughts removed by attaching a suction cup to my temple.

Staking a claim

Last week, it was zombies all over the news, what with guys biting each other's faces off, and cutting up  former lovers, and committing various other antisocial, body-part-related atrocities.  And I observed that once one person mentions a woo-woo explanation for something (we're having a zombie apocalypse), every possibly-related story gets cast in that light, and the whole thing sort of develops a life of its own.

Given that these conjectures have no basis in reality, it's no surprise that most of them are short-lived.  Once enough people look around them, and acknowledge that no, the people on the bus and at work are not, in fact, turning into zombies, then they're forced to conclude that the whole thing was rather a non-starter from the beginning.  (Although I will add, in the interest of fairness, that a few nutty ideas seem to be in the Undead Immortal category themselves, such as the Rebecca Black/JFK assassination thing, and the Baltic Sea UFO thing.)

But most woo-woo crazes are just that -- fads -- and as such, they have a limited life-span.  So last week, it was zombies; and this week, we have moved on to another terrifying, immortal, soulless being that doesn't exist...

... vampires.

Things got rolling this weekend, when some archaeologists working in Bulgaria found two medieval skeletons at a dig site in Sozopol, and were shocked to find that the skeletons had metal rods driven through them.  (Source)

Of course, the only reason to do this to a dead body is to make it dead again, because it had risen up from the grave, sharpened its canine teeth, and was prowling around the village looking for beautiful young women dressed in gauzy white garments to terrorize.  And the fact that people in Eastern Europe used to believe this was possible is never cast in the light of, "Wow, people sure were superstitious, back then."  The article states, "The discovery illustrates a pagan practice common in some villages up until a century ago, say historians.   People deemed bad had their hearts stabbed after death, for fear they would return to feast on humans' blood."  Unfortunately, the writers of the article didn't add, "... although this never actually happens."

I say "unfortunately," because there are people with rather tenuous grips on reality who periodically forget the definition of "fiction."  Some of these people then act on those ideas, and it seldom ends well.

Witness the unnamed man "with vampire teeth" who attacked a homeless guy in San Diego a couple of days ago.  (Source)  Police in La Jolla were called when passersby saw someone assaulting a man near a shopping center, and once they arrived, they found a 55-year-old transient bleeding from bites inflicted by a man whose canine teeth were filed to points.  The Dracula wannabee was arrested and charged with assault.  (You should go to the site and look at the attacker's photograph, which gives lie to the claim that vampires were supposed to look sultry and devastatingly sexy, and also that they seldom ever wear baseball caps.)

Now, lest you think that this is just one deluded, possibly high, individual, consider another story that just popped up -- about a Texas inmate who sued the state prison system for preventing his carrying out ritual religious beliefs related to his being a vampire.

Courtney Royal, who is serving a life sentence for aggravated assault and robbery, filed the suit (in which he refers to himself as "Vampsh Black Sheep League of Doom Gardamun Family Circle Master Vampire High Priest") claiming that he had beliefs that stem from West African and "18th century Catholicism" practices.  These beliefs are "marked by prayer to Africans reincarnated by blood."

The most entertaining part of the whole story is that Vampsh Black Sheep etc. stated that his beliefs were no different from Christianity, given that both are "unproven."  In which, I have to admit, he has a point.

In the end, Courtney/Vampsh's lawsuit was denied on the basis of its being "frivolous," which would seem to indicate that the judge thought that he wasn't serious.  Myself, I'm not so sure.  It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've ever heard people claim to believe (that award would have to go to the members of Werewolf Cathedral).  But just like with the zombies last week, I suspect that we haven't heard the last of the vampire stories.  Now that some archaeologists found a few skeletons with stakes driven through them, proving the existence of vampires to the scientific world, and we've had not just one, but two, instances of real-life vampires show up in the news, we are clearly facing an outbreak.  It's time to get all of your supplies ready, including garlic, crucifixes, and guns with silver bullets (wait, is that werewolves?  I think I'm getting my nonsense mixed up.  Crap.  I hate it when that happens).  Spot checks of your coworkers are recommended ("Excuse me, can I see your teeth?")  Keep it up until the furor dies down next Tuesday, at which point we can all start freaking out about the next craze involving a mythological creature.  I hope this one is about centaurs.  We haven't had a good centaur outbreak in a long time.

Repeat offenders

If there's anyone I owe a debt of gratitude to, here at Skeptophilia headquarters, it's the woo-woo frequent flyers.  Where would I be without Dirk Vander Ploeg's pronouncements about psychic telepathic alien Bigfoots, and how Lord of the Rings was actually a historical document?  Or Alfred Lambremont Webre's claims that President Obama has visited Mars, and that the US government has already developed long-distance space and time travel?  Or Diane Tessman's missives to the world about the Celestial Convergence, which she claims are the musings of a super-intelligent alien named Tibus?

None of the repeat offenders, however, has provided me with quite so much wonderful material as Alex Collier, the Canadian woo-woo extraordinaire who claimed last year that the Earth was about to be attacked by the Borg (apparently they changed their Collective Mind), and also that there was a huge alien/human war in the 1930s, which none of us know about because during the war we were summarily catapulted through a rip in the space/time continuum into another timeline, and now we have to get back, which will be difficult without the assistance of Geordi LaForge.

Well, once again we have evidence that Collier has been using his Netflix membership to watch old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, because now he's claiming that we're being bombarded by "alien orbs" whose pilots are "demonic hyperdimensional entities" who have "artificially engineered... our current space-time continuum." (Source)

As evidence, Collier produces a scrolling set of images, the majority of which are photographs of the sky with fuzzy spots of light.  One, however, is just baffling, and shows Adam and Eve (or possibly another naked couple, it's hard to be certain) being sternly lectured by something that looks like a figure from a painting by Picasso.  I suppose this represents something profound, but I'm damned if I can figure out what.

In any case, Collier says that there have been large numbers of sightings lately of UFOs in groups of three, and this is highly significant, because three is such a special number, having a great deal of emphasis in the woo-woo world because of its inherent magic, and also because it's the most convenient way to get from two to four.  The "Pagan Gnostics," Collier said, believed in the Archons, who were "demonic interdimensional and artificial life forms who appeared in threes," and after all, we know what authoritative sources on science the Pagan Gnostics are.  "To hell with Einstein," you frequently hear physicists say.  "Let's find out what the Pagan Gnostics have to say about the General Theory of Relativity."

Of course, Collier doesn't just use "Pagan Gnostics" as sources; he also calls upon that trifecta of credibility, Alex Jones, David Icke, and Jesse Ventura.  Yup, I'm convinced.

The best part of the whole article, however, and in my mind the kind of thing that places Collier in a higher tier of woo-woo than the other recidivists mentioned above, is when he starts going into why the number three is so significant:

(N)umerous researchers have presented that “3” has been a recurring theme in a path of apocalyptical destruction.  A distinctive pattern of disasters, has occurred on days, months or years which are either perfectly dividable by “3” or when divided by three produce a perfectly recurring decimal of “3”, ie 646.333333.

Fukushima occurred on 3/11; hence ‘3’.

The War on Terrorism was launched on 9/11, henceforth 9 divided by three equals ‘3’.

“Battle Los Angeles” was a movie on an alien invasion which also precisely coincided by the very day that Fukushima occurred -- 3/11.

World War I began in 1914, which is perfectly dividable by “3”.

World War II began in 1939, which results in a repeated decimal of “3”, I.e. 646.33333

If we conclude that “3” is a significant number in apocalyptical events including World War, we therefore need to look at dates in which “3” become a prominent theme.

As a result, 15 June 2012, or “6/15” becomes at least a candidate for an apocalyptical event, and would represent a “Day of Symmetry” for the archon mind; and 2012 also produces a recurring decimal of “.666” which is the “Number of the Beast”.

When I read all of this, I was torn between laughing and crying -- and of course, you've already seen what the problem is.  If you take any number and divide it by 3, a third of them will divide evenly, and a third of them will leave a repeating decimal .333....  And the remaining third will leave a repeating decimal of .666...., the "Number of the Beast."  So any date that Collier picks will work!

That, of course, is the difficulty with woo-woos in general, isn't it?  They have a totally different definition of the word "evidence" than the rest of us do.  Couple that with a general disdain for the kind of rigorous self-questioning that is the hallmark of good science -- are the correlations we see relevant?  Do they indicate a causation?  If so, what is the correct model to explain that causation? -- and you have a recipe for egregious bullshit.  And, now that the "Information Age" has arrived, they have a more effective venue for disseminating their views to the world than ever before.

Of course, one has to hope that the same mechanisms that allow quick transfer of idiotic nonsense like Collier's aforementioned numerological musings can also act to spread reliable information.  The key is to train people to recognize the difference, so they don't get suckered by wingnuts, hoaxers, liars, and charlatans... which is about as powerful an argument for teaching critical thinking in public schools as any I can come up with.

Demonic ink

A friend of mine sent me a link yesterday with the sinister message, "Dude, you are so screwed."  When I clicked it, it brought me to a webpage called "TATTOO: The Cup of Devils," wherein I learned that anyone with tattoos is doomed to the fiery pit for all eternity.

I have two tattoos, one of them that I got some years back, and the other one done only last month.  Little did I know that when I went under the needle gun, I was sealing my fate.

My one-way ticket to hell

Other things I learned on this page:

Throughout history the tattoo bears the mark of paganism, demonism, Baal worship, shamanism, mysticism, heathenism, cannibalism and just about every other pagan belief known. The tattoo has NEVER been associated with Bible Believing Christians. And whenever and wherever, in history Christianity appears – tattoos disappear. The only exception -- 20th century, lukewarm, carnal, disobedient, Laodicean Christians.

Yup, that's me.  A Baal-worshiping cannibal.  Caught red-handed.

The problem, the author (Terry Watkins) says, is that tattoos are not just decorative, they're portals for demonic entities:

The tattooist, shaman or the occult priest many times uses the tattoo as a point of contact, or inlets into the spiritual world. The tattoo is much more than just a body decoration. It’s more than just a layer of ink cut into the skin. In fact, the tattoo in every culture, in every country, up until the 20th century, was a vehicle for pagan spiritual and religious invocations. Even today, in many countries (including the United States), the tattoo is believed to be a bridge into the supernatural world... Tribal tattoos are designs that bear serious symbolic mystical and occult meanings. Tribal tattoos, especially, are possible channels into spiritual and demonic possession.

My designs aren't "tribal," they're Celtic, in honor of my Scottish and Breton ancestry, and also because they're cool-looking.  So I wonder if that counts?  It'd be kind of a shame if I went to all of that trouble and pain, and could have gotten myself a Demonic Portal, but chose the wrong design, and now all of your better demons are possessing guys with Maori tribal tattoos on their shoulders.

And if once wasn't bad enough, I went and did it again.

Some of the source material that Watkins takes out of context is downright funny, especially the stuff from Ronald Scutt's book Art, Sex, and Symbol.  This book, which is a scholarly look at ritual art (including tattoos) through the ages, is neither pro nor anti-tattoo, but to read the quotes that Watkins lifts from Scutt, you'd think that it was composed of hundreds of pages of biblically-based warnings.  My favorite is the quote alleging that tattoos are associated with "megalithic building, ear-piercing, and serpent worship."  To which I can only respond that I have yet to build a megalith, I have no piercings of any kind, and I like and respect serpents, but "worship" is a bit of an overstatement.  The quotes from Steve Gilbert's book Tattoo History: A Source Book also provide for some entertaining examples of how you can lift quotes from anywhere to prove anything, as long as you cherry-pick carefully:

When Cortez and his conquistadors arrived on the coast of Mexico in 1519, they were horrified to discover that natives not only worshipped devils in the form of status and idols, but also had somehow managed to imprint indelible images of these idols on their skin. The Spaniards, who had never heard of tattooing, recognized it at once as the work of Satan.

Of course, the Spanish thought lots of things were the works of Satan, including most of the art work, historical artifacts, and writings of damn near every civilization they ran into, so I'm not sure they're all that reliable a source on the subject.

Watkins goes on and on about how evil it all is, concluding with:

Throughout history tattoos have symbolized rebellion. There’s nothing normal about a tattoo. A tattoo screams of unabashed rebellion and sexual deviancy...  Is there any doubt about who the "master tattooist" is???

Which reminds me of the Saturday Night Live "Church Lady" sketch, that always ended with, "Could it be... SATAN?"

So, anyway, that's today's jaunt through the world of bizarre superstition.  I find it kind of curious that Watkins is this concerned about body art, frankly; you'd think that as a bible-toting Christian, he'd spend more time talking about rather more pressing issues, such as the fact that "Love thy neighbor as thyself" hasn't really sunk in all that well for a lot of people.  And as far as me, I suppose I was headed to hell long before I got my first ink, given that at that point I was already an atheist.  But reading Watkins' webpage does make me realize how neglectful I've been, as a tattooed person.  I still have a long way to go in the cannibalism, unabashed rebellion, and sexual deviancy departments, and I've got to get right on that serpent-worshiping thing.  Oh, and I wonder where I'm going to put the megalith I'm supposed to build?  I'm thinking the front yard.  That would certainly make a statement.

Space donuts

A student of mine asked me yesterday if I'd ever heard of a "flux thruster atom pulser."  I said, "You mean, like in Back to the Future?"

He said, "No, that's a flux capacitor."  And he gave me a link to a site called Rodin Aerodynamics.

"You may want to wear a helmet while reading it," he said.  "It'll protect your skull when you faceplant."

Indeed, the site did not disappoint, and I was put on notice in the first paragraph:

Within, you will be taken on a spiraling tour through the toroidal roller coaster of our deterministic universe. Dark Matter, the vibratory essence of all that exists, is no longer on its elusive hide and seek trip -- it has been found! With the introduction of Vortex-Based Mathematics you will be able to see how energy is expressing itself mathematically. This math has no anomalies and shows the dimensional shape and function of the universe as being a toroid or donut-shaped black hole. This is the template for the universe and it is all within our base ten decimal system... You have entered a place where Numbers Are Real And Alive and not merely symbols for other things.

So, we live in a giant space donut made composed of dark matter, and 125.7 is a living entity.  Wheeee!  We are certainly off to a good start, aren't we?

The originator of the idea is allegedly a fellow named Marko Rodin, although I could find no independent corroboration of this -- as far as I could tell, Rodin seems not to exist except on this site and others that reference it.

The mysterious Rodin, however, has had quite a life:

At the age of fifteen Marko Rodin projected his mind as far as he could across the universe and asked the question, "What is the secret behind intelligence?" Due to his gift of intense focus or because it was time for him to know the answer, his stomach muscles turned to iron and as he was literally lifted forward he answered out loud, "I understand." What he had gleaned from his query was that all intelligence comes from a person's name. This led him to understand that not only do our personal names and the language they are spoken in highly affect our personalities but that the most important names are the names of God.

What intelligence did Rodin glean from his trip, and the contemplation of his name?  Well, here are a few gems of wisdom he brought back:

• a propulsion system that can bring you "anywhere in the universe."
• there is an "aetheric template" in DNA that guides evolution.
• the "repeating number series that solves pi and proves that it is a whole number."
• the fact that "zero does not exist on the number line."
• infinity has an "epicenter."

These represent just the ones I could read without my brain exploding, because a lot of Rodin's "ideas" are completely incomprehensible.  A couple of these will suffice:

• the world boundary seams consist of nested vortices.
• the torus skin models harmonic cascadence.

A lot of his pronouncements sound like that -- a bunch of fancy-sounding words strung together that basically don't mean anything.

He goes on to mess about with number patterns, but brings in the Yin/Yang, the Mathematical Fingerprint of God, and Aetheric Flux Monopole Emanations.  What are those, you might ask?  You might be sorry you did:

Aetheron Flux Monopole Emanations, or Aetherons, are linear Emanations of quasi-mass/energy, traveling in a straight line from the center of mass outwards. They radiate in phased-array from the Aeth Coalescence (the central essence of God). The Aetheron Flux Monopole Emanations Rarefy the Diamond Tiles. This rarefication is spread over the Torus Skin, creating Doubling Circuits and Nested Vortices.

Aetherons cannot be seen or felt by the average human being. Yet, Aetherons are responsible for life as we know it. Aetherons are Life Force of the universe, and are responsible for all form and movement. Aetherons are the source of all magnetic fields and create instantly reacting, high inductance, dual magnetic field flows. Aetherons generate Synchronized Electricity. They are irresistible and can penetrate anything.

The Aetheron Flux Monopole Emanations comprise the positive, transparent ÎZÌ axis of the Abha Torus. This is not the traditional Z-Axis of the traditional, Euclidean geometry. The transparent Z-Axis of the Abha Torus is actually a point source from which linear Emanations pour in all spherical directions from the center, as demonstrated by the Dandelion Puff Principle.

Oh!  Right!  The "Dandelion Puff Principle."  I'd forgotten all about that, from my college physics classes.

Now, you might think that this is just some guy blathering on about how he will Revolutionize Physics despite the fact of having no scientific background whatsoever, and admittedly people like that are a dime a dozen. But now Marko Rodin has been championed by noted wackmobile Jeff Rense.

Never heard of Rense?  He is a conspiracy theorist par excellence, whose overall looniness quotient ranks him right up there with Richard C. Hoagland and Benjamin Fulford.  (Check out his site here.)  But Rense compounds his bizarre view of the world with anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, which moves his ideas from the realm of the laughable to the completely odious.  He brags that his is the most "format and content-plagiarized site on the net," despite the fact that his most of his material seems to be outright lunacy.  (And even if you don't want to read any of his posts, you should at least go to his site to look at his profile photograph, in which he sports a mustache and a mane of flowing hair that in my eyes makes him look a little like an aging 70s porn star.)

So, anyway, that's today's Breakfast of Wingnuttery.  We live on a donut made of dark matter and numbers, and the whole thing is caused by invisible particles emanating from the Essence of God.  Oh, yeah, and despite what your math teacher told you, pi is a whole number, something I remember trying to convince my 7th grade math teacher of, many years ago.  "Can't we just call it '3' and be done with it?", I recall saying.  If only I'd known how many years ahead of my time I was, I could have dropped out of school and beat Rodin to the punch, and invented my own "flux thruster atom pulser" so I could "go anywhere in the universe."  That sounds like it would have been fun.