Arcadia Discussion Zone

Apparitions, infrasound, resonating eyeballs and low humidity

I would like to make the first post in this new Apparitions section by starting with a focus on rational explanations for these phenomenon. So here goes:

The human ear generally cannot detect sound that sits below 20 Hertz. Experiments with sound waves below this level have demonstrated that humans exhibit feelings that include: anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, revulsion, fear, or chills down the spine.

Sydney Morning Herald September 9 2003. Sounds like terror in the air.
At: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/ ... click=true

At around 18 hertz the sound waves are equivalent to the resonant frequency of the human eye at which level it creates a resonating eyeball which in turn generates optical illusions.

Tandy, V.; Lawrence, T. (April 1998). "The ghost in the machine". Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62 (851): 360-364.
At: http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/ghost/ghost-in-machine.pdf.

Tandy, V. (July 2000). "Something in the cellar". Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 64.3 (860).
At: http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/ghost/Someth ... Cellar.pdf

Experimentation continues. Wiseman’s (University of Hertfordshire) initial results of a large-scale scientific investigation into ‘Mary King’s Close’ - a series of allegedly haunted streets and houses under Edinburgh's Royal Mile – adds further evidence to the rational explanation of these phenomenon.
At: http://web.archive.org/web/200701130153 ... atest.html

The really interesting thing in this article is that there is a Marketing and PR Manager for the Close. Now that sounds like something very suspicious don’t you think? Will the Close go the same way as Clovelly (Nth Devon) with tourists paying at the turnstile to enter? I sniff that there is better than a ghost of a chance of that at least.

Regards to all

Wombat.

Wombat, that was really cool dude. No wonder Strauss used bottom C on an organ to do his Zarathusta 'thang', yeah man, real spooky. Now here is another take on apparitions whereby the 'gnostics' go all out to benunk any Marian Apparitio, I have my ususal Qui Bono query as usual, how come?

What is it 'boot Marian Apparitions that scares the bejabers out of 'gnostics'?..Conventional Marian Apparitions like Zeitun...
http://mypeoplepc.com/members/deaconjoh ... e/id3.html
http://www.zeitun-eg.org/
http://www.zeitun-eg.org/warraq.htm

Then comes the quasi-gnostic stuff...
http://www.angelsghosts.com/famous_real ... tures.html
http://theshadowlands.net/gallery.htm
http://www.sjgr.org/ghost2008.html

Then comes the big guns from the gnostic realm...
http://www.gnosis.org/gnostsoc/gnostsocpast.htm
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/200 ... -miracle-2

Since all Christians on the planet 2,000 years after Christ believe solely as a matter of faith, I find all of these gnostic spins to be just another version of a bunch of cowboys sittin' around an isolated prarie camp fire starin' at the starry canopy overhead, scoffin' up beans, doin' a Blazin' Saddles 'thang' and get into deep mystic discussions on the same profound intellectual level as George Carlin.

Ya gotta pass time some how, yes? My point is a believer is a believer' cuz they have faith in what they believe in, regardless of what it is they believe in, yes?

In the case of Zeitum, in the midst of millions of rapidly devoted Islamics, the Egypt authorities were not able to detect any sort of fraud with the technology they had available to them. The same for Fatima. The socialist inclined govt of Portugal couldn't detect any gimmicks either.

Spain, which has a socialist govt still is in a bind regardin' Garabandal Apparitions, 'cuz whenever the predicted 'miracle of the pines' happens, how will the govt be able to explain it away, if they can?

Hi Jake, "Bottom C" or C1 on an organ/piano would give a frequency of 32.7032 Hz, still within the human hearing range and not low enough to vibrate our organs etc ( pardon pun ).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies
However go a bit lower using sine waves on a synthesiser and you can create the infamous brown note, 5Hz - 9Hz, which certainly can have some strange effects on us if you have powerful enough sub speakers to get the air moving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
Regards
Nic

Nic, I have been in Cathedrals with those wide array of pipes that could rumble out that ultra lo cycle sound and still hear it as a distinct tone, but that same piece of music played on 99.9 % of audio equipt on the market today can't replicate the distinct tone unless ya use hi-quality quadraphonic headphones. My Bose speakers with a healthy sized sub-woofer driven by a top of the line Denon amplifier can detect that sound.

When I crank it up my cat goes ballistic, he wants out. My neighbors when walking by with their dogs when I play zarathustra, tug like crazy to get away from the sound range, even tho' they are outside . I agree with ya, it ain't everybody's cuppa to experience it.
There is a part of the Ring Saga movie where a huge battering ram is slammed against a massive wooden entrance and when I get to that part I nudge up the volume and dishes in the kitchen, picture frames hung on the walls start to vibrate. The floors start to vibrate as if there was a minor 'quake goin' on.

My son has all sorts of dvd's of rock concerts and lemme tell ya, our house rocks when he plays them. For a while we had 2 sets of speakers connected to create our own version of surround sound, but the missus thought our hearing would suffer drastically from it. The best pair of speakers I ever had came from the 70's, JBL's with a 20" woofer. Those speakers ended up as a trade-in on a used car. The guy who got them thought he was gettin' the best part of the deal. I used the car for a year and got more on a trade in to anther car than what I valued the speakers, which I got as a present for helpin' some folks move their stuff from 1 flat to another, they realized they had no place to put the JBL's so I got'em. I got lots of years of used out of them, lemme tell ya.

I drove my German neighbors in Heidelberg crazy on New Years Eve when I cranked up Dark Side of the Moon when the alarm clocks went off, and the bass kicked in. Ya see I was on the top floor and every floor below me felt the bass effect in their living room below mine, hehehe. ya can say I made the whole apt block resonate like a massive bass speaker. That was awesome, lemme tell ya.

Is that the neighbours who want to get away or the dogs?
I have the same problem every time I hear "Florence and the Machine" she makes my ears bleed
Dark Side of the Moon on a 20" sub sounds fun though. On the topic in question, I would be interested to hear from any forum members who have knowledge of sound being used in paranormal investigations or any other fortean or unusual methods.
Regards
Nic

Jabberwock says that he still has his:

When in doubt back self interest. Zeitun has plenty of it.

Zeitun and Collective Delusion
"Many factors contribute to the formation and spread of collective delusions and hysterical illness: the mass media; rumors; extraordinary anxiety or excitement; cultural beliefs and stereotypes; the social and political context; and reinforcing actions by authorities such as politicians, or institutions of social control such as the police or military. Episodes are also distinguishable by the redefinition of mundane objects, events, and circumstances and reflect a rapidly spreading folk belief which contributes to an emerging definition of the situation."

Bartholomew R E and Goode E. “Mass Delusions and Hysterias”. Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 24, Number 3, May/June 2000.
http://www.skeptically.org/skepticism/id11.html

The social and political context
Guenena and Wassef write: “Following Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, disillusionment with the performance of Nasser’s regime set in. A wave of religiosity swept through Egypt, encompassing both Muslims and Christians. Claims that the Virgin Mary had appeared above the Cathedral of Zeitoun came alongside a widespread feeling that the defeat was the result of having abandoned faith in favor of human-made ideas and belief systems.”

Guenena N and Wassef N. “Unfulfilled Promises: Women’s Rights”. p7.
http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/unfulfilled_promises.pdf

Professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo Cynthia Nelson visited the church at Zeitun on several occasions from April 15, 1968, to June 1, 1968. Despite the accounts of ongoing visitations by the apparition, Nelson documented seeing nothing other than a few "intermittent flashes of light".

Interestingly she records (p6) that at a question-and-answer period following a news conference: “Bishop Samuel expressed his hope that the apparition would be a good omen and that Almighty God would realize victory for the Arabs against the Israelis, who have occupied the holy places in the Holy City of Jerusalem, considered the most sacred city by the Copts and, after Mecca and Medina, by the Muslims as well”.

As things continued to develop there were rumours that the apparition had been seen at St. Michael’s Church in Shubra. In the rush to get there 15 people were crushed to death.

Some blessed Miracle that, don’t you think?

As a result, Zeitun was cordoned off and an entrance fee put in place (ranging up to $2.43). The proceeds were shared equally between the church and the state. Before long the Ministry of Tourism was promoting the whole thing around the world. There's your Cui Bono Jabber.

Curiously, the Patriarchate of the Coptic Church issued a statement warning people “not to believe any rumors until the Patriarchate officially authenticates what people are saying” and “until it has been proved by decisive and unequivocal evidence.”

While Bartholomew and Goode conclude: ”It appears that the Marian observers were predisposed by religious background and social expectation to interpreting the light displays as related to the Virgin Mary.” And that the apparitions “were a prominent case of mass delusion”, Nelson was desirous of a somewhat more sociological analysis:

“To understand how Egyptians cope with the universal task of creating order out of chaos, an order that endows their existence with meaning in terms of ends divine and human, we must now turn to the subjective interpretations given to the apparition phenomena by Egyptians themselves. From an analysis of these interpretations, what can we learn about the manner in which Egyptians perceive and construct their social worlds? What can we learn about the broader dynamics of Egyptian society, the competing worldvicws of religion and science, the images of classes, of man and woman, of sacred and secular power?” (P8).

She then goes on to deliver such an analysis.

http://worldview.cceia.org/archive/worl ... 9_a003.pdf

Collective delusion or something else?

Regards to all

Wombat.

Egypt at that time was a quasi-commie socialist dictatorship with Islamic trappings. The govt certainly were no religious fanatics. The govt was 1st to investigate Zeitun to discover the presumed hoax behind it all. For those who read any of Zack Sitchin's hysterical rants + ravs, he saw Fatima Apparition strictly thru Fortean New Agey eyes. He has a phantasmgorical unproven, un-tested thesis that nobody in the scientific community buys, to explain it all away.

That was before Zeitun. When Zeitun showed up, he saw the difficulties Egypt govt had in attempting to debunk it, so he shut up. As I said. The real challenge will be when the predicted Garabandal Apparition occurs. Ya mention mass hysteria, mass panic, how come? Egypt TV broadcast it to its citizens, the rest of the world media acted like it never happened. Now that is what I call mass panic, mass hysteria, yes?

When it coms to this conspiracy of silence, how else can ya explain this lock-step mentality of media over the rest of the planet? Qui Bono automagically kicks in, yes?

Now we have this to comprehend...
http://mypeoplepc.com/members/deaconjoh ... e/id3.html

if ya notice the Vatican don't just rush in and start flag wavin' like Forteans do, they take lots of time in serious reflection before commenting on these Apparitions. Just check out how many folks claim to have experienced an Apparition with Vatican sanctioned Apparitions. That should dispel any notion that the Vatican is promoting all of them.

and talk 'boot spin...ya get this...
http://www.gnosis.org/gnostsoc/gnostsocpast.htm

When ya get to the part 'boot a certified loonie like Jung gettin' 'gnostic' recognition for his so-called 'contribution' to New Agey-ness, now ya can see where the leading edge on terra firma starts its journey out to the aether, never to come back. Once out in the aether yer there forever more, yes? Now that's what I call genuine Fortean, yes?

Ah, before I forget, I should have included this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition
http://www.experiencefestival.com/maria ... pparitions
http://campus.udayton.edu/mary//resources/aprtable.html

This is just a look at the 20th Century viewpoint. If ya go back in time due to so many competing heresies competing for adherents and used these Apparition claims as a sign of legitimacy for that particular heresy, the Vatican turned a very jaundiced eye on any sect-cult that used this marketing approach.

It ain't a lock-step atmosphere in the Catholic sphere. Each Bishop is his own boss in his diocese. Most Bishops are very conservative and won't react in a knee-jerk fashion. They have to report their decisions they make binding on their flock to the Cardinal of their country who sits in the Curia.

If ya notice, Garabandal hasn't been certified yet, 'cuz every Bishop in Santander Diocese is waiting to see how the prophesied 'miracle of the pines' actually presents itself. Then the long, slow, methodical process for recognition will begin. When it does occur I can guarantee ya, every Fortean + Nw Ager on the planet is gonna have their pet rock beliefs challenged to their core.

If ya notice how Egypt TV sent its teams out looking for hidden light generators, etc, World media will definitely show up at Garabandal mainly 'cuz You Tube will be saturated with submissions from folks who witnessed it. That techno wasn't available at Fatima, yes?

The folks on Long island who saw Veronica Luekens go into ecstasy when she was having her apparitional episodes, and then related what she heard nobody near her saw or heard what she did. The same goes for Nancy Fowler in Georgia. Folks in Bayside are anticipating a mini-version of the same healing spring from the ground phenomenon that Bernadette experienced. If that spring suddenly appears, and the local municipality can't attribute it to a leaking water pipe or a shallow artesian well, the Bishop of Brooklyn will do as his fella Bishops do and follow guidelines set up by the Vatican. That will take many years before the Veronica Lueken Apparition will be accepted as bonafide.

As ya can see, the Bayside case isn't approved, simply 'cuz that miracle healing spring has not mystically appeared. Whenever a 'miracle' event is prophesied and don't happen simultaneously the Vatican is forced to wait 'til this prophecy is fulfilled, before it can investigate, its basically that simple.

jabberwock says:

They were looking for the wrong thing. And sent out the wrong expertise.

You need to eyeball this paper by Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Louvain, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun.

It concludes:

"that apparitions and miracles of the sun cannot be taken at face value. There are natural mechanisms that can explain them, but they are so unusual that we were not aware of them. Miracles of the sun result from neuro-physiological processes in our eyes and visual cortex, while apparitions involve more complex processes in our mind’s brain. The seers are honest, but unconsciously, they put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. This is possible, since our brain allows for “dissociation” and for “switching” from one type of behaviour to another. A new conception of apparitions and miracles of the sun seems thus to be emerging,………………….(p 11).

It's here:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache%3As ... l=en&gl=au

With your background I'm sure it will resonate for you.

Lovuian too.

Regards to all

Wombat.

There was an investigation on infrasound and its possible link (and maybe cause of) paranormal happenings on the London Underground quite recently. Saw it on a documentary, Ghosts of the London Underground think it was on the Discovery channel?

Here's a thread on it on the Fortean Times Website: http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20197&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Thanks Crow
Regards
Nic

Apparitions I have recently seen:

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_silhouette/index.html

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_face_o ... index.html

It's all in the mind.

Regards to all

Wombat.