SLOW

In reading Mysterious World, which I acquired yesterday, I came across the story of the Skull of Doom, an eerie-looking, life-sized, crystal replica of a human skull. It was found in Central America by Anna Mitchell-Hedges on her 17th birthday.


The skull is of unknown origin (crystal can't be carbon-dated), but was probably used by Mayan or Incan priests in some ceremonies. It weighs five kilograms and was crafted from a single piece of crystal.

Reading about it reminded me of when I was much younger and had a little glow-in-the-dark plastic skull, which I frequently used to try to give my sister a fright, in the typical spirit of an older brother. I would hold the skull to a light, making it glow, and sneak into her room making the skull appear to be floating towards her, frequently accompanied by hooo-hooooo! sounds.

I think the glow-in-the-dark skull bears a startling resemblance to the mysterious crystal skull and might even have been inspired by it. Then again, perhaps I was one of those priests, in a life a long time ago, using it to inspire awe and fear into unbelievers.

Image reproduced without permission from The Society of Crystal Skulls, International.

After stumbling across a secondhand copy of Mysterious World, I was reminded of a little known fact, that I would like to share with the world, regarding a scientific paper published in 1945. It was written by Arthur C. Clarke, Sri Lankan citizen, co-writer of 2001: A space odyssey along with Stanley Kubrick, Knight Bachelor and one of the greatest visionaries of the 20th century.

Clarke's paper, carrying the same scary title as this blog, was the first to discuss the concept of geostationary rocket satellites and their possible uses, like "worldwide radio coverage", a "space-station ... with living quarters" and "point to point beam transmissions".

In terms of scientific conceptual thinking, I suggest that this paper can only be rivalled by James Watson's 1955 paper outlining the workings of DNA. However, anyone thanked by Neil Armstrong on his return from the moon might just have a slight edge.

If ghosts are restless souls with unfinished business and a tendency to haunt the living, perchance to get some assistance to cross over to the next plane, then their time as a ghost should be measurable: the time difference between physical death and moving on, from the perspective of any of us regular earthbound humans.

Ghosts are supposed to finish their business, somehow, and then disappear (completely). Seeing as there are billions of dead people, many more than are currently alive, and this amount of dead people would cause a hell of a ruckus if they were all spooking around, we should be able to assume that not all people that die become ghosts, or that everyone eventually moves on.

I've never heard of anybody complaining about seeing the ghosts of San or Romans or any other person from antiquity.

Which leads to the question: where, and who, is the oldest ghost? How long has this ghost been hanging around? Is there hope for it to move on? Does it have malicious intent or merely an incredibly obstinate nature?

I don't believe in ghosts in this conventional sense. Death is the end and my friend. I think when a ghost is perceived it's far more likely to be a shared thought between two (or more) people. A ghostly outline might be seen and some physical sensations experienced, like a particular smell or a sound, but this does not have to mean that it comes from someone that died some time ago and is unable to leave this planet. A spiritual (astral) visit from a fellow living person seems far more likely, whether it's a personal visit or simply a visit to a particular place.

To act
To pause
To think
To be mindless
To be willful
To have second thoughts
To believe
To doubt
To see
To ignore
To imagine
To reconsider

UNESCO has named the Vredefort crater, impact site of the biggest known meteorite to hit Earth, as a world heritage site. I mentioned the crater in my first blog, relating its proximity to the Sterkfontein caves in terms of the possibility of it having sparked life (relative intelligence) once the destruction caused by the impact had settled down.

South Africa now has 7 world heritage sites, with the crater joining other classic sites, like the St Lucia wetlands and Robben Island.

A complete list of the 788 world heritage sites shows a clear current bias towards European sites, but I'm sure Africa will one day reclaim its position as the cultural centre of the world. I can think of many South African sites that ought to meet the criteria, like some of the older diamond, gold and other mines, Mandela's birthplace, the Tsitsikamma and the Kruger Park.