Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
This means your luck is taking off - right?
WHEN William Little’s sister refused to go sailing because an astrological chart predicted she would drown he decided it was time to investigate the psychic world.
Now he’s convinced people really CAN see into the future . . .
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...ed-people-really-can-see-into-the-future.html
Somewhat surprising the Sun presents him as a believer; that's really not the drift of the book. The underlying 'plot' is that he sees the damage his casual gift has done to his sister, who is cancelling activities and holidays out of fear, and is driven to investigate by guilt, more or less. He starts out willing to believe but gets increasingly sceptical.Does Little actually say that? Very generous of him, but he's the one who bought the astrological charts for his sister and niece , so he enjoys the topic. Sister's fear of death by water isn't entirely misplaced but more likely to be a slip in tub or shower. Her fear of boats (I worry about boats too) is probably more than offset by her greater confidence in the air and on land, where she is most of the time.
While observing the fishermen at work, he noticed that when sailing in lagoons or close to the short, the men relied entirely on their skill and experience to control their boats and locate fish. On venturing into the open sea, however, these same fishermen began using magical rituals, faced as they now were with unpredictable hazards – exactly the type of superstitious behaviour in the face of anxiety and uncertainty that is very much alive today.’
58.5? Interesting!
Personally, if I were going out in a fishing boat from Melanesia, I'd prefer the boat to be captained by one of those fishermen who knows his rituals, rather than the scientist who identified them as superstition - wouldn't you?
whatever threatens to disintegrate our sense of safety and wholeness . .
I'm with you. I didn't actually mean any connection between my two paragraphs - I'm just intrigued by your take on 58.5. I've not had much experience with the 'disintegrating' being anything potentially positive/ growth-enhancing, though it's fun to speculate about the priestess 'opening' and adopting the role of 'little sister' and so on.of course I'd prefer the knowledgeable captain, I never said that this so-called scientific approach of 'superstition' was preferable, neither do I really see science as incompatible with 'superstition'. To the contrary, many great scientists were/are highly superstitious. I think that those who spend their lives delving on either side of the science/'superstition' polarity know much better than to dismiss their other side . . the 'disintegrating influence' of 58.5 refers, I think, to the moment when the lake (safe environment) breaks down into something more disrupting (into thunder trigram, the unpredictable phenomena of the open seas)
To what extent is the power in the red sweater real? Or to what extent is the power really in the red sweater? And so on...I'm a scientist and (of course) I dont tell any of my colleagues that I use the IChing. I personally dont quite believe in "superstition" as defined by wearing a particular red sweater each time for an exam, just because the first time one wore it, the exam went really well - except that holding on to the superstition of luck with the red sweater will work the wonderful placebo effect, which it is now being shown is real - i.e. acts like a medicine in causing changes in the brain. So yes, superstition does work, because it becomes self-motivating.
And, being a scientist, I have always felt that the one thing that scientists need to do is to keep an OPEN mind, one that suspends belief or disbelief, and bases neither on "rational" thought. Rational thought is only one kind of thought. There are other kinds of thought. Sticking to rational thought alone, in some ways, seems almost a deliberate attempt to de-synchronize the entire thought process that goes on the brain - sort of making an unnatural split between the right and left brain. The value of empirical thinking, is to me, really very high. If something works, and has been shown time and again to work, then to disbelieve it because it does not fit presently existing criteria, is irrational! One day far far into the future, the mystery of why the IChing works might be unravelled. We are at the very beginning of understanding the brain, if that is what needs to be understood, who knows, but just because we dont understand its workings now, doesnt mean IT is irrational. Like the placebo effect - considered irrational all this time, now being shown to have a clear neurological basis.
Oh well, I'll get back to work now!
Shobhana
I've not had much experience with the 'disintegrating' being anything potentially positive/ growth-enhancing, though it's fun to speculate about the priestess 'opening' and adopting the role of 'little sister' and so on.
. . . during particularly dangerous storms, the seamen would say a prayer and pour in the sea a small bowl of olive oil, blessed by the patron saint of seafarers. This has its symbolic value. . .
DURING the past six years the attention of mariners has been called to the value of oil for stilling waves by the publicity given to the experiments made by Mr. John Shields in Great Britain and by the published reports in the monthly " Pilot Charts " issued by Commander J. R. Bartlett, United States Navy, Chief of the United States Hydrographic Office, Navy Department.
Lack of faith in its efficiency has been the chief obstacle to its universal adoption. Many accounts of the use of oil, together with descriptions of appliances for facilitating its distribution on the stormy seas, have been published in different countries, and every effort to disseminate information will deserve the lasting gratitude of all mariners. Ocular demonstration seems to be necessary to convince unbelievers that the simple use of oil to lessen the dangerous effect of heavy seas is always advantageous, and often absolutely necessary for those in peril on the sea. . . .
The century illustrated monthly magazine, Volume 37
Google Book, p705
that's great info! It makes sense also when I think of images of oil leaks at sea -there one can see very clearly how an oil film weighs down any wave movement. What I mentioned definitely fell on the symbolic side though, it would be impractical back then to carry along so much oil as to affect the sea just in case of a storm . . I guess if the boat's cargo was oil to begin with, they'd have a pretty good chance of slipping away!
ehm, how much is a drip exactly?
The quantity of oil necessary is about two quarts per hour, according to the reports received. Vice-Admiral Cloue of the French navy states that the amount of oil used is mentioned in 30 reports out of 200 which he has examined: 17 vessels expended 1.61 quarts per hour when running before the storm,11 used 2.37 quarts when lying to, and 2 life-boats used 2.42 quarts per hour. This is an average of two quarts of oil per hour.
The thickness of this film of oil may be readily calculated. A vessel running before the wind at 10 knots' speed has used two quarts of oil per hour, and the oil covered a surface 30 feet wide and 10 sea miles long. The volume of two quarts of oil is about 122 cubic inches, which, divided by the number of square inches to be oiled,— 10 miles long and 30 feet wide, or 25,920,000 square inches,— gives .0000047 of an inch as the thickness of the film of oil. This figure is inconceivable, but represents the actual dimension of the blanket of oil on the sea.
By "drip" I mean a continual dropping but not so much as a continuous stream. The amount of oil needed is small. The above Century Magazine says:
When I feel I have the eye on me, I'll try the three drops remedy
. . . one of the rituals we have in Greece for casting off the evil eye, which includes letting three drops of oil fall in a cup of water . . if the drops spread means you had the 'eye' on you and it's being cast off . . .
As for the 'eye' thing . . hmm, it's a little more complicated than that but you could give it a try, maybe say a prayer while you're doing it, it might still work
In Greece, the evil eye is cast away through the process of xematiasma (ξεμάτιασμα), whereby the "healer" silently recites a secret prayer passed over from an older relative of the opposite sex, usually a grandparent. Such prayers are revealed only under specific circumstances, for according to superstition those who reveal them indiscriminately lose their ability to cast off the evil eye.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_eye
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).