Journal of Scientific Exploration
Editor: Bernhard M. HAISCH
Magazine:Journal of Scientific Exploration
Language:English


A Publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration

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Year:1993
Publisher:Society for Scientific Exploration
Issue:Volume 7 Number 1 Spring
Contents
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AuthorTitlePag

Editorial
Bernhard HAISCHMore is More!1

SSE News Items
1993 Annual SSE Meeting3-4
SSE President Sturrock Named Honorary Fellow4
Edwin C. MAYIn Memory of Charles Honorton4-5
Suitbert ERTELIn Memory of Michel Gauquelin5-7

Topher COOPERAnomalous Propagation 9-13

Michael EPSTEINThe Skeptical Perspective 15-18

Tom VAN FLANDEMGuest Column: Major Meeting on New Cosmologies 19-22

Paul DEVEREUXAcculturated Topographical Effects of Shamanic Trance Consciousness in Archaic and Medieval Sacred Landscapes 23-37
Abstract: Various linear enigmas exist in ancient sacred landscapes worldwide. These include examples of Native American landscape lines, such as the Chacoan "roads", New Mexico, and the Nazca "lines", Peru; Neolithic linear earthworks, called "cursuses", in Britain; stone rows in Europe, Malaysia and elsewhere; temple alignments in Indonesia. There is also the archaeologically heretical idea of "leys" (alignments of ancient sites), put forward by Englishman Alfred Watkins in 1921. Although the ley theory has long been derided by mainstream scholarship, new German and Dutch findings show that there was a medieval tradition of straight "Doodwegen" (death roads) or "Geisterwege" (ghost paths). It seems Watkins may have unwittingly uncovered vestiges of these features. Certainly Watkins had no concept of current "New Age" notions of "energy leylines", which are modem fantasies. It is argued that such medieval features arise out of a deep-seated, universal conceptual complex associating "spirit ways" with straight lines: straight cords and threads in ancient traditional healing practices as well as straight tracks and other ceremonial landscape markings. It is suggested that these ideas have their roots in archaic shamanism, which, throughout Eurasia, influenced later, ceremonial aspects of monarchy. A proto-Indo-European language vestige is cited. Preliminary evidence is presented indicating that the spirit - line association derived from the ecstatic "journey" experienced during the shamanic trance. This gave rise to images of "flying shamans" in tribal societies throughout the world, and, ultimately, to the "magical flight of the sovereign" in proto-state and state societies. It is this "flight of the soul" that seems to have been translated onto ancient sacred landscapes as straight lines, which later became variously acculturated as sacred ways, spirit and fairy paths, roads of the dead or of ghosts, or Royal Routes. The neurological aspects of the so-called out-of-body state, and its possible association with modem psychological epidemics such as "UFO abductions", is alluded to

Gerard L. EBERLEINMainstream Sciences vs. Parasciences: Toward an Old Dualism? 39-48
Abstract: The Observatory for New Spiritual Movements has been operating at the Technical University of Munich since 1980. It is concerned with the study of cults, New Age ideologies and with the parasciences from anthroposophy to cryptozoology. The parasciences are being analyzed by the science of sciences, i.e., by the philosophy of science, psychology and sociology of science, as well as by the history of science. The following ten hypotheses, characteristics and questions are discussed: (1) Mainstream sciences may make neither monopolistic nor absolutistic claims. (2) The six main criteria of the academic sciences are compared to the six main criteria of the parasciences. (3) The two types of science also differ in their value orientations. (4) Social processes and structures are characteristics of both. (5) What are the characteristic motivations of parascientists? (6) What is the historical background of the mainstream sciences? (7) What are the difference between the metaparadigms of mainstream science and those of the parasciences? (8) What are the social functions of mainstream sciences and parasciences? (9) Do the functions of the parasciences transcend those of mainstream science? (10) What are the characteristic differences between practitioners of mainstream science and the parasciences?

Shigeru MORIYAMAExistence of Life and Homeostasis in an Attnospheric Environment 49-63
Abstract: -A geophysiological model is used to show how a regulation of the atmospheric C02 level could counteract the effect of a gradual increase in solar luminosity. In our model, the biosphere and the atmosphere-ocean system exchange carbon through a biological process which includes the internal and mutual antagonism. It is suggested that as soon as the biologically regulated system had appeared on the early earth, the regulatory aspect of the ecosystem would have been fully operational, and thus, that the earth's environment has been maintained in homeostasis for a long time. One model for the temporal variation of the carbon distribution on the earth, which is in agreement with observed carbon isotopic data, is also suggested. An important result is that our ecosystem left a completely biologically controllable state some six hundred million years ago, and that the current trend is toward destruction of the ecosystem on the earth

Michael D. SWORDSA Guide to UFO Research 65-87
Related:
Journal of Scientific Exploration Volume 7 Number 3 /1993 - Comments on Guide to UFO Research
Abstract: -The very natural query of the interested intellectual: what should 1 read to understand the status of the UFO Phenomenon?, has no simple answer. This review article briefly examines the characteristics of the "UFO Problem" and relates those characteristics to the problem of ignorance in the academic community. An "inside look" at the appropriate library for the "working UFOlogist" is then explored.

Letters to the Editor
Comments on Better Blood Through Chemistry89-94
Related:
Journal of Scientific Exploration Volume 6 Number 3 Autumn/1992 - Better Blood Through Chemistry: A Laboratory Replication of a Miracle [Epstein, Michael & Garlaschelli, Luigi]
Super-psi or Reincarnation?94-95

Book Reviews
Ian STEVENSONThe Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory97-99
Bradley C CANONRevelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception?99-104
Review: Jacques VALLÉE,REVELATIONS - 1991
Related:
Journal of Scientific Exploration Volume 7 Number 2 Summer/1993 - Vallee Comments on Book Review "Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception"

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