Hmmmm...... Dell seems to want to connect the dots between himself and the world famous "Noah's Ark", until such time as it leads to an embarrassment he already knew about but didn't think he'd get caught at.
Here's the rest of the story.
There was no physical "Noah's Ark". The story in the Bible is a Hebrew adaptation of the flood story in the far more ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. It's no secret, just Google it. Neither version of "the great flood" is historical, although both are based on the fact that residents of the Mesopotamian floodplain were painfully aware of what floods are.
The Epic is a fantasy novel based very loosely on a few historical facts that were still known at the time. The much later Hebrew writer from whose hand we received the Noah story couldn't figure out how many of what animal, and he completely botched the raven thing. From a literary perspective, a much inferior piece of writing. Except for two things: the shabbily written Noah story invoked themes with deeper meaning; and, the Noah story lucked out to become embedded in a library which was later adopted by adherents of a religious sect which thanks to the Roman Empire, endured to become the world's predominant religion today.
The Epic includes no hydrological nonsense of an ark landing on top of the tallest mountain they were aware of: it's a story of floating downstream. The part of the Epic that could be regarded as reflecting history (whether or not it actually does) is at least sort of believable. The Noah story puts the Ark on the top of Ararat , a hydrological impossibility, not for historical purposes but for symbolic purposes.
Too bad that modern civilization doesn't like what the redactor of the Noah story tried to teach us. This [USA] nation landed on the top in 1945, and I've watched it go downhill ever since. There is no Noah's Ark on Ararat, that's the wishful thinking of people who take mythology literally (rather than understanding the meaning of the story) that drives that quest. [Plus, the ringleaders who raise funds for Ararat expeditions know exactly how to pump gullibillies, the ringleaders themselves have no need for any theology beyond that of dollar-worship.] If you want to know where the Ark is now, buried in ice carrying nothing towards safety, Ararat is the wrong place to look. Try the national debt as an example of high-stakes burial.
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And that brings us full circle to the swingy thingies. In my well informed opinion and personal experience, effective dowsing does happen. But nobody needs to trust me on that, because it's everyone's experience that the gullible, driven by wishful thinking rather than by desire to know what is real, make up alabis that convince them they succeeded even when they've failed. Reading the dowsing forum is just like listening to gamblers who win a hundred bucks for every thou they put into it, and that proves they're winners! There are a few gamblers who clean the clocks of the gullibillies, and (I would argue) there are a few people who can dowse effectively, possibly a few who can even do it doodlebugging with a silly LRL because the part of their brain that should recognize the fraudulent nature of "LRL"s hasn't gotten that far yet.
Last time I checked the dowsing forum a few days ago, there was a page 1 thread on books about dowsing. In that thread there was a link to an online booklet that really impressed me. The author did a pretty good job of surveying the subject from a very broad perspective, listening carefully to user reports, scientific critique, and the historical and cultural traditions that surround the whole subject.
Based on that broad evidence, the author arrived at conclusions a bit different from my own. Our buddy Arthur posted in that thread to the effect he found a lot to agree with in that booklet although he couldn't agree with the whole thing. Imagine that, Art and I agreeing more or less on something!
Cutting to the chase on that....... The author began with a dogmatic Christian perspective (don't know or care what denomination, I have no dog in that fight) which led his conclusion that dowsing and the things that resemble it are the work of a clever supernatural spirit known as Satan, the deceiver. As it turns out, throughout history many cultures have reported similar phenomena but have explained their direct experience as individual "spirits" beneficent and downright evil and everything in between. It is that more universal report to which I give credence.
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The funny thing is, that if there were never any supernatural Satan, or God, or non-Christian "spirits", and of course no physical attraction between dowsing rod and object, dowsing would continue as folk practice not much impaired. The whole commercial and folk level gambling enterprises are funded by the majority of believers who despite their belief can be depended on to lose money.
Add electronic "magic" that most people don't understand well enough to reason about, and you've got instant LRL, even if the electronics aren't really there, the whole thing is a deeply cynical con game. EE gets this much right: the supposedly electronic part of LRL is outright malarkey, and it's the perps' own advertising that proves it. Fraud. ......I take a slightly different tack, that it's theoretically possible that guys like Dell aren't bright enough to understand what the heck is happening between their ears and in their hands and in the electronics if any and in the results which there surely are (as a minimum, negative).
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The LRL apologists often lump "believing in God" to "believing in LRL's". As absurd as this is, I don't have to invent it, you don't have to pay much attention around here to see it happen. That's downright funny, because it's always coming from a Christian perspective on what "believing in God" is, and the mainstream Christian perspective on dowsing/LRL type stuff is that it's the work of the devil. For the most part, I agree with that assessment, that's why my experimentation in this arena has been very careful and has not replaced my day job nor changed my religious beliefs or practices.
It is my deep appreciation for the insights of the Hebrew religious tradition to which Christianity exposed me, that leads me to participation in this forum. The prophets are clear that this stuff is dangerous to the human mind unequipped to deal with it. The written word mostly forbids it outright, that being the simplest way of dealing with the issue. For most folks, an outright ban is the best advice that can be given.
But, as I often say, if having been told what LRL's are, you still want one, and it's your own money and not your family's that you're spending, GO FOR IT! The Universe welcomes the opportunity to punish you for your wilfulness, and the only remaining question is whether or not you'll learn your lesson.
--Toto
EDIT: here's the link to the thread:
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,440680.0.html
EDIT: ACK! I just looked at the thread and the mods have done a Joe Stalin censorship job on it! That's what sucks about the Internet, if you don't have a hard copy the information can disappear without notice.
MESSAGE TO MODERATOR: if you don't want controversy, you don't understand what a "forum" is (the concept is more than 2,000 years old) and you'll kill the purpose and interest that makes your enterprise possible.
Less than 24 hours ago I had to tell ADI that their takeover by lawyers who know nothing of electronics, but who are determined to get even with the engineers of their college frat days, are going to kill a major USA semiconductor company, but at least the lawyers will have golden parachutes! We're writing the history of empires, right here in real time.
That's the awkward situation that the new mods find themselves in-- not even grasping what a forum actually is, much less understanding how it creates the value that produces the revenue that keeps them employed.
Tnet is not in the category of "too big to fail". Tnet ain't exactly on the National Committees' radar screens, the pay to play threshold is probably on the order of twenty bucks. Tnet happens here (if it happens at all) and now, no matter who wins the Prez election.
-- Toto
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