Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Edgescience 07
Edgescience 07
Edgescience 07
5
pursued as clues to potential breakthroughs and new
directions in science. A New Primate Species in Sumatra
Adam Davies
Publisher: The Society for Scientific Exploration
Editor: Patrick Huyghe
Associate Editors: Dick Blasband,
9
Dominique Surel
Book Review Editor: P.D. Moncreif The Magenta Phenomena:
Contributors: Marsha Adams, Adam Davies, Brenda A Medium in Brazil
Dunne, Robert Jahn, Stephen Jett, Stanley Stanley Krippner
Krippner, David Nabhan, Andrew Paquette
Design: Smythtype Design
16
criticism, and debate concerning topics which are
for various reasons ignored or studied inadequately
within mainstream science. A secondary goal is to
promote improved understanding of those factors
NEWS NOTEBOOK
that unnecessarily limit the scope of scientific
17
inquiry, such as sociological constraints, restrictive
world views, hidden theoretical assumptions, REFERENCE POINT
and the temptation to convert prevailing theory A Lost Civilization Underfoot
into prevailing dogma. Topics under investigation A review by Stephen Jett of
cover a wide spectrum. At one end are apparent The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly
anomalies in well established disciplines. At the
Obsession in the Amazon
other, we find paradoxical phenomena that belong
to no established discipline and therefore may by David Grann
20
offer the greatest potential for scientific advance
and the expansion of human knowledge. The SSE backscatter
was founded in 1982 and has approximately 800 The Uses and Misuses of Quantum Jargon
members in 45 countries worldwide. The Society Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne
also publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of
Scientific Exploration, and holds annual meetings in
the U.S. and biennial meetings in Europe. Associate
and student memberships are available to the public.
To join the Society, or for more information, visit the
website at scientificexploration.org.
{ THE OBSERVATORY|
By Andrew Paquette
Adam Davies
Marco Polo, who wrote about them in his diaries. Even then,
these “little people” were regarded as elusive. But the orang- The Footprints
kubu, the indigenous “forest people” of Sumatra, have always David Chivers, a primatologist at Cambridge University, has
regarded the orang-pendek as a separate tribe of real people. examined the cast of the footprints we brought back and has
no doubt that they are from an unknown primate. “These
footprints were very exciting, very unusual because they were
of mixed character from all the different apes and humans,”
said Chivers. “They have toes that are shorter, more like hu-
mans, the heel is like nothing in that it is curved. We call it
banana foot.”
resemblance to that of an orangutan foot, which boasts a the University of Copenhagen as a marine biologist special-
remarkably short calcaneal process. However, this feature is izing in otoliths, the calcium crystals you find in the inner ears
combined with short thick digits in the cast in question, un- of bony fishes. He was fascinated by the fact that you could
like the remarkable long lateral digits and shortened hallux of deduct an incredible amount of information about an animal
the living orangutan foot. It seems an unusual combination of just from looking at otoliths. This rather forensic approach led
traits in a terrestrial biped, which the orang pendek is report- him to the study of hairs and similar small “bits and pieces,”
ed to be. Alternately, the cast might be that of a handprint, and he is currently working as a freelance consultant for vari-
in which case the proximal position of the medial digit, the ous museums, scientific institutions and societies, and local
thumb, would be more appropriate.” and national authorities.
In November 2010, Thomas drafted his conclusions,
which I quote here in part: “A small part of the hair sample
Hair Identification was subjected to a DNA-analysis, but due to the small amount
Hans Brunner of Deakin University near Melbourne analysed of DNA extracted and the rather poor condition of it, no firm
the hair samples we brought back from the 2001 expedition. conclusion could be reached. The DNA did show some simi-
Bruner is a renowned zoologist and animal forensic expert larities to primate DNA, possibly orangutan, but no definite
who published the world’s first book on hair identification. results could be obtained. Following this I subjected the re-
His work was instrumental in analyzing the hair samples in maing hairs to a structural analysis to see if this could bring
the famous Lindy Chamberlain dingo baby case of the 1980s. any information to light that might reveal the identity of the
For us, he spent months studying Sumatra’s native species and owner of the hairs. I checked all of the remaining 6 hairs and
conducting the hair analysis, and eventually came to the con- they were all consistent with hairs from large primates or
clusion that we are indeed dealing with an unknown primate. humans. They all had the rather large medulla with a lot of
When I went to see him in Australia, he postulated that pigmentation typical of large primates, and the intermittent
the closest creature to the orang-pendek would probably be holes in the centre of the hairs, making them look somewhat
the orangutan (orang-utang). But he also said that the hair like hollowed out tree trunks. I compared the hair samples
samples showed unique structural differences that made them with reference samples of 3 different species of gibbon, orang-
very different from orangutan hair. I also sent a hair sample to utan, chimpanzee and bonobo, gorilla and some 15 samples
anthropologist Todd Disotell at New York University for DNA of human hairs in various colours, mainly red or reddish. I
analysis. Unfortunately, due to the degradation of the samples was never able to ascertain their identity with total certainty,
and possible contamination, no DNA could be extracted from although I could eliminate some. The hairs were not modern
the 2001 hair sample we brought back from Sumatra. human, and they were not from siamangs or other gibbons.
In 2009, while leading another team to Kerinci Seblat They have a very deep rusty-red colour, very similar to the co-
National Park, I came across a trail of what appeared to be lour of orangutan hairs, but varied in other structural details.
orang-pendek footprints. We followed them and eventually So based on these results alone I concluded that the hairs were
found hairs where it had apparently brushed up against a tree. from something closely related to orangutans or from a form
We sent these samples to Lars Thomas who graduated from of orangutan I had not seen before.”
Stanley Krippner
not been there when it left my hands. To the best of my knowl- (3) “Now that a year and one half has passed since you had
edge, the chalice was in the hands, or within plain sight, of our the encounter with Amyr Amiden, have you noticed any after-
group the entire time.” effects?”
That evening, Amiden accepted our invitation to join us Ten members of the group responded to the question-
for dinner at our hotel, during which, as one participant re- naire. They all answered affirmatively to the first question. The
corded, “He produced more stones on the floor, on laps, etc.” aspects that were felt to be the most exceptional included the
“falling stones,” “the blood on the goblet,” “the stigmata,”
“the numerous apports,” “the objects being materialized,”
The Next Day and “access into the process and content of a dimension of
One group member saw Amiden the following day, recalling, mind that most of us are unable to penetrate.” One respondent
“He seemed weary and exhausted. He said every month for added, “This was the most significant experience of my life.”
about ten days he develops great thirst and needs to drink Six individuals listed life-changing aftereffects:
much water, tea, or coffee. He loses weight, and his saliva
tastes acidic. During this time, phenomena occur, and he has “For a while, the stone I found felt as if it had a spe-
greater healing power.” Another participant noted that Am- cial energy.”
iden had told her that he “renews” himself by praying, taking
frequent baths, drinking large amounts of water, and by sur- “The time with Amyr was so out of my ordinary ex-
rounding himself with the color green. perience that my mind is still uncomfortable about it;
According to my notes, “Every month something like I’ve only told a few selected friends about this experi-
this happens...Before the phenomena occur the saliva tastes ence.”
acidic.... He drinks much water, strong tea and coffee, loses
weight, and takes many baths and showers.... The signs that “Many of his materializations could be accomplished
phenomena would happen started a week ago Wednesday and by a skilled magician, but the crystal dropping at my
lasted for 10 days. Blood will come in spots on his legs, then feet when no one was near me convinced me that this
will disappear. He does considerable healing during this time.” was for ‘real’.”
Exceptional Human Experiences “It did not change my thinking or feeling because
These experiences seemed to have a profound impact on some that had happened many years ago with my earlier
members of the group, so in November 1994, I sent out a experiences.”
questionnaire based on Rhea White’s concept of “exception-
al human experience” and the potential they offer for shifts “It reinforced knowledge that we on planet Earth are
and changes in one’s worldviews and activities. The ques- part of a much larger universe.”
tionnaire asked: (1) “Would you consider the encounter with
Amyr A miden an ‘exceptional human experience’?” (2) “If so, “The apparent materializations of various objects...
what portion of the encounter was the most ‘exceptional’?” were powerful and well-implanted in my memory.”
EDGESCIENCE #7 • APRIL–JUNE 2011 / 9
a ssassination. However, the subsequent event was quite re- The objects that appeared anomalously included polished
markable. Weil then observed the appearance of two blotches stones, coins, religious medallions, onyx jewelry, small gem-
of a blood-like substance on the picture. He pointed these out stones, and a pair of linked metal rings. On one occasion, a
to us and they were easily discernible. magenta stripe appeared on a faxed document; in a few min-
utes, a drop of water seemed to congeal into a diamond before
our eyes. This event led to our naming the collective events
Data Analysis “The Magenta Phenomena.” Various laboratory tests were
The Spearman rank order correlation method was used to subsequently conducted with several items; for example, some
investigate associations between variables.* Kelson had taken of the stones were identified as agate, amethyst, a low-grade
21 pulse readings of Amiden that were followed by apparently emerald, and a diamond.
anomalous phenomena. The means from the Anomalies Rat-
ing Scale for each of these events were correlated with the cor-
responding pulse readings but yielded non-significant results
(ρ=-0.11, p=0.62, 19df). When the means from the Anomalies
Rating Scale for antecedent anomalous events were correlated
with the corresponding 22 pulse readings, the results were
also not significant (ρ=0.14, p=0.53, 20df). Kelson considered
Amiden’s pulse to be rapid and symptomatic of tachycardia.
There were 12 systolic blood pressure readings followed
by apparently anomalous events (ρ=0.07, p=0.83, 10df) and
13 systolic blood pressure readings with antecedent anoma-
lous events (ρ=0.03, p=0.92, 11df). Amiden’s blood pressure
was considered to be slightly elevated from a medical point of
view and symptomatic of hypertension.
There were 12 diastolic blood pressure readings with sub-
sequent anomalous events (ρ=-0.14, p=0.66, 10df) and 13
diastolic blood pressure readings with antecedent anomalous
events (ρ=0.71, p=0.01, 2-tailed, 11df). In other words, the
higher the diastolic blood pressure after the event, the higher
the mean rating tended to be for the event on the 5-point
Anomaly Observation Scale. This effect was statistically sig-
nificant.
My student monitored the geomagnetic readings from a
Amiden holding purported apports, with Stanley Krippner looking on.
magnetometer we obtained on loan for three days from the
University of Brasilia. We had placed the device in an open
field where there was a minimum of electrical interference Aftermath
and took magnetometer readings every two minutes. There The results of our investigation were so provocative that
were 15 geomagnetic readings followed by anomalous events plans were made for a more formal investigation utilizing so-
(ρ=0.35, p=0.30, 13df) and 17 geomagnetic readings preced- phisticated psychophysiological monitoring equipment and
ed by anomalous events (ρ=0.64, p=0.01, 2-tailed, 15df). The the assistance of a Brazilian magician trained in sleight-of-
significant correlation between mean ratings on the Anomaly hand effects, which we realized was a crucial missing element
Observation Scale and the 17 geomagnetic readings suggests from our completed sessions with Amiden. One reason the
that atmospheric electricity and geomagnetic activity are fa- magician was needed was the fact that the gemstones that ap-
vorable to ostensible anomalous events such as “macro-PK.” peared are fairly common in Brazil; another reason is that Am-
When the mean ratings (on the Anomaly Observation iden was in the export-import trade and would have had access
Scale) of each daily session were compared with daily geomag- to most of the other artifacts that appeared. Unfortunately,
netic activity for the Southern Hemisphere, the results were Amiden’s health necessitated cancellation of these plans upon
statistically significant (ρ=0.93, p=0.02, 3df). When the same the insistence of his physician, who had observed the increase
procedure was used to compare daily mean ratings with dai- in Amiden’s cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems fol-
ly geomagnetic activity for South America, the results were lowing our March 1994 visit.
in the same direction but did not attain significance (ρ=83, The Parapsychological Association has a long-standing
p=0.09, 3df). resolution that a magician be present when macro-PK is be-
* This non-parametric statistic was used since it was deemed unlikely that the data, especially the ratings on the Anomalies Rating Scale,
were normally distributed. Presentation of the results of this data analysis uses ρ to indicate the correlation, p to indicate the prob-
ability level (two-tailed for all correlations), and df to indicate degrees of freedom for each analysis.
EDGESCIENCE #7 • APRIL–JUNE 2011 / 11
References
Krippner, S. (2002). “Stigmatic phenomena: An alleged case in
Brazil.” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 16, 207-224.
Krippner, S., Winkler, M., Amiden, A., Crema, R., Kelson, R.,
Lal Arora, H., & Weil, P. (1996). “Physiological and geo-
magnetic correlates of apparent anomalous phenomena ob-
served in the presence of a Brazilian sensitive.” Journal of
Scientific Exploration, 18, 281-298.
Weil, P., Krippner, S., Winkler, M., Amiden, A., Lal Arora, H., Don’t miss the 30th annual meeting
O’Donnell, K., Crema, R., & Leloup, J.-Y. (2002).Transco-
municação: O fenômeno magenta. São Paulo: Editora Pensa-
of the SSE!
mento. The program, entitled The SSE at the Forefront of Science,
will feature five sessions: The Implications of Non-locality;
The Science of the Subjective; Consciousness and Living
STANLEY KRIPPNER is professor of psychology at Saybrook University Systems; Practical Applications of Anomalies Research;
in San Francisco. He is an original pioneer of humanistic and transper- and The Sociology of Scientific Evolution.
sonal psychology, and is internationally recognized for his decades of Where: Boulder, Colorado—
research into consciousness studies and the study of shamanism. He
has published over 1000 articles, papers, and books, and he was the
The Millenium Hotel
2002 recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Award for When: June 9–11, 2011
Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psy- Invited speakers: Larry Dossey, Pamela Rae Heath,
chology. His books include Personal Mythology, Extraordinary Dreams, Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne, Dean Radin, Rollin
and Haunted by Combat. He is co-editor of Varieties of Anomalous Expe- McCraty, Larissa Cheran, Francesca McCartney, John
rience, Mysterious Minds, and Debating Psychic Experience. McMichael, Walter Cruttenden,
Jonathan Schooler.
David Nabhan
Courting Disaster?
The Need for Earthquake Advisories in California
T wenty-three large earthquakes (6.0 or greater) have struck
in Southern California in the six decades between Long
Beach (1933) and Northridge (1994), and seven of them have
earthquake.” If that’s not clear enough, the USGS’s Karen
Felzer has stated flat out that “Earthquake ‘prediction’ is im-
possible.”
occurred in exactly the same way. Those sizeable temblors The case against the predictability of earthquakes, from
struck either at dawn or at dusk, exactly during new or full the point of view of United States Geological Survey and other
moon phases, and moreover, during those phases that were seismologists, is built upon the fact that fractures and failure
near-syzygy events—when Earth, Sun, and Moon were per- in bedrock deep beneath the Earth are notoriously intracta-
fectly aligned to focus the lunar and solar tides into a tight vec- ble. The very inaccessibility of the fault zone itself to direct
tor of forces upon the Earth and its plate boundaries below. To measurement, along with a myriad of other ground-based
ascribe this to random chance is to be willing to accept stun- physical conditions, imposes severe limits to predictability. It
ningly astronomical probabilities. But if not chance, then it may be supreme irony, though, that for all the tautological
suggests there may be solid ground on which to predict nearly pronouncements about the difficulties involved in forecasting
a third of California’s major earthquakes; a modest start, yes, quakes, part of the problem might be that scientists have been
but one that I feel is necessary. looking in the wrong place for the answers, looking down into
the Earth, when they might have looked up.
This could explain, at least in part, seismology’s un-
Earthquake Prediction Is Impossible changed century-long mantra of “impossible” with regard to
Unfortunately, even a decade deep into the 21st Century, it earthquake prediction. Those few voices with the temerity
seems that earthquake prediction is an unspeakable topic for to suggest differently—like Jim Berkland, Dr. Tony Fraser-
most mainstream seismologists and the United States Geo- Smith, Marsha Adams, and others—have been marginalized
logical Survey. When asked if the USGS or any other agency or ignored. The conservatism is easy to explain though. Sci-
could predict earthquakes, Mike Blanpied, Associate Coor- entists who have spent their entire lives getting to sought-after
dinator of the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, replied: positions are understandably reluctant to breezily risk their
“There’s currently no organization or government or scientist reputations on anything that isn’t rock-solid, dead-certain,
capable of successfully predicting the time and occurrence of or infallibly proven. And it’s far less likely that broadcasting
*This quake occurred 50 minutes outside the parameters of the rest of the data. **Slightly below the 6.0 magnitude.
EDGESCIENCE #7 • APRIL–JUNE 2011 / 13
s eismic warnings—“elevated probability” windows, or any ointing an unabashed scientific finger straight at the tides.
p
other kind—would garner their support. There are plenty of These peer-reviewed studies, published in esteemed journals,
political, economic, and societal pressures that cause the au- go back 170 years, and continue unabated in every decade
thorities to fear being wrong more than what could happen if from the middle of the 19th century to the present. Richard
they’re right—and keep quiet. Edmonds said as much as early as 1845 (“On the Remark-
Of course, it doesn’t help matters that USGS’s one public able Lunar Periodicities in Earthquakes”); so did Alexis Per-
attempt at earthquake prediction failed. In the early 1980s the rey (“Frequency of Earthquakes Relative to the Phase of the
USGS noticed that there was a stretch of the San Andreas Moon”) in 1876 in the American Journal of Science.
fault running through a small town called Parkfield in Central More recently, in 2002, Science published a study led by
California where earthquakes of about magnitude 6 occurred UCLA’s Elizabeth Cochran, in conjunction with a consortium
every 20 to 25 years, the last one being in 1966. Based on that of Japanese scientists, which concluded, after studying 2,000
pattern, the USGS and the state of California predicted that earthquakes, that “tidal forces speed up or slow down the tim-
there would be another one in Parkfield in the mid-1980s. ing of earthquakes on faults that are about to rupture because
But the predicted earthquake didn’t occur there until… 2004. of other forces.” And in 2006, a team of Italian and American
That seems to have spelled the end of the USGS’s efforts in seismologists led by Carlo Doglioni at Rome’s La Sapienza
earthquake prediction. But the USGS, which has been right University, published their findings that the tidal force of the
about so many important things since it was founded in 1879, Moon was literally dragging the entire North American conti-
is simply wrong to have given up on earthquake prediction. nental plate westward.
For those who might ask what good could come of know- DAVID NABHAN spent the
ing in advance in any case, there are good answers. Police, fire, greater part of his life living
and EMS, for starters, might consider refraining from crew in Southern California. He
changes at these times to avoid the confusion that might be graduated from Mesa Col-
caused in an emergency. Tens of millions along the fault line lege and San Diego State
would be offered repeated occasions to address all the little yet University in the 1970s,
important things (checking supplies, reviewing family plans, was a certificated bilingual
forming a neighborhood group). At the very least, people public school teacher for 19
would have the option of dealing as best they could with the years for the Los Angeles
particular safety shortcomings of their domicile, such as tem- Unified School District, and
porarily moving heavy objects from nearer to the ceiling to was the district’s earth-
nearer to the floor, in a way that would minimize injury should quake preparedness coor-
the worst happen—along with filling prescriptions, topping dinator at his school site in
off the fuel tank in their car, etc. There’s every chance that the South Central Los Angeles
greatest benefits, should everything written turn out to be vi- for 15 of those years. He has
able, would involve contingencies that can’t even be imagined been calling for the creation
now. But one thing is surely certain. The greatest weapon in of an earthquake warning
any enemy’s arsenal is that of…surprise. Depriving the San system for the U.S. west
Andreas of that weapon, would be advantage enough. coast for the last two decades. Nabhan is the author of Forecasting the
Catastrophe: An Analysis of When and Where the Next Great Earthquake
on the West Coast Will Strike, published in 2010. Nabhan is now retired
from teaching and has relocated to the Northeast.
and the
attempt replication of some previously asserted anomalous results
that might conceivably impact future engineering practice. But as the
path led ever deeper into its metaphysical forest, it became clear that
Source of
stranger phenomenological creatures were on the prowl, than they
had originally envisaged, and that a substantially broader range of
intellectual and cultural perspectives would be required to pursue that
{ NEWS NOTEBOOK|
Homeopathy Redux
lieves come from the gut, end up in the plasma, and eventually
When Luc Montagnier speaks, mainstream science listens. cause damage to the brain. A study could then be conducted
And no wonder: Montagnier is the French virologist and win- to see if, following the antibiotic treatment, the DNA signal
ner of 20 major scientific awards, including a Nobel Prize in disappears and the patients with these conditions improve. If
Physiology or Medicine in 2008, which he shared with Fran- so, the findings could then possibly be used not just for diag-
çoise Barré-Sinoussi for the discovery of human immunodefi- nosis but for treatment, with electromagnetic waves of certain
ciency virus (HIV). But a year later Montagnier stunned his frequencies being used to kill the organisms directly.
colleagues when he published two controversial research stud- But Montagnier will not be able to pursue his controversial
ies on electromagnetic waves that, he claims, emanate from the work in France, or elsewhere in Europe for that matter. In the
highly diluted DNA of various pathogens. These signals, says Science interview, Montagnier revealed that because of French
Montagnier, can reveal the bacterial or viral origins of condi- retirement laws (Montagnier is 78) he is no longer allowed to
tions such as autism, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, work at a public institution, and that his efforts to apply for
and Alzheimer’s disease. “If the results are correct,” theoreti- funding of this research elsewhere in Europe had been turned
cal chemist Jeff Reimers of the University of Sydney, Australia, down due to the “fear around this topic.”
told New Scientist in January 2011, “these would be the most Indeed, the findings by Luc Montagnier evoke the work
significant experiments performed in the past 90 years, de- and controversy of another French researcher, an immunolo-
manding re-evaluation of the whole conceptual framework of gist named Jacques Benveniste. In a paper published in Nature
modern chemistry.” in 1988, Benveniste claimed that extremely highly diluted IgE
The findings lend support to the high dilution concept antibodies had an effect on certain cells, a finding that sup-
on which homeopathy is based. In an interview published in ported the claims of homeopathy. After a week-long investiga-
the journal Science in December of 2010, Montagnier stated: tion that involved the illusionist James Randi, Nature ended
“High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water up calling the paper a “delusion.” Benveniste died in 2004.
structures which mimic the original molecules.” In his experi- Montagnier feels the Benveniste affair had spooked many re-
ments Montagnier found that he could not go further than a searchers who are now reluctant to publish their own work in
10 -18 dilution before losing the signal. Although not a single support of Benveniste and who might otherwise be interested
molecule of DNA was left at this dilution, he still managed to in Montagnier ‘s own findings.
obtain a signal. To escape the “intellectual terror” of people who don’t un-
The detected electromagnetic waves, claims Montagnier, derstand the subject and regard it as pseudoscience rather than
serve as a biomarker by which one can test for the presence of as real phenomena worthy of further study, Montagnier in-
the microorganisms even when they are undetectable by clas- tends to continue his research in China, where he has accepted
sical bio-medical techniques. The hope is that the treatment a leadership post at a new research institute at Jiaotong Uni-
with antibiotics will kill the pathogens, which Montagnier be- versity in Shanghai.
{ REFERENCE POINT|
Book Review by Stephen Jett
that earlier had been perceived as always having been sparsely BACKSCATTER, continued from page 20
populated by relatively primitive peoples. Such earthworks—
ridged fields, canals, causeways, and mounds—were mostly re-fry of sexy quantum concepts and language, we need rather
in low-lying plains subject to periodic flooding and were dif- to develop a fresh lexicon of scientific conceptualization that
ficult to detect on the forested ground. They were first rec- can capture and advance the deeper essence of our most pre-
ognized from the air, in the Mojos of eastern Bolivia, more cious and powerful capacities for information acquisition, pro-
than 40 years ago (e.g., Denevan, 1966, Mann, 2005:3-12). cessing, and utilization. Most notably, we need to extend the
Remarkably, such works have also been discovered in the up- sweep of scientific methodology to embrace the subjective as
per Xingú drainage (Grann, pp. 310-14, Heckenberger, 2005, well as the objective dimensions of human experience. This
Mann, 2008), particularly surprising in view of the fact that in caution by no means needs to exclude the use of aptly selected
post-1500 times that region has been a refugium for some of metaphors, but it does enjoin us to recognize them as such and
the most primitive tribes of the Amazon Basin. More recent- to realize that even they cannot convey the deeper ontological
ly still, vast areas of the upper Purús drainage of Brazil near aspects of reality. Rather, like all other theoretical tools, they
the Bolivian border have been recognized as displaying huge, are attempting merely to share useful representations of how
precisely geometrical, human-made, ditch-and-embankment human consciousness perceives reality, and indeed in some
“geoglyphs” as well as arrow-straight roads (Pärssinen, Schann, sense, participates in its very creation and organization. This
& Ranzi, 2009). These all are regions in or near which Faw- is no playground for naïve or sloppy language or thought; it is
cett explored; but, ironically, he (like everyone else at the time) very sacred scientific terrain.
never recognized that he was traveling past striking manifesta-
tions of an advanced ancient culture.*
References
1
A. Einstein, in P.A. Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein: Philosopher-
References Scientist, Evanston, IL: The Library of Living Philosophers,
Denevan, W. M. (1966). The Aboriginal Cultural Geography of 1949, pp. 175-76.
the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia. University of California Press 2
Ibid., p.13.
series Ibero-Americana, 48. Berkeley. 3
W. Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond. New York: Harper and Row,
Heaney, C. (2010). Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, 1971.
a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu. 4
W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern
New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Science. New York, Harper and Row (Harper Torchbooks),
Heckenberger, M. J. (2005). The Ecology of Power: Culture, 1962.
Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon. AD 1000-
2000. (Critical Perspectives in Identity, Memory, and the
Built Environment). New York: Routledge. ROBERT G. JAHN and BRENDA J. DUNNE of the International Con-
Mann, C. C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before sciousness Research Laboratories in Princeton, N.J., are the authors
Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. of the new book Consciousness and the Source of Reality: The PEAR
Mann, C. C. (2008). Ancient earthmovers of the Amazon. Sci- Odyssey (ICRL Press, 2011).
ence, 321(5893), 1148-1152.
Pärssinen, M., Schann, D., & Ranzi, A. (2009). Pre-Columbian
geometric earthworks in the Upper Purús: A complex society NEWS NOTEBOOK, continued from page 16
in western Amazonia. Antiquity, 83(322), 1084-1095.
{ BACKSCATTER|
Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne