Lofty Strangeness

Wiltshire UK, May 25, 2009 Photo: Steve Alexander

“THE future ain’t what it used to be,” baseball’s Yogi Berra quipped, with trademark deadpan.

Indeed, the emerging “new science” can be as unreadable as a deftly pitched knuckle ball.

The frontier sciences today are one-hand-clapping Zen paradoxes, compared to the old standard models. And atheists worldwide are crying foul.

A spiritual worldview is still shaky as a new pitcher at a championship game. Yet many, layman and scientists alike, are celebrating the rebirth, and choosing to embrace The Shift it represents.

Fresh waves of strangeness are gaining momentum: new physics, new psychology, new biology, new cosmology, new archaeology, new consciousness—all are challenging the old reductionist models of how the universe works.

Everyone is putting their own spin on the pitch. Even religion is getting into the game.

The God Twist

Wiltshire UK, May 24, 2009 - Steve Alexander

In a review this week of Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s new book, Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, Mark Galli, writing in Christianity Today, comments:

… Fingerprints of God does reinforce the reality that the brain and spiritual experiences are connected.  … Materialists conclude that mystical experiences are nothing but the product of brain chemistry. But Hagerty rightly objects: “If there were an ‘Other’ who wanted to communicate with us, of course He or She or It would use the brain to do so. … Of course God would use the chemistry of our brains to create visions.”

Para Normal

Parapsychology is also gaining new adherents: reincarnation, karma, psi phenomena, meditation, yoga, meridian tapping, intentionality. Once described by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance,” quantum strangeness is wormholing its way into our everyday life.

More PhD’s are pitching books and cinema on sacred geometry, divine cosmos, electric universes, global unity, natural healing, than ever before.

Back in 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, flamboyant Foundress of the Theosophical Renaissance, saw all this coming.

Physics or Metaphysics?

H. P. Blavatsky

Blavatsky, often referred to as “The Mother of the New Age,” predicted the immanent demise of both scientific and religious materialism—and their inevitable purification, and final synthesis.

She knew somehow—but we didn’t understand at the time—what a game-changer the discovery of the electron would become.

In her Secret Doctrine she wrote:

“Between this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic science will receive a death-blow.”

The death-blow was the “electron,” demonstrated in the year 1896, by physicist Joseph J. Thomson. He received a Nobel Prize for his discovery! But, as it turned out, the electron was a can of worms in disguise:

“The discovery of the electron suggested that it may be a subparticle of the atom. But such an idea resisted serious consideration, because it would lay in ruin the idea of the indivisibility of the atom, held since the time of Democritus.” (Sunrise Magazine)

Yet, for all the wriggliness, Blavatsky would not be content to sit back and cut bait. She immediately chased the big fish, announcing in The Secret Doctrine (I:520):

“It is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of matter, and the infinite divisibility of the atom, that the whole science of Occultism is built.”

Redux: The Aim of The Secret Doctrine

The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not “a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,” and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization. (SD 1:viii)

Matter, The Shadow of Consciousness

Throughout recorded history, intelligent designs of humans are seen everywhere—art, architecture, computers, and labor-saving gadgets of all kinds. Many of our modern inventions were, and are, more self-serving and resource depleting, than intelligent.

Unlike ancient cultures, our boasted science materializes explanations of everything. Its first, and often only response to the strange and mysterious, is to attempt to “recreate” and reproduce them in a laboratory, to explain them away as only “man-made.” They would struggle to replicate a believable bird’s nest.

Neo-Nonsense

It is the current vogue of Neo-Darwinism, to refer all strangeness to a designer-less universe—to accidental, undirected, randomly selected mutations.

Yet, Einstein, who evidently didn’t get the same memo, famously declared “god does not throw dice.”

The Nazca Lines, Peru

Archaeoastronomical creations, like Stonehenge and the Pyramids; and the enigmatic Nazca Lines are down-to-earth evidence of design.

Numerous hieroglyphs, mounds, dolmens, geoglyphs, petrographs found around the world—all suggest there is more beneath the surface of reductionist reality than is admitted, or understood.

Great Serpent Mound, Ohio, USA

For the mysterious master artists and scientists, the Circle Makers, like their ancient forebears, use Nature as their canvas—creating forms of unrivaled beauty, symmetry and symbology.

Design rules the ground and skies, from the tiny cell to the “music of the spheres,” and beyond—to billions of far-off galactic masterpieces.

Swirling News

On the ground today, as we update this post, a new formation appeared in an English barley field.

Temporary Temples‘ photographers and archivists, Steve and Karen Alexander, describe it as “An absolutely stunning new circle … Located at a place called Kingstone Coombes, it is close to Waylan’s Smithy on the Wiltshire-Oxfordshire border, site of many formations over the past few years.”

"Oannes"

“By our approximations it is 500-600ft in length and the jelly-fish-like design is one of the most breathtaking circles we have ever seen. Note the seven circles in the tail and the seven tentacles. Seven in a very prodigious and numinous number.”

“2009 is turning out to be an very special season…”

A Theosophical Explanation

Amphibios – Annedoti – Oannes

The Greek word amphibios means simply “life on two planes,” from amphi, “on both sides,” and bios, “life.” The word was often applied in antiquity to those men who, though still wearing a human form, had made themselves almost divine through knowledge, and lived as much in the spiritual supersensuous regions as on earth.

One sees why Occultism places Oannes and the other Annedoti in the group of those ancient “adepts” who were called “marine” or “water dragons” — Nagas.

Water typified their human origin (as it is a symbol of earth and matter and also of purification), in distinction to the “fire Nagas” or the immaterial spiritual Beings, whether celestial Bodhisattvas or Planetary Dhyanis, also regarded as the instructors of mankind.

The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist, once he is told that this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the sun was set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, “for he was amphibious,“i.e., he belonged to two planes; the spiritual and the physical.

See Related:

Matsya

Human Gods & Divine Men, SD 1:369

Waylands Smithy, UK, May 30, 2009

Bold Nous World

Even “Nature cannot be ‘unconscious,'” Helena Blavatsky wrote, rather “it is the emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the absolute consciousness.” And, as she often did, hurled the gauntlet to materialism:

“Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he can say is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension.”

Theosophical philosophy points to Plato’s “Nous,” a godlike kind of force, that is “the animating Soul, immanent in every atom, manifested in man, latent in the stone.” And, it “has different degrees of power.”

Occult Symbols and Glyphs

These different degrees are often referred to as “hierarchies.” Entities, like the Circle Makers, have evidently been commissioned to work directly with Earth’s humanity, through symbols. The Secret Doctrine (1:274):

“The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform…”

“.. such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain, in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs.”

Barbury Castle, UK - May 24, 2009

“This pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature,” Blavatsky reminded us, “is the oldest of all the philosophical notions.”

These are the same “innate, eternal, and self-existing Ideas” of Plato.

The “Absolute Consciousness,” … “behind” phenomena, which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to form one concept except in terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution of his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute.

Quite conveniently, now, we can point to the scientifically documented, and publicized, Crop Circle phenomena. How much more “empirical” evidence do you need? Complex, and mathematically exact geometrical formations, embedded in a remote farmer’s field in less than a minute—with no footprints or broken stems—all in the dark of night?

Where’s the Belief?

If Nature is sentient, and evinces intelligent design at every turn, who or what is she? And even if she is not blind after all, how is the matter, of which she is composed, assembled and arranged?

Is evolution still a blind, self-directed process, as neo-nonsense claims? Or is there a real Neo, who shapes the matrix, hiding somewhere off-camera?

The answers to these questions remains inferential. The “who” or “what” hasn’t revealed itself directly yet. But the phenomenon of crop circles, dropping out of nowhere into something, is substantial evidence of design, one that is neither random or blind.

Crop Circles – Definitive Evidence (Fox News)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Noetic thinking, a synthesis of right-left brain activity, is a method of using the mind in which truths are immediately known—without depending solely on preliminary premises or rationale. You are invited to conjure this compilation of photographs, of the most sophisticated agroglyphs.

Sky Sent – Anael

(Words & Music by Bradfield)

Et miratur omnis terra
Benedictus qui venit
De celeste armonia

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Lights Forming Crop Circles

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Mathematics Codes and Geometric Patterns

The most complex, “mind-boggling” crop circle ever to be seen in Britain was been discovered in a barley field in Wiltshire.

The circle is a coded representation of pi to the 10th significant figure The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Photo: APEX PICTURES

Barbury Castle 19 Jun 2008

The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi.

It is has appeared in a field near Barbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort above Wroughton, Wilts, and has been described by astrophysicists as “mind-boggling.”

Michael Reed, an astrophysicist, said:

“The tenth digit has even been correctly rounded up. The little dot near the centre is the decimal point.

“The code is based on 10 angular segments with the radial jumps being the indicator of each segment.

“Starting at the centre and counting the number of one-tenth segments in each section contained by the change in radius clearly shows the values of the first 10 digits in the value of pi.”

Lucy Pringle, a researcher of crop formations, said: “This is an astounding development – it is a seminal event.”

Mathematics codes and geometric patterns have long been an important factor in crop circle formations. One of the best known formations showed the image of a highly complex set of shapes known as The Julia Set, 13 years ago.

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” -Albert Einstein

Related Posts:

New Swirled Order

Science or Spirituality

A Buddha and His Dog

All in Your Mind

View the trailer:

Something Unknown is Doing We Don’t Know What…

By Renée Scheltema

“Something Unknown…is frankly one of the most artistic, comprehensive, beautiful, clear, fair and visionary documentaries on parapsychology and spirituality I have ever seen…”

-Dr Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology at The University of Arizona

Where is the boundary between real magical powers and fraud? Find out what scientists have to say, as these and more questions will be answered in this amazing documentary feature!

“There are only two ways to live your life:
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as if everything is–
I believe in the latter.”

-Albert Einstein

New Swirled Order

Wiltshire, UK - May 4, 2009 Photo: Steve Alexander

“I produce myself among creatures whenever there is a decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world; and thus I incarnate from age to age for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of righteousness.”

–Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita IV:31

The power of consciousness itself, is working through each of us, Eckhart Tolle says of the current cycle. Something in the collective consciousness wants that change, and we must try to be open to it.

We have chosen the mysterious crop circle phenomena, this week, as a stimulating reminder of ways that lead towards that change—becoming more consciously aware of the divine within us, and around us.

A Shift in Consciousness

“Mankind–the majority at any rate–hates to think for itself, Blavatsky comments. “It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks, and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.”

Roundway Hill - April 29, 2009

But, as we establish more secure bonds to our spiritual mind, Theosophy teaches, self-knowledge arises, and old sense-driven habits of thought fade away naturally. These higher links are forged, most securely, through service and love, say the wisdom traditions.

Self-Knowledge

“Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually call ‘self-analysis,’ Blavatsky once said. “It is not reached by reasoning or any brain process—for it is the awakening to consciousness of the Divine nature of man.”

“To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement than to command the elements or to know the future.”

But without parents, teachers, mentors and friends, “such knowledge—such intuitive and certain knowledge,” would be much more difficult. The odds of losing our way, are often overwhelming.

“That Which Ye Sow, Ye Reap”

Peaks Down - May 9, 2009

All true Masters teach that “self-knowledge is of loving deeds the child.” And we prove this to ourselves every time we help another in need, with no thought of return. Every small effort we make, adds to our inner strength, and to theirs.

“Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition,” say the Golden Precepts. “Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance.”

“It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences.”

This shows that the immortal part of us, our True Self, is the Prototype  masquerading as the Humantype in this earthstate of consciousness. As Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the reverse. We are ambassadors from spirit whose duty is to help Nature—not injure and abuse her—but to serve and learn from her.

The “circle-makers,” the spiritual Prototypes, are our spiritmates, guides and protectors. They watch and stimulate us from inner planes, but they are invisible to average humanity. In reality, the higher state of consciousness, where they live, is also humanity’s forgotten residence.

We are prodigal sons, and wanderlusting “Self-gods”—Arjunas struggling to win the tests of our existence here—and ultimately to regain full self-consciousness of our heritage and purpose. But, like Arjuna, we are never without the help of Krishna, the Higher Self.  The Secret Doctrine explains:

Spiritual Mathematics

“The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, ‘in Heaven,’ the better for the mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode.

Rutlands Farm, April 23, 2009

“For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity with that ‘Self-god,’ one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent-Sun.

We Are All One

“Thus, ‘the events of humanity do run coordinately with the number forms,’ since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same source — the central and its shadow, the visible Sun.

“For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar course, astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to uninitiated mortals.

“And this explains the extraordinary numerical coincidences with geometrical relations …” SD 1:639

Dreaming and Waking Symbols

Ridgeway, June 15, 2008

We are, in our ultimate essence, beings of light. This existence, like the dreamless state we enter every night, can only be faintly symbolized on our brain-plane of perception, remembered as symbolic dream ideas on waking.

In our developmental condition, the knowledge of the dreamless state is not accessed through direct recollection or remembrance, but is a “reminiscence.”

“A Sleep and a Forgetting”

As explained in Isis Unveiled 1:xiv, the purpose of deep meditational and sleep states, is to “arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher world that we once inhabited.”

All Cannings Bridge, May 22, 2009

The “us,” referred to, is ourselves as reincarnating Self-gods. The teaching of the differing memory systems we use, is further explained in The Key to Theosophy 123-133:

“Memory is a faculty depending entirely on the more or less healthy and normal functioning of our physical brain; and remembrance and recollection are the attributes and handmaidens of that memory. But reminiscence is an entirely different thing.

“- we call reminiscence the memory of the soul. And it is this memory which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live again. Indeed, as Wordsworth has it:”

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar.”

The “Seven Sons”

Morgan's Hill, May 2009

Theosophy teaches we are sevenfold beings. In the English and Sanskrit terms: Spirit (Atma-Buddhi) is having a human, (Manas-Kama) experience, aided by the life force (Prana) and pattern body (Astral,) in a molecular body (Silutha Sarira.)

Each of our inner “sheaths,” or states of consciousness, is a “ray” from one of those “seven sons,” symbolized spiritual prototypes, or hierarchies. Actual beings, living within the interwoven consciousness of the Earth.

The Secret Doctrine 1:430, translates this into a uniquely mystical, symbolic language:

It is then only in this “light” (of consciousness) of mental and physical perception, that practical Occultism can throw this into visibility by geometrical figures.

When closely studied, [the light of the Logos] will yield…a scientific explanation of the real, objective, existence of the “Seven sons of the divine Sophia.”

By means of other, yet undiscovered keys, with regard to Humanity, these “Seven Sons” and their numberless emanations, centres of energy personified, are an absolute necessity.

“Make away with them, and the mystery of Being and Mankind will never be unriddled, not even closely approached.”

Roundway Hill, April 29, 2009

An Undiscovered Key

Science will never understand mysteries of the spiritual and terrestrial aspects of human beings, on this plane of life, Blavatsky says, “if it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world, and refuses from the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the key to Universal Symbology.“

“The prototypes or ideas of things exist first on the plane of Divine eternal Consciousness,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote, and from there, these are reflected on our Earth plane of life.”

“As Above, So Below”

(Hermes Trismegistus)

Barely visible from the ground, and often appearing in remote fields around the world, the breathtaking geometry, and artistry of the crop circles is fully revealed—symbolically and literally—only from above.

The power and presence of these unusual symbolic events can not be underestimated—because occult wisdom has always been closely associated with geometrical symbols.

“Without the help of symbology (with its seven departments, of which the moderns know nothing) no ancient Scripture can ever be correctly understood.” (SD 1:305)

There will always be hoaxers, of course, so long as there are the cynical among us. Yet it is a proven fact, that the majority of the crop formations are not man-made. (BLT Research Team, Inc.)

Who knows the possibilities of the future?. . .

“An era of disenchantment and rebuilding will soon begin–nay, has already begun. The cycle has almost run its course—a new one is about to begin, and the future pages of history may contain full proof that–

If ancestry can be in aught believed,
Descending spirits have conversed with man
And told him secrets of the world unknown.”

(Isis Unveiled 1:38)

The Sacred Tribe of Heroes

The Secret Doctrine offers proof of the wide dissemination of symbolic teachings, from the Neolithic, Egyptian and Greek secret societies, the Middle Ages, the Age of Enlightenment, to Freemasonry. We see it even in modern physics—represented in Fritjof Kapra’s “The Tao of Physics.”

“The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.” (SD 1:xxxiv)

Synesius, Wisdom of the Egyptians

“Yet you must not think that the gods are without employment, or that their descent to this earth is perpetual. For they descend according to orderly periods of time, for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.

For there is indeed in the terrestrial abode the sacred tribe of heroes who pay attention to mankind, and who are able to give them assistance even in the smallest concerns. . .This heroic tribe is, as it were, a colony from the gods established here in order that this terrene abode may not be left destitute of a better nature.”

2009 – April Flowers

Ridgeway, April 14, 2009 - Steve Alexander

The first crop circle formation of 2009 occurred April 14th, in Wiltshire, UK, not far from the Ancient Standing Stones of Avebury.

Avebury

It is situated on the high downs outside the complex above the Avenue, not far from the Ridgeway track. Its appearance has a vibratory resonance to it, as if it is oscillating within the crop of yellow canola flowers! Located next to an ancient mound, we see the ongoing connection to important ancient sites.

Progressive Awakenings

“Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality;’ but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion].” (SD 1:40)

Woodcut 1678

A Verified Interaction Between
Human Consciousness and the Circle Makers

by Janet Ossebaard (Circular Site)

“On 27 July 1999, an interesting experiment took place. Japanese crop circle researcher Maki Massau took a group of 11 Japanese people to the formation opposite Silbury Hill at Avebury (Wiltshire, UK) to carry out a meditation experiment.

“Sitting in the beautiful formation at sunset, the group sent out a prayer, asking the Circle Makers to create a new formation with four clear features. The formation had to appear that night, close to Silbury Hill, slightly to the West, and containing a Japanese element. If such a crop circle was to appear the next morning, they would know for sure their prayer was heard…

“After finishing this meditation, they decided to extend the request. They drove to a formation at Cherhill and sent out their prayer into the cosmos once again. As they did this, they saw a large ball of light suddenly descend from the skies to just above Cherhill. Then the light ascended once again and disappeared…

“After this phase they went on to Oliver’s Castle, from where the prayer was sent out once again. Then the experiment was finished and they went back to their hotel.

“The next morning they drove off to the local airfield, in order to find out if any new formations had been reported yet. Their excitement rose when one of the pilots confirmed that indeed a new formation had been discovered that morning. He too had seen it at Beckhampton, slightly West of Silbury Hill.

“When Maki Massau asked the pilot if he could describe the formation, the pilot explained something about a piece of paper folded over another piece of paper. He was looking for the right word, when a colleague helped him: ‘Just like Japanese origami’ …

“Maki and his group were delighted when – only minutes later – they flew over the formation. This magnificent pattern was their formation all right, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It had all four features: it was located close to Silbury Hill, a bit to the West, it had appeared that night, and it clearly contained Japanese elements: origami, and it also represented a common Japanese family crest.”

Beckhampton, UK, 1999

Crop Circle Documentary 2009

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Eckhart Tolle – Transformation of Consciousness

We should be opening more to what wants to happen on this planet, Eckhart Tolle says, but it can only be realized through each individual person. Each new realization helps others to shift in consciousness, which is necessary at this time. The question for humanity is to either shift and evolve together, or perish together.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Crop Circle Geometry

“Geometry, in the hands of the crop circles, becomes a resonant language of intelligent intent, which both contains the message and teaches the syntax of its meaning.

“The geometry is thus both the message and the meaning, and I feel this geometry to be consistently of a higher order than that which you or I would arrive at. Its simplicity and its ingenuity draws us upwards and subtly encourages an opening up of the mind.” -Allan Brown

TEMPORARY TEMPLES – CROP CIRCLE ARCHIVES

A Buddha and His Dog

ASANGA gave up. Twelve long years of meditation and spiritual practices, and still no vision of the future Buddha Maitreya.

He yearned to connect with Maitreya to receive teaching directly, which would accelerate his progress on the Bodhisattva path.

“Every new Bodhisattva or initiated great Adept is called the ‘liberator of mankind,’ Helena Blavatsky explains in The Voice of the Silence:

“Now bend thy head and listen well, O Bodhisattva,” she wrote, “Compassion speaks and saith: ‘Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?’”

Seers and Psychics

IN the surreal landscape of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, Alice wonders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror.

To her surprise, Alice is able to pass into it, as if into the astral world, and experience an alternate existence.

A puzzled Alice discovers a book with looking-glass poetry called “Jabberwocky,” which she can read only by holding it up to a mirror.

This is a clear reference to occultism’s ‘astral light,’ where the images of everything are stored in reverse to those on our normal terrestrial plane.

In 1871, mediumship and table-tipping were all the rage, detailed in Mitch Horowitz’s recent book Occult America. Understandably, Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland was wildly popular at the time.

Clairvoyance and psychic powers have always fascinated the public. But then, as now, they were considered nonsensical by mainstream scientists.

œ