Hi my lovely friends, that’s Al birthday; his birthday was in 12, 9th but as it was on Monday, I couldn’t write an anniversary for it at this time, though, I think it is not so important; it’s his birthday month and I can write down some of my heart-telling memories about our being together on this Earth 🙂
Oh yes! his birth-star-sign is Sagittarius, and as I know some people who are born in this time, they’re somehow special, very proud and self-confident, and very intelligent.
I really don’t want to exaggerate but he was a genius in compare to other genius people I know, as a child he was a thoughtful child; it began the day after our father died in the very night and mother kept it secret and didn’t tell us! I was seven in age in that time and Al was nine.
she’d known his strength
Oh yes, she made a great mistake. She was a young woman at that time and as expected, very unskilled, therefore, anxious to do the right decision.
As I look back on this day; can just see a gloomy scene that after we’d woke up in that morning, mother told us that our father had been travelled to Europe, as he’d down sometimes, and sent us to our uncle’s house to stay a while, it was in Summertime’s holiday as my vague memories show me the scene of us; my cousins, Al and me laughingly playing in the big uncle’s swimming-pool but I’d never mention that Al knew already what happened. we were just twenty months apart but he was much older than me to catch the circumstances.
Father very left & Mother very right
I found it all afterwards, I was really a kid, but forty days after father’s death, I’ve coincidentally read an article in the magazine about the anniversary of my father’s (at first because he was a famous writer and secondly, in Islam, they celebrate the seventh and the fortieth day of one’s death) at once, I got to mother and asked her the matter, she had scolded me and said I’d shut up all! There one can imagine how I’d felt, though, she came to me after I got to a corner to shed tears and shed tears with me.
my mom & me some later
Yes, I’d a dramatic childhood but it’s another story!
Anyway, my brother Al was a genius no doubt, interestingly, after father’s leaving, he had begun to write, and became a writer, an unknown one, unfortunately, but he was an ingrained writer.
He’d helped me a lot to grow up, as I’m still doing it and thankful to have him all in my life.
his fortieth birthday Just for fun 😉 Those days in 70th of state of euphoria My 31th birthday in Iran
A long time ago, I shared one of his short stories in WordPress, and now I re-share it here if you’d like to have a read 😉
With a happy Salut to all dear friends, it is again my lovely day and I want to use every moment of it 😉
here is a wonderful encounter of a Pharaoh (Amenemopé) with the God Osiris; a great image (translated from French) 🙏💖
Pectoral of Amenemope – gold Origin: Tanis – Tomb Amenemope discovered by Pierre Montet, April 16, 1940 Exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo – JE 86038
This breastplate is one of only two that accompanied Pharaoh Amenemope for his eternity. On a heavy gold chain with a length of 46 cm, hangs a gold plate, of square shape (8.8 x 8.9 cm), which is relatively original because this type of pendant marries the most often a rectangular shape.
Jean Yoyotte explains the way the silversmith designed it: “Two gold sheets of the same size fit together dry, adjusted on a thin filling (cement?), The whole being provided with two welded grooved rams on the edge, small rods are used to fix the chain “.
The decoration of the breastplate takes up the architecture of a temple door, surmounted by a grooved cornice, on which is stretched – as in temples – a representation of the winged sun.
The lower part of the pendant consists of a frieze of thirteen repeating patterns alternately: the Djed pillar is reproduced seven times, while the Tit loop appears six times. These protective emblems are respectively associated with Osiris and Isis.
Pectoral of Amenemope – gold Origin: Tanis – Tomb Amenemope discovered by Pierre Montet, April 16, 1940 Exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo – JE 86038
Indeed, the Djed pillar is an Osirian amulet, a symbol of stability, present in Egypt since the earliest times while the “knot of Isis (Tit) is, meanwhile, assimilated to the blood and the magic power of Isis “(Isabelle Franco).
The “table” central scene, evoking a funeral rite, is declined in a frame bordered by a ramesside frieze. If this scene is very frequent in funerary iconography, Christiane Ziegler explains, however, here, the originality: “Of all the pectorals of Tanis, this one is the only one to stage the pharaoh. The decoration, executed in pushed back on the gold leaf depicts King Amonemope offering incense and a libation to the god of the dead Osiris. An identical motif is engraved on the backplate “.
The pharaoh wearing the nemes and wearing a loincloth with a facet is standing, in the attitude of walking. He is facing Osiris who sits on his throne. The god of the underground world, wearing the imposing Atef crown, is represented in its mummiform aspect. He squeezes the whip and the flail on his chest.
Pectoral of Amenemope – gold Origin: Tanis – Tomb Amenemope discovered by Pierre Montet, April 16, 1940 Exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo – JE 86038
Amenemopé raises his right hand and holds an incense casserole in the left. “Between the two partners, a vertical legend specifies that the first is supposed to make the censer and the libation to his father Osiris” (Jean Yoyotte)
In the worship of gods and divinities, the fumigation of incense is, with the libation of water, one of the most important rituals of the Pharaonic liturgy. The main function of fumigation was to “breathe life back into the frankincense supposed to be an emission from Osiris’ body”. This scene is often reproduced on the walls of temples or the walls of tombs, most often performed by a Sem priest or by Pharaoh himself … “. It is also important to note that it is reproduced on one of the walls of the tomb of Amenemope.
Frankincense, rare in Egypt, was mainly dedicated to the worship of divinities and to Pharaoh,; it could be olibanum, terebinth, myrrh, or styrax,… But the most sought after, the most popular, was kyphi (kỳ phi), produced by a mixture of 10 to 50 substances. It should be recalled that “The priests offered Re three kinds of incense every day, one at waking, one in the middle of the day and one at bedtime”. …
Funerary mask of Pharaoh Amenemop (Amenemope, Ménémopé, Amonemapit) discovered by Pierre Montet at Tanis in April 1940 – May 3, 1940, a truck protected by the army, the treasure of Amenemope takes the path of the Egyptian Museum Square Tahrir
Amenemopé is a pharaoh of the XXIth dynasty whose reign, which has been exercised since Tanis, is located around 1001-992 BC. In “The treasures of the Egyptian Museum”, collective work written under the direction of Francesco Tiradritti, one can read that this “successor of Psousennès Ier was buried in the tomb of this last, in a room covered with granite, originally created to accommodate the remains of Moutnedjemet, wife and sister of Psousennès I “.
We can only be surprised that he was buried in a one-room vault when he has his own burial referenced NRT IV (NRT = Royal Necropolis of Tanis). The fact remains that his “real” abode of eternity – the one in which his mummy rested – was discovered in the spring of 1940 by Pierre Montet and his team.
The vault of Amenemope when opened Drawing E. Pons Source: Pierre Montet, “Tanis”, Payot, 1942
In “Tanis – Twelve years of excavations in a forgotten capital of the Egyptian Delta”, the discoverer recounts this very special day: “The entrance was opened on April 16. His Majesty King Farouk arrived the day before in Sân, where he had made erect a city of tents, was present, as well as Canon Drioton, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service and a young Egyptian Egyptologist, Professor Abou Bekr. The vault was furnished much like that of Psousennès: at the bottom a sarcophagus of granite, in the anterior half the canopic jars, the metal jars, a large sealed jar, funerary statuettes, a vast chest in gilded wood which had collapsed by the effect of time and humidity. objects had been put in a safe place the sarcophagus cover was put in their place. Much less opulent than Psousennès, the new sovereign had been content with a single stone sarcophagus and an anthropoid wooden coffin re-clad in gold, the wood was reduced to almost nothing. The gold plates were removed. It is hardly necessary to say that the mummy had suffered enormously. His ornaments less numerous than those of Psousennès nevertheless constitute a very beautiful collection: a gold mask, two necklaces, two pectorals, two scarabs, hearts of lapis and chalcedony, bracelets and rings, a large cloisonne gold falcon with spread wings, canes. ”
In this troubled period of World War II, the artefacts will be brought to safety as soon as possible. Thus, from May 3, 1940, it is in a truck protected by the army that the treasure of Amenemope will take the way to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square … The breastplate will be registered in the Journal des Entrées under the reference JE 86038.
I just wanna say; I’m jealous! That must not be a yammer though, I have a little tear in my eyes. You know; I have always a hard working day to get my weekend, my lovely weekend with you lovely friends to share my deepest thoughts which I can never share them during my work with the colleagues. they’d never understand it, quote end! And then; as I am working, I have always a look into my Smartphone to know what I’m missing and of course, there come a lot of ideas in my head to work on; and then when I get my favourite day: Saturday, I wake up early in the morning; not wasting time, but after turning on my PC, I sit there in front on monitor and stare on it! Believe me, I really don’t know where and how I’d begin.
And what makes me jealous; It is that some of my friends have a lot of time to read good stuff which I’d dream of 😀 😉
Anyway, I “have to” add the forth part on this journey, because of two meeting which my lady and me have taken part in;
I knew him from the younger-time in Iran as I was working as an actor on the stages and was much interested in theatre and movies. His works had fascinated me; he had worked with toys and took frames from every single act. You might know it, it had caught my eyes those days how hard work it could be; to bring your uncommon imaginations on the screen to make a movie…
And there are some more pics on this issue;
Another issue was to visit the communism museum. though, it was not so easy to find it but we’d succeed and there are some pics; first begin with the Master 😉
an ever life working place for a stuff The undergoing events Havel the saviour
“Death on the Nile” – ” Mort Sur Nil, 3ème “ 1978 first film adaptation by the British John Guillermin Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot 2006: second adaptation by Andy Wilson with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot 2019-2020: 3rd ongoing adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel by Fox and Kenneth Branagh
Certainly, I don’t need to introduce this Dame to anyone. She was and has ever been a Genius in writing such as murder mystery novels and she will always remain the master.
Agatha Christie
I have not read any book of her but seen almost all the “made of” movies. Of course, I must say that it’s not only Hercule Poirot which had fascinated me, but there’s also Miss Marple too an amazing character.
it’s always fascinating to see how ingeniously and powerfully she creates the moments of the crimes and how variable are the mysteries. Brilliant!
Now in this article by my dear friend and an Egyptologist; Marie Grillot I find out that there is another version of Death on The Nile has been made by Kenneth Branagh Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
I knew he had made a third version of the novel; Orient Express and I’ve seen this and also both older ones, but never heard of the third one on Death on The Nile!
Anyway, it’s nice to read this article (have translated from French) and see the old famous great actors again. Have a wonderful weekend. ❤ ❤
While Thomas Cook, initiator of the cruises on the Nile, is shipwrecked, “Death on the Nile” resurfaced! Indeed, after the success of the movie “The Crime of the Orient Express” released in 2017, the Fox – and Kenneth Branagh – decided to adapt the 3rd version of “Death on the Nile”.This novel by Agatha Christie was published on November 1, 1937, in the United Kingdom, the following year in the United States, then in France in 1945.
“Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” The Agatha Christie novel published on 1 November 1937 in the UK, in 1938 in the USA, in 1945 in France
For her writing, the novelist relied in part on her personal memories. When she is 17-18 years old, she goes to Egypt for the first time with her mother, she cruises in an environment that we imagine easy and luxurious. With her first and second husband, she will return for other stays. In 1923, she was in Luxor while the tomb of Tutankhamun had just been discovered, it would seem that she later met Howard Carter (in 1931 in Luxor).
Novelist Agatha Christie during a trip to Egypt
Flawless costumes, immaculate shirts, starched bow ties, moustache perfectly smoothed and a hairstyle that can only be said, he is steadfastly obsessed by his appearance … A bit precious, politeness “old France” grazing obsequiousness, his eyes sparkle with intelligence. He believes in him even in his doubts … One can not deny that his grey cells function perfectly, that he is a fine psychologist and, it must be said, without much confidence in the human nature of some … If the attention that it brings to small details is sometimes infuriating, the resolution of the enigma proves that they were in no way insignificant, that they participated indeed to weave the plot which he tried to “unravel”. He excelled often but was never better than in the final theatrical as dramatic happening, where, surrounded by all the witnesses and protagonists, he pronounced the final sentence, the outcome of the affair, finally announcing the name of – or – guilty (s)
… If “Death on the Nile” begins in a magnificent mansion nestled in the heart of the English countryside, it is in Egypt and mainly during a cruise on the “Karnak”, a luxurious steamship, that will take place history.
In the Agatha Christie novel “Mort Sur le Nil” – “Death on the Nile”, the boat named “Karnak” Two boats have “endorsed” this role: In 1978 in the 1 st film adaptation of John Guillermin, this name is given to the “Memnon”, built in 1904 by Thomas Cook In 2006, in the second film adaptation of Andy Wilson this name is given to the steam ship “Sudan” built by Thomas Cook in 1915-1921 it is now owned by Voyageurs du Monde and sailing on the Nile
Jacqueline de Bellefort, charming but ruined, commits the irreparable mistake of presenting her “beautiful lover” to her billionaire childhood friend … who will not fail to seduce him …The spurned fiancee continues on the banks of the Nile, the couple now formed by the wealthy Linnet Ridgeway – his ex-best friend – and Simon Doyle – his ex-boyfriend – “rotting” their honeymoon …The boat quickly becomes “the” place where everything will be played, a microcosm bringing together noble ruined, a novelist on the bottle, rich kleptomaniac, the doctor failed or corrupt lawyer, arrived unscrupulous, unconditional and idealistic love, … Each having a ” good reason to blame Linnet …
“Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” 1978 first film adaptation by the British John Guillermin The Colonel Race (David Niven) left, and Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) right
All this “beautiful” world evolves under the watchful eyes of Poirot and his elegant English friend Colonel Race. Over the Nile, they will be led to see several crimes, the series being “inaugurated” by that of the rich heiress …It is at the end of the cruise, in Ouadi Halfa, that the “little grey cells” of the famous Belgian detective will end this story, more turbid than the waters of the Nile.Agatha Christie will adapt it to the theatre in 1944.
“Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” 1978: 1st movie adaptation by British John Guillermin Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot
Then it will be worn for the first time on the screen, in 1978, by the British John Guillermin, with a cast of dreams: Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith, and second roles totally up to the task …
“Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” 1978 first film adaptation by the British John Guillermin Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot
Peter Ustinov is excellent in Hercule Poirot, with his flawless white suits, his collared shirts, his debonair look sometimes denied by a piercing look …The extreme staging and the performance of the actors bring suspense to its climax …How to forget this sequence shot in Karnak? As Linnet’s and Simon’s couple walk through the hypostyle hall, a block falls from one of the columns throwing them to the floor. The actors seem to emerge, magically, from behind each column to discover the drama … all seeming stupefied … that while the leader is necessarily among them!
Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” 1978 1 st film adaptation by the British John Guillermin Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot
Most of the film is on the “Karnak” – it is actually the “Memnon”, built by Thomas Cook in 1904 – whose comfortable atmosphere will quickly become oppressive. The second adaptation of “Death on the Nile” takes place in 2006: Andy Wilson directs David Suchet in the role of Hercule Poirot, the excellent James Fox wearing the uniform of Colonel Race.
“Death on the Nile” – “Mort Sur le Nil” 2006: second film adaptation by Andy Wilson with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
Emma Griffiths is Jacqueline de Bellefort, J.J. Feild Simon Doyle, while Emily Blunt is Linnet Doyle.
The film is then shot on the luxurious steamship Sudan – “survivor” of the Thomas Cook fleet – which belongs today to Voyageurs du Monde.
For the third adaptation, that of the Twentieth Century Fox, according to articles published, Kenneth Branagh will camp “the inevitable Hercule Poirot and will be accompanied by Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Ali Fazal, Sophie Okonedo, Emma Mackey Dawn French, Leslie Rose, Jennifer Saunders and Russell Brand “.
The film will be shot at the Longcross Studios in Surrey West London, and on the spot in Egypt … Of course, we are eager to learn more …The release of the film is scheduled in France, from October 7, 2020. Marie Grillot
Head of the female statue – painted wood with gilding Middle Kingdom – XIIth Dynasty Provenance: Zone of the pyramid of Amenemhat to Licht – Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – 1907 Egyptian Museum Cairo – JE 39380
The Head of a mysterious beautiful Lady. by Marie Grillot 🙏💖 with Marc Chartier as always much appreciated 🙂
The face is noble, perfectly symmetrical, veins of light wood give it a sense of life. The general expression is soft, calm, soothed. Large almond eyes, of which only the orbit remains, are absent. And despite everything, they question us … What presence did she give to the face? What did they show? Did the glass paste and the rock crystal subtly and luminously enliven their pupils? These questions remain forever unanswered. The eyebrows are treated in relief, while the line of makeup is treated in hollow. The nose is well proportioned, the lips are fine, the slight injury they suffered reminds us of the pangs of time.
Head of the female statue – painted wood with gilding Middle Kingdom – XIIth Dynasty Provenance: Zone of the pyramid of Amenemhat to Licht – Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – 1907 Egyptian Museum Cairo – JE 39380
What obviously impresses in this head of just over 10 cm, is the wide wig that framed it generously and should arrive at the shoulders, now missing. “The enveloping mass of the reported hair is worked in a darker wood and blackened with paint, it is attached to the head in lighter wood, using tenons.” The hair is black and fragments of gold, like so many small square touches bringing light and femininity, dot them. “The fact that the wig is particularly thin at the top, relative to the width of the lateral parts, suggests the presence of a crown or diadem.”
Head of female statue – painted wood with gilding Middle Kingdom – XIIth Dynasty Provenance: Zone of the pyramid of Amenemhat to Licht – Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – 1907 Egyptian Museum Cairo – JE 39380
Who was this beautiful lady? A queen, a princess, a prominent person at the court of the sovereign? The quality of the work, the mastery of the artist, leave indeed to think that it can come from the workshops of Pharaoh. From the statue that represented it, in the foot, there remains only that face that does not identify it. Only her arms were found two years later in Situ.
The female statue head painted wood with gilding is often reproduced Middle Kingdom – XIIth Dynasty Provenance: Zone of the pyramid of Amenemhat to Licht – Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – 1907
This head – which is also often used as a model to illustrate the beauty of the Egyptian women of antiquity – was discovered in 1907 in Lower Egypt, precisely in Licht, between Daschour and Meidoum. The city of Licht was created by Pharaoh Amenemhat I. “Not only to detach from Thebes and the followers of the last Montuhotep but also to keep an eye on the north and the Asian border, the city became the main royal residence during the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties … today give it another reality and another archaeological dimension than those that associate it with the two funerary monuments today reduced to two mounds: the pyramids of Amenemhat I and Sesostris I. ” (Egypt restored, T3, Sydney Aufrère, Jean-Claude Golvin).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art excavation site in New York on Licht site in 1907 with the discovery of the female statue head in painted wood with gilding (JE 39380) of the XIIth Dynasty
As early as 1882, Gaston Maspero undertook excavations on the site, which had then enabled the identification of the pyramids. For practical reasons (there were sometimes up to 11 m of water, he said), however, he could not go to the funeral chamber. The study of the site was then resumed in 1894-1895 by the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology.
Then, in 1906, while Maspero was at the head of the Antiquities Department, the Metropolitan Museum of Art applied for and obtained the concession, and then settled for several seasons of excavations. Indeed, the Egyptian Department of MMA was created October 15, 1906, and its directors, and its new director, Alfred Morton Lythgoe, see there the interest of enriching their knowledge, their experience and their collections.
Thus, under the joint direction of the director, Herbert Eustis Winlock (Harvard) and Arthur C. Mace (Oxford), their first campaign, financed by private funds.150 workers are recruited: some, already ‘trained’ in excavations, come from Upper Egypt, others from neighbouring villages; their number will continue to grow over the years.
Head of the female statue – painted wood with gilding Middle Kingdom – XIIth Dynasty Provenance: Zone of the pyramid of Amenemhat to Licht Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – 1907 Egyptian Museum Cairo – JE 39380 Reproduced for the first time in “The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin” (No. 10 – Oct.1907)
The exact circumstances of the discovery of the head are not explained by Albert Lythgoe. In the October 1907 bulletin of the MMA, while it appears in the photo with the caption “Figure 2. Head of the wooden statuette from Lisht, 12th dynasty”, no details are given on the place where it was found. The author relates that the excavations concerned two sectors: that of the cemetery located to the west of the pyramid of Amenemhat, which delivered tombs of important figures of the XIIth dynasty, as well as an area located on a promontory. In all, more than 100 tombs were discovered for most of the twelfth dynasty. As the head is illustrative, opposite this paragraph, one can legitimately think that its discovery is related to those areas where dignitaries, relatives and members of the ruling family had the honour to rest, not far from Pharaoh.
This head is on display at the Egyptian Museum of Tahrir Square in Cairo under number JE 39380.
One idiot is an idiot. two idiots are two idiots ten thousand idiots are a political party!
Hi dear people, at first I’m lucky that I can write my third part of my journey to Prague because my computer or better to say the interaction to the web was horribly slow! But anyhow with some tricks, I’ve got through (don’t yammer again! 😉
I began with Franz Kafka because it’s about our visit in Kafka’s museum and I have chosen one of his quote in German language (the translation has been subtitled 🙂 because, he wrote his scriptures all in German and it seems that some of them had been translated in Czech by Dora Dymant but they haven’t succeeded in the Czech Republic those days.
Of course, you’re laughing! But believe me, it was the entry behind these two funny statues standing there and … 😂
Anyway, I know Franz Kafka since I was about twenty-five, at first I have read “Process”, of course, translated in Persian and in such a situation the translator is almost as important as the writer him/herself. therefore, the first impression or effect was not so strong as I read the next one “The Metamorphosis” or The Transformation.
I would say I love him, he was and is the best Persian writer as I believe in, and he was so similar to Kafka as he writing such a protesting novel against the dictatorship of the Persian’s Shah regimes (the Father and the son) and in early 1951 in Paris commit suicide.
Sadegh Hedayat 1903-1951
Anyway, this book was the great thunder which hit my brain awakening to work! He has written his books mostly also in French.
This book was the one which shown me who Franz Kafka is and how he wrote about very simple people like me and you, who are confronting every day with the environment in our society and try to fix it.
His sibling
The Threshold The Messiah will arrive when we no longer need him; it reminded me of a novel by Dostoevsky; The Brothers Karamazov.
At the end I share an artwork of the head of Franz Kafka in Prague 🙂 have a beautiful Weekend ❤
Hi Friends. it’s a holiday today in some of the states in Germany (the catholic ones) not because of the Halloween but because of an old catholic ceremony to honoured the beloved ones who past away. The All Saint’s Day (here we call it Allerheiligen) it is a day to go to the cemeteries and remember of the loss.
I am at home to take the benefit of this but not going to the cemetery, not only because of my nonreligious opinion but surely for me it isn’t necessary to go to the cemetery to remember my beloved one, I have them in my heart and when I go there it’s just to look after if everything is okay!
So now the reason of my writing is that I read an article in The Conversation a very interesting Website about the very ceremony of today by catholic, is not their invention but originally the Aztecs had it in those days. https://theconversationus.cmail19.com/t/r-l-jddthkjt-uihidylylr-n/
In the older history; about Mary & Jesus and Isis & Horus
It’s really obvious as we look into the ancient history of mankind, we can find many similarities in between; for example, the famous Pieta(s) which isn’t found by the Christ on Mary’s lap:
I have found it always exciting to look after our history and from where have been all come from? There must be something important in our ancient time which had influenced all through history until now.
After the death of his old friend, Albert Einstein said “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us … know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
New evidence continues to suggest that Einstein was right – death is an illusion.
Our classical way of thinking is based on the belief that the world has an objective observer-independent existence. But a long list of experiments shows just the opposite. We think life is just the activity of carbon and an admixture of molecules – we live awhile and then rot into the ground.
We believe in death because we’ve been taught we die. Also, of course, because we associate ourselves with our body and we know bodies die. End of story. But biocentrism – a new theory of everything – tells us death may not be the terminal event we think. Amazingly, if you add life and consciousness to the equation, you can explain some of the biggest puzzles of science. For instance, it becomes clear why space and time – and even the properties of matter itself – depend on the observer. It also becomes clear why the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned for the existence of life.
Until we recognize the universe in our heads, attempts to understand reality will remain a road to nowhere.
Consider the weather ‘outside’: You see a blue sky, but the cells in your brain could be changed so the sky looks green or red. In fact, with a little genetic engineering we could probably make everything that is red vibrate or make a noise, or even make you want to have sex like with some birds. You think its bright out, but your brain circuits could be changed so it looks dark out. You think it feels hot and humid, but to a tropical frog it would feel cold and dry. This logic applies to virtually everything. Bottom line: What you see could not be present without your consciousness.
In truth, you can’t see anything through the bone that surrounds your brain. Your eyes are not portals to the world. Everything you see and experience right now – even your body – is a whirl of information occurring in your mind. According to biocentrism, space and time aren’t the hard, cold objects we think. Wave your hand through the air – if you take everything away, what’s left? Nothing. The same thing applies for time. Space and time are simply the tools for putting everything together.
Consider the famous two-slit experiment. When scientists watch a particle pass through two slits in a barrier, the particle behaves like a bullet and goes through one slit or the other. But if you don’t watch, it acts like a wave and can go through both slits at the same time. So how can a particle change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not? The answer is simple – reality is a process that involves your consciousness.
Or consider Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle. If there is really a world out there with particles just bouncing around, then we should be able to measure all their properties. But you can’t. For instance, a particle’s exact location and momentum can’t be known at the same time. So why should it matter to a particle what you decide to measure? And how can pairs of entangled particles be instantaneously connected on opposite sides of the galaxy as if space and time don’t exist? Again, the answer is simple: because they’re not just ‘out there’ – space and time are simply tools of our mind.
Death doesn’t exist in a timeless, spaceless world. Immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time, but resides outside of time altogether.
Our linear way of thinking about time is also inconsistent with another series of recent experiments. In 2002, scientists showed that particles of light “photons” knew – in advance – what their distant twins would do in the future. They tested the communication between pairs of photons. They let one photon finish its journey – it had to decide whether to be either a wave or a particle. Researchers stretched the distance the other photon took to reach its own detector. However, they could add a scrambler to prevent it from collapsing into a particle. Somehow, the first particle knew what the researcher was going to do before it happened – and across distances instantaneously as if there were no space or time between them. They decide not to become particles before their twin even encounters the scrambler. It doesn’t matter how we set up the experiment. Our mind and its knowledge is the only thing that determines how they behave. Experiments consistently confirm these observer-dependent effects.
Bizarre? Consider another experiment that was recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Science (Jacques et al, 315, 966, 2007). Scientists in France shot photons into an apparatus, and showed that what they did could retroactively change something that had already happened in the past. As the photons passed a fork in the apparatus, they had to decide whether to behave like particles or waves when they hit a beam splitter. Later on – well after the photons passed the fork – the experimenter could randomly switch a second beam splitter on and off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle actually did at the fork in the past. At that moment, the experimenter chose his past.
Of course, we live in the same world. But critics claim this behavior is limited to the microscopic world. But this ‘two-world’ view (that is, one set of physical laws for small objects, and another for the rest of the universe including us) has no basis in reason and is being challenged in laboratories around the world. A couple years ago, researchers published a paper in Nature (Jost et al, 459, 683, 2009) showing that quantum behavior extends into the everyday realm. Pairs of vibrating ions were coaxed to entangle so their physical properties remained bound together when separated by large distances (“spooky action at a distance,” as Einstein put it). Other experiments with huge molecules called ‘Buckyballs’ also show that quantum reality extends beyond the microscopic world. And in 2005, KHC03 crystals exhibited entanglement ridges one-half inch high, quantum behavior nudging into the ordinary world of human-scale objects.
We generally reject the multiple universes of Star Trek as fiction, but it turns out there is more than a morsel of scientific truth to this popular genre. One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that observations can’t be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). There are an infinite number of universes and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them.
Life is an adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. When we die, we do so not in the random billiard-ball-matrix but in the inescapable-life-matrix. Life has a non-linear dimensionality – it’s like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse.
“The influences of the senses,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson “has in most men overpowered the mind to the degree that the walls of space and time have come to look solid, real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits in the world is the sign of insanity.”
lampmagician 
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