rickybar's Homepage

Nosso Sonho

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:06 EDT

Nossos sonhos são gostosos demais
Brincar com você nua de faz de conta
Livre e selvagens como animais
Liberta a mulher que aqui apronta

Dá a tuas costas pra nossa fantasia
Esfrega o suor, tua água de cheiro
Pernas abertas na ponta da língua
Lábios inchados na ponta do dedo

Gozos, gemidos de puro prazer
Mexe gostoso na imaginação
Dentro de ti eu começo a viver
Com toda a malícia e muito tesão

Dueto Com MarMel

Pérolas Nacionais: Frases de Vários Autores

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:48 EDT

Quando estamos fora, o Brasil dói na alma; quando estamos dentro, dói na pele.
(Stanislaw Ponte Preta)

O uísque é o melhor amigo do homem. Ele é o cachorro engarrafado.
(Vinícius de Morais)

Os homens mentiriam muito menos se as mulheres fizessem menos perguntas.
(Max Nunes)

Ultimamente tenho feito a dieta da sopa... deu sopa, eu como!!
(.....Claudia Trepichio...)

Brasil? Fraude explica.
(Carlito Maia)

Das três melhores coisas da vida a segunda é comer e a terceira é dormir.
(Stanislaw Ponte Preta)

Carro é como mulher: só é bom pra quem tem dois.
(Stanislaw Ponte Preta)

Junta médica é uma reunião que os médicos fazem nos últimos momentos de nossa vida para dividir a culpa.
(Jô Soares)

Pior do que o fim do mundo, para mim é o fim do mês.
(Zeca Baleiro)

O Brasil é feito por nós. Só falta agora desatar os nós.
(Barão de Itararé)

Quem se mata de trabalhar merece mesmo morrer.
(Millôr Fernandes)

Chega de debate de idéias. Onde já se viu um político brasileiro dotado de idéias?
(Diogo Mainardi)

Democracia é quando eu mando em você. Ditadura é quando você manda em mim.
(Millôr Fernandes)

No Brasil, quem tem ética parece anormal.
(Mário Covas)

O brasileiro não faz história, ele é um espectador.
(Raul Seixas)

Não é triste mudar de idéias; triste é não ter idéias para mudar.
(Barão de Itararé)

Ninguém morre, as pessoas despertam do sonho da vida.
(Raul Seixas)

Comecei uma dieta: cortei a bebida e as comidas pesadas e em quatorze dias perdi duas semanas!
(Tim Maia)

Era um menino tão mau que só se tornou radiologista para ver a caveira dos outros.
(Jô Soares)

A prosperidade de alguns homens públicos do Brasil é uma prova evidente de que eles vêm lutando pelo progresso do nosso subdesenvolvimento.
(Stanislaw Ponte Preta)

O cérebro, o verdadeiro órgão sexual dos seres

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:30 EDT

Deu no New York Bruxo

Quando se trata do desejo, a evolução deixa pouco espaço para o acaso. O comportamento sexual humano não é um desempenho improvisado, concluem os biólogos, mas guiado a todo momento por programas genéticos

O desejo entre os sexos não é uma questão de opção. Os homens heterossexuais, ao que parece, possuem circuitos neurais que os levam a procurar as mulheres; os homens gays os têm programados para procurarem outros homens. Os cérebros das mulheres podem ser organizados para selecionar homens que apresentem maior probabilidade de serem provedores a elas e seus filhos. O acordo é selado com outros programas neurais que induzem uma onda de amor romântico, seguido por uma ligação de longo prazo.

Tanto barulho, uma dança tão complexa, tudo para obter sucesso na única coisa simples com que a evolução se importa, que é a condução do maior número de crianças à idade adulta. O desejo pode parecer o centro do comportamento sexual humano, mas é apenas o ato central de um longo drama cujo roteiro está escrito basicamente nos genes.

No útero, o corpo do feto em desenvolvimento é naturalmente feminino e se torna masculino se o gene que determina o gênero masculino, conhecido como SRY, estiver presente. Este gene dominante, a única e mais orgulhosa posse do cromossomo Y, muda o tecido reprodutivo de seu destino de ovário e o transforma em testículo. Os hormônios dos testículos, principalmente a testosterona, então esculpem o corpo na forma masculina.

Na cena seguinte, a puberdade, os sistemas reprodutivos são preparados para a ação pelo cérebro. Apesar de ser uma fantástica máquina elétrica, o cérebro também pode se comportar como uma humilde glândula. No hipotálamo, uma região na base central do cérebro, se encontra um aglomerado de cerca de 2 mil neurônios que dão início à puberdade quando começam a secretar pulsos do hormônio liberador de gonadotropina, que dispara um efeito cascata de outros hormônios.

O gatilho que dispara estes hormônios ainda é desconhecido, mas provavelmente o cérebro monitora os sinais internos para saber quando o corpo está pronto para e reprodução e os indícios externos sobre se as circunstâncias são propícias para produção do desejo.

Vários avanços na última década destacaram o fato bizarro de que o cérebro é um órgão sexual pleno, com os dois sexos tendo versões profundamente diferentes dele. Isto é obra da testosterona, que masculiniza o cérebro amplamente como faz com o restante do corpo.

É um conceito errôneo pensar nas diferenças entre os cérebros de homens e mulheres como sendo pequenas, erráticas ou encontradas apenas em poucos casos extremos, escreveu Larry Cahill, da Universidade da Califórnia, em Irvine, no ano passado na "Nature Reviews Neuroscience". Amplas regiões do córtex, a camada externa do cérebro que realiza grande parte de seu processamento de alto nível, são mais espessas nas mulheres. O hipocampo, onde as memórias iniciais são formadas, ocupa uma fração maior do cérebro feminino.

Técnicas de obtenção de imagens do cérebro começaram a mostrar que homens e mulheres usam seus cérebros de formas diferentes mesmo quando realizam as mesmas coisas. No caso da amídala, um par de órgãos que ajuda a priorizar as memórias de acordo com sua força emocional, as mulheres usam a amídala esquerda para este fim enquanto os homens tendem a usar a direita.

Não causa surpresa o fato das versões masculinas e femininas do cérebro humano operarem em padrões distintos, apesar da alta influência da cultura. O cérebro masculino é sexualmente orientado para ver as mulheres como objetos de desejo. A evidência mais direta vem de um punhado de casos, alguns deles acidentes de circuncisão, nos quais os bebês perderam seus pênis e foram criados como mulheres. Apesar de toda indução social para o oposto, eles crescem desejando as mulheres como parceiras, não homens.

"Se você não pode fazer um homem ficar atraído por outros homens cortando fora seus pênis, quão forte pode ser qualquer efeito psicossocial?" disse J. Michael Bailey, um especialista em orientação sexual da Universidade do Noroeste.

Presumivelmente, a masculinização do cérebro molda alguns circuitos neurais que tornam as mulheres desejáveis. Se for o caso, este circuito está moldado de forma diferente nos homens gays. Em experiências nas quais são exibidas aos indivíduos fotos de homens e mulheres desejáveis, os homens heterossexuais são estimulados por mulheres, os gays por homens.

Tais experiências não mostram a mesma divisão clara entre as mulheres.
Independente das mulheres se descreverem como heterossexuais ou lésbicas, "o estimulo sexual delas parece ser relativamente indiscriminado - elas são estimuladas tanto por imagens de homens quanto mulheres", disse Bailey. "Eu nem mesmo tenho certeza de que as mulheres têm uma orientação sexual. Mas elas têm preferências sexuais. As mulheres são bastante seletivas e a maioria escolhe ter relação sexual com homens."

Bailey acredita que os sistemas para orientação sexual e estímulo fazem os homens procurarem por pessoas com as quais fazer sexo, enquanto as mulheres estão mais concentradas em aceitar ou rejeitar aqueles que desejam fazer sexo com elas.

Diferenças semelhantes entre os sexos são vistas por Marc Breedlove, um neurocientista da Universidade Estadual de Michigan. "A maioria dos homens é bastante teimosa em suas idéias sobre que sexo desejam, enquanto as mulheres parecem mais flexíveis", ele disse.

A orientação sexual, pelo menos para os homens, parece ser estabelecida antes do nascimento. "Eu acho que a maioria dos cientistas que trabalham nesta questão está convencida de que os antecedentes da orientação sexual nos homens ocorrem no início da vida, provavelmente antes do nascimento", disse Breedlove, "enquanto para as mulheres, algumas provavelmente nascem para se tornarem homossexuais, mas claramente chegam a tal escolha mais tarde na vida".

O comportamento sexual inclui muito mais do que sexo. Helen Fisher, uma antropóloga da Universidade Rutgers, argumenta que os três sistemas primários do sexo evoluíram para orientar o comportamento reprodutivo. Um é o impulso sexual que motiva as pessoas a buscarem parceiros. Um segundo é um programa para atração romântica que faz as pessoas se fixarem em parceiros específicos. O terceiro é um mecanismo para ligação em longo prazo que induz as pessoas a permanecerem juntas tempo suficiente para completarem seus deveres paternos.

O amor romântico, que em seu intenso estágio inicial "pode durar de 12 a 18 meses", é um fenômeno humano universal, escreveu Fisher no ano passado em "The Proceedings of the Royal Society", e provavelmente é uma função integrada no cérebro. Estudos de imagens do cérebro mostram que uma área em particular do cérebro, uma associada ao sistema de recompensa, é ativada quando os pacientes contemplam uma foto da pessoa amada.

A melhor evidência para um processo de ligação em longo prazo em mamíferos vem de estudos de ratos-calunga, um pequeno roedor semelhante a um camundongo. Um hormônio chamado vasopressina, que é ativado no cérebro, leva alguns ratos-calunga a se manterem fiéis por toda a vida. As pessoas possuem o mesmo hormônio, o que sugere que um mecanismo semelhante pode funcionar nos seres humanos, apesar disto ainda não ter sido provado.

Os pesquisadores dedicaram um esforço considerável na compreensão da homossexualidade em homens e mulheres, tanto por seu interesse intrínseco quanto pela luz que pode fornecer aos canais mais comuns do desejo. Os estudos de gêmeos mostram que a homossexualidade, especialmente entre homens, é herdável, o que significa que há um componente genético nela. Mas como homens gays têm cerca de um quinto do número de filhos que homens heterossexuais têm, qualquer gene que favorece a homossexualidade deveria desaparecer rapidamente da população.

Tais genes poderiam ser retidos se os homens gays fossem protetores incomumente eficazes de seus sobrinhos e sobrinhas, o que ajudaria genes como os deles a serem transmitidos para gerações futuras. Mas os homens gays não são melhores tios do que os homens heterossexuais, segundo um estudo de Bailey.

Assim, isto deixa a possibilidade de que ser gay é um subproduto de um gene que persiste porque amplia a fertilidade em outros membros da família. Alguns estudos revelaram que os homens gays têm mais parentes do que os homens heterossexuais, particularmente pelo lado materno.

Mas Bailey acredita que o efeito, se real, seria mais claro. "A homossexualidade masculina é mal adaptada evolutivamente", ele disse, notando que a frase significa apenas que os genes que favorecem a homossexualidade não podem ser favorecidos pela evolução se menos de tais genes chegarem à próxima geração.

Uma pista um pouco mais direta sobre a origem da homossexualidade é o efeito ordem de nascimento fraternal. Dois pesquisadores canadenses, Ray Blanchard e Anthony F. Bogaert, mostraram que ter irmãos mais velhos aumenta substancialmente as chances de que um homem será gay. Irmãs mais velhas não contam, nem importa se os irmãos estão na casa quando o menino é criado.

O fato sugere que a homossexualidade masculina nestes casos é causada por algum evento no útero, como uma "resposta imunológica maternal a gravidezes masculinas sucessivas", escreveu Bogaert no ano passado na "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". Anticorpos antimasculinos poderiam talvez interferir com a masculinização do cérebro que ocorre antes do nascimento, apesar de tais anticorpos ainda não terem sido detectados.

O efeito ordem de nascimento fraternal é bastante substancial. Cerca de 15% dos homens gays podem atribuir sua homossexualidade a ele, com base na suposição de que entre 1% e 4% dos homens são gays, e cada irmão mais velho adicional aumenta as chances de atração pelo mesmo sexo em 33%.

O efeito apóia a idéia de que os níveis de circulação de testosterona antes do nascimento são críticos na determinação da orientação sexual. Mas a testosterona no feto não pode ser medida, e na idade adulta, homens gays e homossexuais apresentam os mesmos níveis do hormônio, o que não dá pista de exposição pré-natal. Assim a hipótese, apesar de plausível, ainda não foi provada.

Um recente avanço significativo na compreensão da base da sexualidade e desejo foi a descoberta de que os genes podem ter um efeito direto na diferenciação sexual do cérebro. Os pesquisadores há muito presumiam que hormônios esteróides como a testosterona e o estrógeno realizam todo o trabalho pesado da moldagem dos cérebros masculino e feminino. Mas Arthur Arnold, da Universidade da Califórnia, em Los Angeles (Ucla), descobriu que os neurônios masculinos e femininos se comportam de forma um tanto diferente quando mantidos em vidros de laboratório. E no ano passado, Eric Vilain, também da Ucla, fez a descoberta surpreendente de que o gene SRY é ativo em certas células do cérebro, pelo menos em camundongos. Seu papel no cérebro é bem diferente de suas atividades relacionadas à testosterona e os neurônios das mulheres presumidamente realizam tal papel de outras formas.

Acontece que um número incomumente alto de genes ligados ao cérebro estão situados no cromossomo X. O repentino despontar de cromossomos X e Y na função cerebral chamou a atenção de biólogos evolutivos. Como os homens possuem apenas um cromossomo X, a seleção natural pode promover aceleradamente qualquer mutação vantajosa que ocorra em um dos genes X.
Assim, se aquelas mulheres seletivas estiverem à procura de inteligência em um parceiro masculino potencial, isto poderia explicar por que tantos genes relacionados ao cérebro acabam no X.

"É popular entre os acadêmicos do sexo masculino dizer que as mulheres preferem os sujeitos mais inteligentes", disse Arnold. "Tais genes serão rapidamente selecionados nos homens porque novas mutações benéficas se tornarão rapidamente aparentes."

Várias conseqüências profundas derivam do fato dos homens disporem de apenas uma cópia de muitos genes cerebrais ligados a X e as mulheres duas. Uma é que muitas doenças neurológicas são mais comuns em homens porque é menor a probabilidade de que as mulheres sofram mutações em ambas as cópias de um gene.

Outra é que os homens, com um grupo, "terão mais fenótipos variáveis de cérebro", escreveu Arnold, porque a segunda cópia de cada gene das mulheres refreia os efeitos das mutações que surgem no outro.

A maior variação nos homens significa que apesar do QI médio ser idêntico entre homens e mulheres, há uma média mais baixa entre os homens e uma maior em ambos os extremos. O cuidado das mulheres em selecionar homens, combinado com a rápida seleção possibilitada pela falta de cópia reserva entre os homens dos genes ligados a X, pode ter levado à divergência entre os cérebros masculino e feminino. Os mesmos fatores podem explicar, acreditam alguns pesquisadores, por que o cérebro humano triplicou em volume nos últimos 2,5 milhões de anos.

Quem pode duvidar? É, na verdade, o desejo que faz o mundo girar.

Gifs Pages - Páginas de Gifs

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 07:32 EDT

Páginas Interessantes pra Gifs

Gifs: Interesting Pages

http://www.sexiluv.com

http:/profilejewels.net

http://www.crazyprofile.com

http://www.poqbum.com/default.html

http://www.pimp-my-profile.com

http://www.layoutmygraphics.com

http://www.funmunch.com/graphics

http://www.deepbox.com/

http://www.hostdrjack.com

http://www.bigoo.ws

Actresses

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 07:22 EDT

They Arrive To Hour

Jessica Alba

Angelina Jolie

Art and Photography

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:46 EDT

The Witchcraft Trials in Salem

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:42 EDT

"Examination of a Witch" in Salem.

The Witchcraft Trials in Salem

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.

Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.

In 1688, John Putnam, one of the most influential elders of Salem Village, invited Samuel Parris, formerly a marginally successful planter and merchant in Barbados, to preach in the Village church. A year later, after negotiations over salary, inflation adjustments, and free firewood, Parris accepted the job as Village minister. He moved to Salem Village with his wife Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter Betty, niece Abagail Williams, and his Indian slave Tituba, acquired by Parris in Barbados.

The Salem that became the new home of Parris was in the midst of change: a mercantile elite was beginning to develop, prominent people were becoming less willing to assume positions as town leaders, two clans (the Putnams and the Porters) were competing for control of the village and its pulpit, and a debate was raging over how independent Salem Village, tied more to the interior agricultural regions, should be from Salem, a center of sea trade.

Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis. The symptoms also could have been caused, as Linda Caporael argued in a 1976 article in Science magazine, by a disease called "convulsive ergotism" brought on by injesting rye--eaten as a cereal and as a common ingredient of bread--infected with ergot. (Ergot is caused by a fungus which invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially under warm and damp conditions such as existed at the time of the previous rye harvest in Salem. Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and--most interestingly--hallucinations. The hallucinogenic drug LSD is a dervivative of ergot.) Many of the symptoms or convulsive ergotism seem to match those attributed to Betty Parris, but there is no way of knowing with any certainty if she in fact suffered from the disease--and the theory would not explain the afflictions suffered by others in Salem later in the year.

At the time, however, there was another theory to explain the girls' symptoms. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's widely read and discussed book. It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging less than seventy miles away (and many refugees from the war in the area) that the devil was close at hand. Sudden and violent death occupied minds.

Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam, seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. When his own nostrums failed to effect a cure, William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasing likely.

A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog. ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba, who had been known to tell the girls tales of omens, voodoo, and witchcraft from her native folklore. Her participation in the urine cake episode made her an even more obvious scapegoat for the inexplicable.

Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents." ( Many people of the period complained that young people lacked the piety and sense of purpose of the founders' generation.) The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. In a village where everyone believed that the devil was real, close at hand, and acted in the real world, the suspected affliction of the girls became an obsession.

Sometime after February 25, when Tituba baked the witch cake, and February 29, when arrest warrants were issued against Tituba and two other women, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witchhunt began. The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions.

The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba was an obvious choice (LINK TO TITUBA'S EXAMINATION). Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her (LINK TO GOOD'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO GOOD'S TRIAL), and Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The Putnams brought their complaint against the three women to county magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who scheduled examinations for the suspected witches for March 1, 1692 in Ingersoll's tavern. When hundreds showed up, the examinations were moved to the meeting house. At the examinations, the girls described attacks by the specters of the three women, and fell into their by then perfected pattern of contortions when in the presence of one of the suspects. Other villagers came forward to offer stories of cheese and butter mysteriously gone bad or animals born with deformities after visits by one of the suspects.The magistrates, in the common practice of the time, asked the same questions of each suspect over and over: Were they witches? Had they seen Satan? How, if they are were not witches, did they explain the contortions seemingly caused by their presence? The style and form of the questions indicates that the magistrates thought the women guilty.

The matter might have ended with admonishments were it not for Tituba. After first adamantly denying any guilt, afraid perhaps of being made a scapegoat, Tituba claimed that she was approached by a tall man from Boston--obviously Satan--who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog and who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work. Yes, Tituba declared, she was a witch, and moreover she and four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on their poles. She had tried to run to Reverend Parris for counsel, she said, but the devil had blocked her path. Tituba's confession succeeded in transforming her from a possible scapegoat to a central figure in the expanding prosecutions. Her confession also served to silence most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began witch hunting with zeal.

Soon, according to their own reports, the spectral forms of other women began attacking the afflicted girls. Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty (LINK TO EASTY'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO EASTY'S PETITION FOR MERCY) were accused of witchcraft. During a March 20 church service, Ann Putnam suddenly shouted, "Look where Goodwife Cloyce sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers!" Soon Ann's mother, Ann Putnam, Sr., would join the accusers. Dorcas Good, four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, became the first child to be accused of witchcraft when three of the girls complained that they were bitten by the specter of Dorcas. (The four-year-old was arrested, kept in jail for eight months, watched her mother get carried off to the gallows, and would "cry her heart out, and go insane.") The girls accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences.

Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows. Deliverance Hobbs became the second witch to confess, admitting to pinching three of the girls at the Devil's command and flying on a pole to attend a witches' Sabbath in an open field. Jails approached capacity and the colony "teetered on the brink of chaos" when Governor Phips returned from England. Fast action, he decided, was required.

Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton. Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter). Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded. the judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck) (SCENE DEPICTING EXAMINATION FOR MARKS). Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted. Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal. Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community.

The first accused witch to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop. Almost sixty years old, owner of a tavern where patrons could drink cider ale and play shuffleboard (even on the Sabbath), critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop was a likely candidate for an accusation of witchcraft (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF BISHOP). The fact that Thomas Newton, special prosecutor, selected Bishop for his first prosecution suggests that he believed the stronger case could be made against her than any of the other suspect witches. At Bishop's trial on June 2, 1692, a field hand testified that he saw Bishop's image stealing eggs and then saw her transform herself into a cat. Deliverance Hobbs, by then probably insane, and Mary Warren, both confessed witches, testified that Bishop was one of them. A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him. A jury of matrons assigned to examine Bishop's body reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh." Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them. Numerous other villagers described why they thought Bishop was responsible for various bits of bad luck that had befallen them. There was even testimony that while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a part of it to fall to the ground. Bishop's jury returned a verdict of guilty . One of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, aghast at the conduct of the trial, resigned from the court. Chief Justice Stoughton signed Bishop's death warrant, and on June 10, 1692, Bishop was carted to Gallows Hill and hanged (LINK TO IMAGE OF BISHOP'S HANGING).

As the summer of 1692 warmed, the pace of trials picked up. Not all defendants were as disreputable as Bridget Bishop. Rebecca Nurse was a pious, respected woman whose specter, according to Ann Putnam, Jr. and Abagail Williams, attacked them in mid March of 1692 (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF NURSE). Ann Putnam, Sr. added her complaint that Nurse demanded that she sign the Devil's book, then pinched her. Nurse was one of three Towne sisters , all identified as witches, who were members of a Topsfield family that had a long-standing quarrel with the Putnam family. Apart from the evidence of Putnam family members, the major piece of evidence against Nurse appeared to be testimony indicating that soon after Nurse lectured Benjamin Houlton for allowing his pig to root in her garden, Houlton died. The Nurse jury returned a verdict of not guilty, much to the displeasure of Chief Justice Stoughton, who told the jury to go back and consider again a statement of Nurse's that might be considered an admission of guilt (but more likely an indication of confusion about the question, as Nurse was old and nearly deaf). The jury reconvened, this time coming back with a verdict of guilty(LINK TO NURSE TRIAL). On July 19, 1692, Nurse rode with four other convicted witches to Gallows Hill.

Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life. John Proctor, a central figure in Arthur Miller's fictionalized account of the Salem witchhunt, The Crucible, was an opinionated tavern owner who openly denounced the witchhunt. Testifying against Proctor were Ann Putnam, Abagail Williams, Indian John (a slave of Samuel Parris who worked in a competing tavern), and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth, who testified that ghosts had come to her and accused Proctor of serial murder. Proctor fought back, accusing confessed witches of lying, complaining of torture, and demanding that his trial be moved to Boston. The efforts proved futile. Proctor was hanged. His wife Elizabeth, who was also convicted of witchcraft, was spared execution because of her pregnancy (reprieved "for the belly").

No execution caused more unease in Salem than that of the village's ex-minister, George Burroughs. Burroughs, who was living in Maine in 1692, was identified by several of his accusers as the ringleader of the witches. Ann Putnam claimed that Burroughs bewitched soldiers during a failed military campaign against Wabanakis in 1688-89, the first of a string of military disasters that could be blamed on an Indian-Devil alliance. In her interesting book, In the Devil's Snare, historian Mary Beth Norton argues that the large number of accusations against Burroughs, and his linkage to the frontier war, is the key to understanding the Salem trials. Norton contends that the enthusiasm of the Salem court in prosecuting the witchcraft cases owed in no small measure to the judges' desire to shift the "blame for their own inadequate defense of the frontier." Many of the judges, Norton points out, played lead roles in a war effort that had been markedly unsuccessful.

Among the thirty accusers of Burroughs was nineteen-year-old Mercy Lewis, a refugee of the frontier wars. Lewis, the most imaginative and forceful of the young accusers, offered unusually vivid testimony against Burroughs. Lewis told the court that Burroughs flew her to the top of a mountain and, pointing toward the surrounding land, promised her all the kingdoms if only she would sign in his book (a story very similar to that found in Matthew 4:8). Lewis said, "I would not writ if he had throwed me down on one hundred pitchforks." At an execution, a defendant in the Puritan colonies was expected to confess, and thus to save his soul. When Burroughs on Gallows Hill continued to insist on his innocence and then recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something witches were thought incapable of doing), the crowd reportedly was "greatly moved." The agitation of the crowd caused Cotton Mather to intervene and remind the crowd that Burroughs had had his day in court and lost.

One victim of the Salem witchhunt was not hanged, but rather pressed under heavy stones until his death. Such was the fate of octogenarian Giles Corey who, after spending five months in chains in a Salem jail with his also accused wife, had nothing but contempt for the proceedings. Seeing the futility of a trial and hoping that by avoiding a conviction his farm, that would otherwise go the state, might go to his two sons-in-law, Corey refused to stand for trial. The penalty for such a refusal was peine et fort, or pressing. Three days after Corey's death, on September 22, 1692, eight more convicted witches, including Giles' wife Martha, were hanged. They were the last victims of the witchhunt.

By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips. The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches.

By the time the witchhunt ended, nineteen convicted witches were executed (LINK TO LIST OF DEAD), at least four accused witches had died in prison, and one man, Giles Corey, had been pressed to death. About one to two hundred other persons were arrested and imprisoned on witchcraft charges. Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches.

Scholars have noted potentially telling differences between the accused and the accusers in Salem. Most of the accused lived to the south of, and were generally better off financially, than most of the accusers. In a number of cases, accusing families stood to gain property from the convictions of accused witches. Also, the accused and the accusers generally took opposite sides in a congregational schism that had split the Salem community before the outbreak of hysteria. While many of the accused witches supported former minister George Burroughs, the families that included the accusers had--for the most part--played leading roles in forcing Burroughs to leave Salem. The conclusion that many scholars draw from these patterns is that property disputes and congregational feuds played a major role in determining who lived, and who died, in 1692.

A period of atonement began in the colony following the release of the surviving accused witches. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were "sadly deluded and mistaken" in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stoughton. Stoughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself. He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to "clear the land" of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.

The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice.

Marylin Monroe

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:40 EDT

Wicca Poems

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:36 EDT

Elements
To take from the Earth..
is to nourish thy self and others.

To feel the Wind..
is to be free and enjoy all life.

To light a Flame..
is to find your way in the dark.

To dance in the Rain..
is to bathe in the tears she can no longer hold back.

To know the Spirit..
is to take in all Elements and live life in harmony.

Do you know the Spirit?

..........

Full Moon Invocation

Mother, Goddess of moon and star,
Bring your presence from afar,
Manifest on this, Your night,
and bless me in this sacred rite!
Grant the knowledge and clarity,
to understand Your words to me.
Lend Your power, send Your light,
Aid me in my work tonight!
With love and wisdom please embrace,
All within this sacred space.
Mother, I now call to you,
Bring Your message clear and true!

................................
Pagan Playground

I leave my cares and world behind
And drift away with a wandering mind
To a place where dreams come true
Where the grass is green and the sky is blue

Then a gentle breeze brushes my face
As I wander through this gentle place
Where birds and bees sing in the trees
And the grass bends with a gentle breeze

A song is sung but in natures way
One that is heard when children play
One that is carried forth for all to hear
But heard by those who know no fear

It plays both in day and also at night
You don't use your ears or need a light
Close your eyes for it is all around
Open your heart and it will be found

Once it is heard it won't just go away
It won't leave you alone not for a day
Its source can't be found but still you will look
Beneath every rock and the babbling brook

Try as you might and look where you can
And when you are finished go look again
For this magickal sound and wondrous place
Is often hidden right in front of our face

But though it is so simple often it's missed
And I have heard people say it doesn't exist
Still there are others who smile and know
Of the song that is sung and where they should go

They know this world is created with only a thought
Not with something borrowed or something bought
So in their mind's eye they create it with will
What wonders await us just over the hill

.............
Witches' Chant

Darksome night and shining Moon,
Hearken to the Witches' rune,
East then South, West then North,
Here come I to call Thee forth.

By all the powers of land and sea,
Be obedient unto me.
Wand and Pentacle and Sword,
Hearken ye unto my word.

..............................
Witch's Charge

Hear now the words of the witches,
The secrets we hid in the night,
When dark was our destiny's pathway,
That now we bring forth into the light.

Mysterious Water and Fire,
The Earth and the far-reaching Air,
By hidden quintessence we know them,
And will keep silent and dare.
The birth and rebirth of all nature,
The passing of winter and spring,
We share with the life universal,
Rejoice in the magcial ring.

Four times in the year the Great Sabbat
Returns, and the witches are seen
At Lammas and Candlemas dancing,
On May Eve and old Hallowe'en.
And when day time and night time are equal,
When sun is at greatest and least,
The four lesser Sabbats are summoned,
Again witches gather in feast.

Thirteen silver moons in a year are,
Thirteen is the coven's array.
Thirteen times at Esbat make merry,
For each golden year and a day.

The power was passed down the ages,
Each time between woman and man,
Each century unto the other,
Ere time and ages began.
When drawn is the magical circle,
By sword or athame of power,
It's compass between the two worlds lies
In the land of shades that hour.
This world has no right to know it,
And the world beyond will tell naught.
The oldest of gods are invoked there,
The Great Work of Magic is wrought.

For two are the mystical pillars,
That stand at the gate of the shrine,
And two are the power of nature,
The forms and the forces of the divine.
The dark and the light in succession,
The opposites each unto each,
Shown forth as a God and a Goddess:
This did our ancestors teach.

By night he's the wild wind's rider,
The Horned One, the Lord of the Shades.
By day he's the King of the Woodland,
The dweller in green forest glades.

The bright silver lady of midnight,
The crone who weaves spells in the dark.
She is youthful or old as she pleases,
She sails the torn clouds in her barque,

The master and mistress of magic,
They dwell in the deeps of the mind,
Immortal and ever renewing,
With power to free or to bind.

So drink the good wine to the Old Gods,
And dance and make love in their praise,
Till the Summerland shall receive us
In peace at the end of our days.
And Do What Thou Wilt
Shall be the challenge,
So be it in love that harms none,
For this is the only commandment,
By magic of old, be it done!

Eight words the Witches Creed fulfull:
It if Harms None, Do What Thou Will!

Cords and Censer, Scourge and Knife,
Waken all ye into life.
Powers of the Witches' Blade,
Come ye as the charge is made.

Queen of Heaven, Queen of Hell,
Send your aid unto the spell.
Horned Humter of the night,
Work my will by magick rite.

By all the powers of land and sea,
As I do say, "So mote it be."
By all the might of Moon and Sun,
As I do will, it shall be done.

Vampires

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:35 EDT

VAMPIRES IN MYTH AND HISTORY

Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern European myths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.

On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppy seeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seeds rather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film.

Even among the Eastern European countries there is a large variety of vampires.

SLAVIC VAMPIRES:

The Slavic people including most east Europeans from Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia to Poland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the world. The Slavs came from north of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Prior to 8th century AD they migrated north and west to where they are now.

Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new homelands. But through the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Church were struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD, with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbians staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs, and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the development of vampire lore - the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were saints, while the Orthodox church believed they were vampires.

The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th C as a result of conflict between pre-Christian paganism and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore.

Causes of vampirism included: being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived on certain days, irregular death, excommunication, improper burial rituals etc. Preventative measures included: placing a crucifix in the coffin, or blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, placing millet or poppy seeds in the grave because vampires had a fascination with counting, or piercing the body with thorns or stakes.

Evidence that a vampire was at work in the neighbourhood included: death of cattle, sheep, relatives, neighbours, exhumed bodies being in a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hair, or if the body was swelled up like a drum, or there was blood on the mouth and if the corpse had a ruddy complexion.

Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, holy water on the grave, exorcism.

ROMANIA:

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

There are different types of strigoi: strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours.

A person born with a caul, tail, born out of wedlock, or one who died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire. As was the seventh child of the same sex in a family, the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt or was looked at by a vampire, or a witch. And naturally, being bitten by vampire, meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death.

The Vircolac which is sometimes mentioned in folklore was more closely related to a mythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon and later became connected with werewolves rather than vampires. The person afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into a dog, pig, or wolf.

The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threw things around in the house. Vampires, along with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St George's Day (April 22 Julian, May 4 Gregorian calendar), the night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St Georges Day is still celebrated in Europe.

A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found by distributing garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it.

Graves were often opened three years after death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism.

Measures to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, removing the caul from a newborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle, especially on St George's & St Andrew's days.

To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the 19th century people were shooting a bullet through the coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.

GYPSIES AND VAMPIRES:

Even today, Gypsies frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" in which the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him.

In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romany language.

By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431.

Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. The Gypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands.

The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found the brahmaparusha, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood.

The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.

Sara or the Black Goddess is the form in which Kali survived among Gypsies. Gypsies have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptised a Gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24th in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred.

One Gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire was believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)

Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had animal appendages, etc. was believed to be a vampire.

Even plants or dogs, cats, or farm animals could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood.

To get rid of a vampire people would hire a dhampire (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it.

In spite of the disruption of Gypsy lives by the various eastern European communist regimes, they still retain much of their culture. In 1992 a new king of the Gypsies was chosen in Bistritz, Romania.

BATS:

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the vampire, but this was not always the case.

Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought them lucky - they wore charms made of bat bones. And in England the Wakefield crest and those of some others have bats on them.

So how did bats end up becoming associated with vampires? There are only three species of vampires bats in the entire world, all of which occur in Central and South America. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. It wasn't long before they began to associate bats with their vampire legends. Over the following centuries the association became stronger and was used by various people, including James Malcom Rhymer who wrote "Varney the Vampyre" in the 1840's. Stoker cemented the linkage of bats and vampires in the minds of the general public.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VAMPIRE CONTROVERSY:

Today everyone is familiar with vampires, but in Britain very little was known of vampires prior to the 18th century. What brought the vampire to the attention of the general public? During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires.

This controversy was directly responsible for England's current vampire myths. In fact, the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 via an English translation of a German report of the much publicized Arnold Paole vampire staking in Serbia.

Western scholars seriously considered the existence of vampires for the first time rather than just brushing them off as superstition. It all started with an outbreak of vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1725-1734.

Two famous cases involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the other famous case Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had been attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After death people began to die and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours.

These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural people having an epidemic of vampire attacks and digging up bodies all over the place. Many scholars said vampires didn't exist - they attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst.

However, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746 which said vampires did exist. This had considerable influence on other scholars at the time.

Eventually, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa sent her personal physician to investigate. He said vampires didn't exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. But by then everyone knew about vampires and it was only a matter of time before authors would preserve and mould the vampire into something new and much more accessible to the general public.

Edgar Allan Poe - Poems

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:33 EDT

A Dream
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?

Chaos Theory: A Brief Introduction

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:30 EDT

What exactly is chaos? The name "chaos theory" comes from the fact that the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.

When was chaos first discovered? The first true experimenter in chaos was a meteorologist, named Edward Lorenz. In 1960, he was working on the problem of weather prediction. He had a computer set up, with a set of twelve equations to model the weather. It didn't predict the weather itself. However this computer program did theoretically predict what the weather might be.

One day in 1961, he wanted to see a particular sequence again. To save time, he started in the middle of the sequence, instead of the beginning. He entered the number off his printout and left to let it run.

When he came back an hour later, the sequence had evolved differently. Instead of the same pattern as before, it diverged from the pattern, ending up wildly different from the original. (See figure 1.) Eventually he figured out what happened. The computer stored the numbers to six decimal places in its memory. To save paper, he only had it print out three decimal places. In the original sequence, the number was .506127, and he had only typed the first three digits, .506.

By all conventional ideas of the time, it should have worked. He should have gotten a sequence very close to the original sequence. A scientist considers himself lucky if he can get measurements with accuracy to three decimal places. Surely the fourth and fifth, impossible to measure using reasonable methods, can't have a huge effect on the outcome of the experiment. Lorenz proved this idea wrong.

This effect came to be known as the butterfly effect. The amount of difference in the starting points of the two curves is so small that it is comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings.

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)

This phenomenon, common to chaos theory, is also known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Just a small change in the initial conditions can drastically change the long-term behavior of a system. Such a small amount of difference in a measurement might be considered experimental noise, background noise, or an inaccuracy of the equipment. Such things are impossible to avoid in even the most isolated lab. With a starting number of 2, the final result can be entirely different from the same system with a starting value of 2.000001. It is simply impossible to achieve this level of accuracy - just try and measure something to the nearest millionth of an inch!

From this idea, Lorenz stated that it is impossible to predict the weather accurately. However, this discovery led Lorenz on to other aspects of what eventually came to be known as chaos theory.

Lorenz started to look for a simpler system that had sensitive dependence on initial conditions. His first discovery had twelve equations, and he wanted a much more simple version that still had this attribute. He took the equations for convection, and stripped them down, making them unrealistically simple. The system no longer had anything to do with convection, but it did have sensitive dependence on its initial conditions, and there were only three equations this time. Later, it was discovered that his equations precisely described a water wheel.

At the top, water drips steadily into containers hanging on the wheel's rim. Each container drips steadily from a small hole. If the stream of water is slow, the top containers never fill fast enough to overcome friction, but if the stream is faster, the weight starts to turn the wheel. The rotation might become continuous. Or if the stream is so fast that the heavy containers swing all the way around the bottom and up the other side, the wheel might then slow, stop, and reverse its rotation, turning first one way and then the other. (James Gleick, Chaos - Making a New Science, pg. 29)

The equations for this system also seemed to give rise to entirely random behavior. However, when he graphed it, a surprising thing happened. The output always stayed on a curve, a double spiral. There were only two kinds of order previously known: a steady state, in which the variables never change, and periodic behavior, in which the system goes into a loop, repeating itself indefinitely. Lorenz's equations were definitely ordered - they always followed a spiral. They never settled down to a single point, but since they never repeated the same thing, they weren't periodic either. He called the image he got when he graphed the equations the Lorenz attractor. (See figure 2)

In 1963, Lorenz published a paper describing what he had discovered. He included the unpredictability of the weather, and discussed the types of equations that caused this type of behavior. Unfortunately, the only journal he was able to publish in was a meteorological journal, because he was a meteorologist, not a mathematician or a physicist. As a result, Lorenz's discoveries weren't acknowledged until years later, when they were rediscovered by others. Lorenz had discovered something revolutionary; now he had to wait for someone to discover him.

Another system in which sensitive dependence on initial conditions is evident is the flip of a coin. There are two variables in a flipping coin: how soon it hits the ground, and how fast it is flipping. Theoretically, it should be possible to control these variables entirely and control how the coin will end up. In practice, it is impossible to control exactly how fast the coin flips and how high it flips. It is possible to put the variables into a certain range, but it is impossible to control it enough to know the final results of the coin toss.

A similar problem occurs in ecology, and the prediction of biological populations. The equation would be simple if population just rises indefinitely, but the effect of predators and a limited food supply make this equation incorrect. The simplest equation that takes this into account is the following:

next year's population = r * this year's population * (1 - this year's population)

In this equation, the population is a number between 0 and 1, where 1 represents the maximum possible population and 0 represents extinction. R is the growth rate. The question was, how does this parameter affect the equation? The obvious answer is that a high growth rate means that the population will settle down at a high population, while a low growth rate means that the population will settle down to a low number. This trend is true for some growth rates, but not for every one.

One biologist, Robert May, decided to see what would happen to the equation as the growth rate value changes. At low values of the growth rate, the population would settle down to a single number. For instance, if the growth rate value is 2.7, the population will settle down to .6292. As the growth rate increased, the final population would increase as well. Then, something weird happened. As soon as the growth rate passed 3, the line broke in two. Instead of settling down to a single population, it would jump between two different populations. It would be one value for one year, go to another value the next year, then repeat the cycle forever. Raising the growth rate a little more caused it to jump between four different values. As the parameter rose further, the line bifurcated (doubled) again. The bifurcations came faster and faster until suddenly, chaos appeared. Past a certain growth rate, it becomes impossible to predict the behavior of the equation. However, upon closer inspection, it is possible to see white strips. Looking closer at these strips reveals little windows of order, where the equation goes through the bifurcations again before returning to chaos. This self-similarity, the fact that the graph has an exact copy of itself hidden deep inside, came to be an important aspect of chaos.

An employee of IBM, Benoit Mandelbrot was a mathematician studying this self-similarity. One of the areas he was studying was cotton price fluctuations. No matter how the data on cotton prices was analyzed, the results did not fit the normal distribution. Mandelbrot eventually obtained all of the available data on cotton prices, dating back to 1900. When he analyzed the data with IBM's computers, he noticed an astonishing fact:

The numbers that produced aberrations from the point of view of normal distribution produced symmetry from the point of view of scaling. Each particular price change was random and unpredictable. But the sequence of changes was independent on scale: curves for daily price changes and monthly price changes matched perfectly. Incredibly, analyzed Mandelbrot's way, the degree of variation had remained constant over a tumultuous sixty-year period that saw two World Wars and a depression. (James Gleick, Chaos - Making a New Science, pg. 86)

Mandelbrot analyzed not only cotton prices, but many other phenomena as well. At one point, he was wondering about the length of a coastline. A map of a coastline will show many bays. However, measuring the length of a coastline off a map will miss minor bays that were too small to show on the map. Likewise, walking along the coastline misses microscopic bays in between grains of sand. No matter how much a coastline is magnified, there will be more bays visible if it is magnified more.

One mathematician, Helge von Koch, captured this idea in a mathematical construction called the Koch curve. To create a Koch curve, imagine an equilateral triangle. To the middle third of each side, add another equilateral triangle. Keep on adding new triangles to the middle part of each side, and the result is a Koch curve. (See figure 4) A magnification of the Koch curve looks exactly the same as the original. It is another self-similar figure.

The Koch curve brings up an interesting paradox. Each time new triangles are added to the figure, the length of the line gets longer. However, the inner area of the Koch curve remains less than the area of a circle drawn around the original triangle. Essentially, it is a line of infinite length surrounding a finite area.

To get around this difficulty, mathematicians invented fractal dimensions. Fractal comes from the word fractional. The fractal dimension of the Koch curve is somewhere around 1.26. A fractional dimension is impossible to conceive, but it does make sense. The Koch curve is rougher than a smooth curve or line, which has one dimension. Since it is rougher and more crinkly, it is better at taking up space. However, it's not as good at filling up space as a square with two dimensions is, since it doesn't really have any area. So it makes sense that the dimension of the Koch curve is somewhere in between the two.

Fractal has come to mean any image that displays the attribute of self-similarity. The bifurcation diagram of the population equation is fractal. The Lorenz Attractor is fractal. The Koch curve is fractal.

During this time, scientists found it very difficult to get work published about chaos. Since they had not yet shown the relevance to real-world situations, most scientists did not think the results of experiments in chaos were important. As a result, even though chaos is a mathematical phenomenon, most of the research into chaos was done by people in other areas, such as meteorology and ecology. The field of chaos sprouted up as a hobby for scientists working on problems that maybe had something to do with it.

Later, a scientist by the name of Feigenbaum was looking at the bifurcation diagram again. He was looking at how fast the bifurcations come. He discovered that they come at a constant rate. He calculated it as 4.669. In other words, he discovered the exact scale at which it was self-similar. Make the diagram 4.669 times smaller, and it looks like the next region of bifurcations. He decided to look at other equations to see if it was possible to determine a scaling factor for them as well. Much to his surprise, the scaling factor was exactly the same. Not only was this complicated equation displaying regularity, the regularity was exactly the same as a much simpler equation. He tried many other functions, and they all produced the same scaling factor, 4.669.

This was a revolutionary discovery. He had found that a whole class of mathematical functions behaved in the same, predictable way. This universality would help other scientists easily analyze chaotic equations. Universality gave scientists the first tools to analyze a chaotic system. Now they could use a simple equation to predict the outcome of a more complex equation.

Many scientists were exploring equations that created fractal equations. The most famous fractal image is also one of the most simple. It is known as the Mandelbrot set. The equation is simple: z=z²+c. To see if a point is part of the Mandelbrot set, just take a complex number z. Square it, then add the original number. Square the result, then add the original number. Repeat that ad infinitum, and if the number keeps on going up to infinity, it is not part of the Mandelbrot set. If it stays down below a certain level, it is part of the Mandelbrot set. The Mandelbrot set is the innermost section of the picture, and each different shade of gray represents how far out that particular point is. One interesting feature of the Mandelbrot set is that the circular humps match up to the bifurcation graph. The Mandelbrot fractal has the same self-similarity seen in the other equations. In fact, zooming in deep enough on a Mandelbrot fractal will eventually reveal an exact replica of the Mandelbrot set, perfect in every detail.

Fractal structures have been noticed in many real-world areas, as well as in mathematician's minds. Blood vessels branching out further and further, the branches of a tree, the internal structure of the lungs, graphs of stock market data, and many other real-world systems all have something in common: they are all self-similar.

Scientists at UC Santa Cruz found chaos in a dripping water faucet. By recording a dripping faucet and recording the periods of time, they discovered that at a certain flow velocity, the dripping no longer occurred at even times. When they graphed the data, they found that the dripping did indeed follow a pattern.

The human heart also has a chaotic pattern. The time between beats does not remain constant; it depends on how much activity a person is doing, among other things. Under certain conditions, the heartbeat can speed up. Under different conditions, the heart beats erratically. It might even be called a chaotic heartbeat. The analysis of a heartbeat can help medical researchers find ways to put an abnormal heartbeat back into a steady state, instead of uncontrolled chaos.

Researchers discovered a simple set of three equations that graphed a fern. This started a new idea - perhaps DNA encodes not exactly where the leaves grow, but a formula that controls their distribution. DNA, even though it holds an amazing amount of data, could not hold all of the data necessary to determine where every cell of the human body goes. However, by using fractal formulas to control how the blood vessels branch out and the nerve fibers get created, DNA has more than enough information. It has even been speculated that the brain itself might be organized somehow according to the laws of chaos.

Chaos even has applications outside of science. Computer art has become more realistic through the use of chaos and fractals. Now, with a simple formula, a computer can create a beautiful, and realistic tree. Instead of following a regular pattern, the bark of a tree can be created according to a formula that almost, but not quite, repeats itself.

Music can be created using fractals as well. Using the Lorenz attractor, Diana S. Dabby, a graduate student in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has created variations of musical themes. ("Bach to Chaos: Chaotic Variations on a Classical Theme", Science News, Dec. 24, 1994) By associating the musical notes of a piece of music like Bach's Prelude in C with the x coordinates of the Lorenz attractor, and running a computer program, she has created variations of the theme of the song. Most musicians who hear the new sounds believe that the variations are very musical and creative.

Chaos has already had a lasting effect on science, yet there is much still left to be discovered. Many scientists believe that twentieth century science will be known for only three theories: relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos. Aspects of chaos show up everywhere around the world, from the currents of the ocean and the flow of blood through fractal blood vessels to the branches of trees and the effects of turbulence. Chaos has inescapably become part of modern science. As chaos changed from a little-known theory to a full science of its own, it has received widespread publicity. Chaos theory has changed the direction of science: in the eyes of the general public, physics is no longer simply the study of subatomic particles in a billion-dollar particle accelerator, but the study of chaotic systems and how they work.

Wicca Poetry

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:02 EDT

Elements
By Marilyn Robinson

To take from the Earth..
is to nourish thy self and others.

To feel the Wind..
is to be free and enjoy all life.

To light a Flame..
is to find your way in the dark.

To dance in the Rain..
is to bathe in the tears she can no longer hold back.

To know the Spirit..
is to take in all Elements and live life in harmony.

Do you know the Spirit?

Salem Map

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:12 EDT

MAP OF SALEM VILLAGE IN 1692