Scientists tend to believe that the elementary structures underlying the world we observe are ultimately simple and beautiful, even (or especially) the structures we have not yet discovered. Still, this basic elegance does not always manifest itself directly — the universe we see is something of a mess.

This pie chart is a rather prosaic representation of a truly impressive accomplishment: an inventory of the relative amounts of the different substances comprising our universe. Yellow is ordinary matter — atoms, molecules, dust, stars, planets, both visible and invisible — or what cosmologists call “baryons” (since most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from the protons and neutrons inside atomic nuclei, and protons and neutrons are classified by particle physicists as baryons). Baryons make up about five percent of the known universe (actually closer to four percent, but let’s not be picky). We know this from a variety of independent measurements, including the results of nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang, measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, and (less precisely) by direct detection. Everything we have ever seen is only one-twentieth of everything there actually is.

This leaves 95% of the universe as stuff which is completely invisible. As depicted, it comes in two components: 25% “dark matter” (in red) and 70% “dark energy” (in blue). The difference between the two is in how they behave: dark matter acts like ordinary particles, in that it collects into dense regions (like galaxies or clusters of galaxies), whereas dark energy is smoothly distributed throughout space and slowly-varying in time. The best candidate for dark energy is the cosmological constant, or “vacuum energy”: the idea that there is a nonzero amount of energy density inherent in the fabric of spacetime itself.

Dark matter and dark energy are not theoretical constructs which were invented by cosmologists because they seemed interesting; observational data have forced us into positing their existence. Even though they are invisible, both dark matter and dark energy give rise to a gravitational field; we can feel their effects. Dark matter contributes to the total gravitational field of galaxies and clusters, which we measure by observing the velocities of nearby particles, or the deflection of light passing by. Dark energy is smoothly distributed, but affects the geometry of spacetime itself: it makes distant galaxies appear to accelerate away from us, and it “flattens” the geometry of space, two effects which have been directly observed. These dark components are exactly the opposite of the “ether” that was popular a century ago: everyone expected ether to exist but nobody could find evidence of it, whereas nobody expected dark matter or dark energy, but we found them despite ourselves.

Although this picture of a mostly-dark universe fits a wide variety of empirical data, at a deeper level it makes no sense to us. In particular, why are the amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy basically similar, when they could easily have been vastly different? This puzzle is especially acute for the dark energy as compared to the total matter (ordinary plus dark), since the matter density is diluted away as the universe expands, while the dark energy density remains close to constant. So the approximate coincidence we observe today between the amount of dark energy and the amount of matter is a short-lived one (cosmologically speaking) — earlier on, the matter was dominating, and before too long (a few billion years) the dark energy will have completely taken over. The history of cosmology teaches us again and again that we do not live in a special place in the universe, but this state of affairs seems to be indicating that we live in a special time. (Personally I think it’s probably just a coincidence, but there very well could be something more profound going on.)

For more discussion, see my Cosmology Primer, or my article “Dark Energy and the Preposterous Universe” (html, astro-ph/0107571), or slides from my related talk, or other discussions on my reviews page.

(preposterousuniverse.com)

Witness for the Defence or for the Prosecution?

by Robert H. van Gent[1]

Introduction

From times immemorial, astrology has been a determining factor in the decisions and actions of men of all ranks and stations. At the begin of the 17th century, great scientists as Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Pierre Gassendi – now best remembered for their roles in the development of modern physics and astronomy – all held astrology in high esteem.

However, at the end of the 17th century, the scientific community had completely turned away from astrology. For some the subject of derision, others preferred to ignore it completely – so, hardly a single word on astrology, either pro or contra, is to be found in the works of scientists as Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)[2] or Isaac Newton (1642-1727).

However, in the case of Newton, the astrological literature presents a different view and even claims that Newton was in secret an ardent student of astrology.[3] As evidence the following anecdote is often quoted: when the astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), of comet fame, once spoke depreciatively on the subject of astrology, Newton is said to have berated him with the remark: “Sir Halley, I have studied the matter, you have not!”

How much value may we store in such a testimony? The first questions that should be answered are: what is the source for this statement and what evidence is there that Newton ever “studied the matter”.

Portrait of Isaac Newton painted in 1689 by Sir Godfrey Kneller (Farleigh House, Farleigh Wallop, Hampshire)

The Evidence from Newton’s Writings

During the past few decades, an enormous amount of studies have been published on Newton, reaching a high-water mark during the tercentenary of the publication of Newton’s Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica(1687). Many of his hitherto unpublished papers, notably those from the so-called ‘Portsmouth Collection’, have been edited and commented on.

However, none of these studies have turned up one shred of evidence that Newton ever conducted any research on astrology.[4] One of the foremost Newton scholars, the English historian of science Derek Thomas Whiteside has stated that he never found any reference to astrology among the 50 million words which have been preserved from Newton’s hand.[5]

Moreover, the claim that the Bodleian Library at Oxford possesses a rare treatise on astrology written by Newton has also proven to be completely unfounded.[6]

Newton’s Library

Corroborative evidence on how minimal Newton’s interests on astrology really were can be found by inspecting the inventory of the books from his library that was made up after his death. This inventory has been preserved and in many cases even the books themselves, with Newton’s own comments and annotations, have been traced to various major libraries.[7]

Among the 1752 books with identifiable titles on this list, no less than 477 (27.2%) were on the subject of theology, 169 (9.6%) on alchemy, 126 (7.2%) on mathematics, 52 (3.0%) on physics and only 33 (1.9%) on astronomy. Surprisingly, Newton’s books on the disciplines on which his scientific fame rests amount to no more than 12% of his library.

At his death, Newton’s library possessed no more than four books on the subject of astrology: a work by the German astrologer Johann Essler from Mainz (end 15th/begin 16th century),[8] a treatise on palmistry and astrology by the English doctor/astrologer Richard Saunders (1613-1675),[9] an almanac from the same using the pseudonym Cardanus Rider[10] and finally a work debunking astrology by the philosopher-poet and Cambridge professor Henry More (1614-1687).[11]

Newton’s Initiation into Science

Ironically, Saunder’s book on palmistry and astrology may even have been the incentive to Newton’s scientific career. On August 31, 1726, shortly before his death, Newton was interviewed by his nephew John Conduitt (1688-1737), who was collecting biographical material on his illustrious uncle.

During this interview, Newton confided to Conduitt that his interest in science had first been roused in the summer of 1663, when, as a young student at Cambridge, he purchased a book on astrology[12] at the midsummer fair at Stourbridge. Baffled by the incomprehensible astrological diagrams and calculations in this work he then studied some books on geometry and calculus (such as by Euclid, Frans van Schooten and René Descartes) and was “soon convinced of the vanity & emptiness of the pretended science of Judicial astrology”.[13]

Conduitt’s notes are also corroborated by another memorandum that was drawn up shortly after Newton’s death by his friend Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754) and which was also consulted by Conduitt.[14] Although the Newton biographer Louis Trenchard More[15]expressed his reservations against the trustworthiness of an anecdote recorded more than 60 years after the event, it is cited as completely reliable in the more authoritative Newton biographies by David Brewster[16] and Richard Samuel Westfall.[17]

Portrait of Edmond Halley painted around 1687 by Thomas Murray (Royal Society, London)

Newton’s Secret Investigations

The studies into Newton’s unpublished papers mentioned above have revealed that during the greater part of his scientific career, his secret passions in fact lay in alchemy[18] and matters of theology (such as the nature of the Holy Trinity, the dimensions of Solomon’s Temple, biblical prophecies and biblical chronology).[19]

It will therefore not come as a surprise that the true source for our anecdote in fact derives from Newton’s latter interests. More than 50 years ago the American historian of science I. Bernard Cohen[20] was able to trace it back to the highly regarded Newton biographies by the English physicist David Brewster (1781-1868) in which it is cited in full as:[21]

‘… when Dr. Halley ventured to say anything disrespectful to religion, he invariably checked him, with the remark, “I have studied these things – you have not”.’[22]

The fact that Halley and Newton often quarreled on theological matters is confirmed by another remark recorded by John Conduitt, who in turn heard it from his wife (and Newton’s niece) Catherine Conduitt (née Barton; 1679-1739).[23] However, these altercations were never so intense as to cause a rift between these two great scientists.

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/

After listening to and posting “Freedom / (Sometimes I Feel Like a) Motherless Child” by Richie Havens (see below) – whose voice has been described, by eminent New Orleanian Mike Poché, as “walnuts covered with honey” – I was reminded of this song: 

…which which opens Havens’s debut album, Mixed Bag.

I remember listening to this album when it first came out, and having the sensation that I was hearing something from some other world – or almost – a place of high imagination, of total originality.   This was particularly true of “High Flyin’ Bird”: driving percussive rhythm guitar the likes of which you generally hear only in Flamenco; a loping-rocking bass line conterpointing and grounding that rhythm; tasty Jazz guitar riffs acting as fills; drums (starting about halfway through) seeming to partake equally of the Reservation, West Africa and a New Orleans second line; all overarched, almost  dominated, by a voice that sounded like it was coming  out of some person, some being, who seemed about a thousand years old –

And all pretty hard to classify too, of course: Folk-Jazz fusion?  Americana Jazz avant la lettre?  Well, this album, released in 1966, charted in both the Jazz (1967) and Pop (1968) categories.

* Personnel:

Richie Havens: rhythm guitar and vocals;

Harvey Brooks: bass;

Howard Collins: guitar;

Bill LaVorgna: drums/percussion.

*History:

“High Flyin’ Bird” was written by Billy Edd Wheeler and first recorded by Judy Henske.  It quickly became something of a folk standard, and was later covered by a good many other artists during the late Sixties, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Au Go Go Singers, Carolyn Hester,  the New Christie Minstrels, H. P. Lovecraft, Isaac Guillory, and Neil Young & Crazy Horse .  Wheeler even recorded his own version in 1967. 

*Lyrics:

There’s a high flyin’ bird, flying way up in the sky
And I wonder if she looks down, as she goes on by?
Well, [While?] she’s flying so freely in the sky

Lord, look at me here
I’m rooted like a tree here
Got those sit-down can’t cry
Oh Lord, gonna die blues

Now the sun it comes up and lights up the day
And when he gets tired, Lord, he goes on down his way
To the east and to the west he meets God every day

Lord, look at me here
I’m rooted like a tree here
Got those sit-down, can’t cry
Oh Lord, gonna die blues

Now I had a woman
Lord, she lived down by the mine
She ain’t never seen the sun
Oh Lord, never stopped crying

Then one day my woman up and died
Lord, she up and died now
Oh Lord, she up and died now
She wanted to die [fly?] and the only way to fly is die, die, die

Well there’s a high flyin’ bird, flying way up in the sky
And I wonder if she looks down as she goes on by?
Well [While?], she’s flying so freely in the sky, hey

Lord, look at me here
I’m rooted like a tree here
Got those sit-down, can’t cry
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues

Got those sit-down, can’t cry
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues, hey hey

*Remarks:

According to Wikipedia, Critic Richie Unterberger described the song as having “…an arresting minor-key melody and brooding lyrics contrasting the freedom of a bird to the singer’s earthbound misery.” 

I’d add that the same contrast is also embodied in the musical texture itself.  The rhythm guitar, bass, and the drums (once they join in) seem almost solid – indeed an excellent expression of the phrase “rooted like a tree” – but at the same time agitated, angry even – as befits someone who’s just suffered a great loss.  Contrasting with that are the soaring windhovering voice and those subtle float-fluttering Jazz guitar fills – expressions, in their turn, of different aspects of birdness, of flight, and of an ultimately wished-for liberation.

Of course, there’s more, as there always is, but just one final thought for the moment: “Those sit-down, can’t cry / Oh Lord, gonna die blues”: as a description of a state of deep grief and loss, one could do worse…

By Charles Desmarais June 22, 2018 (SFChronicle.com)

Heiros Gamos, the divine marriage, is the hidden mystical doctrine of God is Eros.

Your Unique Gender will directly affect your sexuality. Attraction is no longer aroused only between male and female or even between masculine and feminine. Attraction is between Unique Genders—that is, between Unique Selves. And that opens up entirely new worlds.

Prostitution is sex without a story. The classic expression of the de-storying of intimacy is the archetypal refusal of the prostitute to kiss. The kiss is the time when all distinctions between subject and object melt. She refuses because it is too difficult to depersonalize a kiss. She has sold her body, but she is trying to protect her soul. He may enter her physical space, but he is denied entry into her story, which is her spirit.

Emily Dickinson: “A home is a holy thing / nothing of doubt and distrust / can enter its portals.”

Mary Mackey in “The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position No. 2” says:

love comes from years
of breathing
skin to skin

tangled in each other’s dreams
until each night
weaves another thread

in the same web
of blood and sleep

Our English word fantasy derives from the Greek word phantasia, which derived from a verb that meant “to make visible, to reveal.”

The most important thing in the world, implies wisdom master Nachman of Bratslav, is to be willing to give up who you are for who you might become.

Our fear of imagination is our fear of our own greatness.

Imagination is the very essence of who we are. We generally regard ourselves as thinking animals, Homo sapiens. Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” is hardwired into our cultural genes. The closest Hebrew word to “human,” or the latin homo, is adam. The word adam derives from the Hebrew root meaning “imagination. The stunning implication is that the human being is not primarily Home sapiens but what we will call Homo imaginus.

Man is described as being created in the divine image. “Divine image” does not mean a fixed and idolatrous copy of divinity. God has no fixed form, Instead, God is the possibility of possibility.

And man is made in that image.

Love and Eros skills are modeled by the sexual. Sex is our teacher.

There is a deeper form of sexual arousal that is provoked not by the perception of physical beauty but by the perception of love. This is somewhat more common in women than men but relatively rare in both. Imagine how the world would change if men were aroused to sex by the perception of love. The entire structure of reality and relationships—and with that, political, power and everything else—would radically change. It would be a world moved by Eros rather than pseudo Eros.

There is a wonderful pre-marriage ceremony in biblical myth called tenaim. It represents the mystical merging of the two souls that occurs even before the wedding. It is a spiritual prenuptial agreement in which we read a bill of mutual commitment where both sides commit “not to run away and not to disappear.” It seems redundant—if you do not run away, then, of course, you will not disappear! That is unless you remain physically present yet are not available. Or worse, if you cause your partner to disappear. You do everything you are supposed to do –in the kitchen, in the bedroom, and in the family room—but your partner has long since disappeared from your consciousness.

Martha Beck said in her book Expecting Adam: “Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.”

Kabbalists say: On their wedding day, the bride and groom reveal God by revealing the Divine in each other. The bride sees something in the groom—a glimpse of his infinite specialness, his divinity—that no one has previously been privileged to witness. And the groom likewise perceives something in the infinite specialness of his bride, something that no one—not her parents, not her best friends—have been able to grasp fully. We stand moved, humbled, and quietly ecstatic as we witness the revelation of divinity, of the God who walks among us. All lovers are revealers of the Divine in each other. They are God seeing God.

And “All love is the love of God,” wrote Menahem Recanati, a Renaissance mystic. Love is to perceive another person unmasked, in the pristine beauty of his spiritual and emotion nakedness. Love is the pleasure produced by such a perception, when our loving awareness strips the beloved of all outer coatings until she stands fully revealed before the perceiving mind.

D.H. Lawrence: “What’s the good of man unless there’s a glimpse of a God in him? And what’s the good of woman unless she’s a glimpse of a Goddess of some sort?”

The goal is to achieve erotic union with Being precisely in the same way sexual love achieves erotic union with the beloved. The highest perception of loving is the realization that you are part of God.

Co-Author Marc Gafni tells a story of kids at a summer camp:

Out of nowhere, I asked them, “When was the last time someone told you that you were beautiful?” Silence. “We need a first volunteer,” I said pushing them. So one brave nine-year-old gets up and, with a flutter of hesitation, says, “My mother told me on Saturday that I was the ugliest little girl she knew.” Silence. This time the quiet was worlds sadder but somehow more real. Then a little boy, looking not more than ten, raised his hand and said, “My mother was in the Holocaust. And she says that if she had known that I would be her son, she wouldn’t have worked so hard to survive.”

And then the stories came tumbling out. Of parents, so many parents, who weren’t lovers, who didn’t know how beautiful their children were. Stories of so many parents who broke the commandment to love. My heart broke.

To remind another of her full beauty, you have to be fully aware of your own. The Master of the Good Name has a wonderful teaching on the biblical mandate to “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” He points out that the mandate is actually, a statement of fact: you love your neighbor precisely as much as you love yourself.

Narcissism is to be in love with your external self, your mask. This is not a good idea because sooner or later masks fall off, and then you are left loveless. Self-love is to love your internal self, your Holy of Holies.

When someone looks at us with erotic, loving eyes, we feel energized, uplifted and embraced. We become more vibrant, audacious, and alive. We feel safer in the world. The sense of alienation, separateness, and loneliness of our empty days and painful nights seems to lift.

To love is to become God’s verb. To love is to see with God’s eyes.

Persian poet Hafiz in “The Sun Never Says:”

Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the earth,
“You Owe
Me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

Paradoxically, it is in the sexual that the glimmerings of sainthood first appear. It is through the consistent commitment to the growth of the other—expressed through regular and spontaneous acts of giving—that you become a lover.

Talmudic sages: “In a place where there is nobody, try to be somebody.”

We need a politics of love! This is possible because the underlying reality of the universe is relationship and interdependence, not loneliness and alienation.

We need a gross national product not based solely in economic terms. In such a scenario, a company that was highly profitable financially but insensitive to human dignity in measurable ways would not be given the same benefits or would be taxed at a higher rate.

Because our social norms need to be changed, frustration with life as we know it is often an indication of sanity and inner balance. It means we have not succumbed to the superficial values touted by our society.

Our deepest desire is to give, to be lovers. We cannot have a delusion of grandiosity, for we are, in fact, grand.

To create a politics of love, of Eros, we don’t need to start a new political party. We just need a small group of people with a shared vision who are willing to stand together. As anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The sexual models the erotic: Giving and Receiving are one. In sex, we transcend the world of win-win, common goals, give-and-take, and getting even. The sexual models a different order of reality, where giving and receiving are indistinguishably one.

Aphra Behn, first Englishwoman to earn her living by her writing in the mid-17^th century:

I saw ’em kindle with Desire,
While with soft Sighs they blew the Fire;
Saw the Approaches of their Joy,
He growing more fierce and she less coy . . .
His panting Breast to hers now joined,
They feast on Raptures unconfined;
Vast and luxuriant! Such as prove
The Immortality of Love.
For, who but a Divinity
Could mingle Souls to that Degree;
And melt them into Ecstasy . . .

The Kabbalists viewed kissing as the highest model of Eros. Of the two modes of communication with the mouth, speech requires a subject/object relationship. Kissing bridges that difference. This is the erotic model of union.

Song of Songs: “Kiss me from the kisses of your mouth, for your love is more wonderful to me than wine.”

The sexual and erotic means giving up control.

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg:

Please master can I touch your cheek
please master can I kneel at your feet . . .
please master can I gently take down your shorts
please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes
please master can I take off your clothes below your chair
please master can I kiss your ankles and soul . .
please master, please look into my eyes,
please master order me down on the floor.

Persian poet Hafiz in poem “Tripping Over Joy”:

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping overJoy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I surrender!”’
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.

Ultimately the refusal to retreat—accept limitation and loss of control—is the source of evil. Only the human ability to step back and give up ownership and domination holds out hope for a good, kind and gentle world. This is what it means to be a lover. (Also what it means to be a Translator or an RHSer.)

Marc Gafni says: Loss of control in a relationship means that it is no longer Adam and Eve, it is Adam and Even. Adam must view Eve as even to himself, or the relationship is doomed.

Letting go of control in our prayers: According to Dr. Larry Dossey, who cites from numerous sources, the prayer that is truly effective is the one in which we ask for healing without specifying a particular outcome.

Slavery in biblical myth is the symbol of non-erotic living. A slave does not make independent decisions. His evaluation of reality, his testimony, is considered inadmissible in a court of law; most critically, he may not initiate his own marriage.

What do we call out at the moment of sexual climax? The common possibilities: the first is that we cry out “Oh, God.” The second is the name of the beloved. The third is that we call out “Yes.” At this moment of ultimate vulnerability, and thus authenticity, there is blurring of names. The name of the other and the name of God become almost interchangeable. The “Yes” is the same “Holy Yes,” which reality cries out at the moment of the original big bang that birthed reality. The “Yes” is the radical affirmation of the unrelenting goodness of life and our place in the universe. The name of God and the name of the beloved are one. Yes!

Our true birth is not our physical appearance at the end of nine months of gestation. Rather it is the person you are on the day you die. There is no greater tragedy than to die without ever having been born. To be a great artist of self, one must access the full erotic energy of the universe. Only this energy allows you to defy inertia and create the infinitely unique being that is you. The person of evolved consciousness is the one who creates her original self and transcends the overwhelmingly powerful urge to be an imitation.

The desire for sexual pleasure tells us in the most direct of terms that the cosmos evolves through delight. Reality evolves because it is pleasurable is a fair summation of the leading edges of both mysticism and contemporary science.

The very process of evolution could be fairly described as the evolution of pleasure.

Shame is when pleasure stops short of infinity.

When you live the erotic life, you realize that pleasure is the source of all ethics. The source of all meaning and ethics is pleasure.

Eros must always lead to ethics.

During loving sexual connection, we realize that the ego walls we have worked so hard to erect and protect are not real. We die to the world of separation and cry out “Oh, God” as we are ushered for a moment into the reality of union.

When we are in love, we are in love with all creation, because lovers perceive, in the bliss of their erotic experience, the essential oneness of all existence.

In Hebrew the word for “neighbor” also means, amazingly, “evil.” Love your evil: that is to say, integrate your shadow, and you will be able to avoid projecting it onto your neighbor. Only then will you be able to love your neighbor.

Unity is outrageous love consciousness—compassionate union with all beings, the highest level of enlightenment.

St. Augustine: “Love God and do what you will.”

Persian poet Hafiz in his poem “A Barroom View of Love”:

Love is grabbing hold of the Great Lions’ mane
And wrestling and rolling deep into Existence
While the Beloved gets rough
And begins to maul you alive.

Or:

True Love, my dear,
Is putting an ironclad grip upon
The soft, swollen balls
Of a Divine Rogue Elephant
And
Not having the good fortune to Die!

“Because you say ‘ow’ instead of ‘ah’–because the sensation appears as a menace instead of a friend—doesn’t mean that it’s not from the same source.”

Geoffrey Chaucer: “It is certain that envy is the worst sin that is: for all others sin against one virtue, whereas envy is against all virtue and all goodness.”