Andrew Silverman | 10-Oct-2014 | 10:45-11:15 am
NATURAL, MANUFACTURED OR ‘MIRACLE’?
Those who postulate that the Shroud image was manufactured have been unable to suggest any manufacturing process which could account for key macroscopic and microscopic features of the image. If it was not manufactured then how did the image form?
There would seem to be two main schools of thought regarding how this could have happened. Some scholars believe that it was an unusual combination of already recognised natural physical processes e.g. the Maillard reaction occurring as a result of putrefaction e.g. Rogers or electrical discharge as a result of seismic activity e.g. De Liso. Others postulate that it might have been a miraculous event occurring as a result of divine intervention and possibly associated with resurrection. In this paper I present a third possibility.
[ . . . ] In this paper I will discuss the possibility that the Shroud image may have been caused by a short intense burst of electromagnetic radiation from the body that was contained in the Shroud and discuss whether this might be consistent with speculations regarding the nature of matter, space and time which have previously been suggested by physicists including those quoted above. [See full abstract including references] Empirical research on Near Death Experiences may support the notion that physical death is not the end of the mind. Since the image on the Shroud appears to have occurred after the death of the man on the Shroud I would suggest that the question of whether consciousness survives physical death does at least have some relevance to Shroud studies.
Could it be that the image on the Shroud might well be the single most important piece of physical evidence to help us discover more about the relationship between mind and matter, the nature of humanity and our relationship to the material universe and to each other?
Click on the title to read the full abstract. Click here for the conference home page.
Here’s an interesting NDE. Christian child has a NDE and sees no Jesus, but sees Allah, Mohammad and 72 beautiful women in heaven.
http://dailycurrant.com/2014/05/05/christian-boy-dies-for-3-minutes-meets-allah-in-heaven/
“The Daily Currant is an American satirical news blog that focuses on politics, technology, and entertainment. A number of its satirical stories have been taken for true news reports by press.” God bless Wikipedia.
Thank Hugh.
I have almost every book on
NDE and read cases where people see Jesus in the light, but they also see any of the gods they believe in.
Oh, and they sometimes see Elvis and others in the light to guide them.They sometimes see people in heaven that are still alive.
Children have reported the person in the light is a man in a red suit.
Dr. Parnia started a research project (AWARE Project) to find any real evidence that these people that have NDEs are really out of their bodies. It’s been going on now for many years and I don’t remember them publishing any evidence one way or another.
I guess this means I’m not going to get 72 virgins when I check out of this place.
I see that Dr. Parnis just came out with a new book, “Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death.”
Wondering if the electromagnetic energy could have been induced by any ancient occultist practice as John Winslow Gibbons suggested in his recent book: Shroud of Turin and the Origins of Christianity?
Hi Clublu, The Austrian Redemptorist scholar Andreas Resch, Resch Verlag, Innsbruck has made many studies on energy. There is no need to appeal to any “occultist practice” to trace the source of energy, it can be of purely psychical origin:
https://www.academia.edu/4691379/Can_the_Jospice_Mattress_imprint_be_compared_to_the_Image_on_the_Shroud
Freud was truly a biologist of the mind, influenced as he was by the “Naturphilosophie” of Ernst Haeckel. That made him trace everything to matter, even the soul was matter. Not so with Jung, who delved into Parapsychology and paved the way for the scientific study of psychic phenomena.
There have been some advances since then, with the contribution of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, but that is not enough, more is needed:
https://www.academia.edu/5353803/God_science_and_religion_today
RD starts with biology, stressing evolution, then moves forward to dwell on physics, that is, the creation of the universe. It is what is called a bottom up approach and is in fact nothing new. It started with the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon that led to the so-called Enlightenment.
Dr. Andrew Silverman’s paper brings together a number of threads that need to be addressed, also including Parapsychology. Now that he connects his quest with the TS one more issue needs to be taken into account: Jesus’ consciousness, hints of which are to be found in the NT. It was what Harnack also dealt with briefly, but more is needed now.