A few days ago, “anonymous” commented, “It is off the rails. All this radiation sillyness (sic) is driving scientifically minded people away from the shroud.“
I just replied: Google Trends shows that the Shroud of Turin, as a topic* and not just the phrase, has in the last few years received only about 5% to 9% of the inquiries it did around the time of the 2005 Dallas conference. Compared to the time of the 2014 St. Louis conference, such interest is only at about half the much lower level then. This is despite museum exhibitions and the significant growth of YouTube videos and papers published on Academia.edu on the subject.
I don’t agree with you, however. While I think radiation hypothesizing (if you can call it that) has a UFO-ism quality to it, it is mostly confined to its own echo chamber. There has been little news coverage, but that may only be temporary. Maybe there will be a public viewing in 2025, as some say is rumored.
I’m thinking the world has just lost interest in the Shroud for now. Too bad.
- Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud (Italian: Sindone di Torino), also known as the Holy Shroud (Italian: Sacra Sindone) and more …
I’m thinking the world has just lost interest in the Shroud for now. Too bad.
Yes, thank you Dan for quantitatively showing what everyone is sensing nowadays.
The fact is, that the topic of the Shroud of Turin is now saturated. Everyone who is interested, has easy access to virtually every relevant information. And can make his or her own opinion about it.
The strange phenomena is that while there is of course opinion polarization (pro and anti-authenticity), people actually understood that any attempts to convince those from the other camp to their own views, are pointless.
So there is little discussion nowadays. And despite vast increase of articles, posts and videos, relatively few bring anything significant.
Maybe there will be a public viewing in 2025, as some say is rumored.
There was a public display in 2015, as far as I remember. And data doesn’t show much growth of the interest. there are two significatn peaks shown. The first, about 2004-2005. It was the time when Ray Rogers refuted the 1988 C-14 dating.
The second peak is about 2009-2010. It was the time of Garlaschelli’s claims about creating a replica of the Shroud, just before 2010 exhibition.
It would be interesting to research the public opionio views on the Shroud. Maybe make the list of 10-20 most popular YouTube videos on the “Shroud of Turin” phrase. Classify them as pro-authenticit/against or neutral. And count the number of views.
Radiation silliness? Human bodies have been disappearing via denuclearization since before the Christian era. It happens in Tibet, even in modern times. In fact, the Tibetans operate a school that teaches how. The atom, the building block of all matter, really doesn’t care about one’s religion or ethnicity. Put it in an environment where it can denuclearize and denuclearize it will. And, if an ancient linen cloth gets in the way of the released radiation it will leave an image of the aggregate source from which it came.
I remain astonished that the Shroud Crowd lacks the capacity to think outside the Bible box and see the great truth that lies in the Eastern traditions. The Shroud’s spotlight may be waning now but its time is coming. It is not a religious relic. It testifies to the power of the properly conditioned human mind to bring about biological change. Truth is like the sun. You can blot it out but you can’t make it go away.
Tom Devins, you write, “I remain astonished that the Shroud Crowd lacks the capacity to think outside the Bible box and see the great truth that lies in the Eastern traditions.”
Fair enough. Let’s walk as far away as possible from the “Bible box.” We can probably say there is no basis for assuming that Jesus was crucified, buried, or that his body disappeared from a tomb. All that comes from the Bible.
So we have an image of a man who looks like he suffered great flagellation and crucifixion, similar to the kind meted out by soldiers of the Roman Empire. However, the cloth seems to be from medieval times, so I might assume that this is really someone who was “denuclearized,” maybe in Tibet or Lirey, France, or somewhere. You claim that the image was created by radiation from such an event, and I am interested in seeing convincing evidence of that. If so, you are far ahead of Antonacci and his wormhole, or Rucker and his 5th dimension, or Jackson and his mechanically transparent body, or Tipler and his quantum fields manipulation. Meaning no disrespect, Tom, but your idea is on par with all of the other radiation speculations. Like all the others, it so far lacks a scientific hypothesis that is demonstrable or testable, provable, or disprovable.
Tom, I’ll hear you out, but please bring me some science that convincingly argues that the image was created by radiation. No one else has. Be the first.
To be clear. I don’t think the image was created by radiation. Not for a second!
Might the Turin Shroud now be accepted (finally) as a medieval creation?
One can speculate to one’s heart (or brain’s!) content as to why such a complex entity was produced in the mid-14th century.
But the truth seems now to have become self-evident after years, nay decades of internet discusssion.
It was a medieval production, not requiring anything by way of miraculous neo- “photo”- generating imagery via miraculous or indeed other type of radiation!