Until Next Time

My friends, over the past couple years I have accumulated articles for this blog, creating a sort of scrapbook of knowledge. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing so and appreciate everybody who visits and hope that you have gained insight from these articles.

Last week, I lost my father to suicide. It has taken a huge toll on my own mental health and well-being. It is for this reason I have decided to take a break from blogging. I need to focus on healing and work of practicing the meditation and recovery that I read about and post every day.

So this is not goodbye, it is simply see you later. I'm not sure how long I will be gone, that depends on what my heart says. I wish you all health and happiness. Until next time.

-Brian

From Darkness to Light; Addiction to Recovery, with Kundalini Yoga

By Tommy Rosen

In the unconsciousness of our addictions we are at a Distance from Ease. There is no ease in the body for we are disconnected from it. There is no ease in the mind because of the constant flow of garbage being sent to it from the subconscious. There is no ease in the spirit as we have lost sight of our Soul and its mission. The great tragedy of addiction is simply that we are divine beings that have utterly lost connection with that truth.

Imagine you come upon a blind man on the street who is begging for food. At his feet, a sumptuous banquet is laid out, but he cannot see it or even smell it. You explain to him that he does not need to beg for food, that he only needs to reach out and partake in the blessings at his feet. “You are wrong,” he tells you, “There is no banquet at my feet.” You are looking at a spread of incredible fruits and nuts, breads and cheeses. To you, it is plain as day, but the more you try to tell him that he does not need to beg for sustenance, the harder he fights to stick to the story that he does need to beg.

How can we be so lost as to not know who and what we are? The great majority of us are born into a world that tells us about limitation and smallness. From a young age, we are trained in our own powerlessness and spend the rest of our lives trying to find and express our power. When the quest for power—which is an archetypal journey—goes astray, it becomes one of the great drivers of acute addiction. Unless we are given a path with tools and practices that work to unravel our misunderstandings and replace them with the divine light of knowing which is also called faith, we run the risk of a life half-lived. We will always be hungry despite the bounty at our feet, always trying to solve a riddle that cannot be solved. That was me before I found Kundalini Yoga back in 2003.

I have written a fair amount about my teacher, Guruprem Singh Khalsa. Here, I will simply say, “Thank you, Guruprem, for teaching me about “Prehab,” giving me the tools to uplift my consciousness and transform my inner life (which, of course, transformed my outer life).

Prehab is for everyone and everyone who learns the lessons of Prehab will never have to go to rehab like I did. I learned the lessons of Prehab fourteen years after rehab. Well, better late than never. In Prehab, we learn how to sit, how to stand and how to walk.

Sitting: Can you sit cross-legged on the floor or ground in comfort and ease? For most of us, the answer is no. In Prehab, we learn how to sit consciously, how to breathe consciously, how to connect literally with the Earth beneath us and to develop patience and the capacity to pass time productively. People who struggle with addictions do not have this critical skill.

Standing: You can tell nearly everything about a person by the way they “carry” themselves around. Are you able to stand with your pelvis and spine properly aligned, with your feet and legs actively pressing down into the Earth with your heart uplifted and your chest open so that your breath can flow freely and fully? This is called Tadasana or mountain pose. In Prehab, we practice this in order to develop the right relationship to gravity and the Earth, to be in divine alignment, and to come to know what we stand for in the world.

Walking: Once we know how to sit and stand we can now progress to the advanced practice of walking. How do you move through time and space? How is your relationship with gravity? Is there freedom in your body and breathing? Are you leaving a pleasant energy in your wake or does your manner of moving around bring discord rather than harmony? Most importantly, in Prehab we learn what we are walking toward. What is our destiny path and where does it lead? Once you know this in the very cells of your body, then you have realized who and what you are and addiction will have a challenge getting a foothold in you.

These are the lessons that have been passed down to me by my teacher and his teacher and so on. Working with the physical body is key. The meditation and breath-work is key. This practice makes day-to-day reality sweeter while delivering a person from darkness to light, from addiction to recovery, and from dis-ease to Ease. This is Kundalini Yoga and I wish it for you.

In Love and Gratitude,

Tommy Rosen

Tommy Rosen is certified to teach both Kundalini Yoga and Vinyasa Flow. He is a leading authority on addiction and recovery with 20 years experience helping others to overcome addictions of every kind. He is one of the pioneers in the relatively new field of Yoga and Recovery, which utilizes yoga and meditation to help people to move beyond addiction and build fulfilling lives. Tommy lives in love and gratitude with his wife, noted yoga instructor, Kia Miller, in Venice, CA.www.tommyrosen.com/yoga/

THE DHAMMA BROTHERS - MEDITATION IN PRISON, 100 HOURS OF SILENCE

By Jenny Phillips

In the fall of 1999, I packed my tape recorder and traveled from my home outside Boston to visit Donaldson Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison outside Birmingham, Alabama. I was hoping to interview prisoners about their lives in prison and their experiences with meditation. I had heard that many of the prisoners at Donaldson were learning how to meditate and then teaching one another by reading a book written for prisoners titled Houses of Healing. Because I was also using this book in my volunteer work with prisoners in Massachusetts, I became interested in comparing my work with that of the prisoners at Donaldson.

Donaldson is known as the "House of Pain," the end of the line in Alabama's prison system. It is deep in the countryside, surrounded on three sides by the Black Warrior River. The prison is chronically understaffed because no one wants to work there. There is a heavy atmosphere of misery, hopelessness and violence.

On that first visit, the prison psychologist, Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, lent me his office and put the word out that I wanted to talk with the men who were learning to meditate. I don't know what I expected would emerge from those interviews with the meditating inmates at Donaldson. I now realize that listening to their stories changed my life in ways that I could not have anticipated.

After that first visit to Donaldson, I could not shake off the memories of what I had seen and heard. I wanted to learn more, to find out if there were solutions or alternatives to the aggressive culture of prison manhood. I wondered if it were possible for men in prison to live with a sense of inner peace and the freedom to experience and express a full range of emotions. In my conversations with the inmates at Donaldson, they seemed to be seeking opportunities and skills to establish lives that were more productive and peaceful, even if there was no possibility of their release from prison.

Prison treatment programs typically offer guidelines for changing prisoners' behavior and thinking, but stop well short of providing them the safety, support and skills to reflect upon their emotions, their addictions, childhood histories, and crimes. Away from the distractions and physical trappings of the outside world, prisoners are in a setting that is potentially conducive to deep reflection and the development of self-awareness, self-understanding and compassion. After many years of working with prisoners, I have found that they often have a yearning to face the realities of their lives and crimes, and to construct a more meaningful existence.

Soon after my visit to Donaldson, I heard about Vipassana, an ancient and intense meditation program that is taught in centers around the world and contains the elements that I felt were most needed in an effective prison program: the opportunity and techniques for significant introspection in a safe and supported environment. With collaboration among Ron Cavanaugh, the Alabama Department of Corrections and a Vipassana center in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, a Vipassana program, based on the 2600-year-old teachings of the Buddha, was brought to Donaldson.


The documentary film The Dhamma Brothers tells the story of the coming together of a maximum-security prison in Alabama and an ancient, intense meditation program requiring 100 hours of silent meditation. Bringing these two distinctly different cultures together required many adjustments and adaptations. For example, the prison had to allow the Vipassana teachers to live inside the prison walls in close proximity with the prisoners. It is amazing that this was allowed!

The Dhamma Brothers is a story of courage and hope. There are many heroes in this story, but the prisoners themselves are the central characters in the film as they teach all of us about the possibility of personal transformation under the most dire and difficult conditions. They have been my teachers for many years. I often read and reread their letters and listen to their audiotaped and videotaped interviews, always finding more meaning. I am now beginning another film with my film crew from Northern Light Productions in Boston. We are focusing on the stories of young men re-entering society after incarceration. Like The Dhamma Brothers the central characters are living on the rough underbelly of life and drawing wisdom from the journey.



Watch The Dhamma Brothers at: http://www.dhammabrothers.com/WatchNow/index.htm

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-phillips/meditation-in-prision_b_1469180.html

Is this a simulated reality?

Boltzman Brains

We need only look at a computer game to understand how this is a possibility that is only a matter of the limits of representation from data which are necessary to create an environment like our universe. Environments like ours can be represented nearly exactly with enough computing power.

Ludwig Boltzmann was one of the founders of the field of thermodynamics in the nineteenth century.

One of the key concepts was the second law of thermodynamics, which says that the entropy of a closed system always increases. If the universe is a closed system, we would expect the entropy to increase over time. This means that, given enough time, the most likely state of the universe is one where everything is in thermodynamic equilibrium … but we clearly don’t exist in a universe of this type since, after all, there is order all around us in various forms, not the least of which is the fact that we exist.

Obviously then there are other factors in play.  Energy of some form is added into the system.  One way that is theorized is through the universe being simulated from the outside of the model in which it exists.

One can obtain a rough upper limit for the maximum number of bits of information the universe could possibly hold as being somewhere around 10^122 to 10^124 depending on which parameters you feed in.

We know the entropy of a black hole is related to its surface area divided by the Planck length. So what we can do is pretend the whole universe is a black hole and use the radius of the known universe to get its surface area. And as entropy is related to information, we can calculate the maximum number of bits. Then depending on the details, you’ll get a number between 10^122 and 10^124 bits for the whole universe.

It is thought that one would only need a computer the size of Jupiter to process this information as a dynamic system that would be indistinguishable from reality.  Much of this information processing would only be represented as mathematical algorithms a compressed form of reality not actually experienced as a physical reality unless an awareness was using this part of reality which would actually greatly reduce the amount of computing power that would be necessary for the creation of a universe exactly like ours.

So this thought may be interesting or it may just be an exercise in sophistry it depends upon whether or not it is something that can be traced scientifically to work on experimentally replicable bases on this platform level in which we exist.

Are we algorithms?

Are we algorithms? Our dna codes our physical form to a large degree though not actually directly  Much of the energy is captured by coding systems such as protein folding. Everything follows laws which are as far as we can tell unbreakable and in this way mathematically reliably coded.  Everything is locked into a dynamic system of context and energy.

If the universal passage through time is seen like a loaf of bread and someone very far away can look to the past or future depending upon their perspective as if all time is always a present representation would a super strong intelligent algorithm understand this representation as more of a pattern of energies rather than a physical reality? All of the universe is a complex mathematical representation that we sense yet understand very little of the true form.

This is what you would expect of a simulation and agrees with holographic theory as well.

Holographic theory

The universe may be infinite yet fed from a contextual emptiness and running back into contextual uniformity as it is created and continually spent its existence a metaphysic of representation like a dream.  What is the cause of existence that made the context change from nothing to some probability and then eventually into a universal reality

If it is merely a mathematical metaphysic represented into physical reality this sounds like holographic Theory a study of physics of black holes, immensely dense concentrations of mass , provide a hint that the holographic theory might be correct.  Studies of black holes show that, although it defies common sense, the maximum entropy or information content of any region of space is defined not by its volume but by its surface area. 

Everything Is A Number

In addition to studying the relationships within numbers, Pythagoras was also intrigued by the link between numbers and nature. He realized that natural phenomena are governed by laws, and that these laws could be described by mathematical equations. One of the first links he discovered was the fundamental relationship between the harmony of music and the harmony of numbers.

The most important instrument in early Hellenic music was the tetrachord, or four-stringed lyre. Prior to Pythagoras, musicians appreciated that particular notes when sounded together created a pleasant effect, and tuned their lyres so that plucking two strings would generate such a harmony. However, the early musicians had no understanding of why particular notes were harmonious and had no objective system for tuning their instruments. Instead they tuned their lyres purely by ear until a state of harmony was established–a process that Plato called torturing the tuning pegs.

http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.hk/2015/03/paranormal-phenomena-nonlocal-mind-and.html  

My new perspective doesn’t fit that well into our standard contemporary verbiage, but a reasonable summary might be:* Individual human minds have an aspect that is “nonlocal”, in the sense of not being restricted to exist within the flow of our time-axis, in the same sense that our bodies are generally restricted.   

*Due to this non-localized aspect, it’s possible for human minds that are evidently grounded in bodies in a certain spacetime region, to manifest themselves in various ways outside this spacetime region – thus sometimes generating phenomena we now think of as “paranormal” 

*This non-localized aspect of human minds probably results from the same fundamental aspects of the universe that enable psi phenomena like ESP, precognition, and psychokinesis 

*The path from understanding which core aspects of physics enable these phenomena, to understanding why we see the precise paranormal phenomena we do, may be a long one – just as the path from currently known physics to currently recognized biology and psychology is a long one.

Ben Goertzel

And here from science20 

http://www.science20.com/physics_foundations/blog/skynet_is_not_why_musk_and_gates_fear_ai-154175

Skynet is not why Musk and Gates fear AI

People who immerse themselves and use global information flows in disciplined ways understand that they are more than the humans they used to be before the internet came to our pocket devices. But we pale against the next step in our evolution. Mathematician Steven Strogatz reminds us that we are leaving the age of intuition behind. Mathematics is becoming a spectator sport for human mathematicians who can never possibly comprehend monstrous machine-based proofs. No organic chemist can memorize and exploit all known organic chemical reactions to find new molecules and simplify expensive, old reaction pathways to less complex and less costly reaction pathways (Chematica). No doctor can read all known applicable medical literature and cross reference it with all genetic information coming from personalized medicine like IBM’s Watson is starting to do in more and more hospital centers. A few large AIs spread over the planet can do all of this over radio waves not unlike Google Now and Apple’s Siri, the real brains “in” your phones. It’s all good for now, though Edward Snowden and Anonymous might have a different opinions. The fear comes from when the machines will become autonomous and “free-willed” because they will only partly follow our biological paradigms before evolving yet more all on their own to their own ends.

So it seems that the algorithms are growing and hunting.  The simulation is creating the simulators.  Now we see that it is possible that somewhere, sometime there are wizards using arcane spells of mathematical language creating mystical creatures weaved into the fabric of space time like cut and pasted photoshop games. Technoshamen.

Source: https://provoketur.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/is-this-a-simulated-reality/

The Perfect Matrimony, a book by Samael Aun Weor

The Awakening of Consciousnes

It is necessary to know that humanity lives with its Consciousness asleep.  People work asleep.  People walk through the streets asleep.  People live and die asleep.

When we come to the conclusion that the entire world lives asleep, then we comprehend the necessity of awakening.  We need the awakening of the Consciousness.  We want the awakening of the Consciousness.

Fascination

The profound sleep in which humanity lives is caused by fascination.
People are fascinated by everything in life.  People forget their Selves because they are fascinated.  The drunkard in the bar is fascinated with the alcohol, the place, the pleasures, his friends and the women.  The vain woman in front of a mirror is fascinated with her own glamour.  The rich avaricious person is fascinated with money and possessions.  The honest worker in the factory is fascinated with the hard work.  The father of the family is fascinated with his children.  All human beings are fascinated and sleep profoundly.  When driving a car we are astonished when we see people dashing across the roads and streets without paying attention to the danger of the running cars. Others willfully throw themselves under the wheels of cars.  Poor people... they walk asleep, they look like sleepwalkers.  They walk asleep, endangering their own lives.  Any clairvoyant can see their dreams.  People dream with all that keeps them fascinated.

Sleep

During the physical body’s sleep, the ego escapes from it.  This departure of the ego is necessary so that the Vital Body can repair the physical body.  However, in the Internal Worlds we can asseverate that the ego takes its dreams into the Internal Worlds.

Thus, while in the Internal Worlds the ego occupies itself with the same things which keep it fascinated in the physical world.  Therefore, during a sound sleep we see the carpenter in his carpentry shop, the policeman guarding the streets, the barber in his barbershop, the blacksmith at his forge, the drunkard in the tavern or bar, the prostitute in the house of pleasures, absorbed in lust, etc.  All these people live in the Internal Worlds as if they were in the physical world.

During his sleep, not a single living being has the inkling to ask himself whether he is  in the physical or Astral World.  However, those who have asked themselves such a question during sleep, have awoken in the Internal Worlds.  Then, with amazement, they have been able to study all the marvels of the Superior Worlds.

It is only possible for us to ask such a question of ourselves in the Superior Worlds (during those hours of sleep) if we accustom ourselves to ask this question from moment to moment during the so-called vigil state.  Evidently, during our sleep we repeat everything that we do during the day.  Therefore, if during the day we accustom ourselves to asking this question, then, during our nocturnal sleep (while being outside of the body) we will consequently repeat the same question to ourselves.  Thus, the outcome will be the awakening of the Consciousness.

Remembering Oneself

The human being in his fascinated trance does not remember his Self.  We must Self-remember our Selves from moment to moment.  We need to Self-remember our Selves in the presence of every representation that could fascinate us. Let us hold ourselves while in front of any representation and ask ourselves:  Where am I?  Am I in the physical plane?  Am I in the Astral Plane?  Then, give a little jump with the intention of floating within the surrounding atmosphere.  It is logical that if you float it is because you are outside the physical body.  Thus, the outcome will be the awakening of Consciousness.

The purpose of asking this question at every instant, at every moment is with the intention of engraving it within the subconsciousness, so that it may manifest later during the hours given to sleep, hours when the ego is really outside the physical body.  You must know that in the Astral Plane, things appear just as they are here in this physical plane.  This is why during sleep, and after death, people see everything there in a form very similar to this physical world. This is why they do not even suspect that they are outside of their physical body.  Therefore, no dead person ever believes himself to have died because he is fascinated and profoundly asleep.

If the dead had made a practice of remembering themselves from moment to moment when they were alive, if they had struggled against the fascination of the things of the world, the outcome would have been the awakening of their consciousness.  They would not dream.  They would walk in the Internal Worlds with awakened consciousness.  Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can study all the marvels of the Superior Worlds during the hours of sleep.  Whosoever awakens the Consciousness lives in the Superior Worlds as a totally awakened citizen of the cosmos.  One then coexists with the great hierophants of the White Lodge.




Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can no longer dream here in this physical plane or in the Internal Worlds. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness stops dreaming. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness becomes a competent investigator of the Superior Worlds. Whosoever awakens Consciousness is an illuminated one. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can study at the feet of the master. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can talk familiarly with the Gods who initiated the dawn of creation.  Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can remember his innumerable reincarnations. Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can consciously attend his own cosmic initiations.  Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can study in the temples of the great White Lodge.  Whosoever awakens the Consciousness can know in the Superior Worlds the evolution of his Kundalini.  Every Perfect Matrimony must awaken the Consciousness in order to receive guidance and direction from the White Lodge.  In the Superior Worlds the masters will wisely guide all those who really love one another.  In the Superior Worlds the masters give to each one that which one needs for his inner development.

Complementary Practice

Every Gnostic student, after waking from their normal sleep, must perform a retrospective exercise based on the process of their sleep, in order to remember all of those places they visited during the hours of sleep.  We already know that the ego travels a great deal; it goes towards where we have physically been, repeating all that which we have seen and heard.

The Masters instruct their disciples when they are out of the physical body.
Therefore, it is urgent to know how to profoundly meditate and then practice what we have learned during the hours of sleep.  It is necessary not to physically move at the time of waking up, because with the movement, the Astral is agitated and the memories are lost.  It is urgent to combine the retrospective exercises with the following mantras:

RAOM GAOM
 
Each word is divided into two syllables.  One must accentuate the vowel O. These mantras are for the student what dynamite is for the miner. Thus, as the miner opens his way through the bowels of the earth with the aid of dynamite, similarly, the student also opens his way into the memories of his subconsciousness with the aid of these mantras.

Patience and Tenacity

The Gnostic student must be infinitely patient and tenacious because powers cost a great deal.  Nothing is given to us for free.  Everything has a price. These studies are not for inconsistent people, nor for people of fragile will.  These studies demand infinite faith.

Skeptical people must not come to our studies because occult science is very demanding.  The skeptics fail totally. Thus, skeptical people will not succeed in entering the Heavenly Jerusalem.

The Four States of Consciousness

• The first state of Consciousness is called Eikasia.
• The second state of Consciousness is Pistis.
• The third state of Consciousness is Dianoia.
• The fourth state of Consciousness is Nous.

Eikasia is ignorance, human cruelty, barbarism, exceedingly profound sleep, a brutal and instinctive world, an infrahuman state.

Pistis is the world of opinions and beliefs.  Pistis is belief, prejudices, sectarianism, fanaticism, theories in which there does not exist any type of direct perception of the Truth.  Pistis is that level of Consciousness of the common humanity.

Dianoia is the intellectual revision of beliefs, analysis, conceptual synthesis, cultural-intellectual Consciousness, scientific thought etc. Dianoetic thought studies phenomena and establishes laws.  Dianoetic thought studies the inductive and deductive systems with the purpose of using them profoundly and clearly.

Nous is perfect awakened Consciousness.  Nous is the state of Turiya: profound perfect inner illumination.  Nous is legitimate objective clairvoyance.  Nous is intuition.  Nous is the world of the divine archetypes.  Noetic thought is synthetic, clear, objective, illuminated.

Whosoever reaches the heights of Noetic thought totally awakens Consciousness and becomes a Turiya.

The lowest part of man is irrational and subjective and is related with the five ordinary senses.
The highest part of man is the World of Intuition and objective spiritual Consciousness.  In the World of Intuition, the archetypes of all things in Nature develop.

Only those who have penetrated into the World of Objective Intuiti
on, only those who have reached the solemn heights of Noetic thought, are truly awakened and illuminated.

A true Turiya cannot dream. The Turiya who has reached the heights of Noetic thought never goes about saying so, never presumes to be wise; he is extremely simple and humble, pure and perfect.
It is necessary to know that a Turiya is neither a medium, nor a pseudo-clairvoyant, nor a pseudo-mystic, unlike those who nowadays abound like weeds in all schools of spiritual, hermetic, occultist studies, etc.

The state of Turiya is most sublime and is only reached by those who work in the flaming forge of Vulcan all of their lives.  Only the Kundalini can elevate us to the state of Turiya.
It is urgent to know how to meditate profoundly and then to practice Sexual Magic during the whole of our life in order to reach, after many difficult trials, the state of Turiya.
Meditation and Sexual Magic carry us to the heights of Noetic thought.

Neither dreamer nor medium, nor any of those who enter a school of occult teaching can instantaneously achieve the state of Turiya.  Unfortunately, many believe that it is as easy as blowing glass to make bottles, or like smoking a cigarette, or like getting drunk.  Thus we see many people hallucinating, mediums and dreamers, declaring themselves to be clairvoyant masters, illuminated ones.  In all schools, including within the ranks of our Gnostic Movement, those people who say that they are clairvoyant without really being so are never missing.  These are the ones who, based upon their hallucinations and dreams, slander others saying such a person is fallen; such a fellow is a black magician, etc.

It is necessary to advise that the heights of Turiya require beforehand many years of mental exercise and Sexual Magic in the Perfect Matrimony.  This means discipline, long and profound study, very strong and profound internal Meditation, sacrifice for humanity, etc.

Impatience

As a rule, those who have recently entered Gnosis are full of impatience; they want immediate phenomenal manifestations, instantaneous Astral projections, illumination, wisdom, etc.
The reality is another thing.  Nothing is given to us for free.  Everything has its price.  Nothing is attained through curiosity, instantaneously, rapidly.  Everything has its process and its development.  Kundalini develops, evolves and progresses very slowly within the aura of the Maha-Chohan. Kundalini has the power of awakening the consciousness.  Nevertheless, the process of awakening is slow, gradual, natural, without spectacular, sensational, emotional, and barbaric events.  When the Consciousness becomes completely awakened, it is not something sensational, or spectacular.  It is simply a reality, as natural as a tree that grows slowly, unfolds and develops without sudden leaps or sensational events.  Nature is Nature.  The Gnostic student in the beginning says, “I am dreaming.”  Later he exclaims, “I am in the Astral Body, outside the physical body.”  Later still, he obtains Samadhi, ecstasy, and enters the Fields of Paradise.  In the beginning, the manifestations are sporadic, discontinuous, followed by long periods of unconsciousness.  Much later, the igneous wings give us continuous uninterrupted awakened Consciousness.

7 Lesser-Known Victorian Inventors Who Were Just As Fascinating As Tesla

When we see science fiction stories set during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the inventor Nikola Tesla tends to show up an awful lot. But the Victorian era and the early 20th century are filled with inventors who led fascinating lives, lives that just don’t tend to turn up in fiction.

Background of top image by John Lemieux.

Some of these inventors’ careers place them firmly in the Victorian era. Others, like Tesla himself, started their careers in the Victorian era and continued to live and work into the 20th century. And while they may not have worked on projects as with as visually impressive results as Nikola Tesla’s publicity photos, they had very interesting lives — and inventions — all the same

1. John Nevil Maskelyne, Magician and Inventor of the Pay Toilet

Harry Houdini may have the more famous name, but stage magician John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917) was also a famous debunker of the supernatural and inventor of both magic tricks and useful devices. Maskelyne got his start as a magician after watching a pair spiritualists known as the Davenport Brothers perform a spirit cabinet illusion. The Davenports claimed that their tricks were genuinely supernatural, but Maskelyne collaborated with cabinetmaker George Alfred Cooke to build a spirit cabinet of their own, which they used to expose the brothers as frauds.

Maskelyne devoted the rest of his career to creating illusions and exposing cheaters and frauds. He famously performed at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. He invented a levitation illusion. He wrote a book exposing the tricks of card sharps. And, in 1914, he founded the Occult Committee, an organization devoted to exposing fraudulent practitioners of the supernatural. So he wasn’t exactly a Victorian ghostbuster, but he was a medium-buster. He also found time to invent the pay toilet, or rather a lock that would only open if you placed a coin inside.

John Nevil Maskelyne was hardly the only member of his family with a flair for inventing both illusions and practical devices. His son Nevil Maskelyne wasn’t just a magician, but also a rival of radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. The younger Maskelyne interrupted one of Marconi’s 1903 demonstrations. Before Marconi could demonstrate the ability to transmit Morse code over hundreds of miles, Nevil Maskelyne transmitted a signal of his own, causing Marconi’s Morse code printer to spew out a message accusing the Italian inventor of “diddling the public.”

2. Hertha Marks Ayrton, a Woman Who Fought to Be Recognized

When Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923), born Phoebe Sarah Marks, was first put forward as a possible fellow at the Royal Society in 1902, she was rejected on the basis that a married woman was not considered an eligible candidate for fellowship. During her life, Ayrton was not just recognized for her own scientific achievements; she also campaigned for the recognition of other female scientists.

Ayrton was born in England to an impoverished clockmaker who had fled Poland to escape anti-Semitic persecution, but grew up with educator aunt. Young Sarah Marks learned mathematics and philosophy and eventually attended Cambridge’s Girton College. She took classes in electricity from electrical engineer and physics professor William Edward Ayrton, whom she later married. Professor Ayrton encouraged his wife’s independent scientific and mathematical endeavors. By then, she had already patented a drafting tool called a line-divider, a device ridiculed by some for its simplicity, but which many who used it regarded as magic.

Despite being rejected as a fellow in 1902, Ayrton was the first woman to read her paper before the Royal Society in 1904, an investigation on sand ripples. For her work on sand ripples and the electric arc, the Royal Society also awarded Ayrton the Hughes Medal. As she was being recognized for her own work, she also insisted that other women be recognized for theirs. When journalists failed to attribute the discovery of radium to Marie Curie, focusing instead on Curie’s husband, Pierre, Ayrton wrote in a 1909 edition of The Westminster Gazette, “Errors are notoriously hard to kill, but an error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat.” And that’s all before we get into her work on the Ayrton fan, a device designed to repel poison gas during World War I.

Her name is also interesting. A lifelong agnostic, Ayrton changed her name to “Hertha” after a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne that was critical of religion. It was a symbolic separation from the Jewish faith of her parents.

 

3. Hiram Maxim, From a Hair Curling Iron to the Machine Gun

Nikola Tesla was hardly the only inventor who quarreled with Thomas Edison. Hiram Maxim (1840-1916) is one of numerous inventors who, like Edison, laid claim to the lightbulb. But while Maine-born inventor is said to have registered 271 patents in his lifetime, he’s probably best known for his work on the machine gun.

Maxim received his first patent at age 26, for an improved curling iron. The man literally built a better mousetrap (one that automatically reset). He was fascinated by the idea of flying machines, and his research would give birth to an amusement park ride, the “Captive Flying Machine.”

1907 Postcard featuring the Captive Flying Machine, via.

As chief engineer of the United States Electric Lighting Company, Maxim installed many of New York’s first electric lights and fought with Thomas Edison over the intellectual property of the lightbulb (this is leaving out Joseph Swan, who received a patent on his lightbulb in 1880). He moved to England in 1881 to reorganize the United States Electric Lighting Company’s London offices. But he’d eventually become notorious for something far more deadly than electric lighting.

Maxim would later write to the Times of London about the genesis of the machine gun:

In 1882 I was in Vienna, where I met an American whom I had known in the States. He said: ‘Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats with greater facility.

That’s exactly what he did. He developed the Maxim gun, which used recoil to expel the cartridge that had just been used and load the next cartridge. He made that pile of money and received a knighthood from Queen Victoria (although he was actually knighted by King Edward VII). All that for creating a machine of slaughter, just in time for World War I. PBS notes, “Maxim died on November 24, 1916, only days before the Battle of the Somme, where over one million soldiers fell in four months of machine gun warfare.”

His personal life contained its share of intrigue as well. Maxim’s son Hiram Percy Maxim, co-founder of the American Radio Relay League, wrote a book about growing up with his father, A Genius in the Family, that’s supposed to contain rather amusing anecdotes of Maxim household life. The elder Maxim also went through a public scandal when a woman named Helen Leighton accused him of bigamy. The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Maxim was arrested and the matter turned up in the papers.

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4. Margaret Knight, the Factory Girl Who Fought a Patent Thief

There are numerous stories of inventors who had their inventions stolen by opportunistic abusers of the patent system, but Margaret Knight (1838-1914) is one inventor who fought back and won. Knight’s formal education ended when she was 12 years old, when she went to work in a textile mill. That’s also when she developed her first invention. After witnesses an accident in a mill, Knight developed a device that would stop the motion of a particular machine if something got caught in it. Her invention made its way into other factories, but at the time neither Knight nor her family members were familiar with the patent process, so she didn’t get to own her idea.

However, Knight would have a formative experience with patent law years later. She was working in a paper bag factory when she figured out a more efficient way of folding and gluing paper bags — one very similar to the same process today. So she invented a machine that could execute her more efficient process. Before she had an opportunity to patent it, however, a man named Charles Annan inspected her machine and filed a patent on it. When Knight learned Annan had a patent on file, she took him to court.

Annan argued that a woman wasn’t capable of inventing such a device, but Knight had, well, actual proof. She had detailed notes that she kept on the machine, and the court awarded her the patent. Knight would go on to develop a number of other inventions, mostly making other improvements on industrial processes.

5. Louis Le Prince, the Cinematography Pioneer Who Mysteriously Disappeared

Who invented the moving picture? Thomas Edison and Auguste and Louis Lumière are frequently cited as pioneers of cinematography, but an inventor who gets far less press is Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (1841-1890?). Le Prince’s father happened to be a friend of Louis Daguerre, and Le Prince learned about the chemistry and technology of photography at an early age. He eventually moved to Leeds, where he joined a brass foundry firm, married, and founded a technical school of art with his wife.

Le Prince eventually moved on from the foundry firm and began working on motion pictures. He registered for an American patent on a method and apparatus “For Producing Animated Pictures of Natural Scenery and Life” in 1886, and the patent was eventually granted. In 1888, he filmed the “Roundhay Garden Scene,” the oldest surviving film:

In 1890, Le Prince and his wife Lizzie were ready to take the project public. They planned to exhibit the moving pictures in New York’s Jumel Mansion, but something strange happened before they got a chance. In September, 1890, Le Prince boarded a train from Bourges, France, to Dijon and was never seen again.

There are numerous theories as to why Le Prince disappeared. Perhaps he committed suicide to escape his debts. Perhaps he was murdered by rivals. Whatever happened, no body has been conclusively identified, and the mystery remains.

6. Norbert Rillieux, a Creole Inventor in Antebellum Louisiana

Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894) was born to a white plantation owner (whose sister happened to be the grandmother of Edgar Degas) and a free black woman in New Orleans. Rillieux was educated, in part, in France, where he attended École Centrale and studied physics and engineering and eventually became a lecturer in applied mechanics.

One of Rillieux’s most famous inventions, however, turned out to be a great boon to the sugar industry in his home state. Some time around 1831, Rillieux developed an improved process for refining sugar. Edmund Forstall, who was building a new Louisiana Sugar Refinery with the help of one of Rillieux’s brothers, learned about the process and invited Rillieux to be the refinery’s head engineer. Rillieux accepted and returned to Louisiana, though his professional relationship with Forstall did not last long.

In the years before the American Civil War, Rillieux’s skills as an engineer were much in demand among Louisiana sugar plantation owners, but he did not receive the same treatment that a white engineer would have. He could install his sugar evaporators at plantations, but he could not sleep in the “big house” with a white family. At one point, he hoped to apply his engineering talents toward the drainage of New Orleans lowlands, but his proposal was blocked by his former employer Forstall. The historian Charles Rousseve claimed that Rillieux’s proposal was rejected because of “sentiment against free people of color.”

Amidst increasing restrictions on free black people in New Orleans, Rillieux returned to France. His interests turned to Egyptology, although he continued to make technical innovations well into his life, patenting a new system for processing sugar beets at age 75.

7. James McClintock, Submarine Designer and Spy?

Okay, this is a really weird story. The Smithsonian Magazine tells the full story of James McClintock, who is perhaps best known for his work designing the H. L. Hunley, the Confederate submarine that became the first sub to sink an enemy ship. (The Hunley also sank. Twice. It’s remains are currently on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, and while it’s a pricey visit, I recommend checking it out if you’re in town.)

The Hunley was laid down in 1863, but McClintock’s strange tale extends far later than that. In the 1870s, McClintock and a couple of collaborators were working on explosive weaponry, and on one fateful evening in 1879, he (apparently) paid the price for his experiments. He and a crew man rowed out in Boston Harbor with a mine containing 35 pounds of dynamite. Shortly afterward, an explosion was heard. The mine had exploded, supposedly taking both man and the boat with it.

The end of the story? Hardly. In 1880, nearly a full year after the explosion, a man visited British consul Robert Clipperton in Philadelphia, claiming that he was James McClintock and that he had been hired by members of the Irish Fenian movement to build torpedos. For a fee, the man claiming to be McClintock offered to sabotage his employer’s torpedos and give working samples of the weapons to the British.

In the end, this man calling himself McClintock pocketed money from both the British government and his Fenian employers, and never provided either with the promised torpedos. He disappeared before his true identity could be discovered. The piece in the Smithsonian examines the possibility





Source:http://io9.com/7-lesser-known-victorian-inventors-just-as-fascinating-1700992149that the real McClintock faked his death only to resurface in Philadelphia, but also suggests that the man may have been one of McClintock’s former partners, one of the men involved in his disastrous weapons experiments.

China’s Feminist Awakening

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BEIJING — I didn’t think much of it when the police took away five of my friends and fellow feminist activists in early March for planning a protest against sexual harassment on public transportation in Beijing. Similar arrests had happened to all of us before, and we were always let go after a few hours of interrogation. But when my friends didn’t come home that evening or the following day, I realized it was different this time. Given that I had planned and participated in many activities with them, I worried that I could be the next target and be forced to provide “evidence” against my friends. So, I fled Beijing and went into hiding.

The arrests sparked nationwide online protests and petitions by young people, especially university students. We hadn’t expected that the international community would also react so strongly: Human rights organizations and Western leaders, such as Hillary Clinton, voiced their condemnation. The domestic and international pressure led to my friends’ release after a month of detention. Of course, it didn’t help that the police also failed to gather any concrete criminal evidence against them.

I’ve since returned to Beijing, but this incident prompted me to examine my own activism and question whether I have made the right choices. When I was growing up in the 1990s in Sichuan Province, I found many cultural traditions and practices puzzling. At home, I addressed my mothers’ parents as “waipo” and “waigong,” or “outside grandma” and “outside grandpa,” because I was told that my father’s family mattered more. In school, my teachers held higher academic expectations for boys than they did for girls because they believed boys were smarter than girls.

While applying for college, many universities openly excluded girls from majors such as marine engineering and geological exploration, and lowered admissions standards for boys who chose to study foreign languages and broadcast journalism, which historically attract girls. I constantly saw want ads that either excluded women or specified that women applicants needed to be tall and attractive.

Many took this entrenched discrimination for granted, but I didn’t. As a sophomore in college, I became interested in feminism and began reading Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” and other famous feminist works. I enjoyed watching foreign movies that depicted women championing social justice and gender equality. Like a nearsighted person with new glasses, I began to see clearly, and many of the things that puzzled me growing up were explained by feminism.

In the fall of 2011, I met Li Tingting, one of the arrested activists. Ms. Li, who had campaigned for women’s issues for several years, introduced me to a circle of like-minded women and a whole new world of activism.

My friends, most of whom were born in the 1980s and ’90s, and I have had a good education and we could easily find “nice” and “stable” jobs. Our parents have always exhorted us to live normal lives and not to poke our noses into things that don’t concern us. But instead of pursuing lucrative corporate positions, getting married and having children, we choose to become full-time women’s rights campaigners.

In China today, women face widespread discrimination at work; many companies refuse to even hire women. Sexual harassment is commonplace. Domestic violence is pervasive. According to a 2013 multi-country study conducted by the United Nations, more than 50 percent of Chinese men have physically or sexually abused their partners.

Some friends advise us to advance our cause by “quietly” lobbying the government or by pushing for changes within the system by becoming government employees. But in a country where the government still exerts tight control over ideology, those inside the system rarely find the courage to speak up.

Many women before us have taken the accommodationist route, but little has changed. Strong public pressure is necessary. We cannot afford to go about our campaign quietly.

Since public protests and demonstrations are banned, we rely on a unique platform — performance art — to challenge social conditions. We’ve taken our message to the streets and subways and fought for a safe public space for women.

The first public performance project I took part in targeted rampant domestic violence. Donning bridal gowns splattered with fake blood, we marched down a crowded Beijing shopping street, carrying signs that read “Love is not an excuse for violence” and urged residents to be vigilant against domestic abuse. Through the “Occupy Men’s Toilet” campaign, we called attention to a more mundane issue: the unfair ratio of male to female toilet stalls in public places. In another action, we shaved our heads to protest discrimination in college admissions.

And last year, I trekked more than 1,200 miles, crossing 55 cities to raise awareness about the high rates of child sex-abuse in China’s schools. The government, rather than fixing the system and punishing the perpetrators, simply blames the victims.

Our presence on the streets and in the media appears to be influencing decision-making. In recent years, several universities abolished their discriminatory admission policies. Beijing is said to be building new toilets for women, and some universities are converting toilets to increase the ratio for women. The top legislature is considering a domestic violence law.

Our actions have irked some chauvinists, who have threatened and harassed us on social media. The police have warned us against the evil influence of “hostile forces” in the West and began monitoring our phones and email.

The arrest of my five friends, which occurred in the days before International Women’s Day, showed that the government has become scared of a group of young women because of our ability to mobilize a large network of supporters. They were incarcerated on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” even though the event was still in the planning stage and our past activities were carried out peacefully. The police punished my friends to intimidate other social and political activists.

In the near future, even though we may have to adjust our strategies to cope with this tough environment, we’ll never give up. We hope the international community will not either.

Feminism was never a taboo topic in China because our messages were consistent with those of the government, which calls itself an advocate of women’s rights. But all that changed with the arrest of what the media dubbed the “Feminist Five.” In an unexpected way, the police helped create more public interest in feminism in China.

Xiao Meili is a Chinese activist for women’s rights. This article was translated by Wenguang Huang from the Chinese.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/opinion/xiao-meili-chinas-feminist-awakening.html?_r=0