Stonehenge, like today's most modern telescopes, is our distant ancestors' attempt to see through the veil of the sky--and understand the heavens above.
Nature abhors a vacuum: where facts are few, fables flourish.
No human dream is more universal than the longing for a paradise on earth, a place free of the ravages of time and disease, where the best in nature flourishes while the worst is forbidden to enter. By definition, such magical lands can't be near at hand; they must be remote and inaccessible, destinations to be reached by pilgrimage or a heroic journey. Ancient Tibetan Buddhist texts spoke of just such a kingdom, where wise kings blessed with long life spans await the day when they will take over the world, ushering in a golden age of peace and justice. This mythical kingdom was called Shambala...The myth was essentially hijacked by British novelist Jamed Hilton, whose 1033 best seller Lost Horizon gave Shambala a new name: Shangri-la...In 2002 the [Chinese] government tried to cash in in the ancient mythical land of Tibetan lamas by renaming the western town of Zhongdian as Shangri-la. Even so, the words Hilton wrote in 1933 are truer than ever today: "You won't find Shangri-la marked on any map."
Amid the fray, locals remain calm. In 1961, when French scholars told Himalayan village elder Khunjo Chumbi they believed the yeti was a hoax, he replied, "In Nepal we have neither giraffes nor kangaroos, so we know nothing about them. In France, there are no yetis, so I sympathize with your ignorance."
Perhaps the last word belongs to G.K. Chesterton, the British intellectual of the early 20th century, who wrote, "Many a man has been hanged on less evidence than there is for the Loch Ness Monster."
A stufy of astrology takes us through a whirlwond tour through human culture: Mesopotamian star-gazers gave us the zodiac (and the three Magi, astrologer-priests who witnessed Christ's birth); Egyptians created the idea of the horoscope; the Greeks gave us the constellations, the organizing units of European astrology, and their fanciful, evocative names.
The Bermuda Triangle is one of a handful of places in the world where compasses point to true, rather than magnetic north--an anomaly that could lead to deadly confusion for ships and planes.
Looking for aliens? Take a drive across sunny Nevada along the Extraterrestial Highway...you'll be close to a vast, secret U.S. Air Force installation that takes up some 8000 sq. mi. This outpost in the desert is often referred to as Area 51,though the base is so secret it has no official name.
The psychic bond that twins seem to share has been documented extensively and is understood almost not at all. Sonograms often show twins seeming to hold hands or cling together in the womb. Mothers often report that infant twins sleeping in separate rooms will lie in the same positions, roll over at the same time and be disturbed by nightmares simultaneously. Twins in schools are sometimes accused by teachers of cheating on exams because of their tendency to get the same scores, with the same questions wrong due to the same incorrect answers...The most puzzling and hotly disputed aspect of the twin connection is the phenomenon of "sympathetic pain", in which one twin claims to feel the discomfort of another, even when they are separated by great distances.
Nostradamus focused on life's eternals: kings, popes, wars and disasters. Thus his work never ages: it is a blank slate onto which a willing reader can project anything he wishes to see.
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Behold Mount Ararat, whose summit, often draped in clouds, is believed by many to be the resting place of antiquity's most famous vessel, Noah's Ark. The tale of a great universal flood, sent by an angry God to punish a wicked world, is famously told in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, chapters 6 through 9.
...destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman army in A.D.70. This physical center of the Jewish universe was erected on the site of the First Temple, built by King Solomon on the spot where Abraham was said to have offered his son Isaac in sacrifice, only to have his hand slayed by an angel. The temple, which held the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments, was destroyed when the Jews were exiled into Babylonian Captivity. After the Romans pillaged the Second Temple, all that remained of Judaism's holiest site was one flank, facing to the west, of the retaining wall…this fragment of the temple’s foundation, now called the Western Wall, is more than 100 ft. high and 16 ft. thick.
Islam teaches that Muhammad was borne by a winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night during the year 620; he tethered the steed to this wall and then ascended into the clouds with the angel Gabriel, who conducted the Prophet on a tour of both heaven and hell. This makes al-Buraq (and the Islamic shrine that sits above it, the Dome of the Rock) one of the holiest places in the Muslim world. Sadly, Middle East strife has made this site, central to two of the world’s great religions, perhaps the single most contested patch of ground on the planet.
Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once wrote that faith doesn't come from miracles—miracles come from faith.
The same survey, which indicated that more than 8 million Americans have undergone a near death experience, found that many describe the state as "ecstatic", and some find the experience so transfixing that they are unhappy about returning to life. "Why did you bring me back, Doctor?" said one patient. " It was so beautiful!"
...And of course, NDEs may represent a transition stage between life and death, not one's final destination. Still, while skeptics and believers argue over proof, a poet might view beautiful visions at the end of life as nature's final gift—the spirit soaring while the body is falling.
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