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| Christmas by Jack Flash 35mm, Flickr.com |
It's Christmas time again! Some love it, and some hate it...
Whatever your views, or even whether you celebrate it or not - this winter festival has deep roots in our subconscious, and in our collective history.
It wasn't always linked to Christianity and the birth of Jesus, in fact winter celebrations marking the Solstice have been around well before Christ.
In Europe, this was marked with a great feast to celebrate the birth of the Sun:
The end of the long nights and the beginning of longer days as the re-birth of Sun. They slaughtered the animals that couldn’t be kept throughout the winter and feasted on them from late December throughout January.
Around the same time, German pagans honoured their much fierce god Oden, a dualistic god known for his unpredictable temper and a penchant for flying over their camps cursing some and blessing others…
In Scandinavia the Norse celebrated Yuletide, with each family feasting until the log they burnt was consumed into ashes.
The Romans had no less than three festivals that fell around Solstice. The best known: Saturnalia was celebrated in honour of Saturn, their patron of agriculture. From December the 17th to 24th, social hierarchy was reversed: slaves dressed in their masters’ clothes and were allowed to rule, children were also encouraged to rule their parents. All excesses were permitted and unpunished during the festival - overeating, gambling, drinking, and sexual promiscuity were generalised among the population at this time.
By the 4th Century, with so many different pagan festivals to contend with, the Church decided that it was impossible to eradicate them and better to join them, or at least to give their followers an alternative celebration so that they wouldn’t be tempted into joining pagan celebrations, and so Christmas was born with the birth of Jesus attributed to the same date as the Winter Solstice.
No matter what there are still reasons to celebrate, and so I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas...even to those of you who refuse to be enveloped into the Christmas spirit, there is something in the air...
If for nothing else because of the Higgs Boson, tentatively making its way into the limelight just when we most need it!
This tiny particle has so far been a figment of imagination. Even if real it has a mass of 124-125 gigaelectronvolts : absolutely insignificant as far as mass goes! And yet it underpins the entire Standard Model - the "instruction booklet" that describes how particles and forces interact: it explains gravity, and it is considered crucial for allowing science to “make sense” of the Universe!
So there is hope that magic will be allowed to exist once again even in those skeptic and cynic minds, and that once it has been confirmed scientifically they will be able to "see it"... the God particle, as it has been nicknamed by many, might actually be real, not just something "cooked up" by Peter Higgs in order to explain the unexplainable! The Higgs particle has just been "glimpsed" on two separate scientific experiments at CERN.
As someone pointed out on Twitter, and yes - I know it was supposed to be a mirth comment but it did strike a cord... "we spend billions of dollars trying to find Higgs, how come we cannot prove that homeopathy works?"
I say it is not in the current interest of science to explain it - it would upset well established scientific principles that not many are willing to re-evaluate at this stage... also it gives that disafected lunatic fringe of the scientific community something to do...yes, I mean the Skeptics off course!
Their sect as all the makings of religious fanaticism: it is dogmatic, based in false principles, the majority of its members is spiritually blind but is being manipulated by a few of the best scientifc brains in order to serve their interests... and it works!
They are trully fanatic about demoting anything that science cannot explain yet...anything that doesn't fit into the current scientific model: it is a hobby, and that's fine...they meet in pubs, stand up comedy shows, etc...its all good fun I'm sure! Even thought that it is a destructive way of being when someone has to resort to attacking others in order to find their place in society and to define themselves...
Trying to avoid the same pitfall, I try not make any personal attacks on any particular individuals... even those who cover themselves in ridicule by conducting "homeopathic overdoses" when they know fully well that homeopathic principles contervein the possibility of overdose...
Even when someone claimed recently on Twitter to be a "health expert" because he's an "ex US surgical"... well, it shows that he might have observed a fair amount of human tragedy - and he certainly has my respect for that! It also shows that he's worked in a highly pressurised environment, where complementary medicine could not be an alternative and where only surgery would do... it also shows me that he had access to powerful narcotics which most people can only find in the black market...but it doesn't qualify him as a "health expert" - it just proves that in his confused mind illness equals health...one day even him will be able to "see" the link between complementary medicine and health.
So let this Christmas be the dawn of a new Era for both science and magic, and remember that magic is all that science cannot yet explain...
Merry Christmas to all - and I really mean all, no exceptions!
