“ORGONE ENERGY. is a Primordial Cosmic Energy; universally present and demonstrable visually, thermically, electroscopically and by means of Geiger-Mueller counters. In the living organism: Bio-energy, Life Energy. Discovered by Wilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1940.” … Selected Writings 1961 by Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund
A search for “pyramid” articles at the above site brings up all sorts of references on their ability to focus energy etc.; including this article: http://www.orgone.org/articles/ax6antot.htm
The pyramid power/ razor sharpening story goes back at least to the mid 1930s.
When you sharpen a knife (or a razor blade), you are removing actual molecules of steel from the edge. If you do it right, you end up with a very thin wedge that is only one molecule thick at the thinnest edge of the knife, its cutting edge.
When you use a knife to slice potatoes, you are wearing away that one-molecule-thick layer of steel, so that the edge becomes fatter and fatter. The edge is no longer only one molecule wide–it’s now two or three or four molecules wide. The knife is dull.
When someone can explain to me how putting a knife (or razor blade) underneath a pyramid shape can cause steel molecules to fall off the edge of the knife by themselves, thus sharpening the blade, then I’ll believe in pyramid power.
And David? When someone can explain to me how putting a knife (or razor blade) out in the moonlight can cause steel molecules to fall off the edge of the blade by themselves, thus dulling the blade, then I’ll believe in the power of moonlight to dull razor blades.
Was that by any chance the name of the book that mentions pyramids, razors, and mummified cat corpses, among many other things? I picked that dreck up in the early '80s when I was a credulous child and ended up using it to learn English because I was so interested in finding evidence of the paranormal (no, never found any, but I did find some common sense). OK, I ended up learning English quite well, but the cagal contained in that book almost turned my developing mind into that of a New Ager.
The book also discussed the wonderful pseudoscience of biorythms, and attributed poor biorythm calculations to airplane crashes, driving accidents, etc.
:wally
Seems to me like there’s a lot of cretin claims floating around, from the pyramid power crap to the “forward this to everyone you know for good luck” merda. I don’t see why any serious person would want to test wild claims coming from a bunch of weirdos. Did anyone mount an expedition to go searching the plateaus in S. America after Doyle wrote “The Lost World”? It’s just fiction. Knowledgeable people probably don’t want to waste time on this nonsense, and crystal-obsessed “Mysterious Powers” people don’t have the knowledge to do anything that resembles collecting evidence.
Well, at the risk of ruining my reputation as a sensible, serious person (oh, hang on…) because several people claim it works. And because it’s easy to test.
I just want one person (anyone!) to say they’ve tried this pyramid thing and it did bugger all. That’s it. Not “oh it can’t possibly work because I say so”.
I’m not demanding that someone test this out for me, I’m just really surprised that a (rather odd) claim that’s been around since the 1930’s hasn’t been refuted the simplest way…
Chronos: Thanks for the dimension stuff. Why would the use of measuring wheels automatically give you Pi though? I was trying to visualise what you meant, but it seemed to me that using wheel or tape, it’s still just length…
Um, Dylan, nobody’s ever tested this because it’s abundantly obvious to any thinking, rational potential researcher that there’s no way it could possibly work. It’s contrary to our observations of the known world. Molecules of steel don’t just jump off a knife edge by themselves. They have to be pushed off, by a whetstone or sharpening steel.
To be more accurate, no one who has posted on this board yet has cited anyone who has tested it. If this idea has really been around since the 30’s, I’d bet a fair sum o’ cash that it has been tested at some point.
“I’d bet a fair sum o’ cash that it has been tested at some point.”
Yes, it was thoroughly debunked after it became a fad in the 70’s. Of course no one remembers that now, and the idea DOES have a certain appeal to the pre-rational portions of our minds. That’s probably why it keeps popping up again and again.
As far as those who have been claiming the alleged phenomena was never worthy of investigation because it was to “wierd”, “crazy” or “far out”, I’d hope that they have carefully examined their own beliefs and eliminated all but the most stringently rational of them !
Moonlight and razors:
A razor blade left out under the moon is likely to get dew on it and remain wet for hours at a time. If the blade is even slightly dirty, it will doubtless have chloride ions on it. When the chloride solution interacts with CO2 from the air it ends up forming a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid; which can etch steel. This of course is an oversimplification, but the point is that there are all sorts of things in dirty water that can dull a razor blade. The moon need have nothing to do with it.
Duck Duck Goose, the “loss of molecules” is not why a knife normally becomes dull (although after lots of use it does need sharpening). It becomes dull because the thin edge, from use, folds over to the side, thus presenting a less-sharp face to cut with. The “sharpening” steel you refer to in your other post doesn’t actually sharpen; it merely realigns the folded-over part of the blade so that you can cut using the edge, as opposed to the folded side.
Ev en if you were to use your steel every day, you would still need to sharpen your knives on a stone or wheel.
The circumference of a circle is given by 2xPixr, twice Pi by the radius of the circle. If the lengths were measured out in whole revolutions of the wheel then the distance on the ground would be a multiple of Pi. That’s what you were asking, right?
I’ve seen all this stuff on pyramids applied to milk as well. Apparantly it was sold in Eastern Europe somewhere in pyramid shaped cartons to keep it fresh for longer.
When I read Lyall Watson’s ‘Supernature’ years ago I asked my Dad if he knew about this extraordinary pyramid-power stuff (not to mention “true accounts” of poltergeists etc, eeeeee), and he said it had been a fad in the sixties. He built a model pyramid as per instructions but it failed to sharpen razor blads (surprise!).
As for pyramid power in general, particularly their supposedly meaningful dimensions, there’s an excellent debunking of that idea in Umberto Eco’s ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, although unfortunately I can’t find the page reference. In the passage, a character points out a nearby kiosk and invents mathematical ‘connections’ between its dimensions and things like the circumference of the earth, distance to the moon, and any number of ‘magic’ numbers. His point being that there are so many numbers regarded as significant for one reason or another that it’s easy to work them into calculations.
Oh, and ‘Pyramids’ by Pterry Pratchett is a great read
Ahh, yeah, of course. I guess I was assuming that they’d decide what the circumference should be (eg. 1 metre, or whatever they used at the time) and then make the radius to match…it seems a bit odd to use their system of measurements to measure the radius, and then just let the length the wheel measures be whatever.
I hope this makes sense. Obviously the length is only a multiple of Pi in the units they’re using, if the unit is used to take the radius…
Francesca: Sorry, no. My Real Life name isn’t Dylan. I just started using it after a The Magic Roundabout day on IRC many years ago, and never bothered changing it…
Does this mean the Eygptians knew nothing about the relationship 2 x Pi x radius = Circumference? How did they figure out what size to make the wheels so they could measure out the length of the base of the pyramid on the ground. The pyramids seemed too accomplished a piece of engineering for them to just say “okay thats a nice length of circumference lets go with that.”
Yeah, I agree with Pushkin here…on a measuring wheel, the only important thing is the circumference. Why would they care what the radius was anyway? Makes no sense to me.
It says that it’s the egyptian method of calculating angles, that naturally leads to the various dimensions involved, and this does seem a more natural explanation…
