Tule fog is a thick ground fog that settles in valley areas of California during the late autumn and winter after the first significant rainfall. The official time frame for tule fog to form is from November 1 to March 31, California’s rainy season. This phenomenon is named after the tule grass wetlands of the Central Valley.

Radiation fog is formed by the cooling of land after sunset by thermal radiation in calm conditions with clear sky. The cool ground produces condensation in the nearby air by heat conduction. In perfect calm the fog layer can be less than a meter deep but turbulence can promote a thicker layer. Radiation fogs occur at night, and usually do not last long after sunrise.

In California, tule fog can extend from Bakersfield to Red Bluff. Tule fog occasionally drifts as far west as the San Francisco Bay Area, even drifting westward out the Golden Gate, opposite to the usual course of summertime ocean fog. The nights are longer in the winter months, which creates rapid ground cooling, and thereby a pronounced temperature inversion at a low altitude.

The fog forms when cold mountain air flows downslope into the valley during the night, pooling in the low areas until it fills the valleys. This occurs because most areas in the valley has little or no air drainage below the level of mountains. Because of the density of the cold air in the winter, winds are not able to dislodge the fog and the high pressure of the warmer air above the mountaintops presses down on the cold air trapped in the valley, resulting in a dense fog..

In the California’s Central Valley, Tule fog is a low cloud, usually below 1,000 feet in altitude that can be seen from above by driving up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to the east or the Coast Ranges to the west. Above the cold, foggy layer, the air is typically warm, dry and clear. Once tule fog is formed, turbulent air is necessary to break through the temperature inversion layer. Daytime heating sometimes evaporates the fog in some areas, although the air remains chilly and hazy below the inversion. Tule fog usually remains longer in the southern and eastern parts of the Central Valley.

Visibility in tule fog is usually less than an eighth of a mile, but can be less than 10 feet. Visibility can vary rapidly. In only a few feet visibility can go from 10 feet to near zero. Satellite and overhead photos of the San Joaquin Valley may show the fog where agriculture and cities like Sacramento can be seen.

Lack of visibility in tule fog is hazardous enough, but these fog events are often accompanied by drizzle and freezing drizzle. Because of the lack of sunlight penetrating the fog layer, temperatures may struggle to climb above freezing, and episodes of freezing drizzle occasionally accompany tule fog events during winter. Such events can leave an invisible glaze of black ice on roadways, making travel especially treacherous.

Accidents caused by the tule fog are the leading cause of weather-related casualties in California.

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician and writer. It first appeared in the title of his book The Use of Lateral Thinking, published in 1967. De Bono defines lateral thinking as methods of thinking concerned with changing concepts and perception. Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.

Techniques that apply lateral thinking to problems are characterized by the shifting of thinking patterns, away from entrenched or predictable thinking to new or unexpected ideas. A new idea that is the result of lateral thinking is not always a helpful one, but when a good idea is discovered in this way it is usually obvious in hindsight, which is a feature lateral thinking shares with a joke.

Edward de Bono points out that the term problem solving implies that there is a problem to respond to and that it can be resolved. That eliminates situations where there is no problem or a problem exists that cannot be resolved. It is logical to think about making a good situation, that has no problems, into a better situation. Sometimes a problem cannot be solved by removing its cause. Lateral thinking can be used to help in solving problems but can also be used for much more.

We may need to solve some problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place. – Edward de Bono

Critical thinking is primarily concerned with judging the truth value of statements and seeking errors. Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas. It can also be put as, critical thinking is like a post-mortem while lateral thinking is like diagnosis.

Lateral Thinking Puzzles are also known as Situation puzzles. They are strange situations where puzzlers are given a limited amount of information and then have to ask questions of a quizmaster who can only answer yes or no. The general principles that apply when tackling lateral thinking puzzles are to check all assumptions, to remain open-minded and to be creative in questioning. The leading authors of books of Lateral Thinking Puzzles are Paul Sloane and Des MacHale who have written a series of books published by Sterling Publishing.

Here are some fun lateral thinking questions:

There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Every day he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it’s raining! How can this be?

Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot smeared window on the 26th floor of the office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped through it. After he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?

There was a hotel where the visitors complained about the slow moving elevator and how long they had to wait for it to come. It became so severe that the manager was asked to do something about it. If you were the manager what would you suggest?

And here are the fun lateral thinking answers:

The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it. Alternatively, the man’s daily job finishes in this very building halfway up, except when it’s raining. Perhaps he’s a security guard who makes rounds floor by floor in the morning and watches a security monitor in the afternoon, except when it’s raining. It never said he takes the elevator before walking, just that he does both.

Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside. Alternatively, Mel’s office was in another building, on the first floor, and he was looking at the 26th-floor window of another tower. The window in the second sentence then refers to that of Mel’s office, not the 26th-floor one. Mel could also have had a balcony.

Most of us would come up with ideal answers to call the elevator service center and ask them to send someone to fix it. Warn the visitors about it. Change the system. Lateral thinking applied, a consultant advised the hotel to fix mirrors next to the elevators. This would cause people to be busy looking at themselves in the mirror and adjusting their dress, hair and may be watching someone else in the mirror. They would not feel the wait. This actually worked for the hotel, and they did not receive complaints anymore.

Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate. It occurs in nature as flattened and often twinned crystals and transparent cleavable masses called selenite. A very fine grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum is called alabaster, which is prized for ornamental work of various sorts.

Selenite is named after the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene, due to its soft white light. It is said to have many metaphysical and healing benefits. Selenite powder has been used cosmetically for thousands of years to enhance one’s natural beauty. It is believed that this crystal assists with mental focus, growth, luck, immunity, and soothes the emotions. In arid areas, selenite can occur in a flower like form typically opaque with embedded sand grains called desert rose. The most visually striking varieties are the giant crystals from Naica Mine.

The Naica Mine is a working mine in Chihuahua, Mexico that is known for its extraordinary crystals. Naica is a lead, zinc and silver mine in which large voids have been found, containing crystals of selenite gypsum as large as 4 feet in diameter and 50 feet long. The chamber holding these crystals is known as the Crystal Cave of Giants, and is approximately 1000 feet down in the limestone host rock of the mine. The crystals were formed by hydrothermal fluids emanating from the magma chambers below. The cavern was discovered while the miners were drilling through the Naica fault, which they were worried would flood the mine. The Cave of Swords is another chamber in the Naica Mine, containing similar large crystals.

The Naica mine was first discovered by early prospectors in 1794 south of Chihuahua City. Until around 1900, the primary interest was silver and gold. Large scale mining began as zinc and lead became more valuable. During the Mexican Revolution the mine was producing a great deal of wealth. Revolutionary troops entered the town and demanded money from the owners. One of them was assassinated when he refused to pay, causing the mine to shut down from 1911 to 1922.

Just before the mine was closed, the famous Cave of Swords was discovered at a depth of 400 feet. Due to the incredible crystals, it was decided to try to preserve the cave. While many of the crystals have been collected, this is still a fascinating cave to visit. In one part there are so many crystals on one of the walls, they appear to be like an underwater reef moving in a gentle undulating motion in an ocean current.

In April 2000, brothers Juan and Pedro Sanchez were drilling a new tunnel when they made a truly spectacular discovery. While Naica miners are accustomed to finding crystals, Juan and Pedro were absolutely amazed by the cavern that they found. The brothers immediately informed the engineer in charge, Roberto Gonzalez. He realized that they had discovered a natural treasure and quickly rerouted the tunnel. During this phase some damage was done as several miners tried to remove pieces of the huge crystals, so the mining company soon installed an iron door to protect the find. Later, one of the workers, with the intention of stealing crystals, managed to get in through a narrow hole. He tried to take some plastic bags filled with fresh air inside, but the strategy didn’t work. He lost consciousness and later was found thoroughly baked.

When entering the cave a group is issued helmets, lanterns, rubber boots, and gloves. One must then be driven by truck into the main mining tunnel called Rampa Sn. Francisco. While the vertical drop is approximately 1000 feet, the drive is almost a half mile long. The truck stops in front of a concrete wall with a steel door. At the end of the tunnel there are three or four steps into the aperture of the cavern itself. In this short distance the temperature and humidity goes from being uncomfortably warm to literally a blast furnace.

Momentarily, the penetrating heat is forgotten as the crystals pop into view on the other side of the “Eye of the Queen”. The entire panorama is now lighted and the cavern has a depth and impressive cathedral-like appearance that was not visible on earlier trips. When inside the great cathedral of crystals, the pressure of intense heat create a gamut of emotions and perhaps hallucinations. One can only remain for a short period of time.

Geologists report that these natural crystal formations are incredibly complex. They have a magical or metaphysical personality independent of their chemical structures. There is a magma chamber two to three miles below the mountain and the heat from compressed lava travels through the faults up into the area of the mine. Super heated fluids carry the minerals the miners are seeking and also form the crystals. The mine is ventilated, otherwise it could not be worked. Some parts are not air conditioned, such as the Cave of the Crystals, and there one can feel the heat from the magma deep below. The fluids travel along the Naica fault, enter voids in the bedrock, and then form entirely natural structures that are not easily explained scientifically.

Since the late 20th century, with the growing interest in crystal therapy and crystal healing in the New Age, Neo Pagan, and alternative healing countercultures, the four crystalline varieties of gypsum have increased in popularity and commercial value. This increased interest has translated itself into both the retail mineral and jewelry trades. In the retail mineral trade, all four crystalline varieties are offered as rough, carved, or tumbled specimens. In the retail jewellery trade, selenite crystals with interior druse are offered as a form of drusy jewelry.

The Coast Redwood is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia. It is an evergreen, long lived, monoecious tree living for up to 2,200 years, and this species includes the tallest trees on Earth, reaching up to 379 feet. The current tallest tree was discovered in Redwood National Park during Summer 2006 by Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor and has been measured as the world’s tallest living thing. There are 33 measured living trees more than 361 feet.

Coast Redwoods occupy a narrow strip of land approximately 470 miles and 5-47 miles in width along the Pacific coast of North America. The elevation range is mostly from 90 to 1200 feet, occasionally down to sea level and up to 3,000 feet. They usually grow in the mountains where there is more precipitation from the incoming moisture off the ocean. The tallest and oldest trees are found in deep valleys and gullies, where year round streams can flow and fog drip is regular. The trees above the fog layer are shorter and smaller due to the drier, windier, and colder conditions. In addition, tanoak, pine and Douglas-fir often crowd out redwoods at these elevations. Few redwoods grow close to the ocean, due to intense salt spray, sand and wind.

The northern boundary of its range is marked by two groves on the Chetco River on the western fringe of the Klamath Mountains, 15 miles north of the California-Oregon border. The largest populations are in National Parks in Del Norte and Humboldt Counties, and in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

This native area provides a unique environment with heavy seasonal rains of up to 100 inches annually. Cool coastal air and fog keep the forest consistently damp year round. Several factors, including the heavy rainfall, create a soil with less nutrients than are necessary, causing the trees to depend heavily on the entire biotic community of the forest and complete recycling of the trees when dead. This forest community includes Coast Douglas-fir, Western Hemlock, Tanoak, Pacific Madrone, and other trees along with a wide variety of ferns, Redwood sorrel, mosses and mushrooms. 

Redwood forests provide habitat for a variety of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Old growth redwood stands provide habitat for the federally threatened Spotted Owl and the California-endangered Marbled Murrelet.

The thick, tannin-rich bark, combined with foliage that starts high above the ground provides good protection from both fire and insect damage, contributing to the Coast Redwood’s longevity. The oldest known Coast Redwood is about 2,200 years old. Many others in the wild exceed 600 years. Interestingly enough, Coast Redwoods because of their seemingly timeless lifespan were deemed the everlasting redwood at the turn of the century. In Latin, sempervirens means everlasting, a coincidence unbeknown to those who named these giants.

The prehistoric fossil range of the genus is considerably greater, with a subcosmopolitan distribution including Europe and Asia until about 5 million years ago.

Coast Redwood is one of the most valuable timber species in California, with 899,000 acres of redwood forest, all second growth, managed for timber production. Coast Redwood lumber is highly valued for its beauty, light weight, and resistance to decay. Its lack of resin makes it resistant to fire. Because of its impressive resistance to decay, redwood was extensively used for railroad ties and trestles throughout California. Many of the old ties have been recycled for use in gardens as borders, steps, etc. Redwood burls are used in the production of table tops, veneers, and turned goods.

The Coast Redwood is locally naturalized in New Zealand, notably at Rotorua. Other areas of successful cultivation outside of the native range include Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, the Queen Charlotte Islands, middle elevations of Hawaii, a small area in central Mexico and the southeastern United States from eastern Texas to Maryland.

The tallest non-redwood tree is a 331 foot tall Eucalyptus regnans, dubbed Centurion, discovered near Hobart in Tasmania, Australia.
 

Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativness is that it is simply the act of making something new. From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought, sometimes referred to as divergent thought, are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness.

Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits, chance, accident and serendipity. It has been associated with genius, mental illness and humour. Some say it is a trait we are born with. Others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques.

Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, it is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioural psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, economics, design research, business, and management, among others. The studies have covered everyday creativity, exceptional creativity and even artificial creativity. Unlike many phenomena in science, there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity. And unlike many phenomena in psychology, there is no standardized measurement technique.

Although popularly associated with art and literature, it is also an essential part of innovation and invention and is important in professions such as business, economics, architecture, industrial design, science and engineering. Despite, or perhaps because of, the ambiguity and multi-dimensional nature of creativity, entire industries have been spawned from the pursuit of creative ideas and the development of creativity techniques.

Some researchers believe that creativity is the outcome of the same cognitive processes as intelligence, and is only judged as creativity in terms of its consequences, such as when the outcome of cognitive processes happens to produce something novel, a view which Perkins has termed the “nothing special” hypothesis.

A very popular model proposed by Ellis Paul Torrance holds that a high degree of intelligence appears to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for high creativity. This means that, in a general sample, there will be a positive correlation between creativity and intelligence, but this correlation will not be found if only a sample of the most highly intelligent people are assessed. Research into the threshold hypothesis, however, has produced mixed results ranging from enthusiastic support to refutation and rejection.

Some students of creativity have emphasized an element of chance in the creative process. Linus Pauling, asked at a public lecture how one creates scientific theories, replied that one must endeavor to come up with many ideas, then discard the useless ones.

Another adequate definition of creativity is that it is an assumptions-breaking process. Creative ideas are often generated when one discards preconceived assumptions and attempts a new approach or method that might seem to others unthinkable.

Creativity has been associated with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking. According to some researchers, positive emotions increase the number of cognitive elements available for association and the number of elements that are relevant to the problem.

In 2005, Alice Flaherty presented a three factor model of the creative drive. Drawing from evidence in brain imaging, drug studies and lesion analysis, she described the creative drive as resulting from an interaction of the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, and dopamine from the limbic system. The frontal lobes can be seen as responsible for idea generation, and the temporal lobes for idea editing and evaluation. Abnormalities in the frontal lobe, such as depression or anxiety, generally decrease creativity, while abnormalities in the temporal lobe often increase creativity. High activity in the temporal lobe typically inhibits activity in the frontal lobe, and vice versa. High dopamine levels increase general arousal and goal directed behaviors and reduce latent inhibition, and all three effects increase the drive to generate ideas.

Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder and depressive disorder. In Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison summarizes studies of mood disorder rates in writers, poets and artists. She also explores research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist Michelangelo.

A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a Tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Thoughtform may be understood as a psychospiritual complex of mind, energy or consciousness manifested either consciously or unconsciously, by a sentient being or in concert. 

Thoughtforms may be benevolent, malevolent or of complex alignment and may be understood as a spontaneous or intentional manifestation or emergence. Professor H. H. Price, an Oxford philosopher and parapsychologist, held that once an idea has been formed, it is no longer wholly under the control of the consciousness which gave it birth, but may operate independently on the minds of other people or on physical objects.

Areas of intense thoughtform phenomena are called window areas. Many of them were places of former religious importance that have now waned or fallen from use. The use of an area over hundreds of years creates a type of artificial life form or something that fed on the worship. When the worship is taken away it still needs to feed. 

In Tibetan mysticism, a Tulpa is a being or object which is created through willpower, visualisation, attention and focus, concerted intentionality and ritual. In other words, it is a materialized thought that has taken physical form. In the Dzogchen view, accomplished thoughtforms are sentient beings as they have a consciousness field or mindstream confluence in a dynamic organization of emergent factors from the mindstream intentionality of progenitors. 

In Tibet, where such things are practiced, a ghost of this kind is called a Tulpa. A Tulpa is usually produced by a skilled magician or yogi, although in some cases it is said to arise from the collective imagination of superstitious villagers, say, or of travelers passing through some sinister tract of country.

Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially thought forms representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound vibrations. 

There are apparitions that make public appearances. Some of these are said to be the perceptible double, the etheric counterpart, of a living person who is undergoing an out of body experience. Even more mysterious are the externalized perceptible manifestations of something whose existence originated in the mind of its creator by virtue of that person’s incredible powers of concentration, visualization, and other efforts of the mind. 

Another idea is that Tulpas are a massive, collective, subconscious, thoughtform. The thoughtform is said to be a three dimensional image created by the power of the mind. Buddhist llamas in Tibet are said to be able to summon up Tulpas during intense meditation. Western explorer Dame Alexandra was said to have created a Tulpa of a monk whilst studying in Tibet. Polish medium Franek Klusk was said to have summoned up cats, birds, and apes during seances. Perhaps, considering the types of beast he called up, he was creating Tulpas. If individuals can create Tulpas imagine what the collective, gestalt mind of humanity as a species could do. Perhaps dragons are a giant worldwide thought form emanating from our innermost fears.

Thoughtforms, in the sense of being systems of awareness with the attribute of self will and self determination, figure in various cognitive and psychological theories. Marvin Minsky, cofounder of the artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT, proposes that there are agencies of the mind, by which he means any and all psychological processes. Although he grants that a view of the mind as made up of many selves may be valid, he suggests that this may be a myth that we construct.

Carl Jung’s technique of active imagination involves interacting with thoughtforms of the subconscious mind. Jung identified certain universal thoughtform archetypes such as anima and animus which are characteristic of all humans. Psychological archetypes are thoughtforms. The chief difference between these scientific formulations and spiritual definitions of thoughtforms is that the former are created unconsciously whereas the latter are created deliberately.

The Bay Laurel, also known as Sweet Bay, Grecian Laurel or Bay Tree, is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub native to the Mediterranean region.

Bay Laurel is the source of the bay leaves which are used in cooking. It was also the source of the laurel wreath of ancient Greece, and therefore the expression of resting on one’s laurels. A wreath of bay laurels was given as the prize at the Pythian Games because the games were in honor of Apollo and the laurel was one of his symbols ever since his unsuccessful pursuit of the nymph Daphne, who changed into a laurel to escape his lustful stalking. 

In the Bible, the sweet bay is often an emblem of prosperity and fame. In Christianity it is said to symbolize the Resurrection of Christ and the triumph of Humanity. It is also the source of the word baccalaureate and of poet laureate. Some evidence from the medical literature supports Bay Laurel having these uses as an antioxidative, analgesic and anti-inflammatory and anticonvulsant.

In Chinese folklore there is a great laurel tree on the moon, and the Chinese name for the laurel literally translates to moon laurel. This is the subject of a story of Wu Gang, a man who aspired to immortality and neglected his work. When the deities discovered this they sentenced Wu Gang to fell the laurel tree, whereupon he could join the ranks of the deities. However, since the laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled. The phrase “Wu Gang felling the tree” is sometimes used to refer to endless toil, analogous to Sisyphus in Greek mythology.

It is also widely cultivated as an ornamental plant in regions with mediterranean or oceanic climates, and as an indoor plant in colder regions. Bay leaves are eaten by the caterpillars of some Lepidoptera, for example the Eastern tiger swallowtail.

In the fruit there are essential oils and fatty oils present. The fruit is pressed and water extracted to obtain these products. The fruit contains the essential oils terpene, sesquiterpene, alcohos and ketone. The leaves contain eucalyptol and similar terpenes.

Bay laurel leaves are used in the design of the 10 yen coin in Japan. The National Emblem of Greece consists of a blue escutcheon with a white cross totally surrounded by two laurel branches.

Neodruidism is a form of modern spirituality or religion that promotes harmony and worship of nature, along with respect for all beings and the environment. It is considered to be a Neopagan faith by some adherents, along with such religions as Wicca and Neopaganism. By other modern druids it is considered to be a philosophical movement that includes religious tolerance, allowing its followers to be adherents of other religions, or even atheism.

The dominant belief in Druidism is the idea that the earth and nature is sacred and is worthy of worship in itself. For this reason some modern Druids are pantheistic, seeing the natural world as being divine itself. It is unknown if pantheism and direct nature worship were a part of ancient Celtic polytheism. There is no clear historical or archaeological evidence one way or the other.

Some modern druids practice meditation and visualization as a method of self transformation, particularly engaging the imagery of the four elements of the classical philosophers and the medieval alchemists. Earth, air, fire, and water are considered symbolic of aspects of nature and are sometimes linked symbolically to the four cardinal directions, the four seasons, and the four stages of human life: birth, maturation, old age, and death. Elemental symbolism is fluid and varies from group to group. Some modern druids believe that the ancient Celts did not adopt the Greek system of four elements and prefer to use only a symbolic division of the cosmos into three realms: Sea (the lower realm), Land (the middle realm), and Sky (the upper realm).

The Neopagan branch of Druidism in the United States can be traced to one particular root in the Reformed Druids of North America, which was founded by protesting college students. The history of this organization is interesting and one of the best documented histories of any druidic organization.

The founding of the first congregation of the Reformed Druids of North America in 1963 proved influential in giving birth to other Neopagan organizations. Carleton College’s requirement that each student participate regularly in religious services caused a minor rebellion of several students who started calling themselves druids. This religion was designed mainly to annoy and challenge the college administration and its attempt to enforce particular religious sects. 

This tiny movement came to be called The Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA), a pun on the genetic molecule. Despite its jocular culture, Celtic mythology, spiritual eclecticism, more general countercultural agitation, and easygoing self irony were also important themes by the time the religious requirement was rescinded in 1964. The loss of the specific protest motivation did not weaken the RDNA, which still exists today.

It was later developed into actual religious practices. These retained much of the humor with which the Carleton druids were founded but became increasingly seen as a legitimate spiritual pursuit by its founders, one which permitted the students of a largely Episcopalian college to explore their own consciences.

The Ancient Order of Druids in America, established in 1912, considers Druidry as a path of nature spirituality and inner transformation founded on personal experience rather than dogmatic belief. It is a church in the original sense of the word, a community of people following a spiritual path together. It welcomes men and women of all national origins, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and affiliations with other Druidic and spiritual traditions. Ecological awareness and commitment to an earth-honoring lifestyle, celebration of the cycles of nature through seasonal ritual, and personal development through meditation and other spiritual exercises form the core of its work. Involvement in the arts, healing practices, and traditional esoteric studies are among its applications and expressions.

John Michael Greer currently serves as the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America, a position he has held since 2002. He is an author, historian of ideas, Hermeticist and Druid who resides in Ashland, Oregon.

His first book, Paths of Wisdom, a study of the Golden Dawn system of Qabalah, was published in 1996, and has been followed by many other books on magical and esoteric traditions and their histories, including an encyclopedic work on secret societies, The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History. Forthcoming titles will cover an exploration of UFO phenomenologies and histories, and esoteric Western Physical Culture. He has practiced gardening, Tai Chi and related internal arts for decades.

Greer has shown an interest in oil and other resource depletion, which he believes will bring about fundamental, global changes in societies for centuries to come.

Volcanic rocks form from volcanic lava near the surface of the earth. They differ from igneous rocks which form from magma below the surface of the earth. The lavas of different volcanoes, when cooled and hardened, differ much in their appearance and composition. If a rhyolite lava stream cools quickly, it can quickly freeze into a black glassy substance called obsidian. When filled with bubbles of gas, the same lava may form the spongy mineral pumice. Allowed to cool slowly, it forms a light-colored, uniformly solid rock called rhyolite.

The lavas, having cooled rapidly in contact with the air or water, are mostly finely crystalline or have at least fine grained ground mass representing that part of the viscous semicrystalline lava flow which was still liquid at the moment of eruption. At this time they were exposed only to atmospheric pressure, and the steam and other gases, which they contained in great quantity were free to escape.

Many important modifications arise from this, the most striking being the frequent presence of numerous steam cavities often drawn out to elongated shapes subsequently filled up with minerals by infiltration. As crystallization was going on while the mass was still creeping forward under the surface of the Earth, the latest formed minerals in the ground mass are commonly arranged in subparallel winding lines following the direction of movement and the larger early minerals which had previously crystallized may show the same arrangement. 

Most lavas have fallen considerably below their original temperatures before they are emitted. In their behavior they present a close analogy to hot solutions of salts in water, which, when they approach the saturation temperature, first deposit a crop of large, well formed crystals and subsequently precipitate clouds of smaller less perfect crystalline particles. 

In igneous rocks the first generation of crystals generally forms before the lava has emerged to the surface, that is to say, during the ascent from the subterranean depths to the crater of the volcano. It has frequently been verified by observation that freshly emitted lavas contain large crystals borne along in a molten, liquid mass. The large, well-formed, early crystals are said to be porphyritic, which means that there is a large difference between the size of the tiny matrix crystals and other much larger crystals. The smaller crystals of the surrounding matrix or ground mass belong to the post effusion stage. 

More rarely lavas are completely fused at the moment of ejection. They may then cool to form a finely crystalline rock, or if more rapidly chilled may in large part be non crystalline or glassy, such as obsidian, tachylyte, pitchstone. A common feature of glassy rocks is the presence of rounded bodies consisting of fine divergent fibres radiating from a center. They consist of imperfect crystals of feldspar, mixed with quartz or tridymite. Similar bodies are often produced artificially in glasses which are allowed to cool slowly. Rarely these spherulites are hollow or consist of concentric shells with spaces between. Perlitic structure, also common in glasses, consists of the presence of concentric rounded cracks owing to contraction on cooling.

The porphyritic minerals are not only larger than those of the ground mass, but as the matrix was still liquid when they formed they were free to take perfect crystalline shapes, without interference by the pressure of adjacent crystals. They seem to have grown rapidly, as they are often filled with enclosures of glassy or finely crystalline material like that of the ground mass. 

Microscopic examination of the larger crystals of the phenocrysts, which are the larger fragments in the rock, often reveals that they have had a complex history. Very frequently they show layers of different composition, indicated by variations in color or other optical properties. Augite may be green in the center surrounded by various shades of brown, or they may be pale green centrally and darker green at the periphery. In the feldspars the center is usually richer in calcium than the surrounding layers, and successive zones may often be noted, each containing less calcium than those which lie within it. 

Phenocrysts of quartz, instead of sharp, perfect crystalline faces, may show rounded corroded surfaces, with the points blunted and irregular tongue like projections of the matrix into the substance of the crystal. It is clear that after the mineral had crystallized it was partly again dissolved or corroded at some period before the matrix solidified. 

The term sensorium refers to the sum of an organism’s perception, the seat of sensation where it experiences and interprets the environments within which it lives. In medical, psychological, and physiological discourse it has come to refer to the total character of the unique and changing sensory environments perceived by individuals. These include the sensation, perception, and interpretation of information about the world by senses, perceptual systems and minds.

In the 20th century the concept behind the sensorium became a key part of the cultural theories of Marshall McLuhan, Edmund Carpenter and Walter J. Ong. McLuhan, like his mentor Harold Innis, believed that media were biased according to time and space. He paid particular attention to what he called the sensorium, or the effects of media on our senses, positing that media affect us by manipulating the ratio of our senses. For example, the alphabet stresses the sense of sight, which in turn causes us to think in linear, objective terms. The medium of the alphabet thus has the effect of reshaping the way in which we, collectively and individually, perceive and understand our environment.

Focusing on variations in the sensorium across social contexts, these theorists collectively suggest that the world is explained and experienced differently depending on the specific ratios of sense that members of a culture share in the sensoria they learn to inhabit. More recent work has demonstrated that individuals may include in their unique sensoria perceptual proclivities that exceed their cultural norms, even when, as in the history of smell in the West, the sense in question is suppressed or mostly ignored.

This interplay of various ways of conceiving the world could be compared to the experience of synesthesia, where stimulus of one sense causes a perception by another, seemingly unrelated sense, as in musicians who can taste the intervals between notes they hear, or artists who can smell colours. Many individuals who have one or more senses restricted or lost develop a sensorium with a ratio of sense which favours those they possess more fully. Frequently the blind or deaf speak of a compensating effect, whereby their touch or smell become more acute, changing the ways they perceive and reason about the world. Especially telling examples are found in the cases of ‘wild children,’ whose early childhoods were spent in abusive, neglected or non-human environments, both intensifying and minimizing perceptual abilities.

Although some consider these modalities abnormal, it is more likely that these examples demonstrate the contextual and socially learned nature of sensation. A ‘normal’ sensorium and a ’synesthetic’ one differ based on the division, connection, and interplay of the body’s manifold sensory apparatus. A synesthete has simply developed a different set of relationships, including cognitive or interpretive skills which deliver unique abilities and understanding of the world. The sensorium is a creation of the physical, biological, social and cultural environments of the individual organism and its relationships while being in the world.

These sorts of insights were the impetus for the development of the burgeoning field of sensory anthropology, which seeks to understand other cultures from within their own unique sensoria. Anthropologists have focused on a critique of the hegemony of vision and textuality in the social sciences. They argue persuasively for an understanding and analysis that is embodied, one sensitive to the unique context of sensation of those one wishes to understand. They believe that a thorough awareness and adoption of other sensoria is a key requirement if ethnography is to approach true understanding.

A related area of study is sensory ecology. This field aims at understanding the unique sensory and interpretive systems all organisms develop, based on the specific ecological environments they live in, experience and adapt to. A key researcher in this field has been psychologist James J. Gibson, who has written numerous seminal volumes considering the senses in terms of holistic, self-contained perceptual systems. These exhibit their own mindful, interpretive behaviour, rather than acting simply as conduits delivering information for cognitive processing, as in more representational philosophies of perception or theories of psychology. Perceptual systems detect affordances in objects in the world, directing attention towards information about an object in terms of the possible uses it affords an organism.

The individual sensory systems of the body are only parts of these broader perceptual ecologies, which include the physical apparatus of sensation, the environment being sensed, as well as both learned and innate systems for directing attention and interpreting the results. These systems represent and enact the information required to perceive, identify or reason about the world, and are distributed across the very design and structures of the body, in relation to the physical environment, as well as in the concepts and interpretations of the mind. This information varies according to species, physical environment, and the context of information in the social and cultural systems of perception, which also change over time and space, and as an individual learns through living. Any single perceptual modality may include or overlap multiple sensory structures, as well as other modes of perception, and the sum of their relations and the ratio of mixture and importance comprise a sensorium. The perception, understanding, and reasoning of an organism is dependent on the particular experience of the world delivered by changing ratios of sense.