Mad Scientists Hot for Chimps

Many years I read about some horrible humanzee experiments in Wikipedia:

"On February 28, 1927, [Dr.] Ivanov [Ivanovich Ivanov] artificially inseminated two female chimpanzees with human sperm. On June 25, he injected a third chimpanzee with human sperm. The Ivanovs left Africa in July with thirteen chimps, including the three used in his experiments. They already knew before leaving that the first two chimpanzees had failed to become pregnant. The third died in France, and was also found not to have been pregnant. The remaining chimps were sent to a new primate station at Sukhumi.

Although Ivanov attempted to organize the insemination of human females with chimpanzee sperm in Guinea, these plans met with resistance from the French colonial government and there is no evidence such an experiment was arranged there.

Upon his return to the Soviet Union in 1927, Ivanov began an effort to organize hybridization experiments at Sukhumi using ape sperm and human females. Eventually in 1929, through the help of Gorbunov, he obtained the support of the Society of Materialist Biologists, a group associated with the Communist Academy. In the spring of 1929 the Society set up a commission to plan Ivanov's experiments at Sukhumi. They decided that at least five volunteer women would be needed for the project. However, in June 1929, before any inseminations had taken place, Ivanov learned that the only postpubescent male ape remaining at Sukhumi (an orangutan) had died."

Before the experiments could be revived, Ivan was exiled. His attempts at creating a human/ape hybrid were well publicized in the U.S.; it is tempting to think that this inspired King Kong, which was released only a few years after Ivan's fulfilled and nearly fulfilled experiments.

Well, seeing as how the real Ivan had to shop around for a country to host his experiments and seemed to have managed to horrify several governments--including the Soviets--with his plans, I had kinda chalked this one off to a case of a mad scientist who briefly located an immoral government: You know, one of those odd ball cases that doesn't represent some larger issue with humanity.

Anyhow, this story came back to my mind last week when I read Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's first tale of the "Red Ghost", a supervillain who deputed in 1963. Red Ghost started as a Soviet ("Red"--get it?) scientist named Ivan (subtle, eh?) who created team of super apes:

Obviously, this is fiction, inspired, surely, by the true tale of Ivan the sicko, which I still held neatly in my framework of "rare confluence of pervert, science, and immoral governance."

But only a few days after reading this comic, I came across another apparently true monkey/human/scientist sex tale in an interesting article about the correlation between intelligence and masturbation fantasies:

"... from a 1914 Journal of Animal Behavior study by a primatological colleague of Robert Yerkes named Gilbert Van Tassel Hamilton who apparently ran something of a monkey research center-cum-sanctuary on the lush grounds of his Montecito, California estate ...

... [Hamilton] reports that one of his female monkeys named “Maud” liked to be mounted (and entered) by a pet male dog out in the yard until one day poor, horny old Maud offered her backside to a strange mongrel that proceeded to bite off her arm. More disturbing is Hamilton’s description of a monkey named “Jimmy” who one sunny afternoon discovered a human infant lying in a hammock: “Jimmy promptly endeavoured to copulate with the infant,” observes Hamilton matter-of-factly. It’s unclear whether or not this was the author’s own child, nor is there any mention of the look on said human infant’s mother’s face when she saw what Jimmy was getting up to."

Okay, now that's pretty sick.

So now I have to ask myself: Is simply another rare example of a wacko scientist who happened to operate in an immoral environment? Or is there some larger problem that we should know about?

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Image source: Page 4 of The Fantastic Four, Volume 1 # 13, "The Fantastic Four, Versus The Red Ghost" (part 1 of "Mystery on the Moon). Page 317 of the 2005 "The Fantastic Four Omnibus". Story by Stan Lee, Art by King Kirby.

Aucamville Project 7: Notre Dame de Boisville

The Aucamville Project began, ironically, with a little ditty on a chapel (ND de Aubets) that isn't even in Aucamville, but the neighboring commune of Le Burgaud. Today we continue to break municipal boundaries with a brief essay about the chapel of Notre Dame de Boisville, which is just across the border with the commune of Verdun-sur-Garonne. The first part of this post is mostly an adaptation from a brief pamphlet prepared by Les Mariniers de Notre Dame de Boisville (The Mariners of ND de Boisville), an association formed to preserve the site.

Some History

The chapel itself sits on a hill overlooking cultivated fields and the D26 between Verdun and Grenade.

Although the Garonne River now flows calmly past about 100 yards or more distant, it once flowed around the base of this hill. Before the dams and floodgates which did a lot to tame the river, this was apparently a trickly place to navigate; the legend of its founding reflects this.

According to the legend, some sailors were making their way down the river and encountered trouble; their efforts to make their way to shore were stymied and they risked sinking into the raging waters. Fortunately for them, a statue of the Virgin they were transporting pointed to the place where they could safely escape the torrent. The sailors, grateful, erected a chapel on the spot.

Another version of the legend has it that the sailors were cruising along when their boat became
inexplicably becalmed. Attempting to use poles to free themselves, the sailors found themselves entirely immobilized. The statue of the Virgin then pointed to where they should go. For some reason, a statue coming to the rescue wasn't enough for these mariners, so they continued their futile efforts. The statue pointed three times before they decided to make their way over to the place where the chapel stands today.

This spot sits at the confluence of the Margestaud and St. Pierre streams and was and ideal spot for a village. Boisville was apparently quite sizable for the Middle Ages but there are few vestiges remaining. Some large dressed blocks and pointed stones still form one wall of the chapel; these are the remnants of a small 12th century castle. Except for these stones the chapel today is entirely a renovation. It was ruined in the Wars of Religion but rebuilt in the 17th century. It was restored again and enlarged in 1888; the façade with small bell-wall dates from this time.

Boisville was dependent upon Cistercian abbey of Grandselve, which exercised considerable influence over this entire area. Alas, the abbey was razed during the Revolution and only the Gatehouse remains. Around 1350 nearby Grenade grew in prominence and Boisville began to be depopulated, but the chapel remained.

Local legend has it that the statue was a Black Virgin, burned during the revolution. The current polychrome statue dates from the 17th century. People make a pilgrimage there every year on the Sunday after Pentecost.

The Diocese of Montauban adds some more information. One might assume that Boisville meands roughly "Woodville" (Bois = Wood) but apparently its is a patronym from the Germanic "Boso". (This sheds perhaps new light on the origin of the name Aucamville; is it from "auca"-- duck, or as others have it from a Germanic name: Auka?)

Another name for the Virgin is Notre Dame de Bon Secours (Rescue). Apparently, between Aucamville and Bon-Encontre, this chapel was one of many "sacred relays" erected a point in the river considered espcially dangerous for navigation.

This chapel is small: 12m by 5m and the bell-wall is 10m in height. It also serves as a funerary chapel (I can attest to this, although the marked graves of local aristocrats have been replaced by an unmarked ossuary to house all the remains found at the site--where or even if the aristocrats -- de Marveille, de Saint Blanquat -- were removed elsewhere I don't know). The chapel is pretty much barren as its trappings have all been stolen, especially in recent years; hence the chapel is always locked.

The diocese site reaffirms that the orignal statue venerated there was a Black Virgin and was replaced by the current 16th century polychrome Virgin and Child in 1802. This Virgin is said to specialize in the protection of children, the prosperity of property and the salvation of souls.

Some Jibba Jabba

Even though largely discredited and for the attentive reader an offensive display of creeping assertion and wild speculation disguised as serious history, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG) is a great read and it's hard not to be captivated by its central thesis. Indeed, the spectacular success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which borrows liberally from the former, is to our way of thinking a demonstration of the power the thesis exerts. Namely, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a family that continues to exist today.

HBHG asserts that after the crucifixion, Mary Magdalene made her way to France. This legend is not the authors' invention; it dates back to the Middle Ages and is a well-entrenched part of the folklore of Provence. What the book claims is that this bloodline became the founding dynasty of what would become France, the Merovingians (457-751 CE). This proved to threaten the power of the Church who thus betrayed the bloodline and tried to kill off all of Jesus' descendants. Thus in 1099 we find the creation of the Priory of Sion, who created the Knights Templar as a front and as both a military and financial arm.

As a novel, it's a marvelous work. As a serious history is more than a little flawed. The Priory of Sion itself seems to have been an elaborate joke; it's pretty much a dead letter as far as its central theory goes.

Whatever the case, my first encounter with the chapel was redolent of imagery which linked back to HBHG and I must imagine that some of this was set up by people who are familiar with the mythos.

First, let me state that I'd heard of the chapel from a neighbor and that unlike the Chapel of St. John the Baptist of Margestaud, which I found immediately, this one eluded me. Then one day I simply happened upon it. I'd passed it a dozen times and had never grokked it. Hidden in plain sight, as it were.

The first thing I noticed was that in the clearing before the chapel there is a small sign that says "Attention - Bees - Ay!...That stings!..." Now that I look at it, that alone sounds like one of the weird cryptic messages one comes across whenever dealing with the Priory of Sion and the Rennes-le-Chateau "mystery." Noon Blue Apples, etc. But it's pretty prosaic; there are actually beehives in the woods behind the sign. It's a simple warning.


The bees, however, were a symbol of the Merovingians. 300 were found attached to the robe of Childeric I when his grave was excavated in the 17th century. Napoleon had reproductions stitched to his robe when he was coronated in 1804. Resonance galore.

The chapel has an outdoor altar, made of a large slab of stone looking all the world like a dolmen. This is set next to a bifurcated tree which, as a friend told me later, has healing properties in French folklore. If one threads their way around the trunks in a proscribed number of figure 8s, it is supposed to recharge one's batteries, so to speak. Not that this is related to the HBHG story, mind you, but everyone I've taken to this site remarks on the unmistakable "pagan" ambiance of the place.


What really set me off onto this HBHG train of thought, however, is that on the cross behind the altar, decorated not with Christ but with Mary, as is common in these parts, there hung a medallion with the symbol of the Knights Templar! Who put it there and why, I cannot say. Was it a random visitor? Was it the owner of the site? (The chapel is on private property). Was it linked to the fact that the tombs were those of aristocrats? Were they a Templar family in the days of old?


On a later visit this medallion was gone (I'd been tempted to nick it for myself) and yet another visit found the cross smashed into pieces. It has since been replaced with a simpler cross--no Mary.

It was soon after that the marked graves of the aristocrats were removed and replaced with an unmarked slab.

All of this taken together could not but excite my imagination and any number of scenarios present themselves, from simple acts of vandalism by bored local youths or the result of a secret conflict between the descendants of Templars and their Catholic rivals. And anything in between, really. Keep in mind I know nothing and believe less. These are only enigmas because I am ignorant.

The abbey of Grandselve was founded in 1114 and became attached to that of Clairvaux in 1144/45. Clairvaux was founded by St. Bernard in 1115. It was Bernard who created the rule of the Knights Templar in 1128 and it was under his influence that the Virgin Mary, who had heretofore played only a minor role in Christian thought, was transformed into the primary intercessor between man and God.

"No one can enter Heaven unless by Mary, as though through a door" he wrote. Could this explain the distincly vaginal form of the church portal as it developed in the following years? Does the following medallion found at Boisville also evoke a woman's sacred gate?


Finally, the idea of the "Mariner" intrigues me. On the most obvious level, the mariner in Les Mariniers de Notre Dame de Boisville refers to the sailors who brought the Virgin to this spot. On another level there are tantalizing symbolic associations. The first of these is the Freemasonic body called the Royal Ark Mariners. Ostensibly this obscure appendant body refers to the story of Noah and the Flood, but for the life of me I can't find out why it is the "Royal" ark. If the ark carried Noah and the earth to a new beginning, could a "royal" ark be a metaphor for the grail? The grail, or "saint graal" aka "sang real" (royal blood) is, for the authors of HBHG, the bloodline of Jesus.

I've even seen it suggested that the Ark referred to is really the Ark of the Covenant, which some legends relate was brought back to France by the Templars. This last association would appear to be a fanciful misinterpretation as I haven't come across any Royal Ark sources making such a link. Plenty of legends say that the true mission of the Templars in Jerusalem was to investigate the ruins of the Temple, and that their goal was to find either the Ark, or the Grail. Or both, assuming they weren't one and the same.

The idea of the mariner is also linked with the legends that bring Mary Magdalene to France, via Egypt, from whence they were expelled or cast adrift in a small boat which made its way to what is now Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Sarah, a servant on that voyage, has been proposed as the real inspiration behind the Black Virgin; others have posited Mary Magdalene.

The identification of Mary the Virgin and Magdalen the whore brings me back to the half-serious question I posed above regarding St. Bernard's statement that "No one can enter Heaven unless by Mary, as though through a door". Is it then coincidence that one theory for the origin of the Black Virgin is that is grew from Bernard's statement that the phrase "I am black, but comely" (from the blatantly erotic Song of Solomon 1:5) referred to the Virgin Mary? Imagine my surprise then, when leafing through Ian Begg's Cult of the Black Virgin, I find this "The Ark/Grail is the symbol of the virgin whore wisdom, who mixes all things in an orgy of syncretism...." (p.52)

Having thus deftly conflated the Ark and the Grail, he also conflates the Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant on the page prior. Like a women, all are vessels, symbolically linked.


To ask one final question regarding the link between mariners and the Virgin: What are we to make of the chapel at Rocamadour where there is a reproduction of its famous Black Virgin--in a boat? Keep in mind that another theory about the origin of Black Virgins is the iconography of Isis, who in addition to being seen ad infinitum suckling Horus, is elsewhere often depicted in a sacred boat, or barque. In fact, some medieval legends have it that the name Paris comes from the name Isis, or even means "boat of Isis." The head of the Priory goes by the title "Nautonnier" or "navigator" and apparently claim this comes from Sirius, which is said to guide the boat of Isis....

Heady stuff, to be sure; even the little chapels weave their way in an out of the Great Tapestry.

So, there you have it. Who'd a thunk such a miniscule blip on the map could lead to so many vast and perhaps unanswerable questions? Just another sunny day on the Laws of Silence.

Booba Kiki

Here's a quick test. Which one of these images is "booba" and which one is a "kiki"?
If you're like most people, you called the image on the left a "kiki" and the image on the right a "booba".

A couple of posts ago I suggested that there may be "some sort of synesthestic connection between the sounds of word and emotional states." In a comment, I offered up the word "prickly" as an example of a word that sounds exactly like it feels, tactically. I would actually argue that the word also sounds exactly like it feels emotionally--but let's set aside that supposition and look into what makes a kiki so prickly and a booba so supple.

The theory proposed by some researchers into this phenomenon, according to Wikipedia, is:

"The rounded shape may most commonly be named "bouba" because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound "kiki". The sounds of a K are harder and more forceful than those of a B, as well. The presence of these "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and events in the world."

I dig the synesthesia-like mapping idea, but I dunno that I buy that it's due to mouth shapings.

I'd prefer to see an argument that looked at the association of certain sounds with certain tactile sensations at an early age--ideally as early as in the womb. This is not to propose a Pavlonian association--more that we start off with lots of nerve connections, and the nerve connections that are used become stronger while those that are used less become weaker. If there was some sort of in-utero sensation association, could this lead to synesthetic mappings? And what would that association be? Also, given that ultrasounds make the fetus hot, are babies of the ultrasound era born with some new synesthetic mapping that didn't exist in pre-ultrasound babies?

I dunno, I reckon I'm probably just full of it tonight.

Lemme know what your theories/thoughts/obs/insights/questions/links are!

Answer my questions, dang it--esp., "What makes a kiki so prickly and a booba so supple?"

Tunguska, We Remember You

Today marks the anniversary: On June 30, 1905, Einstein's special theory of relativity was published, which led to his subsequent postulation that E=mc2.

Three year later to the day, June 30, 2008, a massive explosion--nearly 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima--occurred near the Tunguska River in Siberia.


According to an eyewitness:

"We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said, 'Can you hear all those birds flying overhead?' We were both in the hut, couldn't see what was going on outside. Suddenly, I got shoved again, this time so hard I fell into the fire. I got scared. Chekaren got scared too. We started crying out for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was noise beyond the hut, we could hear trees falling down. Chekaren and I got out of our sleeping bags and wanted to run out, but then the thunder struck. This was the first thunder. The Earth began to move and rock, wind hit our hut and knocked it over. My body was pushed down by sticks, but my head was in the clear. Then I saw a wonder: trees were falling, the branches were on fire, it became mighty bright, how can I say this, as if there was a second sun, my eyes were hurting, I even closed them. It was like what the Russians call lightning. And immediately there was a loud thunderclap. This was the second thunder. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our Sun was shining brightly as usual, and suddenly there came a second one!

"Chekaren and I had some difficulty getting out from under the remains of our hut. Then we saw that above, but in a different place, there was another flash, and loud thunder came. This was the third thunder strike. Wind came again, knocked us off our feet, struck against the fallen trees.

"We looked at the fallen trees, watched the tree tops get snapped off, watched the fires. Suddenly Chekaren yelled 'Look up' and pointed with his hand. I looked there and saw another flash, and it made another thunder. But the noise was less than before. This was the fourth strike, like normal thunder.

"Now I remember well there was also one more thunder strike, but it was small, and somewhere far away, where the Sun goes to sleep."

The prevailing theory is that it was a meteor (or comet) impact.

An alternative theory claims that at the exact moment of the explosion, Tesla tested a communication device, a device that led to the creation of Tesla's infamous death ray:

"At the time, Robert Peary was making his second attempt to reach the North Pole. Cryptically, Tesla had notified the expedition that he would be trying to contact them somehow. They were to report to him the details of anything unusual they might witness on the open tundra. On the evening of June 30, accompanied by his associate George Scherff atop Wardenclyffe tower, Tesla aimed his death ray across the Atlantic towards the arctic, to a spot which he calculated was west of the Peary expedition.

"Tesla switched on the device. At first, it was hard to tell if it was even working. Its extremity emitted a dim light that was barely visible. Then an owl flew from its perch on the tower's pinnacle, soaring into the path of the beam. The bird disintegrated instantly.

"That concluded the test. Tesla watched the newspapers and sent telegrams to Peary in hopes of confirming the death ray's effectiveness. Nothing turned up. Tesla was ready to admit failure when news came of a strange event in Siberia."

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Image source: Page 2 of The Fantastic Four, Volume 1 # 13, "The Fantastic Four, Versus The Red Ghost" (part 1 of "Mystery on the Moon), page 315 of the 2005 Omnibus. Story by Stan Lee, Art by King Kirby.

Surprise!

Looking through an online thesaurus the other day I was gloppened, absolutely butterbunged by the wonderful synonyms I found for "surprised". Don't get me wrong, there was nothing ferly about the experience. On the contrary, it was a mirific experience!

Ahh, but seriously, these words, gloppen, butterbung, ferly, and mirific share something in common besides meaning, sort of, "surprised".

They are also, in my estimation, emotionally onomatopoeia-ic -- which is to say that the sound of the words evokes the emotion itself, just as sound of the word "bang" so perfectly evokes the sound of a palm slapping a desk.

But wait! That doesn't make sense! How can a sound conflate with an emotion?

Take "ferly" for example. Okay, well sure, it means "surprise"--well, the kind of surprise that you get when you're walking in a dark, dank basement and this enoromous centipede scurries off on the wall, right beside your head.

But how on earth does the sound conflate with the emotion?

Well ... I confess: I don't know.

But here are two clues:

1. First, there are scientific studies, by scientists no less, that show that swearing can lessen pain. Clearly, I suggest, this proves that there is magic in language, some sort of means by which the sound of spoken word triggers, conflate, or (dare I say) materializes an emotion.

2. Second, there are more scientific studies, obviously quite original and not to be disputed, that show that what we touch impacts our emotional feelings. If, I dare again to say, there is some sort of fixed constant between our sense of touch and our emotions, then why not a direct link between sound and emotion?

What do you think? Is there some sort of synesthestic connection between the sounds of word and emotional states?

If you say "yes" give us an example. Something like "aha!" which seems to so clearly articulate, onomatopoeia-ically, the sensation of an aha moment.

If you say "no", well give us an example of some totally contrary, a word that sounds exactly the opposite of the emotional state it describes.