Uriel's Machine author Dr Robert Lomas talks at Orkney Science Festival

Submitted by enkidu41 on Sunday, 05 September 2004 Page Views: 9551

Our most ancient basic instinct. Taxi Drivers do it. Taxidermists do it. Even tax inspectors do it. So what is "it"? Sweating involuntarily when shown ancient erotic symbols. The response, we’re told, is hardwired into the human brain and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Who’s telling us? Solid state physicist, lecturer in information systems and author Dr Robert Lomas, who is one of the speakers at this year’s Orkney International Science Festival.

"We’ve got receptors in our vision systems which make us respond to the shapes in these symbols emotionally even though we’re unaware of it," he says.

Why? "Damned if I know. But the symbols in question are lozenge and spiral-shaped, and it’s a scientific fact that when we see these shapes we react by sweating, even if we’re not aware of it. These involuntary sweat reactions can be measured using galvanic skin response, and random testing has proved it happens."

These ancient symbols contain trigger factors that secretly stimulate hidden pleasure centres in our brains, Lomas claims - which is why they’re erotic symbols in the first place. "Our ancient ancestors were tuned into this, which is why you see lozenge and spiral shapes cropping up in prehistoric sites all over the world. They’re tied in with fertility rites and represent the female shape as personified by the goddess, Venus."

Which ties in with one of Lomas’s other roles. An internationally known author on religious symbolism, his - often controversial - ‘Hiram Key’ books have been translated into 46 languages. He has no qualms about mixing and matching hard-core science and mathematics with ancient belief systems, a dash of folklore, and a bucketful of astronomy and asking himself and the rest of us some rather pertinent questions about the result.

"There are some really interesting coincidences attached to the fact that our responses to these ancient shapes hasn’t changed from pre-history to the hi-tech age," he muses.

Our limbic brain - the primitive bit that goes back to when the ancestors of even middle management types were doing what came naturally - is still hardwired to respond to very basic sensory stimuli, like shapes and smells. "We seem to have sets of neurons that respond to particular visual stimuli like horizontals, verticals and angles. It’s a perception thing, and I haven’t a clue why it happens but it does, because a lozenge, which is a diamond shape, stimulates the galvanic skin response. Combine that with spirals and it gets even more interesting."

Lomas says the lozenge shape appears in places of symbolic importance all over the world - pagan sites, churches, temples and mosques - and the hidden element that triggers the response is still there, more than 6,000 years on. The attention of Orkney Science Festival goers will be drawn to their own home-grown examples - lozenge symbols cut into the stonework in the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, and carved above the northwest door of St Magnus Cathedral.

Lomas is going to finish his lecture with one of his "interesting coincidences". "Make what you like of this," he says. "But isn’t it an interesting coincidence the two shapes that affect us - the spiral and the lozenge - appear when you X-ray the DNA that builds these preceptory receptors in our brains?"

Not a spurious connection, it seems. Something else Lomas has under his belt is work on crystallography - the internal workings of crystal structures. It’s the same work Rosalind Franklin was involved with when she produced the first X-ray crystallography image of the DNA molecule, and the work that was shown without her knowledge to Watson and Crick. She was airbrushed out of history - though she did recently receive posthumous recognition. But her X-ray image of the basic DNA structure remains, and on it - says Lomas - the back spatters on the spiral helix throw lozenge shapes.

"Most people are not used to visualising shadows cast by three dimensional objects but crystallographers can. If you irradiate the spiral with light and move it around you can see the lozenge shapes.

"By my reckoning, if we weren’t attuned to instinctively take note when we see a lozenge shape, Watson wouldn’t have seen the lozenges. Once he did, he could work out it was a double spiral that was making their shadows. Without that peculiar co-incidence, we wouldn’t understand DNA!"

"Well," says Lomas breezily, "it’s a good story anyway."

Kath Gourlay, The Scotsman, Fri 3 Sep 2004

Robert's web site includes his previous presentations to the Festival, the megalithic yard and lots more.

Contributor Bio for enkidu41: Based in London, contributing since 2004. Favourite site: Mulfra Quoit/Dyn Dryfol. Occupation: Retired.

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