Re: VMs: Re: British Library [re-sent, sorry!]

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

	Hi, Nick!  I was just joking a bit.  I'm really with you,
Don and Rene: the art style and, especially, writing style
are consistent with the early Renaissance.  I think that
argues for authenticity and is pretty consistent.

	I do wonder whether we can specify a region based on what
we have.  After all, northern Italy was where the
Renaissance was happening, and other parts of Europe were
copying it.

	I am currently tending to the Outsider Art Hypothesis.  The
very idiosyncrasy, the unlikeness to anything definite, of
the VMs argues for this.

	With that said...

Nick Pelling wrote:

> [Close-up of INH wearing a pair of DataGloves and goggles, manipulating 
> a virtual holographic image of a animated sequence of VMs nymphs, 
> apparently disco-dancing.]

	Now this sounds like fun!

> INH:
>         My theory that a mysterious alien civilisation has embedded a 
> message
>         in this document - to teach us how to dance! For example, f72r2 
> is clearly
>         a conga line, whereas f72v2 is the lambada!
>
> [Fast-cut sequence of flashing neon lights and gyrating strippers. Music 
> changes to salsa]

	Kennedy and Churchill have a serious suggestion I am
considering here.  They consider at some length that the VMs
author may have suffered from classical migraine, and that
the VMs imagery is informed by the visual hallucinations of
migraine aura, as with Hildegard of Bingen's pictures.

	They discuss the first stage of aura: phosphenes.  Most
commonly these are 'stars', as with a blow to the head, and
only last a few minutes.  They note: "Sacks also relates a
case in which the sufferer visualized the progression of
phosphenes as a procession of small white animals.   Could
our little 'naked nymphs', frolicking in their green baths
with architectural and corrugated edges,
be another another attempt to express in diagrammatic form a
hallucinatory episode?"  (p. 202)

	I found their reference in *Migraine* by the famous
neurologist Oliver Sacks:  "Sometimes the phosphenes may be
elaborated or interpreted by the patient as recognizable
images; thus one patient (in Selby and Lance's series)
described small white skunks with erect tails, moving in
procession across one quadrant of the visual field.
[footnote 12].  ... [footnote 12] Hughlings Jackson makes
the following comment on the tendency to elaborate images
from elementary hallucinations when in physiologically
abnormal states: 'A healthy has muscae from intra-ocular
specks; they seem like moving dots and films in front of
him.  But suppose he undergoes dissolution (as in cases of
delirium tremens), and that there is the first depth of
dissolution, then he sees mice and rats.  Speaking roughly,
the muscae "turn into" those animals for him.'  "

	I got the Selby and Lance reference, but so far have not
found the reference to this patient.

	Frankly, this is the best rational explanation I have seen
for the nymphs!  It also fits the stars.  Consider that few
if any of the stars fit known constellations; they are in
more the random patterns of migraine aura.  It fits the many
circular images; these could well be migraine scotomata.
There are also some examples of 'fortification spectra',
jagged, wall-like lines that are another common part of
migraine aura.

	More detail on this later.

> <voice-over>
>         To support his theory, INH has travelled to strip-clubs across 
> the world,
>         taking tens of thousands of photos of exotic dancers, all of 
> which he has
>         made freely available to his fellow researchers via his website.

	Well, we've done some rather exotic research, but not 
exotic in this way.

> INH:
>         Unfortunately, it seems that my extensive photo library has been 
> pirated
>         by the so-called "Internet pr0n industry": but it was all in the 
> name of good
>         science, I assure you!


	Sheer plagiarism.  INH needs to hire the music industry's
lawyers.

>                                 * * * * * * * * *
>
> Sadly, this was as much as our unnamed documentary-makers were able to 
> fit on a napkin. Hopefully they were able to remember it when they 
> sobered up after lunch. :-)

	That's "Whiz", for sure.

	I doubt that people would take The Secret of Eternal Life 
seriously these days.  I do think that New Age themes would 
work quite well, though.  The Bible Code and the Da Vinci 
Code have sold well.  I am wondering whether the bookstores 
will stock Kennedy and Churchill's book alongside "The Da 
Vinci Code" and "Holy Blood, Holy Grail".  <shudder>

	... (I trust everyone knows which of this to take
seriously, after all.)   ;-)

Dennis




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