Human Enigmas

Mediaeval kings and emperors of India made military mistakes that proved decisive. The lesson to be drawn from them holds good for all times Rama won the battle against Ravana’s chariot-heavy army by employing highly mobile archers and a quick-footed infantry, described as monkeys in the epic Ramayana. Porus fielded a huge troop of elephants against Alexander. The young Macedonian, said to have never seen an elephant before, sent his cavalry to envelop the mammoth column. Farther in Europe, the fiery Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants—undoubtedly one of history’s greatest military feats—to overawe the Romans. The Romans blew trumpets and scared them away. If not from Punic, at least from puranic wars, mediaeval Indian kings shouldhave learnt their lessons.

But when the Ghaznavid blitzkrieg came, it was clear that they hadn’t. There is no single doctrine that helps you win a battle. No single blunder leads to a defeat either. But a single identifiable blunder may be taken as symbolic of the many factors which turn out to be decisive in battles. In the following pages we recount the stories of ten major military blunders committed in (not necessarily by) India in the last one millennium. There is no single lesson that can be drawn from them. Or is there? That mobility is one of the major factors that decide battles? Whoever sacrificed it—like Saddam Hussein who dug in his tanks in the 1991 war—has been the loser. Sivaji, undoubtedly the greatest military genius that India produced in the last 1,000 years, proved this beyond doubt. His optimum use of cavalry in a highly mobile form of warfare wrought havoc on the enemy.Yet Sivaji’s own successors forgot his legacy and lost in Panipat to Ahmed Shah Abdali. A similar mistake was committed by independent India in 1962. It could have used its air power to check the invading Chinese but, fearing escala-tion, it didn’t. A highly mobile arm, which was available to it, wasn’t used. Sacrificing mobility is essentially a tactical blunder. Not all the blunders listed in the following pages relate to mobility. Some have been selected for the sheer quirkiness of fate—like the fate that came flying to Hemu on the back of a randomly shot arrow. But then, was it really a quirk of fate? Or wasn’t there a blunder involved? Of exposing yourself to the enemy? What is the use of telling these old tales of stupidity? To answer that, we may go back a thousand years behind the Ghaznavid invasion, to the Mauryan times when the elephant was the right choice. The Mauryansempl......

A very interesting survey that shows how popular paranormal phenomena are.About three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief, according to a recent Gallup survey.The most popular is extrasensory perception (ESP), mentioned by 41%, followed closely by belief in haunted houses(37%).

The full list of items includes: Believe in % Extrasensory perception, or ESP 41 That houses can be haunted 37 Ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations 32 Telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses 31 Clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future 26 Astrology, or that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives 25 That people cancommunicate mentally with someone who has died 21 Witches 21 Reincarnation, that is, the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death 20 Channeling/allowing a 'spirit-being' to temporarily assume control of body 9A special analysis of the data shows that 73% of Americans believe in at least one of the 10 items listed above, while 27% believe in none of them. A Gallup survey in 2001 provided similar results -- 76% professed belief in at least one of the 10 items. Numberofpa......

Albert Einstein claimed he never thought about the future. "It comes soon enough," he would say. And you can see his point. What would have been the good of worrying about our destiny when it was not of our making? But life has changed since the great physicist's day. Sweeping changes of our own creation now beset our world: carbon emissions, soaring populations, cloning, rising extinction rates.We are changing our planet and its biosphere in ways that were once unimaginable. We are also developing lifesaving technologies that would have appeared equally incredible a few decades ago. Everywhere we witness change. But what will this bring and howwill it affect our world?In this article, we address these questions in detail and explore the issues involved, concerns that will shape the existence and lifestyles of ourselves and our children.

Some, notably those involved in medical research, look very hopeful. Others, especially those concerned with climate and biodiversity, look far less optimistic. Indeed, they appear downright disturbing. Overall, it is sobering stuff, though we should not be too downhearted about our prospects for life in 2020. As that other great guru of the 20th century, Charles M. Schulz, creator of the 'Peanuts' cartoon, once observed: "You needn't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia."

Hot in the city Whatever else we experience in2020, the impact of climate change will be inescapable. That's the clear message from virtually every scientist working in the field. Last century saw global atmospheric temperatures rising by 0.6˚C; in the next decade and a half, we can expect much the same. "Climate change will become particularly noticeable at the poles," says James Lovelock, the British scientist who developed the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that life itself makes existence tolerable on Earth. "By 2020, the North Pole will be becoming free of ice, and by the end of the decade we will be able to sail straight across it. At the same time, the great glaciers of the southern hemisphere and the West Antarctic ice sheet will be breaking up." The seas will rise dramatically, flooding Earth's low-lying areas. Thus, by 2020, we will have a very good idea of the......

This report presupposes two things: that there are "aliens," and that some people (occultists) have "magickal powers." It is not the point of this report to prove there are or are not such beings or powers. What is known is that there are people who believe that there are such beings and believe that they have such powers. The crux of this report is based on what people believe, which may be very different from the way things really are. Please bear this in mind. This report also recounts some very curious behaviors on the part of a number of people. These behaviors and events actually did take place and are fact. However, thesupposed results of these events are entirely subjective and entirely in the realm of belief.

It is not my purpose to try to prove or disprove the beliefs of the people involved. It’s what they did (and do) because of these beliefs that interest me. Introduction I first became curious about a possible connection between the "gray aliens" of popular UFO culture and the activities of certain occultists after seeing several of UFO investigator Ray Fowler’s books on the recommended reading list of a satanic website. In an idle moment I had done a Google search on Ray’s book, The Watchers II, and one of the spots that listed it - much to my surprise - was the recommended reading list of a satanic group. (It is not my moral judgment thatthis group is satanic; the group itself calls itself satanic.) I found this both disturbing and inexplicable - for what reason would a UFO book be included in the curriculum of a satanic group, and why Ray's book in particular? I emailed Ray and asked him if he had any insight into the situation, but he was as perplexed as I was. And there matters rested for a year or so until additional information came into my hands, information that may indicate - much as John Keel himself believed (Mothman Prophecies) - that occult activity may be an ingredient of the "gray alien" mystery.The pictures contained within this article bear a resemblance and may hold the key. One is a drawing made by occultist Aleister Crowley of an entity he hadinvoked. ...