informis/textfiles
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity
textfiles/bbs/KEELYNET/ECOLOGY/russell1.asc

793 lines
43 KiB
Plaintext
Raw Normal View History

Initial commit
2021-04-15 13:31:59 -05:00
(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2)
Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501
Sponsored by Vangard Sciences
PO BOX 1031
Mesquite, TX 75150
There are ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS
on duplicating, publishing or distributing the
files on KeelyNet except where noted!
January 8, 1992
RUSSELL1.ASC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This file shared with KeelyNet courtesy of :
The TESLA BBS...300,1200,2400...(8,N,1)
(719) 486-2775 Data
(303) 824-6834 Voice
(303) 443-8478 Voice
TESLA, Inc.
820 Bridger Circle
Craig, CO 81625
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MACROBIOTIC GENIUS OF WALTER RUSSELL
By John David Mann
Copyright 1989 John David Mann
Originally appearing in "Solstice" magazine, May 1989
201 E. Main St. Suite H, Charlottesville, VA 22901
(804) 979-4427
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Times of July 21 [1930] contains an article stating that
Walter Russell challenges the Newtonian theory of gravitation. This
artist, who is admittedly not a scientist, goes on to say that the
fundamentals of science are so hopelessly wrong and so contrary to
nature, that nothing but a major surgical operation upon the present
primitive beliefs can ever put them in line for a workable
cosmogenetic synthesis'. . .
"It seems to me it would be more fitting for an artist of Mr.
Russell's acknowledged distinction in his own field, to remain in
it, and not go trespassing on 'ground which even angels fear to
tread'. "For nearly three hundred years no one, not even a
scientist, has had the temerity to question Newton's laws of
gravitation. Such an act on the part of a scientist would be akin
to blasphemy, and for an artist to commit such an absurdity is, to
treat it kindly, an evidence of either misguidance or crass
ignorance of the enormity of his act. . ."
-- Dr. John E. Jackson, The New York Times, August 3, 1930.
Page 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dr. John E. Jackson's letter to you, a copy of which he
graciously sent to me, is a perfectly natural letter of resentment
for which I do not blame him in the least.
"It is true that I have challenged the accurateness or
completeness of the Newtonian laws of gravitation, and will just as
vigorously attack the other "sacred laws" of Kepler, and any others,
ancient or modern, that need rewriting. . .
"I am sorry an artist had to do it, but Sir Oliver Lodge said
that no scientist could make the supreme discovery of the one thing
for which science is looking and hoping. He said that such a
discovery would have to be the 'supreme inspiration of some poet,
painter, philosopher or saint'. . .
"Newton, for example, would have solved the other half of the
gravitation problem if he had found out how that apple and the tree
upon which it grew got up in the air before the apple fell. I
challenge the world of science to correctly and completely answer
that question. . ."
-- Dr. Walter Russell, The New York Times, August 17, 1930.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I now wish to modify my statements and criticisms, for, since
writing that letter, my viewpoint has somewhat changed. . . What I
considered to be the overnight inspiration of a 'crank' might be,
instead, the result of an intelligent and prolonged study of
Nature.
"I am immensely intrigued by Russell's 'two-way' principle, for
it gives this universe of motion a meaning to me that it did not
have before. In fact, we know very little of the why of anything. .
"Why did not some scientist think of this instead of waiting
300 years for an artist to tell us about it? . . .I invite the
collaboration and criticism of my fellow scientists at large to join
me in this. . . If Russell is right, and he surely thinks he is, his
claim that science needs 'a major surgical operation' is
justifiable. . ."
-- Dr. John E. Jackson, The New York Times, November 9, 1930.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. John E. Jackson was furious. What educated person would
have the audacity to challenge Newton and Kepler? For months the
debate raged in the New York Times' "Letters" page. Prompted by the
release of an artist's heretical views on science, Nature and the
universe, the Times' 1930 filibuster culminated in Dr. Jackson's
dramatic reversal -- what began as a caustic attack was transformed
into a call for his colleagues' support that had the fervent ring of
religious conversion. Dr. Jackson, whoever he was, had caught a
glimmer of the genius of Walter Russell.
But in the end, Dr. Jackson notwithstanding, the world of
Page 2
science did not embrace Walter Russell, nor have sixty years of
progress changed that position. Today, despite the wide sphere of
contacts and influence generated by Russell and his wife and
colleague, Lao, their teachings largely await unearthing.
However, the time for that rediscovery may be at hand; for the
Russells' vision suddenly has burning relevance to an acknowledged
urgent matter of global health. And the role of advocate for the
Russell perspective may best be fulfilled by those in the
macrobiotic movement -- for the macrobiotic world view and Russell's
practical cosmology have much in common.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Cloud Over the Ozone
Our story begins some ten miles above the Earth's surface in
the stratosphere, home of the planet's ailing ozone skin and
birthplace of the emerging global awareness of the limits of man's
technology. In 1974, two scientists at the University of California
made an announcement that shocked the world. When Drs. Sherwood
Rowland and Mario Molina warned of possible global ozone depletion,
they touched off a controversy that was to involve scientists,
industry, policy-makers, the press and the public. The "Ozone War,<2C>
as it came to be called, was principally responsible for ushering in
a new era of planetary policy. [See sidebar.]
Fifteen years later, the ponderous gears of human response are
finally grinding into action. Aimed at coping with the infamous
"ozone hole,<2C> a spate of local and global policy-making is pushing
its way forward in an unprecedented atmosphere of international
cooperation. Rep. Al Gore (D-TN), the seasoned environmental
advocate who helped uncover Love Canal and has stalked the
Greenhouse effect for years, recently introduced legislation to ban
production of CFCs (the chemical generally thought responsible for
the ozone crisis) within 5 years. As Gore observed this February:
"The political sentiment is changing very rapidly. . . I think
people are mad about this and ready for dramatic action.
But are they the right actions? Not according to Walter
Russell, who predicted the ozone dilemma 35 years ago -- a full 20
years before the Rowland/Molina research made headlines -- and
ascribed it to an entirely different cause.
If Russell's views were correct, then the chlorine chemistry of
CFCs is not the prime culprit [see sidebar], and no one is looking
in the one direction that matters most. In fact, according to
Russell, there is one overarching solution to the atmospheric
emergency: stop making nuclear stockpiles -- immediately.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A Different Scenario
The year is 1954. Sherwood Rowland's ozone prognosis is two
decades in the future; Three Mile Island is a quarter century still
to come. To most of us, the "Greenhouse effect" connotes little
more than a better way to grow tomatoes. The word "ecology"
scarcely exists in the mainstream lexicon.
Page 3
This is the year atmospheric bomb testing has begun, both by
the Soviet Union in Siberia and by the United States on the Bikini
atoll. John Wayne and a company of actors and movie personnel are
filming a Western in Nevada, and emerge from long days' of shooting
covered with radioactive fallout. Years later, it will be
discovered that nearly all of them have just received a death
sentence. But all of that is many years away; for now, most of us
are caught up in the promise of Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace.
This year, Walter and Lao Russell write their warning in a
privately circulated newsletter to their students: Oxygen and
radioactive stockpiles cannot coexist. Digging up the Earth's
heavier elements, concentrating their reactions and releasing their
products into the atmosphere is a recipe for disaster.
Three years later the Russells publish a book, Atomic
Suicide?, whose principle message is that the development of the
nuclear weaponry and industry, if allowed to continue, will
eventually destroy the planet's oxygen.
"The element of surprise which could delay the discovery of the
great danger, and thus allow more plutonium piles to come into
existence, is the fact that scientists are looking near the ground
for fallout dangers and other radioactive menaces. The greatest
radioactive dangers are accumulating from eight to twelve miles up
[in the stratosphere]. The upper atmosphere is already charged with
death-dealing radioactivity, for which it not yet sent us its bill.
It is slowly coming, however, and we will have to pay for it for
another century, even if atomic energy plants ceased today.
(Atomic Suicide?, page 18.)
Later in the book, they predict that the oxygen-destroying
effects of radiation would not be noticed "until the late
seventies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Atomic Prophesies
It was an uncannily accurate forecast: ozone depletion was
first noticed over the Antarctic in 1982 -- and scientists have
since concluded that it first appeared in 1979. But then, as now,
the Russells' voice received little notice.
The somber prediction of Atomic Suicide? was not the first time
Russell had gone out on a limb with scientific prophecy. His spiral
charts of the atomic table, copyrighted in 1926, predicted the
discovery of the transuranic elements Plutonium and Neptunium, as
well as the now-familiar elements of "heavy water, Deuterium and
Tritium -- years before they were isolated in research labs.
Some have claimed that the 1926 Russell charts (for which he
later received an honorary doctorate from the American Academy of
Sciences) and his years of New York City lectures on the subject led
directly to the laboratory research that resulted in these elements'
later discovery. It is difficult to document such a claim at a
half century's distance, but this sequence certainly is feasible.
Russell himself evidently exerted considerable energy for years
urging the research labs of Union Carbide, Westinghouse, General
Electric and others to verify his atomic findings.
Page 4
In any case, the exclusion from the mainstream of Russell's
charts is perhaps one of the most unfortunate snafus in the history
of science. For in neglecting to credit Russell with these pivotal
atomic discoveries, the world also lost track of the other side of
the Russell equation: the larger scientific understanding in the
spiral charts, the pragmatic warnings that accompanied them, and the
breathtaking scope of macrobiotic thought his life and work
revealed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Who Was Walter Russell?
Russell's stunning achievements in science were but one facet
of a career that was unconventional, astonishingly successful,
dazzlingly versatile and unabashedly mystical. Often called "the
20th Century's Leonardo" and "the man who tapped the secrets of the
universe,<2C> Russell maintained that a firm grasp of nature's
universal principles would permit anyone to excel in any area of
endeavor; thus genius was all human beings' birthright.
His own accomplishments exemplify this belief. A largely self-
taught Renaissance man, Russell carved out his first successful
career as an artist, achieving international reputation in such
diverse fields as portraiture, poetry, sculpture and architecture.
His accomplishments as a portrait painter and sculptor, in
particular, won him commissions from dozens of era notables, such as
Mark Twain, Thomas Watson (the founder of IBM), both Roosevelts
(Teddy and FDR), and Thomas Edison. He also designed buildings and
urban layout -- New York City's famous Hotel Pierre, for example, is
a Russell creation. Forays into the world of athletics earned him
prestigious awards in figure-skating, horsemanship and race-horse
training.
To Russell, such bravura performance was significant mainly for
its value as a demonstration that Divine Law and Balance could be
tapped by human effort, and the world of art was only a starting
point. Russell's yearning to imbue the social fabric of his era with
principles of universal justice led to his long association with the
Twilight Club, a contemporary "think tank" of artists and social
philosophers.
Through the Twilight Club, whose direction he assumed in 1895,
Russell formed bonds that were to endure throughout his life; in the
early decades of the century the work of the Twilight Club members,
under the influence of Russell's teaching of Divine Law and
Universal Order, produced a virtually endless procession of social
innovations, such as the creation of child labor laws and child
welfare laws, Better Business Bureau and the elimination of
sweatshops.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Living Universe
It was in science, however, that Russell left his least known
and perhaps his greatest legacy. While steeped in the discoveries
and frontiers of his own time, Russell's science essentially is a
thorough reworking of a Taoist or pre-Socratic world conception in
modern terms. Freely blending mystic and religious imagery with
rigorous mechanical logic, Russell's scientific cosmology is rooted
Page 5
in the idea that all phenomena, from star systems to atomic systems,
arise from the same infinite source to live, grow and die by
precisely identical processes.
Hence, there is no fundamental difference between animate and
inanimate matter in Russell's universe -- all are living
manifestations of God's universe.
"All bodies in all the universe are the same in all respects,
whether they are electrons, cells, rocks, metals, trees, men,
planets or suns. All of them live and die in the same manner. All
breathe in the charging breath of life and breathe out the
discharging breath of death. All of them compress heat and polarize
when they breathe in, and expand, cool and depolarize when they
breathe out. (Atomic Suicide?, p. 9.)
Thus, Russell's universal mechanics hinges on a
reinterpretation of the ancient "unified field" theorem of yin and
yang. Life -- not only biological life, but the existence of
planets, gases and metals as well -- is caused by increasing
compression; and death, by expansion. These two processes, which he
also terms "charging" and "discharging,<2C> are not seen as separate
forces but as opposite stages and directions of one process, much
like the winding up and subsequent unwinding of a spring. Life
dominates every form from its inception to the point of maximum
compression, when the spring cannot be wound any tighter;
compression then begins to decrease, radiation assumes dominance,
and the process of releasing life's charge -- of dying -- unfolds.
To Russell, the elements of matter are also living entities in
various stages of birth, growth and decay. Carbon, the basis of
organic life, is the expression of matter at maturity; elements of
higher atomic weights are already dominated by the aging side of the
pendulum's swing. In the heaviest elements, the force of decay
reaches near-total dominance over the force of life -- thus
radioactivity is death incarnate. [See sidebar, "The Spiral of
Elements.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Secret Life of Plutonium
The key to grasping Russell's understanding of radioactivity
and ozone is the realization that all the elements, like all life
forms, are ideally suited to existence within their own natural,
local ecology. Thus, all the elements, when left in their natural
dimension, serve beneficial and life-giving purposes, including
Urium -- later dubbed "Plutonium.
Put another way, each octave or dimension of matter has its own
natural pressure zone. [For an explanation of the octave idea, see
the sidebar, "The Spiral of Elements.] The five elements of organic
life (C, H, N, O and Si) all need the normal pressures found at the
Earth's surface to exist normally. The natural dimension for the
supercompressed, naturally radioactive elements (radium, uranium,
plutonium, et al.) is deep underground, where they are widely
dispersed in solid rock. Here, far from being deadly or poisonous,
they actually have made possible organic life on Earth's surface:
through billions of microscopic explosions, they have gradually
caused the surrounding rocky crust to break down and release water
Page 6
and other lower-octave elements -- something like a geological
compost.
"Water and soil are decayed and dying rock. They are,
literally, dead rocks. Out of death in Nature life springs. . .
Think of the hundreds of millions of years Nature has to work to
decay solid rock and metal planets sufficiently to create enough
decayed surface, and an atmosphere, for organic life to become
possible. The radioactive metals made that possible. Radioactive
metals are dead and dying bodies. They belong underground just as
dead animal bodies belong underground. They are not poisons in
their own environment. . . Man makes them poisonous by removing
them from their purposeful environment.
"Just as the slight decay of an overripe peach will not hurt
you, while a fully decayed one might kill you, so, likewise, the
'overripe' chemical elements of the earth which are not too far from
carbon [potassium, selenium, iodine, etc.] will not hurt you, while
the further they are beyond carbon the more deadly they become, and
the more impossible it is to guard yourself from their quick death.<2E>
(Atomic Suicide?)
In short, said the Russells, the only structures naturally
suited to exist together with the radioactive elements are rocks.
Even concrete, durable metals, "glassified" tombs or salt beds --
structures presently considered to contain high-level radioactive
wastes -- will eventually decay in proximity to the concentrated
pressures of such supercompost. The soft tissues of the fourth and
fifth octaves, including our bodies, vegetation and the atmosphere
itself, certainly cannot endure such a powerful unwinding.
So, then, what would happen? In Russell's estimation, the
lighter pressures of the stratosphere would retain the majority of
radioactive fallout, and would be the first region that would reveal
the wholesale destruction of oxygen. That's oxygen, not just ozone:
if played through to the end, the last act of the nuclear drama
would see the disappearance of all oxygen on the planet, whether as
ozone, water or the O2 we breathe. In this context, the ozone hole,
as serious as it is in its own right, emerges as an early warning
sign.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Depleted Personal Ozone
In addition to destroying ozone, Russell's logic would also
seem to predict other early effects, including the destruction of
oxygen mechanisms within our bodies; for the body concentrates far
more radiation within its tissues than exists freely in the
atmosphere. Dr. Tim Binder, a leading spokesman for the Russells'
work, has postulated that "radiation may affect the oxygen-ozone in
our white blood cells that is one of the principal [immune system]
mechanisms used to destroy pathogens.
This line of thinking may already have been confirmed. For
decades, a body of surprising data on health and radiation has been
observed by a number of researchers, notably Dr. Alice Stewart in
England and Dr. Ernest Sternglass in the US. Their figures show
that long-term, relatively low-level level radiation may wreak up to
1,000 times more biological havoc than currently accepted "risk
Page 7
levels" predict. The mechanism responsible for this dramatic trend
was first discovered in 1972 by a Canadian researcher named Abram
Petkau, and has since been confirmed by other researchers. [This
issue's article by Sara Shannon details the Petkau effect and its
dietary implications -- Ed.]
The little-publicized "Petkau effect" occurs through the
creation of highly reactive oxygen molecules with a "negative
charge" (the negative ion 02<30>). But according to Russell, Nature
produces no such thing as a "negative charge.<2E> All matter, he
maintained, exhibits both charging and discharging properties; and
all charges, whether of male or female polarity, are positive. In
Russell's terms, what Petkau observed is not a "highly reactive
negative ion" but a changed form of oxygen that is abnormally
balanced towards discharging its energy rather than charging --
unwinding rather than winding.
Thus, what Petkau first documented in 1972 and what Rowland and
Molina first suggested two years later may prove to be precisely the
same symptom, only on different scales. Perhaps we are already
suffering from internal "ozone depletion; or put another way,
perhaps the Earth's ozone crisis amounts to radiation burn -- Gaia
herself is already suffering from the Petkau effect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rx For Disaster
A problem without solutions is not worth unearthing, and
Russell's life was centered on practical solutions. As an immediate
measure, Russell recommended that all nuclear stockpiles be
dismantled and their materials dispersed in deep desert trenches.
His reasoning here is three-fold. First, the goal ought to be to
return these elements to their natural context -- that is,
underground -- where they originally were harmless. Secondly,
concentrating them in massed piles is a big mistake: they should be
widely dispersed, as they occur in nature. Thirdly, remote desert
regions should be selected as an added precaution, assuming that it
will take some time for us to master Russell's atomic mechanics
sufficiently to repatriate the volatile materials properly and, if
possible, correct the existing stratospheric damage.
The key to such proper treatment may lie in the intriguing
science of atomic transmutation, which holds that elements can
change into one another freely within normal conditions (i.e., not
requiring the tremendous heat and pressures of a high-tech particle
accelerator.) Also like Georges Ohsawa, Russell asserted that low-
energy, "table-top" transmutation of elements was eminently
possible. Fueled by an early conviction that the civilization of
our present time would require new sources of energy, Russell
developed an approach to derive free hydrogen from the atmosphere
through atomic transmutation. [The recent claims of several teams
of scientists to have achieved "table-top" nuclear fusion may
finally have provided mainstream evidence of this claim; as of this
writing, not enough information has been released to evaluate the
nature of the news-making discoveries -- Ed.]
Other energy sources suggested by Russell's work include
devices using the winding-up "life principle" of nature, rather than
the winding-down "death principle" exemplified by explosive
Page 8
technologies of combustion and atomic fission. In other words,
Russell maintained that so far we have employed only half the
possibilities the two-way universe presents. Examples of such
technologies include an "implosion engine" and a logarithmic solar
amplifier. [Forthcoming issues of Solstice will report on the
present state of several of these technologies -- Ed.]
This is a radical concept; it is not hard to see why the great
electrical science pioneer Nikola Tesla once told Russell he should
"lock up his work in a vault in the Smithsonian for a thousand
years" to keep it for future generations who might be developed
sufficiently to understand it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge to Science
Meanwhile, back at the labs of established science and the
chambers of policy-making, it is highly unlikely that anyone is
talking about Russell's assessment of the problem -- let alone his
suggestions for solving it. Achieving such a discussion is an
undertaking even more ambitious than it would first appear. For
scientists to consider the hypothesis, they will have to face its
author. And taking a hard look at Dr. Walter Russell may not be a
pill much easier for science to swallow in the 1990s than it was in
the 1930s.
This is not hard to understand. For one thing, in the eyes of
most scientists Russell always remained an artist -- a non-
scientist. Moreover, his work is not merely unconventional: it
overturns many of the cherished tenets of science.
But what makes Russell's work so difficult for mainstream
acceptance is that it spurns all divisions between physics and
metaphysics, and proposes a comprehensive, logical explanation for
God and atomic physics in the same breath. What are scientists to
make of a man who writes:
"What is Atomic Energy? In answering this question let it be
remembered that God is love, and that this universe is founded upon
love. Every action and its reaction in Nature must be in balance
with each other in order to carry out to the purposeful intent of
the Creator.
As we suggested earlier, those involved in macrobiotics may be
best positioned to understand the scope and practicality of
Russell's views, and thus to help break ground where established
scientists hesitate to tread. A pivotal question, then: how has
Russell fared in the macrobiotic world?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Walter Russell and The Macrobiotic Movement
Considering the sheer scope of his vision and his remarkably
practical understanding of the yin/yang principle, Russell would
seem to cry out for macrobiotic attention. In fact, many of his
most radical scientific positions have been echoed by the
macrobiotic science of Georges Ohsawa and Michio Kushi. For
example, Russell contended that matter is not held together by an
attracting force generated from the center of mass, but by
Page 9
compression generating from the outside toward the center. This
view, one of the Russell statements that flies most abruptly in the
face of accepted scientific tenets (and the one that got Dr.
Jackson's goat in 1930), is echoed precisely in Kushi's cosmology,
where conventional "gravity" is discarded in favor of centripetal
"Heaven's force.
Moreover, the Russells' application of the yin/yang principal
to physical entities, human relationships and the social order seems
extraordinarily direct and simple to grasp, and as such would seem a
valuable complement to the macrobiotic health/dietetic tradition.
While he did not proselytize any specific dietary regimen, he
was meticulous in his own personal habits. (For example, while he
maintained a prodigious work schedule, he carefully rotated projects
so that his focus changed to a different problem or medium every two
hours -- a rhythm known in macrobiotic circles as corresponding to
the energy cycle of acupuncture meridians.) To his strict adherence
to natural law he credited his legendary ability to work long hours
with ceaseless good humor and without fatigue -- quintessentially
macrobiotic ideals, which he maintained until his peaceful passing,
on his birthday, at the age of 92.
The following passages from his 1957 Atomic Suicide? shed some
light on Russell's views on diet and health:
"The blood is of first importance of all the elements which
compose the body. The nervous system could be entirely paralyzed
and the body would still function, but the blood has deep
instinctive awareness of its existence, and the body which does not
have a happy, rhythmic blood condition cannot possibly retain its
normalcy.
Even the food one eats should be 'happy.' It should be cooked
with love and eaten joyfully, and there should be a joyful
realization of love in one's deep breathing and exaltation during
the process of taking food into one's body. The food you eat
becomes blood and flesh of your body, and the manner in which you
eat it, and your mental attitude while eating it, decides your blood
count, the balance between acidity and alkalinity of your digestive
machinery, and your entire metabolism. Your Mind is you and your
body is the record of your thoughts and actions. Your body is what
your Mind electrically extends to it for recording.
Curiously, though, his work has elicited little recognition
even from within the nominal macrobiotic movement. This is a
significant loss for a community purporting to be ever on the
lookout for Western cultural and philosophical roots: for Dr.
Walter Russell may well represent the apex of what the West has to
offer in original macrobiotic thought.
Two notable exceptions to this record of macrobiotic neglect
have been the writings of Jerry Canty and the educational efforts of
Dr. Tim Binder. Canty -- a long-time student of the Russells and
himself a bit of a maverick even within the world of macrobiotics --
has drawn heavily on the Russells' work in his own books, The
Eternal Massage, The Sounding of the Sacred Conch, and the privately
issued Spiral, Lord of Creation. None of them has really entered
the "macrobiotic mainstream" (though The Eternal Massage enjoyed a
Page 10
fairly wide readership in the 1970s); they stand today as several of
the lesser known but most challenging and adventurous books in the
macrobiotic literature.
Binder, a naturopathic doctor whose client list includes John
Denver and other well-connected environmental advocates, has studied
and championed the Russell teachings along with macrobiotics, the
climate crisis/soil mineralization thesis of John Hamaker, and other
vital fields of perspective. Where Canty introduced Russell's
thinking to a venturesome circle of macrobiotic students a
generation ago, Binder is now emerging as the Russells' leading
contemporary standard-bearer.
Recently appointed president of the Russells' University of
Science and Philosophy in Swannanoa, Virginia, Binder has undertaken
the massive project of reintroducing Russell's revision of science.
Next month (June 2-4), Binder and the University host an
international symposium at Aspen, Colorado, entitled World Balance,
aimed at exposing the core of Russell's teaching and related
perspectives both to the larger scientific community and to the
public at large.
While his own interests naturally lean towards matters of human
health and diet, Dr. Binder has thrown the University's focus and
resources full-force into documenting and publicizing the possible
ozone-radiation link. For Binder recognizes the irony of the
situation: the imperative of the ozone crisis may provide the
opportunity at last for the world to reconsider the thinking it
rejected 60 years ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In Pursuit of Evidence
As the centerpiece of this effort, Dr. Binder is coordinating a
thorough scientific effort to test, verify and document
radioactivity's role in ozone depletion. Combining an exhaustive
review of existing literature with new laboratory experimentation,
the project owes its impetus in part to Binder's frustrated efforts
to obtain accurate data from past observations.
Last year, to explore mainstream views on the possible
radiation-ozone connection, Binder visited the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado, where he
spoke with NOAA researcher George Mount. He was told, "Oh, yes, we
know that radiation destroys ozone, but we don't consider it
significant. Pressing further, Binder learned of an earlier
"insignificant" government finding: "during the bomb tests in the
60s [before the ban on atmospheric testing drove the detonations
underground] they found a 2 percent reduction in ozone [emphasis
ours].<2E> Given the current alarm over a global reduction of 1.7 to 3
percent, 2 percent would certainly seem to us to be "significant.
Binder was told that a review of this data was in process; when
he later tried to obtain this information in print, he received
reports with figures that contradicted Mount's statements.
[Subsequently, we contacted Sherwood Rowland's office at the
University of California; Sherwood himself was out of the country,
but we spoke with one of his associates about the possible
Page 11
radiation-ozone connection. Offhand, he didn't see how radiation
would be likely to have this effect, though the hypothesis
apparently had never been suggested to him before.]
Commenting on his investigations, Binder offered this
conclusion: "As the government is now reviewing the old data on the
60s' testing, it sounds like they are reconsidering the nuclear
connection to ozone destruction, but don't want to tell [us] about
it yet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond Ozone: The Human Factor
Shortly before her passing in May, 1988, we had the opportunity
to meet Mrs. Russell at her mountaintop home in Virginia. The
moment we met she looked directly at us and said, "I'm so glad
you've come. You know, we really must do something about this ozone
hole. The Doctor and I warned about this in 1954; nobody would
listen to us then. Now the situation is absolutely urgent.
Oddly, despite the dire nature of her subject, there was
nothing dark or gloomy in her words nor in her demeanor. Her
measured statements emerged in a melodious flow that was at once
precise and comfortable; they seemed uplifted by a quiet, unshakable
faith. We sensed a conviction that all events fall into their
natural time and place, with ultimate benefit for the whole.
Later that day, she addressed the assembled group: "There is
one central answer to all these terrible environmental problems, and
that is a change in the nature of human relationships. It was
impossible not to understand what she meant, and agree.
Thoroughly versed in her husband's cosmology and scientific
perspective, Lao Russell held that technical solutions alone, no
matter how cosmologically conceived, would not bring about the
changes so urgently needed. That change, she taught, would come
about only through the transformation of human beings, that we might
realize our awareness of the infinite Source, the Law of Balance,
and the Divine potential in ourselves and in each other. In a 1986
message to her students she wrote, "Only the power of Love put into
practice can put an end to all of the violence. Love will not come
into the world until mankind understands Who and What he is. When
he does understand, he will know that when he destroys another, he
is in truth destroying himself.
The modern bull in the stratospheric china shop, whatever its
identity may prove to be, is tearing holes in more than the ozone
and its underlying biological fabric. It has already begun to clear
away a stagnant web of parochial policies and human priorities.
Perhaps it will even have the force to open a gap in our staunchly
entrenched view of the world and our role within it.
The cloud over the ozone may yet reveal a silver lining. If it
succeeds in prompting a closer look at the heretical macrobiotic
science of Walter Russell, it may open a window to a two-way
universe -- a universe seen in an altogether different light.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 12
Reference in New Issue Copy Permalink