Phillip Ball writes:
There aren't terribly many scientists who study liquids, but I was once one of them, and we tended to shun water. This might make us sound like bakers with an aversion to bread, but we had a good reason: water broke all the rules. There is a perfectly good 'theory of liquids' that has been painstakingly developed since the late nineteenth century, and it is astonishing what it can accomplish in terms of explaining what liquids are and what they do. But it is of rather little use for understanding water.
Here's an example. Many solids can be melted to form liquids, but when they cool and freeze again, they typically shrink and get denser. Fill a cup with molten wax, say, and you'll find it slightly less than brim-full when the wax sets. The same with molten iron or lead, or molten rock, which is why lava contracts and cracks when it cools and we are left with formations like the Giant's Causeway.
But water? We know the answer already, for we take care never to freeze bottles of milk or champagne. The water expands when it becomes ice, and the bottle shatters. Because of this expansion, ice is less dense than water - the same volume of ice ways less than water - and so ice floats on water. If that were not so - if water behaved 'normally', and became denser when it froze - icebergs would sink instead of floating around the polar oceans. There would, in fact, be no North Pole to plant a flag in, for it is nothing but an ice sheet adrift on the Arctic Ocean.
The expansion of water when it freezes bursts our water pipes in winter, and weakens our buildings as water widens cracks when it turns to ice. Many years of such freeze-thaw cycles can reduce rocks to rubble. On the other hand, ice floating on a wintry pond provides a thermal blanket that can stop more heat escaping and keep the water below from freezing solid, to the benefit of pond life.
Aquatic life gets a further advantage from water's oddness. Even before a liquid freezes, it generally contracts slightly as it gets cooler. This is because the molecules in the water jiggle about less frantically when they are colder, and so they have less inclination to push one another apart - just as a regiment of soldiers can pack together more closely than a wildly jiving crowd on a dance floor. Water seems to observe this expectation - until it reaches 4ºC, four degrees above its freezing point. If you cool water below 4ºC, it starts to expand. Only slightly - not as much as it does when it freezes at 0º C - but enough to present a puzzle. It is almost as if the water begins to sense the approach of the freezing-induced expansion.
This means that water is densest at 4ºC; at this temperature, it expands if you heat it or if you cool it. Why 4ºC? In his Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar (1876), the sage Reverend Dr Brewer decides that this has been 'wisely ordained by God'. That explanation doesn't seem to have satisfied scientists for long, if indeed it ever did.
Nevertheless, one might perceive wisdom in this behaviour. It means that the water at the bottom of a cold pond - the densest water - is always a few degrees above freezing. So ponds freeze from the top down, not from the bottom up. This helps them to avoid freezing solid in a bad winter, something that would kill the fish and crush them for good measure.
One of the most striking and fortuitous anomalies of water is that it is a liquid at all. Naively, you would expect water to be a gas at the temperatures and pressures encountered on the Earth's surface. All other similar chemical compounds - hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, hydrogen chloride - are gases under these conditions. By rights, the oceans should all be up in the air, giving us a thick, muggy atmosphere over a parched earth. But something seems to hold water molecules together in the liquid, preventing them so easily from flying apart into a vapour.

Water has a surprising capacity to absorb heat. That's to say, if you want to make water hotter, you have to put in a larger amount of heat, relative to other liquids. This means that it takes longer than it 'should' to boil a kettle, but there are happier consequences too. The oceans are slow to change their temperature, maintaining a constant environment for the organisms that teem within it. Water's large 'heat capacity' also makes the oceans an astonishing reservoir of heat, which ocean currents carry from the tropics (where water is warmed by the sun) to high-latitude regions. This redistributes heat over the planet and reduces the temperature differences between high and low latitudes. The Gulf Stream, bringing warm water from the Gulf of Mexico across the Atlantic Ocean, keeps Northern Europe much warmer than Labrador at the same latitude on the American coast by transporting every day twice as much heat as would be produced by burning all of the coal mined globally in a year.

The list of water's anomalies, compared with other liquids or 'similar' chemical compounds, runs to a few dozen entries. Some are more recondite and revealed only by careful scientific measurement, such as the fact that water gets less rather than more viscous when squeezed. Ice is itself a strange substance too, which can adopt at least fourteen different forms when compressed to high pressures. Water, we must admit, is the most eccentric liquid we know.
Let us then set to work to discipline our will, let us endeavour to awaken within us each morning and each evening-
In the Morning
O Michael, I commend myself to thy protection,
With all the forces of my heart, I place myself
under thy leadership, that so the day that is
now beginning may be indeed a picture of the
right ordering of destiny that belongs to thy Being.
Evening:
I carry my sorrow into the setting Sun,
I lay all my cares in its shining lap
These my cares come back to me filled with
glowing light, warmed through and through with love,
come back to me as helping thoughts, as power to carry out deeds that are filled with joy of sacrifice.
Another translation:
Morning:
O Michael,
Under your protection I place myself,
With your guidance I connect myself,
Wholeheartedly,
So that this day becomes an image
Of your destiny-ordering Will.
O Michael,
Under your protection I place myself,
Wholeheartedly and with a will,
So that this day which is now beginning
Will be an image of your destiny ordered Will.
Evening:
I carry my sorrows into the setting sun,
Place all my worries into her radiating womb,
Purified in love, transformed into light,
They return as helping thoughts,
As strength for self-sacrificing deeds.
Rudolf Steiner, Lecture, 27th November 1919
Here follows a passage in which Dr. Steiner explains the notion of redemption as taught by the followers of Zarathustra:
"Wherever we look there is a world that descended from divine-spiritual heights but now has fallen very far from its earlier level.....
"But man has the hope of being able to lead it upwards again."
"We will now further translate into words of our language what an Iranian felt, and try to convey how a teacher would have spoken to his pupils. He might have said: Think of the wolf. The animal living as the physical wolf you now see has fallen from its former estate, has become decadent. Formerly it did not manifest its bad qualities.
"But if good qualities germinate in you and you combine them with your spiritual powers, you can tame this animal; you can instil into it your own good qualities, making the wolf into a docile dog who serves you! ...."
"If I leave Nature as she is, she sinks lower and lower; everything becomes wild. But I can direct my eyes of spirit to a good Power in whom I trust; then that Power will help me and I shall be able to lead upwards again what is in danger of sinking. This Power gives me hope that further development in possible."
-Lecture one, St. Matthew's Gospel
In the above lecture series you can read about Zarathustra's incarnation as Zarathas or Nazarathos, in Chaldea, and his teaching of the Hebrew initiates during the Captivity.
The practices of the Nazarites were carried out in stricter form by the Essenes. The Essenes were under the influence of the Maitreya Bodhisattva who worked through Jeshu Ben Pandira (the Teacher of Righteousness).
The Book of the Bee is a Nestorian Christian sacred history. According
to Budge it was written ca. A.D. 1222 by a Syrian bishop named Solomon
(Shelêmôn).
In the Introduction to the Book of the Cave of Treasures, Budge says
that Solomon's object in writing the Book of the Bee was to present "a
full history of the Christian Dispensation according to the Nestorians."
The Book of the Bee has an interesting description of the Star of the Magi:
As touching the nature of that star, whether it was a star in its
nature, or in appearance only, it is right to know that it was not of
the other stars, but a secret power which appeared like a star; for all
the other stars that are in the firmament, and the sun and moon, perform
their course from east to west. This one, however, made its course from
north to south, for Palestine lies thus, over against Persia. This star
was not seen by them at night only, but also during the day, and at
noon; and it was seen at the time when the sun is particularly strong,
because it was not one of the stars.
Also it describes the coming of the Magi from Persia - though there are twelve of them:
WHEN Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judah, and the star appeared to the
Magi in the east, twelve Persian kings took offerings - gold and myrrh
and frankincense - and came to worship Him. Their names are these:
Zarwândâd the son of Artabân, and Hôrmîzdâd the son of Sîtârûk
(Santarôk), Gûshnâsâph (Gushnasp) the son of Gûndaphar, and Arshakh the
son of Mîhârôk; these four brought gold. Zarwândâd the son of Warzwâd,
Îryâhô the son of Kesrô (Khosrau), Artahshisht the son of Holîtî,
Ashtôn`âbôdan the son of Shîshrôn; these four brought myrrh. Mêhârôk the
son of Hûhâm, Ahshîresh the son of Hasbân, Sardâlâh the son of
Baladân, Merôdâch the son of Beldarân; these four brought frankincense.
Some say that the offerings which the Magi brought and offered to our
Lord had been laid in the Cave of Treasures by Adam; and Adam commanded
Seth to hand them down from one to another until our Lord rose, and
they brought (them), and offered (them) to Him. But this is not received
by the Church.
Before these items appear in the book there is an ancient prophecy connected with the destiny of Zarathustra (Zerdosht).
This prophecy was preserved from approximately the sixth century B.C.
Chapter XXXVII - The Prophecy of Zârâdôsht Concerning Our Lord
'Hear, my beloved children, for I will reveal to you a mystery concerning the great King who is about to rise upon the world. At the end of time, and at the final dissolution, a child shall be conceived in the womb of a virgin, and shall be formed in her members, without any man approaching her. And he shall be like a tree with beautiful foliage and laden with fruit, standing in a parched land; and the inhabitants of that land shall be gathered together to uproot it from the earth, but shall not be able.
Then they will take him and crucify him upon a tree, and heaven and earth shall sit in mourning for his sake; and all the families of the nations shall be in grief for him. He will begin to go down to the depths of the earth, and from the depth he will be exalted to the height; then he will come with the armies of light, and be borne aloft upon white clouds; for he is a child conceived by the Word which establishes natures.'
Gûshnâsâph says to him, 'Whence has this one, of whom thou sayest these things, his power? Is he greater than thou, or art thou greater than he?' Zârâdôsht says to him, 'He shall descend from my family; I am he, and he is I; he is in me, and I am in him.
When the beginning of his coming appears, mighty signs will be seen in heaven, and his light shall surpass that of the sun. But ye, sons of the seed of life, who have come forth from the treasuries of life and light and spirit, and have been sown in the land of fire and water, for you it is meet to watch and take heed to these things which I have spoken to you, that ye await his coming; for you will be the first to perceive the coming of that great king, whom the prisoners await to be set free.
Now, my sons, guard this secret which I have revealed to you, and let it be kept in the treasure-houses of your souls. And when that star rises of which I have spoken, let ambassadors bearing offerings be sent by you, and let them offer worship to him. Watch, and take heed, and despise him not, that he destroy you not with the sword; for he is the king of kings, and all kings receive their crowns from him. He and I are one.' These are the things which were spoken by this second Balaam, and God, according to His custom, compelled him to interpret these things; or he sprang from a people who were acquainted with the prophecies1 concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, and declared them aforetime.
And from the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour:
7. And it came to pass, when the Lord Jesus was born at Bethlehem of Judaea, in the time of King Herod, behold, Magi came from the east to Jerusalem, as Zeraduscht [Zoroaster] had predicted; and there were with them gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Easter
Christmas

This information about hair has been hidden from the public since the Vietnam War.
Our culture leads people to believe that hair style is a matter of
personal preference, that hair style is a matter of fashion and/or
convenience, and that how people wear their hair is simply a cosmetic
issue. Back in the Vietnam war however, an entirely different picture
emerged, one that has been carefully covered up and hidden from public
view.
In the early nineties, Sally [name changed to protect privacy] was
married to a licensed psychologist who worked at a VA Medical hospital.
He worked with combat veterans with PTSD, post traumatic stress
disorder. Most of them had served in Vietnam.
Sally said, "I remember clearly an evening when my husband came back to
our apartment on Doctor's Circle carrying a thick official looking
folder in his hands. Inside were hundreds of pages of certain studies
commissioned by the government. He was in shock from the contents. What
he read in those documents completely changed his life. From that moment
on my conservative middle of the road husband grew his hair and beard
and never cut them again. What is more, the VA Medical center let him do
it, and other very conservative men in the staff followed his example.
As I read the documents, I learned why. It seems that during the Vietnam
War special forces in the war department had sent undercover experts to
comb American Indian Reservations looking for talented scouts, for
tough young men trained to move stealthily through rough terrain. They
were especially looking for men with outstanding, almost supernatural,
tracking abilities. Before being approached, these carefully selected
men were extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival.
With the usual enticements, the well proven smooth
phrases used to enroll new recruits, some of these Indian trackers were
then enlisted. Once enlisted, an amazing thing happened. Whatever
talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to
mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as
expected in the field.
Serious causalities and failures of performance led the government to
contract expensive testing of these recruits, and this is what was
found.
When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older
recruits replied consistently that when they received their required
military haircuts, they could no longer 'sense' the enemy, they could no
longer access a 'sixth sense', their 'intuition' no longer was
reliable, they couldn't 'read' subtle signs as well or access subtle
extrasensory information.
So the testing institute recruited more Indian trackers, let them keep
their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then they would pair
two men together who had received the same scores on all the tests.
They would let one man in the pair keep his hair long, and gave the
other man a military haircut. Then the two men retook the tests.
Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time
after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had
previously scored high scores.
Here is a Typical Test:
The recruit is sleeping out in the woods. An armed 'enemy' approaches
the sleeping man. The long haired man is awakened out of his sleep by a
strong sense of danger and gets away long before the enemy is close,
long before any sounds from the approaching enemy are audible.
In another version of this test the long haired man senses an approach
and somehow intuits that the enemy will perform a physical attack. He
follows his 'sixth sense' and stays still, pretending to be sleeping,
but quickly grabs the attacker and 'kills' him as the attacker reaches
down to strangle him.
This same man, after having passed these and other tests, then received a
military haircut and consistently failed these tests, and many other
tests that he had previously passed.
So the document recommended that all Indian trackers be exempt from
military haircuts. In fact, it required that trackers keep their hair
long."
Comment:
The mammalian body has evolved over millions of years. Survival skills
of human and animal at times seem almost supernatural. Science is
constantly coming up with more discoveries about the amazing abilities
of man and animal to survive. Each part of the body has highly sensitive
work to perform for the survival and well being of the body as a
whole.The body has a reason for every part of itself.
Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly
seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved 'feelers' or
'antennae' that transmit vast amounts of important information to the
brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex.
Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an
information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the
electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment.
This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed
with long hair and then rephotographed after the hair is cut.
When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the
environment are greatly hampered. This results in numbing-out .
Cutting of hair is a contributing factor to unawareness of environmental
distress in local ecosystems. It is also a contributing factor to
insensitivity in relationships of all kinds. It contributes to sexual
frustration.
Conclusion:
In searching for solutions for the distress in our world, it may be time
for us to consider that many of our most basic assumptions about
reality are in error. It may be that a major part of the solution is
looking at us in the face each morning when we see ourselves in the
mirror.
The story of Sampson and Delilah in the Bible has a lot of encoded truth
to tell us. When Delilah cut Sampson's hair, the once undefeatable
Sampson was defeated.
[Correction: A man cut Samson's hair- "And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and
called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for
he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came
up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made him sleep
upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave
off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his
strength went from him."
-Judges]
Reported by C. Young
"Strange as it may sound, in our hair we have a relic of certain rays by which the sun-forces were once instilled into man. What the sun in earlier times thus instilled into man was something living . . . in ancient times it might have been quite possible, by leaving the hair uncut, to receive certain forces into one's being."
-Rudolf Steiner
We know of the Buddhist and Christian monks who have shaved heads.
This tradition differed with the East and West in Christianity:
"The monks and clerics of the Eastern Church have retained the Nazirite rule not to shave their hair to this day, whereas in the Western Church monks and priests join in the Korah tradition with their rule of tonsure. This is why Orthodox monks retained for a long time a cosmic, visionary strain in their religious devotion, whereas the Roman monastic orders early made themselves bearers of the intellectual development of culture."
- Emil Bock. Moses
The rule against hair-cutting in the Nazirites aided their seership.
"The wearing of long hair served the same goal, for at that time it was still a means against the hardening of the human organism."
-Emil Bock
Contrary to the Nazirites there was the tribe of Korah, which
means "bald-headed".
"In the configuration of the people of Israel, members of the company of Korah were quite the opposite of the Nazirites. Korah means 'bald-head'. Just as the long hair was an expression of their spiritual aims among the Nazirites, so was the tonsure-like shaved head among the people of Korah, who also formed a kind of order or lodge. The Nazirites sought to preserve the link with the pure sun-forces that enkindled seership in the human being.
"The people of Korah had an extreme, modern disposition; and the intellectual hardening of the human being, the organism that is emancipated from the cosmos and has become a mirror apparatus for thoughts, was the principle of their endeavours."
-Emil Bock
see Heads & Hats for more on this theme