New and Undisclosed Secrets of The Turin Shroud
A letter from Norma C. Weller
To:21 August 2001
Dear Sir,
New and Undisclosed Secrets of the Turin Shroud
During the past decade until this very day and since the first presentation of my work in 1992 by author and expert on the Shroud Ian Wilson to the British Society for the Turin Shroud in London, I have been reflecting on a single image reputed to be that of Jesus Christ. It has become the leitmotiv of my life.
It has led me to many travels, from remote areas of the Mani in Greece, to even remoter rock churches in Cappadocia, visits to Petra and the c aves of the Nazara, as well as journeys into the desert places of Jordan and Israel.
There have also been journeys in uncharted deserts in the realm of Quantum Physics and Space-Time hypotheses, far out fields of Medicine and Radionics, but last and not least, the little known origins of the Nazarenes, their teachings and early ritual practices as in the Baptismal Rites of John the Baptist.
However it is to William Henry Fox-Talbot (1800-1877), one of the fathers of photography that I owe my methodology since his experiments in the coating of paper with silver nitrate and other substances to register an image, gave me my first insights into the workings of the Shroud.
By placing myrtle sprigs onto paper coated with a simple photographic solution and leaving them in sunlight, faint images appeared almost identical to those registered on the Shroud.
What had happened was that the dark blue background of the paper had lightened, leaving the trace of an image fully visible.
Now the Shroud image was categorically not formed by a photographic process but by light and the presence of a three dimensional solid body imprinting its form against a linen cloth.
The only correspondence between the photographic process, as in the earliest experiments in photography was the manner in which a three dimensional plant structure when laid against prepared photographic paper, could, and would, by the effect of light leave its imprint on the surface.
This does not imply some method known only to obscure alchemists Two thousand years ago, nor does it imply such knowledge during the medieval period but, simply, that the cause of the Image was light.
Seven years after those first experiments during which I had kept the results well sealed in black plastic containers, I one day took them out to view them. Everything had disappeared, not a single trace of the images existed, in short they had once again become invisible.
So it was with the Turin Shroud, nothing remained of the detail except faint imprints of a form, which was enough however to create awe and veneration for centuries.
However when Secondo Pia took his world shattering photographs, what appeared was a living Image, which ever since has mystified and compelled, tantalised and bewildered: in other words the most controversial image on Earth.
What ensued with my own humble plant images was identical. Dismissing them as blanks and therefore ready to be disposed of I by chance, left them for a while on a windowsill. When I went to throw them away, I was astonished to find the re-appearance of the plant forms despite them having been hidden for years in sealed containers.
The resemblance to the Shroud process was overwhelming, as shown by the Secondo Pia photograph, which so startlingly revealed the locked image originally created by an unknown light process.
Now the great and totally baffling question is how? Science has been wrestling with this issue ever since. Was it radiation? Was it some property of the cloth that had somehow retained traces of strontium?
The answer is definitely in the affirmative but of a kind that science has yet to comprehend. To look for explanations would take us too far afield for this communication, but there are precedents.
Tibetan breathing practices, for instance, have been known to create not only fire from within but also intense heat from without as in the Art of Tumo where naked monks sit on icy mountains to meditate until they are able to melt the ice.
Still other studies have been done on the processes of "spontaneous combustion" in which the human body spontaneously bursts into flame leaving nothing but a heap of ashes.
We are not intimating comparisons but merely stating that as yet science knows very little about the psychophysical propensity of the human organism to become profoundly energised through higher levels of consciousness.
Not only is the Turin Shroud image a unique phenomenon of light but it is an imprint having one of the most staggering features ever to have been registered though any means whatsoever, and this must be viewed with the utmost attention and observation.
The secret of the Shroud is in the eyes.
The very area of the countenance if viewed with proper receptivity
and awareness will reveal the one element that has evaded physicist
and scientist alike.
It is the slight fluttering of the eyelids
awakening from sleep.
So delicate and subtle is this movement that it might easily go unnoticed, yet even the most expert artists in the world have not mastered the " moment" to that degree since it is actually an impossibility.
Neither two thousand years ago or in the Medieval period or even today, with the exception of stroboscopic photographic techniques, can an "instant" be the subject of depiction.
In the case of the Turin Shroud, it is not an artistic or man-made phenomenon and it is vital to now think in new categories. The eyes reveal so much that it is awesome. Here we see someone at the moment of awakening form the sleep of death. From this each one of us must form our own conclusions.
Lastly we must mention here the reason for placing the myrtle on the brow of the Image, for it is the most purposeful and important key to the whole presentation.
If Jesus was truly a Nazarene, and we know from the Gospels that he was, then the placing of the myrtle wreath around the head filet at burial was an emblem of his rank and priesthood: the mark of divinity and healing known as ASA or healed. It was the supreme symbol of the soul.
I realise that the myrtle wreath may itself prove to be highly controversial as the accepted image is the Crown of Thorns, but if viewed from the back of the head to anyone fundamentally acquainted with mass, structure, shape and proportion, this is clearly a wreath of foliage and has nothing to do with the sharpness of a Crown of Thorns.
The reader may wonder how I know this.
It is the result of innumerable comparative experiments with live myrtle and its placement around the brow and head of the Shroud image with photographic comparisons to define similarity in mass and proportion.
It is also the result of colour intensification, which reveals a measure of detail combined with transparent overlays of the Shroud, which no other method can reveal.
It has taken me some years of trial and error to find the exact colour resonance that sufficiently intensifies the image to define very minute detail that a computer or mechanism is not subtle enough to reveal.
The entire process arose out of lecture demonstrations and research done in Colour Studies at Brighton University and is as much the science of art as the art of science.
In this brief introduction to my work I can only touch on certain essential fragments.
However it is at this juncture that we must mention also the objective confirmation by Israeli botanical authority Avinoam Danim, of the presence of Gundelia Tournefortii.
Pollens on the surface of the Shroud, a fact reported recently with considerable excitement by the world press.
It was with profound interest that the present writer noticed the position of these pollens as indicated in "Flora of the Turin Shroud" since the gundelia were in evidence mainly on the periphery of the Shroud and only slightly near the shoulder.
This is highly significant, as it would appear self-evident that the devoted followers of Jesus would have removed the instrument of mockery and torture as soon as possible prior to burial, and returned the myrtle wreath, frequently worn by the Nazarenes as a sweet-scented symbol of eternal life yet this will remain unproven unless the markings on the brow area, which were "out of bounds" for Max Frei in his original collection of pollen samples in 1978, could be tested and categorised.
Unlikely though this may be, one way or the other, it would be invaluable. This would not be in evidence on the Shroud as a whole, as other plant pollens are in evidence because it would not have been shaken - i.e. by the head during the Crucifixion as was the Crown of Thorns, nor would it have been blown by the wind or distributed through pollination, since it would have been placed immediately in an enclosed space on a motionless figure, and covered by a burial cloth.
There would have been a marked difference in placement and far greater concentration in a single area. Yet this very area was not examined and may even remain so for some time.
The other profuse pollen was Cistacea or Rock Rose. In the light of our present knowledge of Nazarene customs, this too is of the utmost importance, and for more details one should refer to The British Society for the Turin Shroud newsletter "Clues and confirmations towards an authentication of the Turin Shroud" No.53 July 2001.
Regrettably all this will remain unproven unless the brow markings on the front and back of the Shroud could be examined for traces of myrtle.
So vital could be this information that many facts may be discovered crucial to our understanding about the historical and metaphysical Jesus. The Gundelia Tournefortii pollens have already indicated the reality of the crucifixion, what else therefore might the discovery of myrtle pollens reveal?
So far this has remained unknown territory, but of one thing one may be certain; if these extraordinary details were fact and not fiction, it would lay the spectre of falsehood and error, finally and forever.
For the time being, it is my heartfelt wish that the contents of this package, delivered by hand - on a "once in a lifetime visit" may receive a permanent resting place among all those other dedicated researches that have made the Turin Shroud Museum possible.
With all good wishes
Norma C. Weller
Norma Weller is an artist and writer who has also written extensively about the Nazarenes and their connection with early Christianity.
She now has a permanent exhibition of her work and also her discoveries on the Turin Shroud on show at the Hove Ikon Gallery in the city of Brighton and Hove in England.
For further information and details of these discoveries, the booklet
"New
and Undisclosed Secrets of the Turin Shroud"
(price £8.00 incl. of postage)
is available directly from
Norma Weller at her own
Hove Ikon Gallery,
3 Albany
Mews,
Fourth Avenue,
Hove,
East Sussex.
BN3 2PQ
Telephone (01273) 775630
The Gallery houses a permanent exhibition on the Turin Shroud and also
paintings by Norma Weller.
It can be visited throughout the year by appointment and is also open
from April to September inclusive on Sundays from 2 to 5pm.
Back to Start
Prismatics in Art
The Artist: Norma Weller
The Ikon Gallery
Further Information
How to contact us
Email us
Back to The Alternative Guide