‘Human sacrifice’ staged at CERN's Shiva Statue

[MacCruiskeen]

"Staged"? "Spoof"? "Prank"? Well, OK, if you say so...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woQDrs8BzZU

‘Human sacrifice’ staged at Cern, home of the God Particle

Cern says that the ritual could undermine the actual science that goes on at the organisation

The Independent, Aug 18th 2016

Andrew Griffin 42 comments

A human sacrifice has been staged in the grounds of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, the home of the God Particle.

A video circulating online shows hooded figures apparently engaging in a ritual, staged under a huge statue of a Hindu deity, at the end of which a woman is stabbed.

But the footage appears to have been recorded as part of a prank by scientists at Europe’s top physics lab, which serves as the home of the Lagre Hadron Collider. The identity and motives of those behind the video hasn’t yet been discovered.

In the footage itself, multiple people are shown wearing long, flowing black robes – and one appears to have hiking boots on underneath. They are depicted walking around, before a woman moves onto the floor and is apparently stabbed.

As that happens, the person who is supposedly recording the video appears to react – firing out expletives and apparently running away, which causes the camera to move away from the scene before it is cut off.

The ceremony took place under the large states of the Hindu deity Shiva, which permanently stands at the complex. In both the video and real life, it is lit from below – which means that a huge shadow is cast across the building behind.

The Shiva statue was a “gift from India to celebrate its association with Cern”, according to the institution’s website.

“This deity was chosen by the Indian government because of a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the ‘cosmic dance’ of subatomic particles,” the organisation says on a website unrelated to the prank. “India is one of CERN’s observer states, along with the USA, Russia and Japan.

A Cern spokesperson confirmed that the video had been filmed there, but said that it had been made without permission or knowledge. Cern said that it doesn’t “condone this type of spoof” because it can “give rise to misunderstandings about the scientific nature of our work”.

[...]


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 96881.html

ON EDIT: Emphases added.

"A Cern spokesperson confirmed that the video had been filmed there, but said that it had been made without permission or knowledge." - So there are no security cameras (and no security guards) at that building? This is hard impossible to believe.

The statue is on permanent display in the square between buildings 39 and 40, a short distance from the Main Building.

https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737?ln=de

[yathrib]

It means that some CERN scientists watch Youtube conspiracy videos for lulz, and decided to troll the tinfoil hat faction for even more lulz.

[MacCruiskeen]

Maybe it does mean that, yathrib, and maybe it doesn't. You don't know and neither do I.

In any case it doesn't explain how they got away with doing it at all, in full public view, in a very prominent open space at what must be one of the most heavily guarded facilities in Europe.

decided to troll the tinfoil hat faction for even more lulz

And nobody at CERN is bothered that this might bring the place into public disrepute? Worse: With the entire continent on high TERROR ALERT after Nice and Munich, they're not worried about a possible security-breach? They merely pooh-pooh the whole damn thing (instantly) as a "spoof" and a "prank", while making so serious effort to identify the perpetrators? WTF?

"Human sacrifice, LOL! Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, ROTFLMAO!! Hey, lighten up, people! We're just the continent's most prestigious scientists, enjoying a well-earned laugh!! Pretending to murder a woman! Satanically!! At your expense!!!"

[yathrib]

True, but mine requires the fewest assumptions. I've actually met some of the people who work there. They're generally young, internet savvy, smart, and have a warped sense of irony and humor. Which is more likely: that CERN is run by a conspiracy of Satanists, or that some whip smart millennials went a bit too far?

[MacCruiskeen]

False dichotomy, yathrib. And it doesn't answer the questions I raised. (I edited my second post while you were posting in reply, so you may not have seen those questions yet.)

[semper occultus]

...well Jack Parsons springs to mind....as does the Buzz Aldrin masonic stuff on the moon...none fakery afaik

...dedicated occult practice demands a pretty high degree of intellect, conceptualisation of metaphysics and ritualism that would fit the slightly aspergery / ocd mentality of science geeks to some significant degree I would have thought...

...then there's the LULZ stuff like when the NSA website popped up when you typed in illuminati spelt backwards as an url....you can easily end up going the whole Hoagland.....

[MacCruiskeen]

From an English-language Geneva-info website (comments added by me in red):

GENEVA – Several online outlets today point at a bizarre video shot in the premises of CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, whose lab in canton Geneva carries out high-energy physics research. The video, which CERN officials say was shot “without official permission or knowledge”, also raises questions of security in the premises late at night. (Damn right it does.)

CERN officials told the AFP, that “IDs are checked systematically at each entry to the site whether it is night or day”, which should facilitate the investigation. (What 'investigation'? The thing was filmed more than a week ago!)

The video shows several people dressed in cloaks and one young woman, dressed in a white gown, laying on her back before she is “seemingly stabbed”. (Why "seemingly"? How can they be so sure?)

In the past, Cern has invited artists to perform and work with scientists in art projects; the video is far from being an art project.

Various version of the low-quality spoof (sic) video have been posted online.

https://allaboutgeneva.com/2016/08/17/s ... -security/

"Spoof", "prank", "staged", "seemingly stabbed"... Methinks they do protest a hell of a lot. Methinks they are very strikingly prejudging the results of their own 'investigation' (which is presumably still ongoing, if it ever started at all).

[MacCruiskeen]

Forget Shiva for a moment and forget all the costumes. Here's the thing: The video is certainly filmed at CERN (they do not deny this) and it appears to show a young woman being murdered - i.e., being stabbed through the neck with a knife by one of several black-clad figures (ISIS-style, you might say).

If CERN were to respond to such an incident seriously and rationally, what might that response look like? Something like this, I'd say:

+++CERN takes security very seriously. When the video was brought to our attention we inforned the police immediately. Using security camera footage, they investigated the provenance of this video and discovered that it had been created as a prank by a group of students visiting our summer school. The young woman who played the "sacrificial victim" has also been identified; we are glad to report that she is alive and well.

We have made it clear to all those involved that we will not tolerate such an abuse of CERN's hospitality and such a potentially damaging blow to the institute's deservedly high reputation.+++

- Something like that. And they might then say that they had let those presumably gifted young people off with a warning just this once, so as not to destroy their entire future careers for the sake of one stupid immature joke. OK. Fine. Fair enough.

But no. They just tell us (and keep on telling us) that they presume it was "a prank", "a spoof". Really: WTF? How can they be so insouciant?

Meanwhile, the only thing recorded as actual solid fact in that Independent article (or anywhere else I can find) is the single short sentence bolded below:

But the footage appears to have been recorded as part of a prank by scientists at Europe’s top physics lab, which serves as the home of the Lagre Hadron Collider. The identity and motives of those behind the video hasn’t yet been discovered.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... ommentsDiv

So:

1. They don't know that it was students.

2. They don't know that it was scientists.

3. They don't know that it was just a prank or a spoof.

Therefore: They don't know whether or not that young woman was murdered. Or else they do know that she was murdered, and they're covering it up.

How's that 'investigation' coming along, CERN?

[PufPuf93]

Not forgetting Shiva (Siva) and maybe or not off topic, I was living in Redding, CA in 1999 when this "controversy" took place. Redding is quite conservative and "Christian" for California. The year 1999 is also the year the Williams brothers committed their ghastly crimes. The initial reactions of the head of North Valley Baptist Church and the President of Simpson College, the only local four year college and attended by one of the Williams, were to be blunt in extreme poor taste.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of ... eld_Mowder

The "Christians" of Redding said that Shiva opened a portal of evil in the community of Redding similar to those that say CERN has opened a portal of evil.

Robert Oppenheimer, lead physicist on the Manhattan Project stated when the first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico he was reminded of the Bhagavad Gita (and Shiva), specifically, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

In Hinduism, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer. Shiva may be the destroyer at the end of time but Shiva is also the destroyer in the sense of preparing for renewal by Brahma in the maintenance of an orderly world.

I would assume that the Shiva at CERN is in homage to Oppenheimer.

So here are my rambled thoughts.

Some one should interview the person who filmed the clip and also an attempt made to identify the young woman who appeared to go willingly to "death".

Possibly the scene was an initiation ritual for a fraternity of some sort?

This Swiss are so odd. Reminds me of the tunnel opening ceremony.


http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/sm ... temid=3883

The Redding Siva Nataraja

The "Dancer" stirs an artful clash of church and state

The people of the peaceful town of Redding in Northern California have always been conservative, and proud of it. Many of these good, honest, hard-working folks probably don't think much of most "modern art", perhaps for good reason. But the probationary, one-year installation in 1999 of an abstract sculpture named Dancer right in front of Old City Hall Arts Center, now an art museum, near the middle of downtown Redding kicked up more than a normal amount of aesthetic controversy. Actually, the clash did not have much to do with art, that "human effort to supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature" as Webster puts it. It was more about religion. When word got out that Dancer was a contemporary rendering of the Hindu God Siva, a few Christian townpeople got really riled.

Dancer was purchased from Sonoma County artist Bryan Tedrick by Viva Downtown Redding (VDR), an organization dedicated to the artistic revitalization of Redding through a program called Art aRound Town. According to an article written by Scott Mobley in Redding's local newspaper, the Record Searchlight, Larry Liebscher, a Redding Police Department financial crimes investigator and a staunch Christian, wrote a letter to the Mayor of Redding about the sculpture. Liebscher claimed that the ten-foot-tall statue, which won the People's Choice Award at the California State Fair in 1999, might "serve as a gateway for evil and demonic entrance into the downtown Redding area." He also asserted that such art was "not at all consistent with the conservative, family values Redding strives to rigorously be known for." City officials, he said, should remove Dancer as soon as its one-year lease expired. Liebscher protested that keeping the sculpture on city land violated the separation of church and state. The issue went to a five-member Community Services Advisory Commission, a panel of the City Council. Their attorney argued that separation of church and state was not an issue here, because the piece in question was a work of art. The Commission then voted unanimously on June 14, 2001, to grant VDR an extension on its lease, allowing Dancer to be displayed on city property four more years.

The controversy intensified. "It's OK to not like Siva," wrote Searchlight editor, Jim Dyer, in an editorial entitled 'Dancer' Should Be Viewed Solely as Art. "But when folks make the leap to say that a sculpture in front of Old City Hall is something evil that is harming our community, I sprint to jump off that boat." Later in the same editorial he asserts, "Raging against the Siva sculptures of the world in today's environment does a great disservice to the witness of a religion."

Through a sequence of reader-editorials featured in an ongoing Searchlight column entitled Speak Your Peace, there issued forth a chain reaction of quarrelsome assertion and rebuttal, pitting conservative Christians against liberal art lovers. Art Isberg bemoaned the exhibition of Dancer as promoting Eastern religion, proclaiming along the way that America is the moral conscience of the planet. Reader Patrick J. Tyson countered, "Most of the planet's population is not and never has been Christian. Mr. Isberg is opposed to the public exhibition of religiously themed art only when it is inspired by any religion other than his own." The only Hindu to publish a comment was Iraja Sivadas. Sivadas gave a concise definition of Siva from the Hindu perspective, emphasizing that Siva is not a God of destruction and would thus bring no harm to Redding.

[JackRiddler]

"A Cern spokesperson confirmed that the video had been filmed there, but said that it had been made without permission or knowledge." - So there are no security cameras (and no security guards) at that building? This is hard impossible to believe.

However it's very easy to believe people working there made it for fun and forgot the part where nowadays everything ends up on the Internet.

[norton ash]

Having a hard time trusting you assholes with the fabric of time and space, CERN.

[JackRiddler]

- Something like that. And they might then say that they had let those presumably gifted young people off with a warning just this once, so as not to destroy their entire future careers for the sake of one stupid immature joke. OK. Fine. Fair enough.

But no. They just tell us (and keep on telling us) that they presume it was "a prank", "a spoof". Really: WTF? How can they be so insouciant?

Now work your very plausible scenario a couple of steps further. Do you really imagine if they followed your PR strategy it would end without further outcry at the outrageous thing the student/scientists did, and without the heads of these film pranksters on pikes? If India decides to make an issue of this as religious insult, for example, that's almost certainly where it will head.

Unless of course you think it was outside infiltrators getting around/collaborating with the security, or maybe a real murder (in which case, why the theatrical bit camera running away?).

So:

1. They don't know that it was students.

2. They don't know that it was scientists.

3. They don't know that it was just a prank or a spoof.

You don't know they don't know. You only know they say they don't know. It's likelier that they'll create the world-ending black hole than that they don't know who made this film.

.

[MacCruiskeen]

Do you really imagine if they followed your PR strategy it would end without further outcry at the outrageous thing the student/scientists did, and without the heads of these film pranksters on pikes?

There's no reason why it should end with anyone's head on a pike, because hardly anyone is taking the incident seriously anyway. Anyone who does is immediately derided as a "conspiracy nut". The sniggering VICE article is exemplary in that respect, as are the brainlessly snarky comments under it. The hacks are always rushing to cover the establishment's ass for it before even being asked (vorauseilender Gehorsam).

If CERN followed what you call my "PR strategy" they would merely be showing that they take public safety and public information at least minimally seriously. They would also be demonstrating that they care about their own reputation. As opposed to their current PR strategy, which is to say, "Well, whatever, we presume it was just, like, y'know, a prank or something. Happens all the time here, it's a real nuisance. Too many crazy nerds with madcap ideas, but hey, what you gonna do, they need to let their hair down occasionally. And if that means pretending to murder women, ISIS-style, well, who are we to say no?" Which appears to be fine by VICE, The Guardian, The Independent, and everyone else.

If India decides to make an issue of this as religious insult, for example, that's almost certainly where it will head.

That too. The statue was a gift from India.



So in the fifteenth year of the War on Terror Muslims, CERN scientists decide to piss all over Hinduism too. "Hey, let's stage a HUMAN SACRIFICE in front of LORD SHIVA, the third god in the Hindu triumvirate, sacred to millions of Indians! And let's make it look real SATANIC!" Great work, guys. (How many of these geniuses were involved? Ten?) I mean, it's not as if the world's in crisis already or anything.

And still - eight days after the film of the incident first appeared on YouTube! - no one at CERN can be bothered to find out whodunnit, or even to find out exactly what was done, or even to give a halfway plausible explanation of how it could be allowed to happen in the first place. Some PR strategy that is, Jack.

[DrEvil]

Looks like summer students pulling a traditional prank before leaving. Probably with an eye towards riling up the conspiratards.

Also - reading the guardian article it sounds like they know who it is and are treating it like an internal matter.

[PufPuf93]

oops

I missed that the Shiva was a gift from India on first read when I thought it was a homage to Oppenheimer's Trinity statement.

From the link:

"Because of the highly-specialized – and often terrifying – work that goes on at Cern, it has become a haven of speculation for conspiracy theorists and anxious people.".

The idea that the ritual was some sort of fraternal initiation is sort of between out right prank and the out right evil is another possibility.

Probably an embarrassment to management at CERN in any case.

We will probably never know.