I admit, I haven't read the site yet. However, I have been there. And it's not the only one--I know there's another one in Creston, British Columbia. There's also a place where I grew up, in the Crowsnest Pass, that if you put your car in neutral, it will roll uphill all by itself.
Now when I was at the one in Montana, you walk through this house, and you can't stand up straight. It's a very strange experience. So strange, in fact, that I'm sure some would think it's the work of a demon. So I thought it would be fun to talk about it here.
Calling all Christians and scientists: Natural phenomena, or the work of the devil?
I like the ones in Sedona. They're well marked. Some are positive, some are negative. Ya gotta stay away from the negative ones.
The funny thing is, if you don't know about them, and don't read the signs, you can't tell they're there. You can walk right through them and nothing happens. Apparently, you must Believe for them to influence you. I guess they're a lot like believing in the devil. I think you might be better off visiting the world's largest ball of paint.
Jose wrote:I like the ones in Sedona. They're well marked. Some are positive, some are negative. Ya gotta stay away from the negative ones.
I think the ones in Sedona are a different kind of "vortex," Jose. They have more to do with spiritual stuff, or UFOs and the like. The ones referred to above, and the most famous one in Oregon, are sensory illusions which make you feel as if gravity has gone crazy. They are illusions created by the pitch of the ground, combined with structures that are just enough out of plumb to make you feel like you're in one of those carnival fun houses.
Personally I'd rather visit the Tupperware Museum. Now that's creepy!
Jim, the Happy Humanist!
=== Any sufficiently advanced worldview will be indistinguishable from sheer arrogance --The Happy Humanist (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
Gotcha! Thanks for the clarification, Jim. Uhhh...why call 'em vortexes if there's no vortexing going on? When I was a kid, we used to go to Knotts Berry Farm, where they had one of those goofy houses that had things at odd angles, and made you think water was flowing uphill. As you say, they are sensory illusions. I'd liken 'em to Escher's prints, such as Ascending and Descending--the kind of thing that makes you look for an "Escher Loop" for a bike ride. Imagine riding all around McDowell Mountain (in January), and have it all be downhill! Even then, though, there wouldn't be much of a vortex.
Or does "vortex" refer to "vertiginous," in that it makes you feel wonky?
Or does "vortex" refer to "vertiginous," in that it makes you feel wonky?
Well, if I had too many "wonks" I probably wouldn't remain a "vertigin" for too long...
Jim, the Happy Humanist!
=== Any sufficiently advanced worldview will be indistinguishable from sheer arrogance --The Happy Humanist (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
I have been to the one in Oregon, it was a few years back. It was a fun house and I enjoyed it. I have a strong carpentry back ground, and I never saw buildings constructed so crooked. I certainly can see how the average person can be persuaded they are standing at an angle, and once you confuse your line of sight, and your physical common reference points are also at an angle, a person can get confused.
It goes like this, a window frame or a door frame is out of plumb only by having something to compare to it. If we change all your reference points of what we commonly think is plumb a person would have no idea what is straight up and down and what is not; same thing goes for what is level.
So I tied my pen to a string and used the straight line of the string to establish a reference point. It was clear to me that the old house had settled over time, and the repairs were made without the aid of a plumb or level reference, then the house settled again; error was added to error. In these modern times we would set up a carpenters laser and go by that tool as a reference.
I had a good time, it was fun, but not hardly spiritual, angelic vortex, warped reality of the dead, nor a gateway to the stars. We forget that the great pyramids were built with two main tools: a rock on a string to establish plumb, and water is great to use as a level. In all these thousands of years, not much has been improved on these two aids (tools) in building stuff. We still use the same tools the Egyptians did, we just changed them a little and adapted them for special occasions, but the concepts have not changed.
Take a tree limb, carve a notch or a groove in the length of it, pour in a little water, and you have one of the most accurate tools to establish level that you can imagine; tie a rock to a string or to a strap of leather and you now have plumb (straight up and down)—Now go build a city with buildings that stretch to the sky. The elevator shafts in modern skyscrapers were checked and built in reference to a weight on a string. A rock on a string is an amazing tool when you think about it.
Vortexes are challenging to figure out, and kind of a kill joy when you do. We really do like our stories of the “so odd” it warps our reality, up is no longer up? In reference to the earth “up” will always be up.
Oh rats, so there's nothing paranormal going on in these places after all. It sounds like just another case of human perceptions being fooled. My car does this to me all the time... its "waist line" is higher at the rear than at the front so the bottom edge of the side windows, although fairly straight, slope down towards the front. When stopped on road with a matching but opposite slope the horizon looks level so I think "great, the road is flat so I can be lazy and leave off the parking brake." Not for long though!
I do like to make the point that we might think too highly of our senses. I think we are so used to them serving us well in general that we come to believe them to be infallible. Thus when we perceive something amiss like this, we tend to draw the wrong conclusion and assume that it's the world that's out of whack rather than us. If there were no such things as optical illusions or "vortexes" that we could conjure up on demand then the paranormalists might have a case. But because (for example) we can make toddlers fall over by pulling virtual rugs from under their feet*, we have an extensive range of natural explanations that are overwhelmingly more probable than the supernatural variety when it comes to odd experiences.
*I recall seeing this illusion on the TV once but I can't find any reference on the Internet. A toddler is introduced to a room that has a floor that looks like solid black and white stripes. The pattern is actually under glass and after walking around a bit the pattern is suddenly moved - the visual effect of which is enough sensory input to make the toddler fall over. Cruel? Nah, I'd love to try it (and I'm probably dumb enough to fall for it too!).
*I recall seeing this illusion on the TV once but I can't find any reference on the Internet. A toddler is introduced to a room that has a floor that looks like solid black and white stripes.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That sounds very much like the example that is used in a book called “Fundamentals of Psychology”, by Culkin, Perrotto, 1996, published by South-Western Educational Publishing, Cincinnati, Ohio.
By painting black and white checkers on the level floor with vanishing points that make it look like there is a step; toddlers refused to cross the imaginary line for fear of falling down. Fortunately as we grow we learn to double check our senses against each other for verification of reality. As adults we can easily double check the floor to see if a step actually exist ie roll a ball, touch edge, even use our hearing.
One of the things the spiritualist and other quacks like to do is to get a person to doubt reality. Messing around with our senses can be fun, as that can be learning, but never to be taken serious. You have a crooked house and then make up mystical stories to back up the illusion, and before you know it you have a person walking on water, raising the dead, and before long a billion people believe the fabrication. The only evidence is, it is so odd it must be real; I just roll my eyes.
An interesting part of US history, when the mountain men back in the 1800’s found for the first time what is now Yellow Stone National Park with the boiling mud, and geysers they thought they found the gateway to Hell. When the mountain men went back to town no one would believe them, the town thought they were drunk, and demanded proof, but they had none, only a story of what they saw first hand. A party was formed to go out and see for themselves if the stories were true. Yes, the stories were true about the boiling mud and steaming water shooting up into the sky, shown true by observation, but not hardly a gateway to hell.
The point being there can be a fine line between what we observe and what it means, and wisdom is to know the difference.
The Happy Humanist wrote:The ones referred to above, and the most famous one in Oregon, are sensory illusions which make you feel as if gravity has gone crazy. They are illusions created by the pitch of the ground, combined with structures that are just enough out of plumb to make you feel like you're in one of those carnival fun houses.
Er, yeah. I knew that. Didn't fool me for a second. Nosirree!
