Shroudy With A Chance ...

I finally found something moderately fringey-ish to read up on.

A few months ago I wrote about my disenchantment with the JFK assassination, a little topic of weirdity that fascinated me every November for ever since I saw the Oliver Stone flick. Reading Gerald Posner's conspiracy-debunking book last year debunked all the spooky fun out of the events of November 1963. In this post, here, I wrote about my search for a new goosebump-inducing, beard-petting topic of study.

Even though the list I came up with included some freaky stuff and some sciency stuff and some mental-idea-ideology stuff and some plain-kookie stuff, nothing really grabbed me. So I read up on the Civil War and read a science fiction book or two in the interim, along with starting a new job and piloting the leaky vessel known as the S. S. Hopper through the iceberg laden Holiday Sea.

But there was something nagging me, something just beyond my consciousness. I may have had a dream about it; it's on the tip of my tongue to tell inquiring minds, 'cept for the fact I don't recall an actual dream. When I got out of the hospital in February 2009, with a new spiritual fervor, I remember taking a few books out from the library, skimming a couple, taking some notes, planning some blog posts. But nothing fruitful came of it.

Saturday, on errands with Patch, I stopped at my favorite local library and found two intriguing books on the Shroud of Turin. You know, that burial cloth upon which supposedly holds the transmitted image of Christ. Something is driving me to learn more about it. I don't know why or what for. All I know is that right now it interests me.

My first encounter with the Shroud was sometime in the late 70s, watching that awesome weekly show In Search Of as a lad. About six months ago I came across it again on youtube (actually while watching an In Search Of on the "Amityville Horror" in conjunction to reading said book; the Shroud episode was on a list of recommended videos on the right side of the page). Then, that dream I may or may not have had. So I borrowed the two library books and I'm already 45 pages into the first.

Maybe some posts to follow every couple of days or once a week. I don't know; I don't know where this is going. Right now I'm probably 75-25 in favor of it being the authentic burial shroud of Jesus. But that 1988 carbon-dating evidence is pretty daunting (modern science tells us the cloth is from circa 1325 AD). I need to do more reading to firm up my opinion, one way or the other.

The Shroud of Turin is said to be the most investigated / researched / studied object ever made by man. Now it'll be studied by one more guy.