Eight Minutes Old

I’m getting a real traffic surge currently. Must have started a few hours ago, this morning everything was still normal. On average, I get 30 to 60 visitors per day now, but today there are already 291 and counting. This makes today my busiest day already, and it’s midday only.

I think I can track down how this came about. Yesterday night, the blog “The Little Things” mentioned my “Pareidolia Study, the List” in a post on Seeing Jesus and the Virgin Mary everywhere. There are no visitors coming from that site, but someone at spiritdaily.com (sorry, I don’t link to this kind of sites) seems to have seen the link there. Now I’m at top of their site, resulting in hundreds of visitors to that post.

So, what is bad with more traffic you may ask. First of all, I’m not here to have lots of visitors. I’m absolutely satisfied with some 30 people a day. Of cause it’s fine to see people are interested in what I write. But I also look at the “quality” of these visitors. That site, spiritdaily.com, is a catholic link collection with some really strange opinions. PZ Myers said about it:

Spirit Daily is one of the best places to go if you want to see spiritual wackaloonery — they glean the web for the craziest stuff.

Great, now I’m among the web’s craziest stuff …

At least the link mentions that my blog is sceptic, but of what use is that? What’s worst is that only four below mine is a link to the article of Gingi Edmonds (on christiannewswire.com) on a tragic plane crash that killed the family of an abortion clinic owner.  You can think of what the article is like, knowing that the author seems to be a deluded, over-religious, pro life person. I really don’t find words for my disgust concerning this article. Luckily, PZ did.

Now, what do you think? I could protest and demand them to remove the link, but it’s their right to put up links. I don’t support censorship. I think I have to hope that some of the visitors start thinking about these many, absurd sightings.

BTW: They are up to 400 now.

Tags: Blog, Blog Specific, Christians, Jesus, Religion, Traffic, Virgin Mary

I don’t understand these over-religious guys. The “Liberty Counsel” (lc.org, I won’t link to them) has made up a “Naughty and Nice List” for Christian Christmas shoppers. There they can check if the company where they intend to buy is Nice or Naughty: “Nice” means that the shop says “Christmas” somewhere. To end up on “Naughty” all the shop has to do is not mention “Christmas” but only something like “Happy Holidays”. Of cause, we all have to avoid the Naughty ones!

Pretty simple, right? Say Christmas and you are one of the good guys. But why? Do Christians forget that there is Christmas to come when shops don’t tell them constantly? Doesn’t holiday come from “Holy Day”?

Some examples: Gap is bad, Disney is, too (”No mention of Christmas”). Amazon is good because they sell “Christmas Trees”. How stupid can it become? Oh, very much stupid: they even accept so called “Reports” of Naughty shops, like the following:

Honey Baked Ham – Report: “HOLIDAY was written everywhere!! Nothing about CHRISTMAS. I asked and was told the usual ‘we don’t want to offend anyone.’”

Even though one should be careful with these comparisons, the behavior nevertheless reminds me of what the Nazis did in Germany, putting up sign saying: “Don’t buy from the Jews” and similar stuff. In fact, the “Liberty Counsel” could say the same, as Jews don’t celebrate Christmas.

Tags: Christians, Christmas, Holidays, Jesus, List, Religion, USA

Finally I’m finished :-):
In total I’ve listed 100 cases of Christian religious pareidolia, in which either Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary have been seen. I will now analyse them in detail to see whether my vague theory mentioned earlier is supported by the data.

Long-Time developments and ratios

The rise and fall of Jesus’ Mother

Ok, I have to admit I do several things wrong in the figure. I shouldn’t combine the data points with a line graph and I should not include the 2008 numbers because the year isn’t over yet. And furthermore I should give error bars so one can judge the uncertainties. But let’s accept this for the moment.
First look at the overall percentages. Of the 100 events in the sample, 67 involve Jesus and 37 the Virgin Mary, in some cases both were seen. So Jesus is seen twice as often. Is this the case every year or are there trends in the data? Looking at the figure, one can see that there indeed is a trend visible: until this year Virgin Mary sightings increased and Jesus sightings decreased a bit. To make the numbers more comparable, let’s look at the rounded percentages of Jesus and Mary appearing each year are (they sum up to over 100% because sometimes both are seen at once):

Clearly sights of Virgin Mary had increased in the last years but the number drops strongly in 2008. As the year isn’t over yet, it is not sure if the trend will continue. But it seems as if we will have a Jesus dominated year again. I don’t have an explanation for this at hand, maybe it is just a statistical effect. (Please comment if you have one!)

Month dependency

Is Jesus a seasonal worker?

Another idea is that the frequency of sightings might be modulated depending on the time in the year. One would expect a maximum at the end of the year due to Christmas and maybe another at Easter, but the latter will be smoothed out because the date changes from year to year. The most current data from 2008 has to be excluded from the analysis because the year is not jet finished and further sightings will be reported in August, September, October, November and December. I might want do re-do the analysis in January next year.
For the years 2004 to 2007, in total 63 sightings are reported. I will not differentiate between Jesus and Mary because that would cause too few data points. When expecting a uniform distribution over the year and only statistical errors, the expected number of sightings is 5.25 per month with an statistical standard error of the square root of this. So within one sigma of about 2.3, 3 to 7.5 sightings are expected per month, quite a margin. Most month are well inside this, only July (0 sightings), August (12 sightings) and November (9 sightings) show deviations. I wouldn’t expect them to be very significant, the one sigma error only says that, expecting a normally distributed population, the probability to be within one sigma is approximately 68%. So 32% are outside. Out of 12 values we thus would expect about four to be outside, three are fine too. Furthermore the zero sightings in July will be made up with the nine in 2008 when including this year’s data. Nevertheless there seems to be a increase towards the end of the year, I’m curious how this will evolve in the next month.
The increase in the middle of the year, August, is quite significant (over 99 %). It might have to do with the media not having other things to talk about or maybe there is too much sun making peoples brains malfunction more often. I’m not aware of any as important Christian dates at that time than Christmas or Easter. But when one combines July, where no sightings are reported for the time span in question, and August, the numbers are within the expected average again. I think this is some kind of an artefact in the data.

Material and Texture dependence

Why can’t they simply eat Jesus?

The data do not show any strong trends for Jesus or the Virgin Mary to appear on different materials, with one exception: Only Jesus is seen in imaging like x-rays or ultrasound (7 times). In general, pareidolia perceptions are most frequent in food (29), then in wood (18), followed by dirt (11), light (10), on walls and in rock (8 each). Hearty, salty foods like potato chips or cheese toast are preferred.

The original theory was that Jesus is found more frequently in fluffy things and the Virgin Mary in flowing structures. This is well confirmed by the data as the following table shows. Appearances where the texture could not be determined because of bad pictures, no pictures at all or because I could not decide were excluded. These made up 14 pareidolia perceptions.

This clearly shows that Jesus is seen in fluffy structures three times as often as in flowing ones. The ratio is almost inverted for Virgin Mary, who is seen in over two out of three occasions in flowing textures. This backs my expectation that the usual pictures have something to do with the places where they are found. Virgin Mary usually having a head scarf or veil is found most often in flowing, fluid-like and soft textures that have less but bigger, more connected areas. Jesus in contrast, possibly owing to his beard and hair, is mostly seen in structures with rough surfaces, consisting of many different small areas.

Origin

Where does Jesus live today?

Investigating where the sightings occurred reveals that most are from the US. Only 16 are from other countries, four of those are from the UK (all Jesus, not surprisingly as there are many protestants), two from Australia and one each from Columbia, Germany, the Philippines, New Zeeland, Switzerland, Canada, Romania, Mexico, Ghana and Moldavia. There is a strong selection effect in the data as I only looked on English sites and news pages but I still think the US are especially ‘gifted’ concerning religious pareidolia.
Within the United States the distribution is also very strongly centred. Many states only have one or two sightings: Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nebraska, Maine, Wisconsin, Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Kansan, Georgia, Missouri, Michigan, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Connecticut and Virginia. I found tree each for Ohio, Arizona, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The top three states are far away from these values, they are:

• Place three: California with 13 total sightings
• Place two: Texas with 15 total sightings
• And the ‘Winner’: Florida with 16 sightings

Why are these three the top-states for pareidolia? Maybe it is because of an point mentioned earlier: They get to much sun in the south. Additionally, the number of inhabitants has to be taken into account. Simply compare the map above with this one.
Looking at the distribution of Jesus and Virgin Mary ‘appearances’ in these three states one can see a clear trend (double-counting sightings in which both are seen at once):

• California: Jesus 4, Virgin Mary 9
• Texas: Jesus 9, Virgin Mary 6
• Florida: Jesus 13, Virgin Mary 5

Texas shows a more or less average distribution, but California is clearly biased towards the Virgin Mary and Florida towards seeing Jesus. This is not unexpected as Julia from ForeignLight pointed out to me. In California there are more Catholics (the state has the largest Roman Catholic population of all states in the US) that have a connection to the Virgin Mary and in Florida there are more Protestants (40% of the population in contrast to 26% Catholics according to Wikipedia) that worship Jesus. Population in Texas is rather mixed, it has many Evangelical Protestants but also Roman Catholics. The numbers, according to Wikipedia, are: Protestants 32.5%, Catholics: 21% (Thus the ratio actually is exactly the Jesus to Virgin Mary ratio). I think it is an excellent and exciting result that these trends are also seen in the small data set analysed. It’s amazing to see the analogy.

What can we learn from this?

So how can I make money out of this crap?

As promised I now tell you where to look to find Jesus’ / Virgin Mary’s face. I think the most promising place is the classic one: Food (like a cheese toast). I’ll tell you why.

Often the pareidolia are found in food, especially baked, fried or toasted. I think one reason is that people have to eat frequently and while doing so they have the time to look. The Christians also have a special relation to bread (and fish, so Jesus seen in a fish stick is a classic).
Furthermore, in contrast to fixed objects like walls, you can change the perspective when looking at, say, a piece of toast. For Jesus or Mary to be seen in the structure of a wall they have to stand upright. The toast, in contrast, can be seen from different sides, you can rotate it and it has two different sides to look at! A toast also is a rather small area, so you are not distracted and the figure you want to see can be small. If you look at a wall the appearance has to be big so a passer by can see it. And most people eat more than one toast. Maybe there even is more toast out there than there are walls.
The light conditions outside change in the course of one day and from season to season, so if Jesus or Mary or any other face appear somewhere, that appearance might be gone an hour later. The light conditions while eating are simpler I think.
And the best: If you find a especially convincing depiction of a religious figure in, say, a slab of toast, it is easy to sell. You will have troubles to turn a public wall in an underpass into money and your might not want to sell your pet (which would not be possible via eBay either), so settle for the simple. Ok, it might not bee the most extravagant one, but referring to the Christians connection to bread it is convincing and it will be hard to come up with a reason why seeing Mary in a spot of mildew is flattering. And why should Jesus show up on only one toast?

I’d like to finish with pointing you to a more humorous approach of toast-appearances.

Tags: Cheese Toast, Cheesus, Christians, Faith, Food, God, Jesus, List, Perception, Religion, Sceptic, Special Events Weeks, Study, USA, Virgin Mary Cheese, Virgin Mary

UPDATE: I’m sorry, but some of the links are broken, probably because the news sites don’t keep their articles online forever.

Ok, as said before I collected pareidolia, false images our brains make up from patterns that have nothing to do with them. My idea is to analyse Christian reports of Jesus or the Virgin Mary seen on anything. My first result: These sightings are more frequent than I thought. It wasn’t that difficult to find these reports, actually I stopped after I found one hundred (100!) because I became bored and did not see any ending. The vast majority of them is from between 2003 and today. I list them in the table below and give you an analysis in my next post on the topic.

The ‘appearances’ of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary are sorted chronologically, the dates are given to the month, further detail I deem unnecessary. They are dated according to when the sightings were reported by the media, the original findings might be older. For example, the classic 2004 Virgin Mary Cheese Toast is said to have been reported ten years after it was made! As I can not check these claims I settle for the dates the articles were published. These might vary by a few days from source to source.

I collect these from the web, especially good sources were Bad Astronomy, the Angry Astronomer and StupidEvilBastard. Furthermore Wikipedia lists plenty of religious pareidolia. And then there is a collection on yoism. For Virgin Mary specific sightings, see VirginMaryAgain.

I try to include links to news articles or other sources as most of these ‘appearances’ are hard to believe and to meet your curiousness. It is hard to believe people are so ludicrous to see something in a dirty pan, reflected light, a potato chip or a t-shirt put to the laundry.
I sort the ‘sightings’ in categories.

• First, the region where they were found. Either the county, like Germany or the UK or, in case of the world record holder in religious Christian pareidolia, the United States of America, the state, be it Texas, Missouri or someplace else.
• Second, the material the object resembling (or, more correctly, resembling if you have a particular vision) Jesus or Mary is made of. That could be toast, ice, rock. Wood and bark are separated, I consider Wood to be cut so the figure is seen in the annual rings or branch knots and bark, on the outside of a tree, has a different texture and is more prone to light-and-shadow appearances.
• I also combine similar materials in categories. These are Food (e.g. toast, pancakes or seafood), Wood (anything associated with trees), Dirt and some more.
• Finally, I mention the general texture of the object or appearance and differentiate only between fluffy (not necessarily soft, but spotty) and flowing (soft, blurred or connected to fluid structures). Fluffy would be something like toast, rock or anything with a rough surface or made up of many small areas of different colour or brightness. Flowing in contrast is made by fluids (e.g. salt stains) or otherwise consists of larger, more connected or smooth areas, like those found sometimes wood and possibly dirt, depending on the actual appearance.

I will now list all religious perceptions I found in the quick search, including a small number of faked ones I like because there will always be someone who believes in them. This collection is by no means exhausting and probably biased towards the US because there are more media to mention them. I might add more when they are reported, but for the time being I have enough of them. I’ll present the analysis later next week, I hope.

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This post is part of my pareidloia weeks, obviously. You’ll find some examples at the end of this post.

Our brain is constantly checking our visions for known patterns, which enables us to detect things and people and realize what is going on. But as you all know our brain can be fooled. We all have seen figures in clouds, for example, like a bunny. This tendency is called pareidolia. But we know what we see it only a coincidence and there is no real bunny up there, neither is it a message by the bunny gods but only water vapour. At least most of us. Some people tend to see religious figures in random patterns and think they are messages by God or real appearances by the persons in question. What benefits these appearances is the tendency of our brain to see humans, probably because we are so often surrounded by and interact with them. And very religious people would like to see signs from their God, so they interpret these false perceptions as Jesus or the Virgin Mary or whatever.

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On the one hand I’m still busy with writing my paper, but I realized that I need some distraction, too. Something funny. So I settled for pareidolia perceptions (when you see something that isn’t there in random patterns like clouds, cheese-toast or dirt). I’m not done yet, but I promise that there will be some interesting posts in the next weeks, thus I announce my official “Pareidolia Weeks”. Being a sceptic I will concentrate on sightings of religious figures (Jesus, Virgin Mary), but there will be something on photography too, I think.

I’ll start with a post later this week. For now, I’m back to work.

Tags: Jesus, Perception, Religion, Sceptic, Special Events Weeks, Virgin Mary

A minute ago I read half a sentence which sounds funny. It is in a text talking about Jesus:

His life was mainly geared to dying at the cross …

I wonder how he included this important task in his daily routine:

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