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🔗 Religion 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Middle Ages 🔗 Middle Ages/History 🔗 Cryptography 🔗 Cryptography/Computer science 🔗 Latin 🔗 Christianity 🔗 Jewish history 🔗 Occult 🔗 Mysticism

The Sator Square (or Rotas Square) is a word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome. The earliest form has ROTAS as the top line, but in time the version with SATOR on the top line became dominant. It is a 5X5 square made up of five 5-letter words, thus consisting of 25 letters in total. These 25 letters are all derived from 8 Latin letters: 5 consonants (S, T, R, P, N) and 3 vowels (A, E, O).

In particular, this is a square 2D palindrome, which is when a square text admits four symmetries: identity, two diagonal reflections, and 180 degree rotation. As can be seen, the text may be read top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right, or right-to-left; and it may be rotated 180 degrees and still be read in all those ways.

The Sator Square is the earliest dateable 2D palindrome. It was found in the ruins of Pompeii, at Herculaneum, a city buried in the ash of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It consists of a sentence written in Latin: "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas." Its translation has been the subject of speculation with no clear consensus; see below for details.

Other 2D Palindrome examples may be found carved on stone tablets or pressed into clay before being fired.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 California 🔗 Aviation 🔗 Spaceflight 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Military history/Military biography 🔗 Biography/military biography 🔗 LGBT studies 🔗 Aviation/aerospace biography project 🔗 Chemistry 🔗 Military history/World War II 🔗 Military history/Cold War 🔗 Libertarianism 🔗 California/Southern California 🔗 California/Los Angeles area 🔗 Thelema 🔗 Occult

John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons; October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952) was an American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist. Associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first rocket engine to use a castable, composite rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets.

Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began amateur rocket experiments with school friend Edward S. Forman. He dropped out of Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, and in 1934 he united with Forman and graduate Frank Malina to form the Caltech-affiliated Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) Rocket Research Group, supported by GALCIT chairman Theodore von Kármán. In 1939 the GALCIT Group gained funding from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to work on Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) for the U.S. military. After the U.S. entered World War II, they founded Aerojet in 1942 to develop and sell JATO technology; the GALCIT Group became JPL in 1943.

Following some brief involvement with Marxism in 1939, Parsons converted to Thelema, the new religious movement founded by the English occultist Aleister Crowley. Together with his first wife, Helen Northrup, Parsons joined the Agape Lodge, the Californian branch of the Thelemite Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in 1941. At Crowley's bidding, Parsons replaced Wilfred Talbot Smith as its leader in 1942 and ran the Lodge from his mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard. Parsons was expelled from JPL and Aerojet in 1944 owing to the Lodge's infamous reputation and to his hazardous workplace conduct.

In 1945, Parsons separated from Helen, after having an affair with her sister Sara; when Sara left him for L. Ron Hubbard, Parsons conducted the Babalon Working, a series of rituals intended to invoke the Thelemic goddess Babalon on Earth. He and Hubbard continued the working with Marjorie Cameron, whom Parsons married in 1946. After Hubbard and Sara defrauded him of his life savings, Parsons resigned from the O.T.O., then held various jobs while acting as a consultant for Israel's rocket program. Amid McCarthyism, Parsons was accused of espionage and left unable to work in rocketry. In 1952 Parsons died at the age of 37 in a home laboratory explosion that attracted national media attention; the police ruled it an accident, but many associates suspected suicide or murder.

Parsons's libertarian and occult writings were published posthumously. Historians of Western esoteric tradition cite him as one of the more prominent figures in propagating Thelema across North America. Although academic interest in his scientific career was negligible, historians have come to recognize Parsons's contributions to rocket engineering. For these innovations, his advocacy of space exploration and human spaceflight, and his role in founding JPL and Aerojet, Parsons is regarded as among the most important figures in the history of the U.S. space program. He has been the subject of several biographies and fictionalized portrayals.

🔗 United States 🔗 Religion 🔗 United States/Massachusetts 🔗 Christianity 🔗 Occult

The Salem witchcraft trial of 1878, also known as the Ipswich witchcraft trial and the second Salem witch trial, was an American civil case held in May 1878 in Salem, Massachusetts, in which Lucretia L. S. Brown, an adherent of the Christian Science religion, accused fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spofford of attempting to harm her through his "mesmeric" mental powers. By 1918, it was considered the last witchcraft trial held in the United States. The case garnered significant attention for its startling claims and the fact that it took place in Salem, the scene of the 1692 Salem witch trials. The judge dismissed the case.

🔗 Psychology 🔗 History of Science 🔗 Occult

Physiognomy (from the Greek φύσις, 'physis', meaning "nature", and 'gnomon', meaning "judge" or "interpreter") is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant (see plant life-form) or of a plant community (see vegetation).

Physiognomy as a practice meets the contemporary definition of pseudoscience and it is so regarded among academic circles because of its unsupported claims; popular belief in the practice of physiognomy is nonetheless still widespread and modern advances in artificial intelligence have sparked renewed interest in the field of study. The practice was well-accepted by ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into disrepute in the Middle Ages while practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It revived and was popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater, before falling from favor in the late 19th century. Physiognomy in the 19th century is particularly noted as a basis for scientific racism. Physiognomy as it is understood today is a subject of renewed scientific interest, especially as it relates to machine learning and facial recognition technologyThe main interest for scientists today are the risks, including privacy concerns, of physiognomy in the context of facial recognition algorithms.

Physiognomy is sometimes referred to as 'anthroposcopy', a term originating in the 19th century.