Musicians tell of divine inspiration
FEATURE
Stephenson took the invention further after he introduced his locomotive, the Rocket, to the world. Today they are both regarded as pioneers of an invention which changed the world of travel forever.
THOMAS EDISON
BY BILLY ROBERTS
THOMAS EDISON was responsible for over 1,000 inventions.
WHEN John Lennon was composing some of his great songs, such as Imagine, he described the process of inspiration as though the top of his head had been opened and the words and tune just poured in as if from some cosmic source. John was certainly not one for having flights of fancy and couldn’t have described the process of inspiration better and what occurred when he was “in the zone,” so to speak. Barry Gibb, of Bee Gees fame, is yet another musician who attributed his compositions to some divine source and said that music came to him in dreams. He keeps a recording device on his bedside cabinet, so he can sing into it when waking in the middle of the night. But is this really divine inspiration or just a huge coincidence manufactured by genius? Apart from music icons, what about other great inventors throughout time who have enhanced the quality of our lives with their discoveries? Let’s start with Alexander Fleming, who gave us penicillin, the first antibiotic, which has saved the lives of countless millions of people throughout the world. A Scottish bacteriologist, Fleming accidentally discovered the antibiotic in 1928 when he returned from holiday and found that a green mould called penicillium notatum had contaminated Petri dishes in his laboratory and killed some of the bacteria he had been growing. We take many things for granted, without giving much thought to how they first came about. Here are some others.
JOHN LENNON: The words and tunes of some songs poured in as if from a cosmic source. (File photo)
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PSYCHIC NEWS | APRIL 2019
FROZEN FOODS
ASPIRIN An over-the-counter preparation for several problems, most people have used aspirin at some time in their lives. The trade name used by the pharmaceutical company Bayer, it first went on sale in 1899. In 1758, English clergyman Edward Stone discovered that the crushed bark of the willow tree was an extremely effective remedy for alleviating aches and pains. The chemical in the bark is called salicin, one of the basic ingredients of aspirin, which was first introduced into medicine by a German called Heinrich Dresser. Of course, there are many variations of aspirin, such as Aspro. This was invented by an Australian chemist by the name of George Nicholas.
X-RAYS The majority of us have had an X-ray at some time in our lives. This amazing diagnostic photographic process was discovered by accident in 1895 by a German professor Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. Wilhelm was experimenting with vacuum tubes and found that if he passed an electric current through a tube and onto a special piece of paper that had been treated with barium platinocyanide, the paper glowed even though there was a piece of cardboard in between. Röntgen conducted further experiments and discovered that when he placed his hand between the ray and the treated paper, he could see a perfect outline of his bone structure. This is quite astonishing when you think about how the X-ray has evolved as a major diagnostic photographic process.
Thomas Edison, the man responsible for over 1,000 inventions including the electric light and the microphone, was living proof that a good education does not always play a part in being a genius. Edison had only three months of formal schooling and left school when he was eight. Even though this was the case, he contributed so much to making our lives easier.
TRAINS “changed the world of travel forever.”
X-RAYS were discovered by accident in 1895.
TELEVISION Today almost every home has a television set, the sizes of which vary with screens of up to 60 inches and sometimes more. How different this is from when I was a child and our first TV had a mere ten-inch screen and seemed so small that we almost had to sit right in front of it. It’s hard to believe that engineer John Logie Baird, the inventor of television, created the first TV out of random household items, such as biscuit tins, knitting needles, bicycle lamps, electric motors and various parts from old radio sets. However, on October 2, 1925, Baird finally managed to transmit a picture of a ventriloquist’s dummy from one room to another in his attic flat in London. The crude pictures Baird transmitted back then were scanned with a cardboard disc consisting of a series of cut-out holes. Baird spun the disc as fast as he could on the point of a knitting needle before shining a light on the revolving disc thus creating a picture after it was transmitted to a receiver. Obviously Baird’s invention required a
Although we now take frozen foods for granted, it was thanks to a man called Birdseye who indirectly developed the frozen fish finger. Clarence Birdseye was a fur trader and biologist whose work took him to many frozen areas of the globe, particularly the Arctic. Quite by accident, Birdseye discovered that when food was left out in sub-zero temperatures, it froze solidly in seconds yet still tasted fresh when thawed out. In 1926, Birdseye founded his own company for freezing fish in Massachusetts, America. Of course, the name is still very well-known today.
CAT’S EYES
JOHN LOGIE BAIRD created the first TV out of random household items.
great deal more work before it became a television as we know it. How different our lives would have been had Baird’s genius not created a television, albeit in its then rudimentary form.
STEAM ENGINES Although we now take it for granted that we can travel at high speed on a train from one town or city to another, Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick probably had no idea how his first steam train invention would turn out when he created it in 1803. Twenty-six years later, George
Driving along a poorly-lit road at night, we barely give any thought to “cat’s eyes,” which reflect a vehicle’s headlights and make sure we remain on the correct side and negotiate our way safely through the dark. Driving to his home in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1933, Percy Shaw hit a blanket of fog that made it almost impossible for him to see until his headlights caught the bright reflection of a cat’s eyes peering through the fog. This gave Percy the idea for his lifesaving invention that all drivers take for granted, though it took months of experimenting with various versions until he finally came up with the answer. Percy found that by mounting two glass prisms on a rubber mould, light was clearly directed by means of a minute aluminium mirror, making it easier for motorists to see where they were driving on an unlit road. Needless to say, Percy made millions from his invention, but apparently still lived an extremely frugal life.
TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell transformed the world of communication with his amazing invention the telephone. This occurred purely by accident when he was trying to design a new hearing device for the deaf. Although he didn’t quite understand how electricity worked, Bell somehow managed to develop a system of conveying speech over long distances with the use of a transmitter and a receiver connected by an electrical conductor. As a result of his invention, Alexander Graham Bell’s name remains synonymous with telephonic communication.
LAVATORIES In one form or another, lavatories have been in existence for over 4,000 years. This has been confirmed by archaeologists, who discovered that Mesopotamians used similar crude devices. However, the first water closet complete with a flushing cistern was invented in 1589 by an Englishman called Sir John Harington. Many years later, in 1775 the flushing toilet, more or less as we know it today, was developed by fellow Briton Alexander Cummings. The mechanics of Alexander’s invention allowed the release of fresh water to flush the contents completely away. Needless to say, this was a luxury only the wealthy could enjoy. Subsequently, Thomas Crapper invented a more efficient flushing device that only worked when it was really needed. I am quite sure there have been many other great inventions which did not see the light of day simply because the inventors did not have the means to patent or finance them. Of course, once an idea has been released into the ether, it seeks another mind with similar potential and someone who has the ability to launch the invention on to the world’s market place. This is the nature of the wonderful world of thought dynamics and the so-called law of attraction. Are such great inventors really inspired by some cosmic force or is it all the result of some incredible coincidence? As far as I can see, we tend to attribute every commonplace occurrence to the work of a spiritual force when, in reality, it might well all be down to genius or even coincidence. What do you think? At the end of the day, when we consider how past inventors have helped us, does it really matter? Billy Roberts is available for talks, workshops and demonstrations of mediumship. E-mail billyroberts@sky.com n PSYCHIC NEWS | APRIL 2019
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