forty-five.com / papers /144 Crop Circles: Windows of Perception Lucy Pringle The following text is based on a lecture by internationally Reviewed by Ellen R. Hartman renowned crop circle authority Lucy Pringle, delivered on October 28, 2015, at the Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Moderator: Ben Nicholson This series of three talks is by people who are working beyond the edge of design. The series is called Taboo Subjects, meaning subjects that are not really thought about very much within the design and the architecture and the arts community. This evening’s lecture is being given by Lucy Pringle. She was educated in England and France and Switzerland and is a member of the Center for Crop Circle Studies, and a pioneer researcher into the effects of electromagnetic fi e l d s o n l i v i n g s y s t e m s . T h i s i n c l u d e s t h e p h y s i o l o g i calnd psychological effects reported by people after visiting and being in the vicinity of a crop formation. She also studies animal behavior, remote effects, luminosities, mechanical failures and audio effects. Within our discipline of arts and design and architecture, these are things that we desire so much to have access to and yet know so little about. Lucy Pringle works with scientists from all over the world and was one of the speakers at the Institute of Science and Astrophysics in Sofia, Bulgaria. The BBC has recently produced a program on her research, and she has appeared on the Discovery, Learning, and History Channels, as well as TV programs in Germany, Japan, France, Italy, S p a i n , S l o v e n i a , M e x i c o , a n d C a n a d a , a s w e l l a s t h e B B C W o r l d S e r i e s . T h e B B C d o e s n o t y e t b r o a d c a s t t o t h e o u t e r atmospheres, so we are going to be just working on the world today. That’s an English joke. Lucy is a founding member and the chairman of the Unexplained Phenomena Research Society, as well as a m e m b e r o f t h e B r i t i s h S o c i e t y o f D o w s e r s , a n d s h e l e c t u r e s at home as well as internationally. She has lectured at Christ College, Cambridge, at the Darwin Society, the S c i e n t i fi c E x p l o r a t i o n S o c i e t y , a n d t h e C o l l e g e o f P s ychi Studies and Alternatives in London. She has three books to her name, and her latest book is on... Forgive me, Lucy, I cannot remember the title of the new book but it’s about crop circles. They’re all out of print. This afternoon we will be taken into a place that is familiar to some and probably deeply unfamiliar to others. Human beings have the ability to have cognizance of qualities within our world, within our being, that has been, what you might say, culturally edited out. Lucy, this evening, is here to bring these qualities back. So please welcome Lucy Pringle. Lucy Pringle Thank you for that glowing report. Also, thank you for inviting me here. I feel very honored. I’ve spoken at several U f fi n g t o n , O x f o r d s h i r e , J u l y 8 , 206 P h o t o © L u c y P r i n g l e places in America, but never in Chicago, so this is a new adventure for me. This is a huge subject, and whatever I’m going to tell you tonight, I’m literally only going to be scratching the surface. We’re going to start with one of the oldest images, if you like, because this is not a new phenomenon. This is a very famous one. It’s the Mowing Devil. It is a woodcut because in those days they didn’t have photography or anything like that. It dates to 1678. It tells the story of a farmer in H e r t f o r d s h i r e w h o h a d a fi e l d o f o a t s . A n d w h e n t h e y w er ready to be harvested, he called in a reaper. Well, apparently that man was going to charge such a huge amount of money that the farmer was heard to say that he would rather the devil took his oats. And that is why this is called the Mowing Devil. Now, the farmer went away, and during the night, apparently, he heard strange sounds and he saw strange lights. And this is extraordinarily similar t o w h a t i s h a p p e n i n g i n t h e fi e l d s t o d a y . W e s e e t h es l u m i n o s i t i e s o r l i g h t s h o v e r i n g a b o u t t h e fi e l d s . A n d v e ry o f t e n , i f y o u g o i n t o t h a t p a r t i c u l a r fi e l d t h e n e x t m o r n i ng, y o u m a y w e l l fi n d a c r o p c i r c l e u n d e r n e a t h w h e r e y o u s awthe lights the previous night. When he came back the next day, he found part of his crop l a i d d o w n i n r o u n d c i r c l e s a n d a p p a r e n t l y h e w a s t e r r i fi e d . B u t t h i s i s q u i t e a m i s l e a d i n g s l i d e , b e c a u s e y o u c a n s e e that supposedly, the Mowing Devil, there he is, is cutting the crop. This is such a famous one that everyone thinks that in genuine crop circles that the crop is actually cut at the base. It’s not. It’s bent over very, very, very gently. No damage to the crop whatsoever. N o w , h e w a s n ’ t t h e v e r y fi r s t p e r s o n t o t a l k a b o u t c rop circles. Very recently I found a piece about John Aubrey. John Aubrey was an antiquarian historian and a philosopher, and he lived from 1626 to I think 1676. He, together with William Stukeley, were the two people to record what was happening at Stonehenge and Avebury in those days. We owe them a huge, huge debt, because but for them we would have no record of these very historic, sacred places at all. He was also fascinated in the round grass circles that he w a s fi n d i n g o n t h e W i l t s h i r e D o w n s , a n d t h i s i s w hate wrote: “I presume they’re generated from the breathing out of a fertile subterraneous vapour.” Little did he know that, 400 years later, he would have found a very important part of the jigsaw puzzle. Many people say to me, what is this subject all about? What is the meaning behind all this? I received an email from someone who said she had been looking at the pictures in my book, and she said they had had a profound effect on her. They’re all giving off—later on, as you’ll see the actual pictures of the formations—they’re all giving off frequencies. [Slide disappears due to unexpected technical failure.] " T h e m o w i n g - D e v i l , o r , S t r a n g e n e w s o u t o f H a r t f o r d - S h i r e , " w o o d c u t , 1 6 7 8 P h o t o c o u r t e s y F o l g e r S h a k e s p e r e L i b r a r y Strange things often happen when I talk about crop circles.