ARTICLES
April 2006 ARTICLES
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Like a Black Hole
Los Angeles Artist Offers Shroud of Turin Theory
BY PAUL HEWSON
When one thinks of an event horizon, one usually thinks of black holes. However, world-renowned Los Angeles artist Isabel Piczek recently used the term to describe how she believes the images on the Shroud of Turin were produced. With the unveiling of her "Bas-Relief Effect" theory last year, Piczek is challenging the scientific community to realize how inscrutable the shroud is and how little today's science can properly explain it.
At the Dallas International Shroud of Turin Conference last September, Piczek presented her findings to 160 scientists, artists, and physicians from around the world, many of whom believe the shroud portrays an image of Christ's crucified body. According to Piczek, a devout Catholic who is a dame of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great, the esoteric "Bas-Relief Effect" explains the images on the shroud as the consequence of a force unknown to man. "It hit me that the two images of the shroud are totally separate," Piczek said. "It's nothing less than an event horizon. Like a black hole. No communication between the two sides of a black hole. The only way those images could have been projected was if the linen was totally taut. But how could the linen be taut if it was wrapped around the body? The image projected [on the shroud] is semi-three dimensional, like a bas-relief in art."
Piczek believes that a "heretofore unknown interface" created the images on the shroud. "We are dealing with something very forceful," she said. "Some energy made it [the shroud] taut. This energy was Christ's resurrection."
Dr. August Accetta, a medical doctor and the founder of the Shroud Center of Southern California in Fountain Valley, concurs with Piczek's findings. "We believe the shroud interacted with the body," he said. "We think the body became radioactive and that the shroud picked up information from the body. We're trying to find an explanation -- maybe a miraculous one -- but still a physical explanation." Dr. Accetta believes the physics of Christ's Resurrection may be similar to that of another glorious moment in His life: the Transfiguration. Said Accetta, "We're not trying to explain the Resurrection. We're humble. We're just trying to get some sense, some hint of how the image [on the Shroud] occurred."
Piczek, who holds a master's degree in art and a bachelor's degree in physics and is a trained muralist, hopes the discovery will help usher in a new age of scientific inquiry. "I'm so excited," Piczek declared. "It's a big thing. Even I just partially understand it. It confirms that the shroud can not be so easily understood. We are dealing with a new science -- the information field. The shroud opens a completely new door to a new science." Dr. Accetta agreed that "one has to look at theoretical science" when trying to determine how the images got onto the shroud.
Accetta believes a curious fact may also point to the Resurrection as the explanation for the images. Said Accetta, "we can prove it's not the work of an artist and that a body was wrapped in the shroud. Yet there are no images of the [man's] sides on the shroud. The images on the shroud are only of the back and front [of the man], but the cloth was touching his sides."
Accetta said for decades scientists have suggested all kinds of natural explanations for the images on the shroud, but none is plausible. "We've done hundreds of experiments," he said. "We've looked at the painting theory. We've looked at the scorch theory. Dr. John Jackson [a shroud expert] looked at heat, vapor, acid. Critics are now saying it's not a painting but a photograph. It [the shroud] has negative qualities, but it's not a negative. The image is 100 percent oxidation. There has been 50 years of research trying to explain this naturally. We really have a mystery on our hands."
According to Piczek, the image's foreshortening of the body and the lack of a continuous paint medium film on the cloth's surface are proof that the shroud is not a painting. Moreover, Piczek said the foreshortening of the legs, reflecting the figure's elevated knees, excludes the possibility of a contact image of any kind. "An unknown system obeying laws different from optics created the image with strangely similar visual results," Piczek explained.
Addressing the theory that the shroud image may be a photograph prototype, Piczek said, "how could a medieval painter know how to paint a negative image that when photographed gives you a positive image?" Piczek also noted that "pollen was found [on the shroud]; that describes [its historical] travel from Jerusalem to Constantinople to France to Turin."
However, last year a French researcher named Jacques di Costanzo conducted experiments that he said proved the shroud is a fake. Noting the three dimensional quality of the shroud images, Costanzo believes a forger using a bas-relief sculpture could have made them. To test his theory, Costanzo constructed a bas-relief sculpture of a Jesus-like face and covered it with a wet linen. After it dried, he dabbed it with ferric oxide -- mixed with gelatin -- to recreate bloodstains. The resultant image on the linen was similar to that on the shroud.
Piczek dismissed Costanzo's experiment and said she had never heard of the researcher or his experiment.
Interestingly enough, one of the most visited shroud-related websites -- www.shroud.com -- was started and is run by Barrie Schwortz, who is Jewish. Schwortz was the documenting photographer on the 24-member Shroud of Turin Research Team that directly examined the shroud in 1978. Schwortz believes he has a unique role in the controversy. "I don't have a horse in the race," he said. "I don't have that emotional tie to Jesus that Christians have. I'm an Old Testament guy. What can I say?"
Schwortz added, "there's no doubt in my mind that God has called me to do this work, to be honest, to tell the truth about the shroud. The only logical answer is that it wrapped the body of a crucified man, probably the man known as Jesus of Nazareth."
The Shroud of Turin Research Team ran an extensive gamut of tests for five days straight (120 continuous hours) working in shifts around the clock. Said Schwortz, "we knew that it was historic because it had never been done before. Only now do we realize how critical that was. Access to the shroud has been denied since 1978 by the Holy See."
In 1981, the research team released its findings. The researchers said the shroud did contain real bloodstains and the image on the shroud was not the work of an artist. Summarizing their findings, the team wrote, "the basic problem from a scientific point of view is that some explanations which might be tenable from a chemical point of view, are precluded by physics. Contrariwise, certain physical explanations which may be attractive are completely precluded by the chemistry. For an adequate explanation for the image of the Shroud, one must have an explanation which is scientifically sound, from a physical, chemical, biological, and medical viewpoint. At the present, this type of solution does not appear to be obtainable by the best efforts of the members of the Shroud Team."
For Schwortz, his website, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in January, has been a way to present the facts about the shroud to the world. "God always seems to send a Jew as a messenger," he said. "This makes me feel like I have fulfilled the obligation that came with the privilege of examining the shroud." Schwortz added, "each person has to decide what the shroud means to them. It has its own message in each beholder. It's never going to be resolved. It's a permanent mystery."
The Church has not made any official pronouncements regarding the shroud. In 1998, Pope John Paul II stated, "since we're not dealing with a matter of faith, the Church can't pronounce itself on such questions. It entrusts to scientists the tasks of continuing to investigate, to reach adequate answers to the questions connected to this shroud."
The Shroud of Turin dates at least to 1357, when it was displayed at a church in Lirey, France. In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire and was mended by Poor Clare nuns. In 1578, the shroud arrived at its current location -- the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist -- in Turin, Italy, where it was the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See. In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. Its cloth backing and thirty patches were removed making it possible to photograph and scan its reverse side which had been hidden from view. A posterior image of the body was found on the back of the shroud.
The last public exhibition of the shroud was in 2000 for the Jubilee Year, and its next public exhibition is scheduled for 2025.
Dr. Accetta said an international conference on the Shroud of Turin in Southern California is being planned for the spring of 2007. Details will be forthcoming.