Awe

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Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  available lenses—one to show the inside of the cabin, the other to show the views out the window. If all went well, the broadcast would begin at about three in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time in the United States, when many families would be home watching Sunday’s professional football games. Borman hadn’t wanted to bring television cameras in the first place, and when the flight plan was being made, he had bristled at the idea of interrupting NFL playoff action, which he would now be watching himself if only the high gain antenna could pull in the signal from Earth. Before the scheduled broadcast, Valerie had gathered her children in front of the family’s television and flipped on the special programming, then gone out to answer a few questions from reporters. When she returned, the TV was tuned to cartoons, a situation she quickly remedied. The broadcast began a minute later. “Are you receiving television now?” Borman asked Houston. On millions of sets across America, a gray screen flickered and flashed. Suddenly there was Borman, slightly blurry, diagonal, and seated at the controls of Apollo 8, his right hand on a joystick-shaped thruster control, his left hand waving to the world. “Okay,” Borman said, moving the thruster, “we’re rolling around to a good view of the Earth, and as soon as we get to the good view of the Earth we’ll stop and let you look out the window at the scene that we see. Jim Lovell’s down in the Lower Equipment Bay preparing lunch, and Bill is holding a camera here for us both.” Anders swung around for a view of Lovell, who was working upside down. A bag floated in the cabin nearby. Borman continued to swivel the spacecraft with the rotation thrusters. “Okay, now we are coming up on the view we really want you to see, that’s the view of the Earth, and if you’ll break for just a minute, Bill’s going to put on the large lens. So we’ll be right back with you.” A few moments passed as Anders changed lenses and repositioned the camera. His job was made tougher by the fact that he had no monitor to show him what he was capturing—this was strictly a point-and-hope affair. “Houston, we are now showing you a view of the Earth through the telephoto lens,” Borman announced.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  would be nothing to mark the place in space, no bump or jolt to the spacecraft. But in its silence, the crossing would make a thundering announcement—for the first time, man had become captured by the pull of another celestial body. The men in Mission Control had bet on the event; the winner would be the one who most accurately predicted the moment of crossing. It wasn’t an easy guess, as the line changed depending on the distance between Earth and Moon at the moment, the phases of the Moon, and other factors. But controllers would know it when the moment arrived, because for the first time in more than two days, the spacecraft would stop slowing down and begin to gain speed. At around this time, Mission Control received a visit from Marilyn Lovell, who’d hitched a ride with a NASA representative. In the viewing area, Robert Gilruth, the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, greeted her and sat down to talk. Perhaps he sensed her apprehension, or maybe he was just being friendly, but he did not rush off to attend to his pressing duties, even at this historic moment. At 55 hours, 38 minutes into the flight, all eyes in Mission Control, including Marilyn’s, turned to the big screens. Controllers checked the numbers—Apollo 8 was 202,700 miles from Earth, but its speed, about 2,200 miles per hour, was no longer dropping. Moments later, a light flashed on the screen. “My God,” one of the young computer specialists said. “Do you know what we just saw?” And the room, transfixed, did know. The light meant that Apollo 8 was no longer a part of this world. Chapter Seventeen

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  He explained to viewers how the crew had spent Christmas Eve— doing experiments, taking photographs, firing their thrusters—and promised to show everyone a lunar sunset. But first, he wanted to talk about the place he and his crewmates had been circling for the past sixteen hours. “The Moon is a different thing to each one of us. I think that each one of—each one carries his own impression of what he’s seen today. I know my own impression is that it’s a vast, lonely, forbidding type existence, or expanse, of nothing. It looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone, and it certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work. Jim, what have you thought most about?” “Well, Frank, my thoughts were very similar,” Lovell said. “The vast loneliness up here of the Moon is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.” Anders chimed in. “I think the thing that impressed me the most was the lunar sunrises and sunsets. These, in particular, bring out the stark nature of the terrain, and the long shadows really bring out the relief that is here and hard to see in this very bright surface that we’re going over right now.” Suddenly NASA lost the picture from Apollo 8, and so did the rest of the world. But the audio remained clear, and Anders continued to describe some of the landmarks he was seeing as Mission Control struggled to regain the visual. Soon the picture returned, this time a view out a different window, one that showed the clear arc of the grayish-white Moon against the pitch-black lunar horizon. Anders described the various craters he could see as the spacecraft glided overhead. “Actually, I think the best way to describe this area is a vastness of black and white, absolutely no color,” Lovell said. “The sky up here is also a rather forbidding, foreboding expanse of blackness, with no stars visible when we’re flying over the Moon in daylight,” Anders added. For the next several minutes, the astronauts continued to describe what they were seeing—mountains, craters, landmarks, the brilliance of the Sun’s reflection. At one point, Anders became so enthused about describing the evolution of craters that Borman had to remind him, off

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  stage. Hundreds of shimmering stars appeared to fill the sky, but the crew knew these to be fuel particles coming from the tanks or flakes of ice from the tank walls. In Hawaii, observers could see a speckled white fog in the sky as liquid hydrogen vented into the predawn dark. At the speed Apollo 8 was traveling, more than 20,000 miles per hour, Earth appeared to shrink before Lovell’s eyes, growing smaller with each passing second in the way a tunnel entrance appears to shrink to a passenger looking out a car’s rear window. “We see the Earth now, almost as a disk,” Borman radioed to Houston. “We have a beautiful view of Florida now,” Lovell added. “We can see the Cape, just the point...and at the same time, we can see Africa. West Africa is beautiful. I can also see Gibraltar at the same time I’m looking at Florida.” Even Borman, who’d warned Anders not to spend time sightseeing, couldn’t avert his gaze. This must be what God sees, he thought. Now it was time to move away from the third stage, which had the same 20,000-mile-per-hour velocity as Apollo 8 and was following the ship into space—a wayward cylinder as tall as a six-story building, and twenty-two feet longer than the remaining spacecraft the astronauts were riding. Unlike the Saturn V’s first two stages, which had fallen back to Earth by force of the planet’s gravity, the third stage, like the spacecraft, had too much momentum for such a fate and continued to move along with Apollo 8 toward the Moon. If all went according to plan, Apollo 8 would pass just ahead of the Moon, while the third stage would pass its trailing hemisphere, then slingshot into orbit around the Sun. But not all was going according to plan. The crew of Apollo 8 had lost sight of the third stage. Yet Borman knew it to be just one or two hundred yards away, a mere whisker in infinite space. And that meant trouble. If the crew couldn’t see the third stage, they couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t collide with it. For all the engineering miracles of the Apollo spacecraft, it hadn’t been designed to absorb a ramming by an entire stage of a Saturn V rocket. The loss of visual contact came as a surprise to Borman; the crew hadn’t trained for that. Anders could see that his commander believed an emergency to be unfolding.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  bacteria that could, over time, generate gases that could cause the package to explode. This bathroom breaks could take as long as an hour. Cleaning was done with a small moist towelette like those handed out at barbecue restaurants. Much as the crew might have liked to fire the sealed bag into space, they could not. Ejecting such a bulky item would require the cabin to be depressurized, possible but risky to the men and the flight. Also, NASA planned to examine the feces (as well as blood and urine) on the crew’s return to Earth, eager to study the effects of deep space flight on the human body. Even as an engineer, Anders knew this fecal collection system would be difficult. Months before Apollo 8, he took home a kit to practice (one didn’t experiment on such a device in the simulators at work). He explained to Valerie that it had to be tested, at least on Earth, while lying down. To that end, he intended to try it in bed. “Not in our bed!” Valerie said. So Anders lay on the carpet and gave it his best. The device did not work well for him. A few days later, he asked the flight surgeon to recommend a low- residue diet he could eat in the days leading up to and during the flight. The less often he had to use the device on the mission, he figured, the better. So far, his plan was working. While Borman and Lovell struggled with the contraption, Anders sat in his seat, doing his work and looking out his window, uncalled by that part of nature, watching the universe go by. — More than nine hours had elapsed in the flight before the astronauts got their first glimpse of the Moon. It happened during one of Lovell’s looks through the spacecraft’s telescope and sextant, when he spotted a barely visible crescent surrounded by a light blue haze, “just about as light blue as we have it back on Earth,” Lovell radioed to Houston. Lovell knew that the appearance of color came from the way the Sun scattered light through his navigation instruments. Tiny as the Moon appeared through his telescope, it was more than his colleagues were getting, or were likely

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  measuring just eleven feet tall and thirteen feet wide at its base, but every inch of it had been designed by Borman and others to be impervious to a galaxy of deadly forces. A nearby transistor radio played Top 40 music, which caught Borman’s ear. “That’s a pretty slick song,” Borman said. “Who’s the fella singing it?” “That’s the Beatles, Frank,” Lovell said, laughing. Borman preferred the standards. As a kid, he’d memorized the lyrics to all the great Western songs played on the radio in Arizona. He could still sing “Cowboy Jack”—a ditty that dated to the nineteenth century— but didn’t dare start, because he knew Lovell and Anders would insist that he sing it to the end. Borman stuck to classic films, too. Alone among astronauts, it seemed, he hadn’t bothered to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, the new Stanley Kubrick film released in April that showed men flying to the Moon. That stuff was science fiction, Borman told his colleagues; America had real people to get to the Moon. Borman and his crewmates knew that the lunar module was troubled and behind schedule. But until designers and engineers could make the fixes, these astronauts could do little more than make certain that the command module was perfect. So they climbed inside their spacecraft and began testing it, pushing the command module mercilessly, because that’s what outer space would do to it, too. And then the phone rang. Smart people knew better than to bother Borman at work. But the man on the line went back a long way with Borman. And he said it was urgent. Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton was in charge of managing astronaut training and choosing crews for manned space missions. If an astronaut flew on board a NASA spacecraft, it was because Slayton had chosen him to go. When Borman heard who was calling, he wriggled out of the capsule and grabbed an extension. “Deke, I’m in the middle of a big test here,” he said. “Frank, I need you back in Houston.”

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  A CRITICAL TEST Just eight minutes after the third-stage engine cutoff, Apollo 8 burst through the altitude record of 853 miles set by Gemini 11 in 1966. But there was little time to celebrate, or even notice, the achievement. The spacecraft needed to separate from the spent third-stage booster, the S- IVB. To make it happen, Borman turned a T-shaped handle that triggered a set of explosives, cutting loose the expired third stage in a spectacle of pyrotechnics. For five seconds after the separation, Borman slowly moved his ship away from the expired third stage. Then he did something strange. Using the thrusters, Borman pivoted the spacecraft 180 degrees and began to move back, nose first, toward the cast-off third stage. This maneuver wouldn’t benefit Apollo 8, but it would be critical to future missions designed to land on the Moon. On those flights, the lunar module—the landing craft that would deliver astronauts to the Moon’s surface—would be stowed on top of the third stage. (Apollo 8 carried a large cylindrical water tank to simulate the mass.) To retrieve the lunar module, the crew would need to return to it, pull it free from the third stage, and carry it to the Moon. Borman needed to prove that the maneuver would work. He couldn’t dock, of course, but just needed to get close enough to confirm the procedure. Now pointed back toward the third stage, the astronauts were awed by the view of Earth. Out the spacecraft’s windows, the planet was a round swirl of vibrant blues and whites, with much of its curvature visible. Lovell grabbed a 70 mm Hasselblad camera mated to an 80 mm lens and began firing away, flying through a magazine of color film, capturing Cuba and Jamaica at the planet’s bottom, never worrying about framing or filters lest he lose perspective. Moments later, Lovell turned his camera to the still-glowing third

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  learned that the man with whom he’d traded was Ed White, who’d also become an astronaut and who’d died in the Apollo 1 fire. To honor their friendship, Lovell had brought his own mismatched set of cuff links to the Moon. The crew had a long stretch ahead of them, and the flight plan allowed for more downtime than it had for the outbound journey or the orbits at the Moon. That gave the men time to rest, and to reflect on the journey they had taken. To each of them, Earth still appeared tiny, just a far-off speck in an endless galaxy. To each of them, it seemed a miracle that all the events and conditions necessary for life had come together in just the right way at just the right time to create their home planet, and that they had gotten lucky enough to be part of it for just the briefest moment in the universe’s still-unfolding story. Chapter Twenty-Three HELP FROM AN OLD FRIEND Borman climbed into his hammock for much-needed sleep, and Anders took control of the spacecraft. He found himself a bit bored; after discovering the Moon, even a swan dive to Earth could pale in comparison. Thousand-mile intervals ticked by as if counted off by metronome. All was steady. While Anders controlled the spacecraft, Lovell took sextant sightings. Part of how Apollo 8 kept its attitude—the way it was oriented in space— was by aligning itself with the stars. To do that, Lovell would pick out known stars, then mark their positions through the onboard sextant. The computer would calculate the ship’s attitude based on its relative position to those stars and automatically fire the ship’s thrusters in order to keep its position in the desired orientation. It wasn’t just important to be pointed toward Earth; it was important for Apollo 8 to be positioned the right way while it followed that path, especially upon reentry into the atmosphere, when its orientation had to be perfect. Lovell had become a maestro at this job, “shooting” stars, entering data, and aiming the sextant like a concert pianist playing a Steinway. In fact, Lovell had earned the nickname Golden Fingers for his proficiency at punching these keys. But he was human, and not immune to a bad note. Early on December 25, Houston time, Lovell missed a step. He meant to enter Program 23 and then select Star 01. Instead, he entered Program 01 into his computer. An alarm rang out. Suddenly, Apollo 8’s guidance system reset itself, losing all memory of how the ship was oriented in space. As a result of Lovell’s mistake, the guidance system now believed Apollo 8 to be back on the launchpad at Cape Kennedy. No one—not the crew, not the computer, not Houston—knew which way was up anymore. Anders checked the eight ball—the attitude indicator that showed the spacecraft’s orientation relative to the celestial sphere—and saw it moving

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  air, “Hey, Bill, you’re not talking to geologists.” Anders changed windows for a better view, only to have the audio nearly overcome by static as the spacecraft flew over the Sea of Crises. Soon, however, things cleared up near the Sea of Fertility. “How’s your picture quality, Houston?” Anders asked. “This is phenomenal!” CapCom Mattingly replied. “We’re now going over...approaching one of our future landing sites,” Anders said, “selected in this smooth region to...called the Sea of Tranquillity...smooth in order to make it easy for the initial landing attempts in order to preclude having to dodge mountains. Now you can see the long shadows of the lunar sunrise.” The scheduled television time was winding down, and there was one important thing left to do. As the spacecraft moved across the Sea of Tranquillity, Borman motioned to Anders. “We are now approaching lunar sunrise,” Anders said, “and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.” No one at Mission Control, or anyone else, had any idea what these men were about to say. The astronauts’ wives and children and friends leaned forward. While the Moon continued to move across television screens, Anders began. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.” Anders was reading the first words from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Lovell continued the passage. “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  plays on repressed sexuality, creates an erotic charge. Yet the origins of the internal, to which the word lie not in sexuality but in religion, and religion remains deeply em- governed submit because of bedded in modern charisma. their belief in the extraordinary quality of the Thousands of years ago, people believed in gods and spirits, but few specific person. could ever say that they had witnessed a miracle, a physical demonstration —MAX WEBER, FROM MAX of divine power. A man, however, who seemed possessed by a divine WEBER: ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY, spirit—speaking in tongues, ecstatic raptures, the expression of intense EDITED BY HANS GERTH AND C . W R I G H T M I L L S visions—would stand out as one whom the gods had singled out. And this man, a priest or a prophet, gained great power over others. What made the Hebrews believe in Moses, follow him out of Egypt, and remain loyal to him despite their endless wandering in the desert? The look in his eye, his inspired and inspiring words, the face that literally glowed when he came down from Mount Sinai—all these things gave him the appearance of having direct communication with God, and were the source of his authority. And these were what was meant by "charisma," a Greek word referring to prophets and to Christ himself. In early Christianity, charisma was a gift or talent vouchsafed by God's grace and revealing His presence. Most of the great religions were founded by a Charismatic, a person who physically displayed the signs of God's favor. Over the years, the world became more rational. Eventually people came to hold power not by divine right but because they won votes, or proved their competence. The great early-twentieth-century German soci-97 98 • The Art of Seduction And the Lord said to ologist Max Weber, however, noticed that despite our supposed progress, Moses, "Write these there were more Charismatics than ever. What characterized a modern words; in accordance with Charismatic, according to Weber, was the appearance of an extraordinary these words I have made a covenant with you and quality in their character, the equivalent of a sign of God's favor. How else with Israel." And he was to explain the power of a Robespierre or a Lenin? More than anything it there with the Lord forty was the force of their magnetic personalities that made these men stand out days and forty nights; he and was the source of their power. They did not speak of God but of a neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon great cause, visions of a future society. Their appeal was emotional; they the tables the words of the seemed possessed. And their audiences reacted as euphorically as earlier au-covenant, the ten diences had to a prophet. When Lenin died, in 1924, a cult formed around commandments. When Moses came down from his memory, transforming the communist leader into a deity. Mount Sinai, with the two

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  station practicing the use of the spacecraft’s sextant and telescope to measure the angles between stars and the horizon of Earth or the Moon. For centuries, sailing ships had navigated by using sextants to make similar measurements. Even in the space age, it was hard to improve on these ancient techniques. This was Lovell’s first chance to give the system a go. He felt nauseated almost immediately. That hadn’t been a problem during his Gemini flights, but the Apollo spacecraft was much larger and gave him more opportunity to turn his head and move around—a likely cause of his queasy feeling. He warned his crewmates—don’t turn your heads when you first leave your seats—then steadied himself and allowed it to pass. Near twenty-five minutes into the flight, after all was confirmed to be operating smoothly, the crew were allowed to remove their helmets and gloves. Doing so would help them move about the cabin and check the various switches and systems. A few minutes later, Anders got out of his straps and left his seat. For the first time, he was experiencing weightlessness. “Hey, it’s like sitting on an ice rink, isn’t it?” he said to his crewmates. Despite their liberation, the crew still needed to stay in their suits. Anders gestured to the others to hand him their helmets so he could stow them. He was surprised to see that each one had a gouge just like the one he’d made when trying to protect his face during the violent shutdown of the rocket’s first stage. I guess we’re all rookies on a Saturn V, he thought. Forty-five minutes into the flight, Apollo 8 approached darkness for the first time as it moved eastward at more than 17,000 miles per hour, closing in on the side of the planet where it was currently nighttime. Outside the cabin windows, the crew could see lightning flashes from a storm down below, as if a thousand paparazzi had gathered to take pictures of them from the clouds. They were still looking when Lovell called out into the cabin. “Oh, shoot!” “What was that?” Borman asked. “My life jacket.”

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  aeronautical engineering in order to become an instructor at West Point. He enrolled at Caltech in Pasadena, where he kept up with some of the best students in the world. By 1957, he had his master’s degree and was teaching thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point. He loved being back at the place that had shaped him. If anything, Susan loved it more. Her boys were playing little league baseball and learning to swim, she’d decorated the family’s apartment, and Frank was home most nights. For the first time since they’d married, it seemed a stable existence, and one that might last. A few months later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Borman couldn’t imagine a bigger blow to national pride, or a clearer indication that America was losing the Cold War. Already a staunch anticommunist, Borman now believed the United States to be facing an existential threat. From that point forward, his thinking changed. If he could do anything to be part of the fight America needed to bring against the Soviet Union, he would do it. Even if the United States needed him to drop an atomic bomb, he wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. He didn’t want to kill anyone, let alone innocent civilians, but his faith that his country would always act as a force for good in the world trumped all. In 1960, Borman applied to and was accepted by the Air Force’s exclusive Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It was in the skies, he thought, that the fight against the Soviets would be decided; technology would determine how high and how fast. He began training in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, flying at 1,600 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound. Much of what he did at Edwards was experimental and untested, making it dangerous in ways one couldn’t train for, and in ways that he never discussed with Susan. Borman graduated first in his class academically and second in flying and won the award for best overall student at Edwards. (He would have been first in flying but for a momentary failure to raise a landing gear, a slipup that would bother him for years.) He then signed on to establish a new program at Edwards, the Aerospace Research Pilot Graduate course, designed to prepare future astronauts to fly. He and four other top pilot- engineers would create a curriculum, making sure it best positioned a man for selection by NASA. It did not escape his notice that as an

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  That was a secret message from Susan to Frank. Long ago, he’d told her, “You worry about the custard and I’ll worry about the flying”— separating their duties was the only way to survive the toll a test pilot’s career exacted from a marriage and family. She’d wanted to let him know that all was good at home at a time he might need to hear it most. “No comprendo,” Borman told Carr. Susan couldn’t tell whether Frank hadn’t understood the words or had forgotten the reference. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t reach him. Two minutes remained until the spacecraft, now moving at 5,125 miles per hour, went behind the Moon. Since lift-off, Apollo 8 had traveled 240,000 miles, and the Moon had traveled 150,000 miles, to make this rendezvous. “One minute to LOS [loss of signal],” Carr radioed to Apollo 8. “All systems Go.” “We’ll see you on the other side,” Lovell said. Outside Anders’s window, any trace of sunlight had disappeared, and as his eyes adapted to the intense darkness he began to see stars, it seemed like a million of them, so many he couldn’t even pick out constellations. The sight took his breath away. He looked to his right, through the window beside him, hungry for more, but suddenly there were no stars anymore—all of them had gone dark. There was just a giant black hole, as if part of the universe had vanished. The hair on the back of Anders’s neck stood up, and for a moment it felt as if his heart had stopped, until he realized that he wasn’t looking at a missing piece of the universe at all. He was looking at the Moon. A few seconds after that, Apollo 8 disappeared behind it. Chapter Eighteen

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  The image of a menagerie presenting a collection of bizarre objects to the enthroned Saviour in the Last Days is not what Watts was invoking, pleasing thought though it is. Watts in his eighteenth-century English wanted to talk about the glorious particularity of individual religious experience, the appropriateness of one Christian manifestation to one situation; yet all of them fixed intently on that which is outside space. So often what in one age seems bizarre – the property of a derided or persecuted sect – becomes the respected norm or variant in other, later circumstances: the abolition of slavery, the ordination of women, the avoidance of meat-eating or tobacco.114 Hans Urs von Balthasar reflected wisely on an aspect of the Church’s history which might give some contenders in present battles pause when he stressed the ultimate individuality of spiritual experience: ‘Nothing has ever borne fruit in the Church without emerging from the darkness of a long period of loneliness into the light of the community.’115 Most of Christianity’s problems at the beginning of the twenty-first century are the problems of success; in 2009 it has more than two billion adherents, almost four times its numbers in 1900, a third of the world’s population, and more than half a billion more than its current nearest rival, Islam.116 At least Christian history offers plenty of sobering messages for overconfidence. The more interesting conundrum for Christianity is a society in which polite indifference has replaced the battles of the twentieth century: Europe, which is not so much a continent as a state of mind, to be found equally in Canada, Australasia and a significant part of the United States. Can there be a new Christian message of tragedy and triumph, suffering and forgiveness to Europeans and those who think like them? Does secularism have to be an enemy of Christian faith, as Nazism and Soviet Communism were enemies, or does it offer a chance to remould Christianity, as it has been remoulded so often before? Can the many faces of Christianity find a message which will remake religion for a society which has decided to do without it? Original sin is one of the more plausible concepts within the Western Christian package, corresponding all too accurately to everyday human experience. One great encouragement to sin is an absence of wonder. Even those who see the Christian story as just that – a series of stories – may find sanity in the experience of wonder: the ability to listen and contemplate. It would be very surprising if this religion, so youthful, yet so varied in its historical experience, had now revealed all its secrets.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  THE SPACE RACE On the morning of Saturday, October 5, 1957, the world awoke to headlines announcing that the Soviet Union had launched the world’s first satellite. The shiny silver ball, a little more than twice the size of a basketball, was called Sputnik, Russian for “satellite” or “fellow traveler.” It was launched by a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and orbited Earth every ninety-six minutes at altitudes between about 140 and 590 miles. Never before had human beings managed to hurl an object out of Earth’s atmosphere with such speed that it became part of the cosmic realm. It hardly seemed real. Man had made his own moon. At first, Americans marveled at the accomplishment, and the best part was that they could witness it for themselves. The Soviets provided radio frequencies on which Sputnik broadcast a beep every three-tenths of a second, along with the satellite’s overhead location. Anyone with a shortwave radio could listen to Sputnik. Anyone with a pair of binoculars (or good eyes) could see it, or more likely its carrier rocket, streaking overhead. Millions of Americans gathered outside or by their radios to take in this flash from the future. But as Monday came, America’s weekend of wonderment gave way to darker realities. The United States was the most technologically advanced nation in the world; twelve years earlier, it had helped end World War II in dramatic fashion when it used the nuclear bomb it developed in strikes against Japan. It should have been the first to put a satellite into orbit. Instead, on the same night that Sputnik launched, CBS aired the debut episode of Leave It to Beaver, a sitcom about a squeaky-clean family living in picket-fenced suburbia with all the modern conveniences. To many, it seemed America had been caught fat and happy—becoming Cleavers—while the Soviets had leaped ahead.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The dangers of political charm are harder to handle: your conciliatory, shifting, flexible approach to politics will make enemies out of everyone who is a rigid believer in a cause. Social seducers such as Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger could often win over the most hardened opponent with their personal charm, but they could not be everywhere at once. Many members of the English Parliament thought Disraeli a shifty conniver; in person his engaging manner could dispel such feelings, but he could not address the entire Parliament one-on-one. In difficult times, when people yearn for something substantial and firm, the political charmer may be in danger. As Catherine the Great proved, timing is everything. Charmers must know when to hibernate and when the times are ripe for their persuasive powers. Known for their flexibility, they should sometimes be flexible enough to act inflexibly. Zhou Enlai, the consummate chameleon, could play the hard-core Communist when it suited him. Never become the slave to your own powers of charm; keep it under control, something you can turn off and on at will. Charisma is a presence that excites us. It comes from an inner quality—s elf-confi- dence, sexual energy, sense of purpose, content- ment—t hat most people lack and want. This quality radiates outward, permeating the gestures of Charismatics, making them seem extraordinary and superior, and making us imagine there is more to them than meets the eye: they are gods, saints, stars. Charismatics can learn to heighten their charisma with a piercing gaze, fiery oratory, an air of mystery. They can seduce on a grand scale. Learn to create the charismatic illusion by radiating intensity while remain- ing detached. Charisma and Seduction Charisma is seduction on a mass level. Charismatics make crowds of people fall in love with them, then lead them along. The process of making them fall in love is simple and follows a path similar to that of a one-on-one seduction. Charismatics have certain qualities that are powerfully attractive and that make them stand out. This could be their self-belief, their boldness, their serenity. They keep the source of these qualities mysterious. They do not explain where their confidence or contentment "Charisma" shall be understood to refer to an comes from, but it can be felt by everyone; it radiates outward, without the extraordinary quality of a appearance of conscious effort. The face of the Charismatic is usually ani- person, regardless of mated, full of energy, desire, alertness—the look of a lover, one that is in- whether this quality is actual, alleged or stantly appealing, even vaguely sexual. We happily follow Charismatics presumed. "Charismatic because we like to be led, particularly by people who promise adventure or authority," hence, shall prosperity. We lose ourselves in their cause, become emotionally attached refer to a rule over men, to them, feel more alive by believing in them—we fall in love. Charisma whether predominately ex tern al or p redominately

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Miracles and saintliness aside, Joan of Arc had certain basic qualities that made her exceptional. Her visions were intense; she could describe them in such detail that they had to be real. Details have that effect: they lend a sense of reality to even the most preposterous statements. Furthermore, in a time of great disorder, she was supremely focused, as if her strength came from somewhere unworldly. She spoke with authority, and she predicted things people wanted: the English would be defeated, prosperity would return. She also had a peasant's earthy common sense. She had surely heard descriptions of Charles on the road to Chinon; once at court, she could 104 • The Art of Seduction "How peculiar have sensed the trick he was playing on her, and could have confidently [ Rasputin's] eyes are," picked out his pampered face in the crowd. The following year, her visions confesses a woman who abandoned her, and her confidence as well—she made many mistakes, had made efforts to resist his influence. She goes on leading to her capture by the English. She was indeed human. to say that every time she We may no longer believe in miracles, but anything that hints at met him she was always strange, unworldly, even supernatural powers will create charisma. The psy-amazed afresh at the power of his glance, which it was chology is the same: you have visions of the future, and of the wondrous impossible to withstand for things you can accomplish. Describe these things in great detail, with an air any considerable time. of authority, and suddenly you stand out. And if your prophecy—of pros-There was something oppressive in this kind and perity, say—is just what people want to hear, they are likely to fall under gentle, but at the same your spell and to see later events as a confirmation of your predictions. Ex-time sly and cunning, hibit remarkable confidence and people will think your confidence comes glance; people were helpless from real knowledge. You will create a self-fulfilling prophecy: people's be-under the spell of the powerful will which could lief in you will translate into actions that help realize your visions. Any hint be felt in his whole being. of success will make them see miracles, uncanny powers, the glow of However tired you might charisma. be of this charm, and however much you wanted to escape it, somehow or other you always found The authentic animal. One day in 1905, the St. Petersburg salon of yourself attracted back and Countess Ignatiev was unusually full. Politicians, society ladies, and courtiers held. • A young girl who had heard of the strange had all arrived early to await the remarkable guest of honor: Grigori Efi-new saint came from her movich Rasputin, a forty-year-old Siberian monk who had made a name province to the capital, and for himself throughout Russia as a healer, perhaps a saint. When Rasputin visited him in search of edification and spiritual

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  about one ten-thousandth of what it was during the late heavy bombardment period about four billion years ago, when the basins formed. Today, that equates to about a hundred impacts a year by objects weighing between a fraction of a pound and a ton. As a result of the constant bombardment of asteroids and comets, the vast majority of the lunar surface is coated in a mixture of powdery dust and pulverized rock fragments known as regolith. This top layer might be as shallow as six feet at the maria, or as deep as thirty feet in the highlands. For years, NASA planners worried about whether a spacecraft, or even an astronaut, might sink beneath the regolith and disappear. In the mid- to late 1960s, unmanned probes sent by NASA answered that question: The regolith was sturdy enough to support lunar landings, even if spacecraft would settle into it a bit and men might make footprints with their boots. The Moon’s crust—its rocky, rigid outer layer—is much thicker (35–60 miles) than Earth’s (3–20 miles), remarkable given the relative sizes of the two bodies. The opposite is true of the Moon’s core, which is much smaller and lighter (3 percent of total mass) than Earth’s (one-third of total mass). The Moon isn’t a perfect sphere. It’s difficult to see from Earth, but the Moon is a bit squashed at the poles, with a slight bulge at the equator, which points toward Earth. That bulge is evidence of Earth’s grip on the Moon. The Moon’s gravitational pull on Earth is equally important; without it, Earth would wobble on its axis and lose its moderate climate. Summer temperatures could exceed 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Much of Earth could sink beneath water. Spinning faster without the Moon’s grip, Earth days might last just eight hours, winds would reach hurricane strengths, and life would be difficult, if not impossible. There is essentially no atmosphere on the Moon; its gravity isn’t strong enough to keep hold of an envelope of gases. Without an atmosphere, the Moon cannot trap or filter heat. On the side facing the Sun, temperatures can rise to 240 degrees Fahrenheit; on the other side, they can plummet to minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit. The lunar surface and surroundings are in a vacuum, which should make the Moon absolutely dry and devoid of water. Yet recent probes proved that there is water ice in the regolith of craters at the lunar south pole, which exists in

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  during the day by dropping money into an “honesty box.” A list of suggested prices was posted. One day a banner poster was displayed just above the price list, with no warning or explanation. For a period of ten weeks a new image was presented each week, either flowers or eyes that appeared to be looking directly at the observer. No one commented on the new decorations, but the contributions to the honesty box changed significantly. The posters and the amounts that people put into the cash box (relative to the amount they consumed) are shown in figure 4. They deserve a close look. Figure 4 On the first week of the experiment (which you can see at the bottom of the figure), two wide-open eyes stare at the coffee or tea drinkers, whose average contribution was 70 pence per liter of milk. On week 2, the poster shows flowers and average contributions drop to about 15 pence. The trend continues. On average, the users of the kitchen contributed almost three times as much in “eye weeks” as they did in “flower weeks.” Evidently, a purely symbolic reminder of being watched prodded people into improved behavior. As we expect at this point, the effect occurs without any awareness. Do you now believe that you would also fall into the same pattern? Some years ago, the psychologist Timothy Wilson wrote a book with the evocative title Strangers to Ourselves. You have now been introduced to that stranger in you, which may be in control of much of what you do, although you rarely have a glimpse of it. System 1 provides the impressions that often turn into your beliefs, and is the source of the impulses that often become your choices and your actions. It offers a tacit interpretation of what happens to you and around you, linking the present with the recent past and with expectations about the near future. It contains the model of the world that instantly evaluates events as normal or surprising. It is the source of your rapid and often precise intuitive judgments. And it does most of this without your conscious awareness of its activities. System 1 is also, as we will see in the following chapters, the origin of many of the systematic errors in your intuitions. Speaking of Priming “The sight of all these people in uniforms does not prime creativity.” “The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.” “They were primed to find flaws, and this is exactly what they found.” “His System 1 constructed a story, and his System 2 believed it. It happens to all of us.” “I made myself smile and I’m actually feeling better!”

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  157 force that gave renewal. People of the 21st century believe that nature should be controlled. Contemporary Americans isolate nature in national parks. Thoreau wanted to subordinate himself to nature so that he could understand it; the routine of life on Walden Pond, where he stayed for two years, held profound meaning for him. Thoreau was a self-trained natural philosopher who immersed himself in nature out of a belief that nature is sacred and that humanity is a part of it. Thoreau developed reservations about eating meat and fi sh. He found that he could obtain everything he needed to eat from his garden. Thoreau’s friends were concerned that he was not getting on with the work of his life, but he believed that learning to know himself was indeed the work of his life. When spring came to Walden Pond, Thoreau saw it as he had never seen it before. He saw the world coming alive. He found in the renewal of spring the same mystic sense of redemption of the great epic poets. In The Divine Comedy, Dante begins his journey to save his soul at Easter. Faust was rescued from suicide by spring and Easter. Spring was also the time of year when Athenians put on tragedies, which were focused on redeeming oneself through understanding suffering, and gaining wisdom from the lives of others. Thoreau believed that spring was a mystical time and that God, inside him, was renewing the world. Thoreau believed that God was more present in trees coming back to life than in cathedrals built by man. Thoreau announced that he forgave everyone. He believed that brooding over wrongs done to him allowed others to control him. He believed that in spring, the time of renewal, all debts should be forgiven. Thoreau asked dif fi cult questions that reveal his eccentricity. He asked, for example, how many letters are truly worth the postage. He wondered how many letters transform a person’s life and are good for the soul. His solution was to stop reading mail. Thoreau did not read newspapers. His friends were concerned that he was not being a responsible citizen and was not staying informed. Thoreau believed that newspapers contain a rehash of past events, with names and locations changed. By reading newspapers, people destroy their ability to commune with themselves. So many impurities enter the self from the outside world that the individual can never break free and loses forever the chance to save his soul.