Progress is a fact in every human endeavour. Cars are getting faster, or at least more efficient. Bicycle manufacturers are making them ever lighter. Records have ever greater sound depths and fidelity. Make-up is making us ever more beautiful. Well, in a way…

Tho-Radia tin, prominently displaying the quasi medical name, Dr Alfred Curie

Recently there have been several scares in the predominantly pseudo-scientific beauty industry – poisoned breasts, faces contaminated with nano-particles and infected, burnt-off faces. Scientists are crying out to help.

But how about harnessing the vivacious power of radiation?

Sounds enticing doesn’t it? Imagine immersing your entire being in an invisible radioactive haze. You could peel off untold layers of skin, to reveal the beautiful, young skin underneath. You could invigorate yourself from the inside out. Radioactive substances were used for all manner of consumer goods, as shown in this slideshow from Environmental Graffiti, but beauty products, topically applied, must be among the most concerning.

Until the 1930s, Tho-Radia was a french face cream fortified with both thorium and radium. Much like Clarins’ Rashid Enamany, Tho-Radia had its own fictional boffin; Dr Alfred Curie had no links to the discoverers of radiation.

Similar creams were marketed to women from a very early point in the last century. This was the beginning of the scientification (The Inquisition’s word) of the beauty industry. Claims went from simple beautification to the safe removal of birthmarks!

Why stop at creams?

Women could buy, at inflated costs, lipsticks, soaps, lotions, foods and more. Men were also looked after in this brave new world.

Equally pleasant to any of the women’s products was The Scrotal Radiendocrinator. Any man looking to restore reproductive function could employ this irradiated scrotum soak. Anyone stupid enough to do so should have applied it to their head instead.

Alternatively, they may also have been interested in Vita Radium Suppositories. After a 15 day course the men of Colorado, where it was produced, would have noticed remarkable changes.

All manner of ingestions were possible to receive the benefits of radiation. Radithor was a concentrated radium tonic. Eben Byers was a well known playboy and an amateur golf champion. He consumed 4 fluid ounces (approx 100ml) of it every day. He died in 1932 racked with anemia, a brain abscess and with a putrid, decaying jaw. Lovely.

Anyone looking to irradiate themselves ought to seek protection – especially for repeated exposure. Unfortunately, even mild doses of radiation are way beyond the frankly wild protective remit of Clarins Expertise 3p.

All of this questions how people still fall for the claims made by the cosmetics industry. Scientists have always brought on board to reinforce these claims, but do those creams really make you look ten years younger? Really? And do the scientists accept the limits of their knowledge – are these products not just effective but safe?

Consumers are easily swayed in a society which places the highest emphasis on physical beauty. After all, that little pot of cream might just work…

Update

Check out this infographic which shows dodgy chemicals still have a place in cosmetics.

Bibliography
Environmental Graffiti Slideshow
Radium cream advertising
Radior Product Shot
New York Times on irradiated beauty products
Quackometer on CLarins E3P
A chemist questions some products’ claims
Invented chemical ingredients
The Scotsman
Pseudoscience
Nano-particles described in the Telegraph
Multiple Exposures – Chronicles of the Radiation Age, Catherine Caulfield, Harper & Row, 1989
Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental Practices: Radium Research in Early 20th Century Vienna, Maria Rentetzi, Columbia University Press, 2007 (http://www.gutenberg-e.org/rentetzi/chapter01.html)

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Jesus is everywhere

Any theological pronouncement is a possible source of long, tedious, tangled, didactic, pedantic, scrutinising debate. Aside from the fact that a god ought to get his story straight at the very least before he appears before us, he could also make sure it is easy to follow for our weaker minds.

Jesus, it appears, did not rate these qualities as being important for a religious figurehead. One might almost assume he, or those who wrote his mythologies, longed for mystery and enigma.

Biblical study, in its purest forms such as studying original texts is a laborious and specialised feat of mental athleticism. So the Inquisition has arranged through the text below a series of links to easily readable documents that challenge the accepted views of Jesus and ought to educate the rest of us mere simpletons.

No Primary Sources

Verified primary or contemporaneous sources or mentions of Jesus are few and far between.

Tacitus’ mention of Jesus may be faked, but nevermind because he was not writing during Jesus’ life, but instead long after. Josephus’ mention almost certainly was as evidenced in many ways – the Testimonium Flavianum.

Lots of documents about Jesus which pretend to being primary sources have later been shown as forgeries. But they continue to be quoted nonetheless. The Inquisition’s favourite is a letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar – the very notion of a relatively minor colonial commander sending a report to Caesar about an individual is fantastic. This is without the fact that Jesus’ legacy was not realised until after his death. On reading the text, the true comedy shines through. Pontius Pilate must have been a rank amateur governor, doing business meetings while having a stroll; “When the Nazarene made His appearance I was having my morning walk and as I faced Him my feet seemed fastened with an iron hand”.

In any case the oldest verified christian texts date from at least 300 years after Jesus.

He didn’t look like we think

Of course we don’t. We don’t even know what race Jesus belonged to. That’s why there has been so much confusion on how to depict him. Most people’s image of Jesus was given to us by Warner Sallman. Jesus was probably a far more swarthy fellow – if he was as striking as later images suggest, then surely one gospel would mention this?

In fact we know very little about him

There is a vast area of religious study which attempts to discover the true nature of the earthly Jesus. For all that was written about him, very little, it seems, recorded him as a person. In fact many early texts are now considered apocryphal by the mainstream churches – they presumably didn’t like the messages conveyed and felt the statements (which are closest to being contemporaneous to Jesus’ own) needed sanitising.

Serious academic commentators now consider much of the gospels to be works of fiction, most notably perhaps Luke and Matthew’s nativities.

Jesus was probably not a carpenter.

He didn’t clearly say he was God.

Actually we know very little of what Jesus said. Jesus never clearly stated his divinity. No matter what later apologists claim, he simply did not, the matter of Jesus’ true nature was left unclear. That is the reason the Council of Nicea was convened.

He definitely had a brother

According to the King James Bible’s version of Galations Jesus had a brother and he was called James. Many interpreters will choose to see this as an oblique reference to fellow man like it was written in communist lingo or jive. Again, clear language would have been preferable in a revered text purporting to tell all of us, stupid and smart, how to live.

He wasn’t original

Few aspects of the stories about Jesus are unique to him. Obviously these are contentious claims to Chrsitians. There is a lot to be lost in this regard. For theists, it would be very hard to accept a godhead who is not unique. But there are many similarities between the figureheads of most major religions. For example nearly all have felt the need to be made flesh to promote their messages.

Zoroaster had already done lots of the things attributed to Jesus, although as many people wish to obviate these similarites as to prove them. Although any web search for Zoroaster and Jesus will yield legions of froth-mouthed christians vehemently denying any links, it is widely supposed the Bible’s three wise men were Zoroastrian kings.

Jesus and Buddha preached many similar doctrines, which is not surprising in two religions based on peace, acceptance and love.

Horus is regularly trotted out as a proto-Jesus. Horus was often represented in a cross shape and may have been crucified. But there are other contenders for the original cross.

He may not even have existed

It is entirely possible that Jesus didn’t exist.

No-one who knew him has written anything: A majority of biblical scholars‚ conservative and liberal alike‚ concur that the authors of the gospels did not know Jesus personally, but merely relayed stories about him. A majority of biblical scholars‚ conservative and liberal alike‚ concur that the authors of the gospels did not know Jesus personally, but merely relayed stories about him.

One oft-touted proof of Jesus’ existence is the concept of embarrassment. Scholars would have us believe that honour was so important in Judaea that his followers would never have lied about such things as crucifiction.

He had an amazing sixpack

Abdominally at least Jesus was a true god. Unfortunately for a church in Oklahoma, his musculature was not at all family-friendly.

He has become an abstract emblem of a mindset

He is used as a totem, a flag of animosity towards others.
The US military is rumoured to have inscribed biblical texts on some of its weapons.

Finally

Jesus was a zombie. Now he is just everywhere.

Original content created by: The Inquisition