magnetic lines of force

One of the most abiding impressions from my schooldays took place in the physics lab of Caerphilly Boys’ Grammar School. We put a simple bar magnet on the workbench, covered it with a sheet of clean blank paper and then gently shook out a small quantity of iron filings onto that part of the paper closest to the bar magnet. I was impressed by the way magnetic lines of force formed themselves from our scatter of iron filings. Seventy years later I am still entranced by that demonstation.

Now, why should I so suddenly remember this episode?

I had picked up, not for the first time, my copy of Karen Armstrong’s A History of God. A very scholarly exposition. I was struck, more than ever I had been before, by her proposition that ‘in an important sense God was a product of the creative imagination’. As I digested this statement, I found myself musing on the bridge between experiences registered by our physical senses and experiences which we each generate with our inner senses. For me, the scientific and the numinous have equal – but different – reality.

In everyday life we are surrounded with magnetic lines of force. We do not see them, though we may see the tangible results of magnetic interaction. I am also aware of those many among us who, as it were, ‘tune in’ to the frequency of this manifestation and make it the substance of creation.

francis cameron, oxford, 28 june 2012

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