This article talks about on of the most famous crystal skulls found called the “Skull of Doom”. This skull was discovered by “Mitchell-Hedges” and his adopted daughter “Anna Mitchell-Hedges”. They where exploring the ruins of a Mayan ceremony center when Anna on her 17^th birthday stumbled across the skull in the ground by an alter. But it was then later found out that the skull was purchased from a art gallery for 400 euros. Its said that the skull is based off of the skull that is in The British Museum. The discovery of the skull was vagally written about in his book to which he called it “The skull of Doom”.  The skull was alleged to have many powers and many sinister legends but that can now all be traced back to Mitchell-Hedges.
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This relates to the course material because the article references mystical energy as well as appeal to authority. In Mitchell-Hedges autobiography “Danger My Ally” Mitchell writes that the skull was used by a Mayan High Priest when performing magic rites involving a death curse, which would cause the demise of the victim. The article relates to appeal to authority because the skull its self was just a fake bought from a art collector but Mitchell used his title as an explorer to try to convince people that he had discovered this mystical and very dangerous skull.

In this article it talks about the Mayans and the 13 skulls. It talks about how the 13 skulls will be reunited to awaken a new era, transforming from an old paradigm into a new world. Its says how each skull contains complete depositories of knowledge and each skull contains a specialist area of information. The people of the future will be able to read the skulls to extract all the information they hold but in order to do that they must all be reunited.

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Once again, the article reveals mystical energy and Ideology. It is believed that each skull holds its own library of knowledge and wisdom that have astounding energy radiating off them. Also, because the Mayan calendar has run out of days it marks the start of the new era, so the Mayans have a goal to bring the skulls together to collect the ancient wisdom. 

What surprised us most about the topic is that none of the skulls in museums come from documented excavations. This is interesting because they have such legends of power behind them, and they're in museums but it seems that they got there based on legend alone.

This is interesting because museums are normally curated with authentic verified artifacts of old, and pride themselves in being accurate and authentic. The museums have done their respective tests on the skulls and determined that they are all non-authentic, however in popular museums they remain. It's almost unsettling that these are allowed to be in museums, as normally people expect museums to have authenticity.

We found the research by the British museum to be the most interesting, as they publicly admit that the skull was manufactured somewhere in Europe in the 18th or 19th century making it non-authentic. 

We're likely to remember that though the research they have posted confirms the skull is non-authentic and has no supernatural powers, however the museum chooses to display this as "an enigmatic object of great interest but with no supernatural properties." In the future will be wiser than assuming artifacts in museums are authentic. 
 

Based on the course content and outside resources, we think that the pseudoscience beliefs of Mystical Energy/Ancient Wisdom/ All natural are the most harmful when associated with medical practices. In an age of modern medicine when people choose not to vaccinate, get proper treatments, use "alternative medicines" based on any of the stated beliefs, they are not only threatening their own lives, and the lives of their children but also the general public as specifically non-vaxxers threaten herd immunity. These reasons can be linked back through antivaxxers to the recent measles outbreak.

The most important thing to pass on is undoubtedly the need to be skeptical, and to critically think, in order to make educated choices. This will apply to everything from commercials and news articles, to the essential oils their coworker is diffusing for "healing energy." If we abandon facts out of convenience,  what do we have?

According to an old native american legend there are 13 crystal skulls that are supposedly containing crucial information about the true purpose of humanity and the destiny of its people It also says that humanity is to discover the skulls when it is sufficiently developed. Of course the true origin of such skulls is still unknown and it is believed that it could be alien or even from a lost civilization such as Atlantis.
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The connection between this and what we’ve learned would be ancient knowledge and the unexplained as it goes on about these supposedly ancient relics being capable of telling the future of humanity but as far as humanity is aware there isn’t a for this to be possible. Ancient mayans have had such things ingrained into their culture and it has led them to the belief that such powers are real and are capable of magical things that can’t be explained 

Among Native Healers These skulls are Believed to have supernatural healing powers and in some of their more ritualistic healing methods if they had access to them they would use the skulls to Grant Blessing capable of healing illnesses that Modern medicine is yet to even cure. Though there is no actual evidence to the skulls having such powers they are tied deeply to rumors and some legends as to being capable of such things.

The connections in this would be Mystical Energies and ideology. The Mystical Energies belief would come for its ability to grant supernatural healing even though under study they seem to be ordinary crystal carved into the shape of a skull. The ideology belief would come from the natives believing that these crystal skulls have some connection to a higher power to grant such blessing on to people as the skulls have become a part of their cultures and beliefs.

According to studies done on the skulls that have been found its been discovered that they may not be as ancient as once thought. According to such studies on the skulls they may only be as old as 50-150 years old. Even though research have difficulties telling how such things were made they also have a hard time believing that such skulls could have been made by tribals or ancients because of the quality of the skulls in ways that they don’t have the little scratches and marks that something made in those time would have due to the poor qualities of tools as well as them having no real powers some researchers believe they could have just been made for artistic sake.

The connection to this would be the use of critical thinking and skepticism to discover what truly lies behind the skulls. Though they never came to a true conclusion on when, why, or how the skulls were made one thing widely accepted by most researchers is that the skulls themselves aren’t ancient. Even though the conclusion they came to was that skulls weren’t as old as believed they never truly ruled out that these skull held some kind of mystic power that has yet to be discovered.