My niece sent me a pictures of her touching standing stones at a Renaissance fair in Texas.  She is one of my Outlander recruits and she knew I would appreciate her little inside joke about wanting to fall through the stones and find Jamie.

Read more after the jump!

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Caption: Damn it didn’t work

I jokingly told her if I could be assured that Jamie was waiting for me on the other side, I might actually want to fall through some stones too!  But, knowing Jamie, he would probably say “Sorry lass I’m a marrit man”.  Which, when it comes right down to it, is just one more reason to fall in love with that ginger-haired highlander.

Diana Gabaldon has shared that originally the time-travel piece of her orginal book was a vehicle to get her modern woman and main character Claire into the setting of 1743 Scotland and the beginnings of the Jacobite rebellion that would lead to the slaughter at Culloden Moor.

“It’s not supernatural; time travel actually has a physical basis of explanation,” Gabaldon replied. “It’s just that we experience it along with the characters, who are having to learn it by trial and error. There is no handbook for time travelers. What’s happening to Claire is not magic, it’s not ghostliness, however there is a ghost in the beginning of the series, and he’ll show up again in the end of the first series, but in between we need not worry about him. There’s not really much supernatural to speak of, but there is a fantastic, ‘woo-woo’ element.” http://www.blastr.com/2014-8-11/diana-gabaldon-and-caitriona-balfe-explain-time-travels-role-outlander

The role of time travel is both a threat and promise that weaves its way in and out of the plots of all eight books.  Claire’s pragmatic approach to life is no less pragmatic when it comes to this bit of “supernatural” phenomenon that has drastically altered her life.  She very quickly comes to accept its reality and adjusts.  At first, she doesn’t really need to understand it because she is too busy just trying to survive it.  But, eventually, Claire is given enough time and safety to become reflective and she comes up with a theory.   I can remember reading her explanation for why the  sightings of “Nellie” the Lochness Monster were infrequent and spread over decades. I found myself shaking my head in agreement.  If you believe time-travel is possible then her explanation of a stone circle at the bottom of the Loch was entirely plausible! A prehistoric animal finds its way through the stones and back again.

Of course, it isn’t Claire’s theory of time-travel we are talking about, but Diana’s.  I’ve always admired her dedication to research.  She likes to be accurate and I like to learn when I read so, that works out well <g> .  You can find her time-travel theory written in The Outlandish Companion. She was even asked to present her theory to a conference of fellow scientists. Here is an excerpt from an interview she had with National Geographic right before the series aired.  In this interview, she talks about the physical possibility of places that might just be prime spots for a trip across time.

There are lines of geomagnetic force running through the Earth’s crust, and most of the time these run in opposing directions—forward and backward. In some places they deviate and will cross each other, and when that happens, you kind of get a geomagnetic mess going in all different directions. I call these vertices.

Essentially, it could be possible to have something like this nexus of crossing lines to create a little time vortex. And if you could have a person whose sensibility to geomagnetism is sufficiently advanced so that they can not only detect this but enter into it in some way, then you have a plausible way of time travel.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140808-outlander-scotland-orkney-islands-stonehenge-neolithic/

Today I find myself thinking of Ms. Gabaldon’s theory and that “if you believe” in time-travel part because I keep running into references and articles that suggest that time-travel really might not be as far-fetched as we think. Which I’m sure is welcome news to HG Wells and  Marty McFly .

Perhaps you’ve seen this article about scientists who believe they have proven that time-travel is possible using beams of light.

They didn’t actually make light travel, but rather with help of quantum mechanics and calculations they believe they have proved it is physically and mathematically possible. If…and its a big if…you believe in parallel universes.

ttp://lifeboat.com/blog/2015/12/australian-physicists-prove-time-travel-is-possible

http://earthsky.org/human-world/using-light-to-simulate-time-travel

London has been in the news recently for interest in a mausoleum some folks believe might actually be a time-machine.  It’s been dubbed the “Stone Tardis”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/brompton-cemetery-tomb-thought-to-be-a-time-machine-2015-12

Stone hedges and circles are ancient and mysterious.  Folks have been speculating about their function and builders for centuries.

No one can really say if they are maps for aliens or temples for the Gods or …portholes for 1945 nurses.  So, I say why not! Diana’s theory seems to be as good as any one elses.  Personally, I think Jamie is an astral traveler as I heard someone suggest not too long ago!

Astral projection (or astral travel) is an interpretation of an out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of an “astral body” separate from the physical body and capable of travelling outside it.^[1

In fact, I think Diana has foreshadowed it from the beginning.  Can anyone say “who was the ghost outside Claire’s window?  Think about it!  Can’t wait to see the role time-travel and the stones play out in season 2 and book 9!