Truth Commission

Hepburn and Peck in Roman Holiday

These officers are highly skilled interrogators, trained in telepathic techniques, equipped with the most advanced lie detectors, with readings taken from the sensitive reactions of living creatures: this flower droops at a lie, and this octopus turns bright blue
Burroughs / Cities of the Red Night / 241






















La Bocca della Verità, Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin























Parrhesia
The point of departure. My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but with the problem of truth-teller or truth-telling as an activity. By this I mean that, for me, it was not a question of analyzing the internal or external criteria that would enable the Greeks and Romans, or anyone else, to recognize whether a statement or proposition is true or not. At issue for me was rather the attempt to consider truth-telling as a specific activity, or as a role.




















The Jodhain Morain - breastplate of judgment - has the power of squeezing the neck on utterance of false judgment.

Peithynin or Elucidator.

"I'm not a peace officer," Rick said. "I'm a bounty hunter." From his opened briefcase he fished out the Voight-Kampff apparatus, seated himself at a nearby rosewood coffee table, and began to assemble the rather simple polygraphic instruments...
"This" - he held up the flat adhesive disk with its trailing wires - "measures capillary dilation in the facial area. We know this to be a primary autonomic response... This records fluctuations of tension within the eye muscles.
PK Dick

Urim & Thummim Exodus xxviii 30
Light and Truth

This was the oracle of God put into the sacred breastplate of judgment by Aaron, by which the divine will was to be sought on solemn occasions. many and varied conjectures have been offered as to the nature of this oracle; but, as the Scriptures do not clearly instruct us, perhaps we shall never obtain satisfactory information. The opinion of Josephus is, that they were rows of precious stones in the pectoral, and are so called for their brilliancy and perfection; and that these stones, on particular occasions, indicated the mind of God by some remarkable appearance. On each of the stones was engraven the name of one of the sons of Jacob; and it has been conjectured that the letters forming the response became in a peculiar way distinguished from the rest. others suppose it was given by an audible response from the voice of Shechinah, addressed to the high-priest, arrayed in his robes, and standing with his face twoards the ark. The oracle seems only to have been used in national difficulties, by the high-priest alone, and not for any private purpose…

Farrar / Biblical and Theological Dictionary / 1884