P.V. Glob shares the life and times of Iron Age Bog-People, and it is awesome.

The Bog People – P.V. Glob / Translated by Rupert Bruce-Midford (1969)

            Thank goodness for peat and peat bogs!  And thank goodness for great translators, as they permit us all to share in the learned literature of all the world’s nations.  This intriguing book by Dr. Peter Vilhelm Glob, translated by Rupert Bruce Midford, himself an eminent scholar of antiquities in the British Museum, explores the fascinating and macabre discoveries made by farmers digging peat used to heat homes and cook food through the long Nordic winters.  As the Director General of Museums and Antiquities in his home of Denmark, Dr. Glob is a perfect guide through the history of the bogs, the people found buried within the bogs, and the many cultural items discovered alongside the bodies.

            This relatively short work (200 pages) takes its impetus from letters received by Dr. Glob written by English schoolgirls intrigued with the tales of the bog-people they read in local newspapers of the time. They reached out to him inquiring about the Tollund Man, a find which had ignited great interest in the world’s media following his 1950 discovery by farmers digging peat.  The idea of a 2,000-year-old human preserved so well that we could see his fingerprints, hair, and skin so clearly seemed an impossibility, but it was very real.  Dr. Glob goes into great detail describing the find itself, the excavation and preservation processes, and the analysis of the Tollund Man’s remains, all in the form of a “long letter” to the schoolgirls whose interest sparked the correspondence.

            Peat bogs are chemical factories, created when thousands of years of vegetal growth sinks into a swamp to be buried under low-oxygen and high-iron content groundwater.  The weight of subsequent plant matter deposits presses down on the material, and the highly acidic water kills and prevents bacteria from decomposing the organic matter.  It also stains skin a dark ebony.  As Dr. Glob relates, farmers digging peat for fuel came across such buried bodies countless times in the previous 400 years, many of which were documented by local priests and officials.  Townspeople saw these bodies as evil, partly because of their dark appearance and partly because they were found 4-8 feet underground, the abode of satan himself.  Because of this, many of the older finds were not studied scientifically, but instead given a proper Christian burial in a local churchyard. 

            Sometime in the 18^th century, people started to analyze these finds, and they realized that most of them were over 2,000 years old, an amazing fact. Bodies from the time of Christ just did not survive.  Even the ancient Egyptian mummies did not keep in such a great state of preservation.  Studies showed that these bog finds, men, women, children, and animals, belonged to early Iron Age societies.  Further study informed scientists as to the nature of these burials.

            Our agrarian ancestors worshipped the very idea of fertility, in the guise of a goddess responsible for the return of life to the Earth following the “death” of life during wintertime.  Many of the people found in these bogs were spring sacrifices to the goddess of fertility, and when the goddess was supplanted by a male fertility god, the sacrifices continued to him.  In the old myths, the figure of the goddess was cared for by her priests, and once a year, a special wagon was outfitted with the carved image of the goddess (usually in wood) and taken around the farmer’s fields in a grand procession involving dancing, song, and prayer.  Much as in other ancient agrarian cultures, the “king” was chosen specifically for this spring sacrifice.  Many of the bog men have ligatures around their neck, and many others have their throats cut.  In this century, scientists were able to analyze the stomach contents of the bog-people, finding that most of them, the ones showing ritual strangulation or ritual throat-cutting and bleeding, were served simple meals of gruel, which, when analyzed, showed a remarkable variety of local grains and seeds, numbering in the high dozens.  It makes sense to include seeds from all the edible grain and grasses if what you want is to make an offering to the fertility goddess thereby propriating a great harvest and lush abundance in the coming year.

            One of the details I found most intriguing is the way that the peat bog’s chemical nature preserved textiles.  Amazing examples of woven fabrics and leathers show just how advanced and creative the humans we call “ancient” and “primitive” were.  Human ingenuity brought us out of the wild, and only the truly ignorant or vain assume that intelligence is a hallmark of modern man, and not of humanity in general.  Examples of trade and commerce between ancient people always fascinate me, and one of the greatest bog finds is the Gundestrup Cauldron, a masterpiece of silversmithing which was broken into pieces and placed as an offering within the peat bog.  The beautiful images of the goddess, and of the ritual lives of the people, sculpted into the silver cauldron transport us back into antiquity.  As Dr. Glob details it, the amount of silver used to create this massive cauldron likely represented much of the actual wealth and riches of the local people and their leaders, as most of the silver they had arrived from far-off lands, and would never have been broken into pieces and buried as an offering if the times were not critically dire.  Ancient man did everything with purpose, even if today those purposes are forgotten, or seen as inconsequential.  It is a great example of how everything we value today will be either forgotten, ignored, or supplanted by new things and new ideas, just as modern man dismisses the ideals, beliefs, and religions of ancient man.

            The last section of the book describes the many carved wooden gods found in the bogs.  These carvings, usually abstracted and taking advantage of the natural shapes and forms of the wood used, were found in all ancient human cultures that worshipped the great goddess of fertility.  It was these carved gods which were cared for and protected by the god’s priests, and which, in a wholesale act of evil, were ordered destroyed or burned by the early roman catholic church (always ready to exterminate humans, ideas, and religions they saw as counter to their fascistic fake-ass christianity.)  The patriarchal roman catholic church feared the power of women and of the Great Goddess, and they still do, seeking to subjugate half the population into subservience towards the male half.  So dumb.  The attempted erasure of our collective human past and human mythology is among the worst, along with the wholesale slaughter of “heathen” humans that religions love to engage in frequently. There is nothing capable of more evil than a religious zealot. History shows it again and again. And again.

            Two thousand years is not a long time.  Modern humans, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, have been around for just over 60,000 years.  The Homo family, our human ancestors such as Homo Habilis, Neanderthal man, and such, have been around for around a quarter of a million years.  This is but a drop in the bucket compared to the dinosaurs, who flourished on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, or green plants which have populated our planet for over two billion years, a ridiculous amount of time.  I bring this up because the humans that started what we call civilization did so very recently, cosmically speaking.  We are more similar in our day-to-day lives to the ancient Scandinavians working the old peat bogs that we care to admit.  Our collective humanity has learned more, and forgotten more, than we can ever imagine, and it is great books such as this one that help us keep the awareness of deep time in mind.  Reading about the bog-people and their culture keeps us grounded, aware that the concerns of humanity have always been the same.  The need for family, food, shelter, and spiritual connection is found in all human cultures.  I hope more people read this great book and open their minds to the infinite variety of human existence.

(This great book can be purchased here: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-bog-people )

David Hockney Shines a Light on the True Methods of Master Painters

 

Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters – David Hockney (2001)

 

            Sometimes it takes an artist to understand another artist.  Oftentimes, it takes an artist with an inquisitive mind to penetrate another artist’s methods and techniques.  As an artist myself, I know how other artists view art.  We look at the work itself but we are also deeply concerned with how the work was created.  This is similar to how normal people can appreciate a beautiful car, but it takes a trained mechanic to understand the beauty inherent in the interior workings of the vehicle, something not evident to the casual fan.  David Hockney, a world-famous artist, and one of the few modern creators still obsessed with drawing, used his artist’s eye to penetrate the obscurities and purposeful deflections of master painters, realizing, after careful study, that the revered classic painters, figures such as Ingres, Vermeer, and Caravaggio, among many others, were not drawing their subjects free-hand.  Instead, it was plain to Hockney’s modern eye that these magnificent draughtsmen utilized mechanical aids such as lenses, mirrors, and the camera obscura, to perfect their paintings and drawings. Once this idea entered Hockney’s mind it would not leave, sending him on a years-long course of research, practice, and study.  The fruition of the idea is this amazing book.

            Hockney understands that an artist lives within the means allowed during the times they happen to live in.  For Hockney, this means that he has color reproductions, printers, and material readily available.  It is this availability that allowed him to compile his amazing “wall,” a collection of images sorted chronologically on a long studio wall, which allowed him to first “see” the enormous influence exerted by the technologies of the looking glass, the mirror, and the camera obscura on the great master painters.  This is critical to understanding how Hockney arrived at his idea, and it leads into the first section of the book, showcasing the visual evidence he gathered over a decade, helping to illuminate his thesis.

            Seemingly overnight, sometime in the 15^th century, the images change.  Gone are the flat, carefully observed, painterly images of the old masters such as Poussin or Reubens. Instead, we have Van Eyck’s incredibly rich and detailed Arnolfini Wedding, or Caravaggio’s Judith and Holofernes, works so detailed and seemingly exact, as to feel ultra-realistic, as close to an exact reproduction as art could get until the advent of chemical photography.  The only way this could be achieved would be through the use of a camera obscura, originally just a darkened room with a pinhole on one wall, allowing the bright sunlight from outside to enter the room and shine on the opposing wall, showing a reversed and upside-down image of whatever was outside the room. This was as close to magic as humans ever got!  They were able to see the full range of color and light, as well as seeing the motion of the scene in question.  Imagine it, in a world where images were few and far between, where a master artist worked for years to learn to capture likeness, shape and form, to have a simple contraption display a magical light show must have seemed pure fantasy. 

            Hockney’s suggestion that the old master painters utilized such mechanical aids shook the art and art history worlds.  The art dogma proclaimed loudly that the true genius of artists such as Vermeer lay in their uncanny ability to capture likeness without anything as pedantic and common as a lens, mirror, or other such device.  To imagine their use of a camera obscura would only detract from their esteem.  This is a deeply rooted fallacy, which Hockney points out exists solely because most art historians are not creators of art.  In the intervening quarter-century since David Hockney released this book, his observations have gained much traction, especially among his fellow artists.

As Hockney states several times, the paint does not apply itself.  The marks created by a painter using a camera obscura serve as points of departure, allowing an artist to achieve very close likenesses of a human sitter, for example.  Free-hand drawing, what artists call “eyeballing,” is a process whereby the hand of the artist seeks the proper contours and spatial relations of the scene he is painting.  X-ray photography of such works can show how an artist moved an element of the painting, adjusted a position, or completely removed an aspect of the image.  These markings and underdrawings are not found in the highly detailed images from Vermeer, Ingres, Caravaggio, or any of the other artists using a camera obscura device.  Instead, there are basic scrapings or markings, detailing the main points of a figure, or the relation of the nose to the face in a portrait.  This makes the finished work seem as if it was created whole out of thin air, with little to no preparation!  This was only possible with the use of a mechanical aid.

The first section of this book details the visual evidence discovered by Hockney.  From spatial distortions, only producible by the use of a lens, to issues of relative size between the heads of sitters and their bodies, to the flatness created by such projections, which became a stylized flatness in the works of the major artists, Hockney points out countless examples of each, in vivid color, and invites us to make our own observations.  As an artist myself, once seen, these examples cannot be unseen. 

Hockney describes the progress of the mechanical aids and how, using a lens and mirror, the camera obscura allowed for more complex paintings.  For example, in Hans Holbein’s masterpieces, Hockney shows how each section, exquisitely detailed, was composed individually, using the tolls mentioned above.  This gives the paintings a cohesive, focused nature very pleasing to the eye, but close reading by a trained eye can see the perspective shifts, and the diverted angles which come from such technique.  Another “sign” of the camera obscura is the rise of chiaroscuro, or the treatment of bright light and deep shadow within paintings.  Before the use of the devices, paintings did not use shadow to mold the shape of the subjects, instead using color and line.  In fact, most pre-1400’s European painting matched what we see in Indian or Chinese paintings, a focus on form and color, with no shadows portrayed whatsoever.  It is these shadows that Hockney intuited arose from the bright light (essentially full sunlight) needed for the proper functioning of a camera obscura.  Painters were now obsessed with light and shadow, and capturing near-perfect likenesses of people and nature.  It was not until hundreds of years later, when the chemical photograph managed to capture light and form for posterity, that the painting world retreated from pure representation, moving into wild new fields such as Fauvism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism, attempting to do with paint what could not be done with the camera.

The second part of this book deals with the textual evidence gathered by David Hockney to support his claims.  The older examples can be a bit vague, for each artist and craftsman was deeply suspicious of others and would never share the secrets of their trade with anyone for fear it would be stolen or used erroneously.  Roger Bacon, artist and scientist extraordinaire, wrote in Of Art and Nature that,

“The cause of…concealment among all wise men is the contempt and neglect of the secrets of wisdom [sic] by the vulgar sort that knoweth not how to use these things which are most excellent.” 

This is as true now as it was in the 13^th century when Bacon wrote it.

The third part prints out much of the correspondence between David Hockney and fellow artists, historians, etc., all discussing the ideas found in this book, from conception to publication.  It gives a great timeline, and allows the reader to travel along with Hockney as he gains certainty and wisdom concerning his idea.  It is a great coda to this amazing book.  Hockney also shares an extensive bibliography, perfect for people like me, seeking more reading material.

This may be the single greatest art history book I have ever read.  It reads like a mystery and the images are perfectly chosen to elucidate Hockney’s writing.  Perhaps we need to return to a time when art history was written by actual artists, instead of historians.  The insights found by David Hockney may only be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Once our preconceived ideas about how “artistic genius” functions are discarded, we can better see how these magnificently creative artists captured our world in their art.  To demean an artist for using a tool says more about the person laying judgment than it does about the creative individual.  No mechanical aid can teach how to lay down paint, or how to draw, or how to create mood and feeling in an artwork.  Those things come directly from the artist themselves, their hard work, and their imagination.  David Hockney has done all artists a great service.  This book should be required reading for anyone studying art or art history. 

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secret-knowledge-david-hockney/1112571044 )

Dr. Irving Finkel Speaks on Dead Languages and the People Who Study Them

 

The Future of Dead Languages: Dead Languages, Living Stories – A Lecture by Dr. Irving Finkel

 

            In a bit of a detour from the usual path followed by RXTT’s Book Journey, this review will cover a lecture given by the pre-eminent Assyriologist and Curator of the Middle East Department at the British Museum, Dr. Irving Finkel.  On November 3, 2025 Dr. Finkel spoke at the University of Houston’s Dudley Hall, on the subject of dead languages, the difficulty of translation, and the history of this most human endeavor, trying to understand our ancestors through the written texts they left behind.

            Dr. Finkel first came to my attention through the videos posted by the British Museum, specifically a series titled “Ask a Curator.”  As the pre-eminent expert on Assyrian language, cuneiform, and all sorts of topics relating to ancient and dead languages, I found him to be a kindred spirit, someone who seeks to understand big things, and to absorb vast amounts of information in order to do so.  Upon hearing that he would be visiting and lecturing, I geeked out and signed up for the lecture.

            As a child I was fascinated with the story of the Rosetta Stone and its importance in allowing us modern humans to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. This was achieved because on the Rosetta Stone the very same text is repeated in three different writing systems.  The top is ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.  The middle section is written in Demotic script, the “everyday” form of Egyptian writing, and the third section is written in Ancient Greek, the one language we knew how to read and translate.  Because of this, the whole world of the Egyptian written word opened up and it increased our knowledge of the ancient Egyptians exponentially. 

            Dr. Finkel discussed the importance of the Rosetta Stone, and the differences between Egyptian writing systems and the cuneiform writing system used in Mesopotamia.  Whereas in hieroglyphs, individual symbols stood for whole words and ideas, and in modern English the letters stand for individual sounds, in cuneiform the individual marks held many concurrent meanings, making it super difficult to translate.  Cuneiform is a writing system, NOT a language, and it was used to write down many ancient languages, all with the same wedge shapes.  Much like one can use Arabic letters to write words in German, English, French, or Spanish, cuneiform was originally used to write in Sumerian, the language of ancient Mesopotamia, and then other concurrent languages, such as Akkadian, Elamite, Assyrian, and ancient Persian.  Because the same symbols were used for different languages, translation of cuneiform was and remains a most difficult endeavor.

            An important point made by Dr. Finkel stated the importance of wide-ranging knowledge, hard work, and dedication to the art of translation, especially as it applies to long-dead languages.  The intellectual giants who made progress on deciphering cuneiform were intellectually brilliant humans, people who devoted decades of their lives to reading, researching, exploring, and analyzing ancient clay tablets, all with the hope to one day translate them and open up the ancestor’s world to our modern humanity and understanding.  Dr. Finkel stated his belief that, while computer programs can help translate already known languages, they are unable of thinking creatively, which is what is required to translate ancient dead languages.  This is a job for the human brain, not a machine algorithm.

            Dr. Finkel delivered an amazing talk.  It is a testament to him and his powers of oratory.  It is a rare thing to hear one of your intellectual heroes speak on their chosen field of study in the flesh.  I have been very fortunate to hear such idols of mine as Stephen Hawking, Art Spiegelman, Paul Mooney, Buzz Aldrin, and now Dr. Irving Finkel, speak in person.  To see this intellectual vigor in a septuagenarian is an inspiration.  Dr. Finkel stated that he started working at the British Museum in 1979 and is the longest-tenured member of that organization.  He said his secret is not answering emails or phone calls, which, as he joked, means his supervisors think he already left!  Hilarious!  I was unable to personally greet Dr. Finkel but hearing him speak has been one of the intellectual highlights of my life.  Here’s to dead languages and the people who love them!

Pamela Berger Shows How We Devalued the Mother Goddess, Even As We Continued To Ask For Her Help

 

The Goddess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protrectress from Goddess to Saint – Pamela Berger (1985)

            Ahhh, the Grain Miracle. What is the Grain Miracle, you may ask?  It is a tale as old as humanity, from a bygone time when agriculture and its yearly seasonal cycles held deeply symbolic and spiritual meanings for us humans.  The story of the Grain Miracle helped us understand the connection between the life of plants and the life within us humans, as well as the correlation between the fecundity of human females and the fecundity of the Earth under our feet.  Even long after the initial impetus for the story was forgotten, or willfully erased, the tale continued its path through the collective consciousness of humanity, altered and shaped to fit the whims of whatever organized religion rose to prominence at the time.

            The original Grain Miracle story arose from our deep past.  Initially a story about the Great Mother Goddess, the divine being that brought forth all life in our world, it was passed on through oral tradition for millennia.  The story goes thusly, The Great Goddess is being pursued, and she arrives at a field, freshly sown by a farmer.  She asks the farmer to help her by telling her pursuers that she had passed by when the grain was freshly planted.  Upon saying this, the grain miraculously grows tall and full of seed, so, when the pursuer soon arrives and is told by the farmer that the Goddess passed by when the field was freshly planted (the truth!), he sees the full growth of grain, and calls off the chase, believing the Goddess to have passed by long before.  What originally served as an allegory for the cyclical nature of growth and death experienced by the initial farming humans was adapted and reformatted to fit in with the current religious ideals, first for the pantheistic religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Europe and Greece, and then for the monotheistic Abrahamic religions.  The main character, the Earth Goddess herself, slowly morphed into a lower deity, then a sainted human, until finally the story was shaped by the catholic church to refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

            Humans are shaped by our pattern recognition.  It is one of the skills inherent to our over-developed brains.  We are so good at it that we see patterns where there are none! (For example, visual pareidolia is the scientific name for our ability to see visual patterns, most often faces, in what is otherwise an ambiguous visual field.  This is the “skill” utilized by anyone gazing up at cloud formations, and seeing familiar shapes within.)   This ability to recognize pattern, especially throughout a period of time, is the foundation of much of our cognitive ability.

The largest, all-encompassing pattern on our planet Earth is the yearly cycle of the seasons.  The annual progression from the dead cold of Winter to the warming Spring to the full Sun of Summer to the rains and cooling temperatures of Autumn, and back again to Winter, could not be ignored.  It could also not be ignored that Life seemingly “died” every Winter, only to be “reborn” again in the Spring.  The cycle of the seasons provided the first repeated structures of Life to early humans.  The menstrual cycle of human females provided the second repeated structure.  These two events were not seen as separate by ancient man.  Instead, they were seen as mirrors of one another, as part of the all-encompassing whole of Life.  Ancient man understood that much of the animal world matched the cycles of the plant world, with most of the creatures familiar to us using Spring to impregnate each other, allowing for babies to be born during the plentiful time of the year, and to grow big, strong and fat in time for the hardships of Winter.

With those two cycles in mind, ancient man created allegories, seeking to not only understand the cycles, but to transmit that knowledge to the succeeding generations.  The Grain Miracle arose from the very ancient rituals associated with the planting of seed after the cold Winter.  For over ten thousand years, the arrival of Spring coincided with planting and with the awakening of the natural world.  Ancient humans understood that death precedes life in all things.  They understood that in Winter, the ground “dies” and is then “reborn” once the all-powerful Sun returns in its full glory.  What we call farming was rudimentary in the extreme, and therefore required supernatural help to ensure a good crop and bountiful harvest.  The Great Goddess, symbol of all that is reproductive, was asked to bless the fields before planting. 

According to Pamela Berger’s intensive research, this “blessing” formed into a ritual which humanity carried forward and continued over millennia, all the way up to our modern day.  On the arrival of Spring, (usually sometime in February), before the fields were plowed or furrowed, a figure of the Goddess was put on a cart, and driven around the field to be planted three times, all the while the people supplicated the Goddess with song and dance in order to bless the field, bless the grain to be planted, and bless the natural world to provide good air and rain and sunlight.  Women would bare their breasts as symbols of fecundity, and once completed, the ceremonies ended with revelry, for everyone was satisfied that a great crop of food was to come. In a time before our modern meteorological knowledge, before the use of fertilizers, pest control, etc., planting a field was a seriously risky endeavor.  Birds would eat the planted seed.  Animals such as shrews and deer would eat the young shoots.  Drought, flooding, or unexpected heat or frost would destroy an entire crop, leaving families to starve.  Most families grew their own food, and if unsuccessful, then entire regions could descend into mass-starvation.  The importance of a good harvest was paramount, and the blessing by the Mother Goddess was crucial to the process.

Sometime in the past five thousand years, the matriarchal, Mother Goddess worshipping tribes of what is now Europe were invaded by patriarchal hordes, bringing with them their male, all-powerful, sky deities.  As these male-oriented religions flourished, the Mother Goddess was reduced in scope and power, and transmuted into lesser goddesses, such as Artemis, Asherah, Hera, Cybele, etc.  It was after this societal change that the Grain Miracle stories began, seeking to maintain the respect and adoration of the goddess responsible for their crop’s successes.  The tale initially referred to the goddess, pursued by one of the powerful, invading male gods.  As mentioned above, she came across a farmer sowing his fields, and asked the farmer to tell her pursuers that she had passed by at the time of planting, whereupon the planted seed would miraculously sprout and grow to full height.  This would confuse the pursuers, leaving the goddess to escape.  This became one of the stories sung during the annual procession around the farmer’s fields and served as an allegorical reminder of the past Goddess worship.

The slow demotion of the Goddess continued apace after the christian church codified its dogma and beliefs.  They could not stand to see humans celebrating what they saw as “pagan” rituals and demons.  Their extreme patriarchy and hatred of anything related to female sexuality sought to completely subvert the natural world, the world where females are the source of life, where Mother Earth was seen as a womb, providing life to the planet.  Instead of a Great Mother birthing us all, they somehow managed to get everyone to believe that a male god, and a male Holy Spirit, birthed a male son.  The role of woman was so denigrated that the church, in its never-ending willful stupidity, decided that Jesus’ mom was a chaste virgin, and that she remained a chaste virgin her entire life. (the only ”good” woman is an a-sexual one, according to those deranged perverts they call priests.)  They willfully ignore the specific passages in the New Testament that detail how Mary had to “cleanse” herself after the birth of Jesus, something done by Jewish women to prepare their bodies for the next sexual occasion and possible next pregnancy.  The fear of women from seemingly powerful men is so pathetic and pointless.  It shows just how weak, spineless and corrupt they are.

It is in this mess that the Grain Miracle was transposed from minor pantheistic goddesses to the only female worth worshipping, according to the christian theologians, idiots all.  Instead of a goddess fleeing, the protagonist of the story was changed to one of many early female christian martyrs, eventually settling on Mary. Appending the Grain Miracle to the story of the Flight from Egypt was the only logical choice, and the tale was then dispersed that as they fled Egypt, the holy family asked a farmer to tell King Herod’s men that they had passed by when the seed was just planted, but of course, either Mary, or Jesus caused a miraculous growth, fooling King Herod and his men. 

Even through the repression of the Goddess, these rituals continued, for they spoke something deep and important to the people that work the fields and raise the food we all eat.  Throughout all the changes and thematic drift of the Grain Miracle stories, the simple truths persisted.  Life is cyclical.  The world is a womb, just like all women possess.  The female is the life provider, and the male is just along for the ride (pun intended).  Weak men fear the Female aspect of life.  It is a force too powerful for them to understand.  They seek to lift themselves up by subsuming women, as if that would somehow negate the awesome life-providing continuity which the blessing of childbirth brings and for which the female body was rightfully worshipped through most of human history.  It is through the effort of people like Pamela Berger that we manage to connect history, myth, folklore, and local tales, thereby allowing us modern humans to grasp the ideals and dreams of our ancestors.  For a fairly short book, this tome manages to explore an idea vast and deep within our collective mindtime.  It is highly recommended.

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/204036/goddess-obscured-by-pamela-c-berger/ )

Don S. Lemons Describes the Importance of Drawing in the Discovery of New Scientific Concepts

 

Drawing Physics: 2,600 Years of Discovery from Thales to Higgs – Don S. Lemons (2017)

 

            Small books are joyful books!  While I adore an imposingly thick reference work, dense and packed with information, I find great joy in the relatively small, concise, and engrossing books such as Drawing Physics, by Don S. Lemons.  The trick to these books is that they must be hyper-specific, or else the thread is lost and the writer loses focus.  Don S. Lemons cleverly designed this book to move forward, not only chronologically, but in the levels of scientific complexity.  The overarching idea explores the invaluable use of drawn imagery by scientists to either describe a previously unknown property of our universe, or to create a visual symbol of the scientific experiment or idea being described.  It is very clever, and builds upon itself, helping guide the reader through topics and ideas in the world of physics as they were developed and theorized, from antiquity to the modern day.

            If any book could claim to embody the old dictum, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” it is this one.  The simple drawings lead to very complex ideas.  Lemons succinctly describes each individual scientist’s life, and their educational and cultural backgrounds, providing a foundation for the amazing discoveries discussed in each chapter.  It is still eye-opening to understand how much our human ancestors managed to deduce and intuit, using just the observed details of the world around them.  We humans are a magnificent thinking creature.  Our ability to think is only rivaled by our ability to share our thoughts and conclusions.

            Whereas previously, humans only shared their knowledge orally, forcing students to memorize whole epic poems and philosophical treatises on nature, the advent of writing allowed humanity to pass on knowledge across time and distance.  The combination of drawn images and the written word?  It is likely the single greatest synthesis in human existence.  Much like the “thought experiments” used by scientists to imagine situations which are difficult to describe in words alone, the drawings in this book allow the reader to create a mental image, helping one understand the deeper meaning behind the formulas and theories described within.  Sometimes an image can provide an example of an inalienable truth of our universe, even though there are not yet words to describe the actual internal workings. 

            That is the beauty in art.  It provides communication between minds in an instant manner.  Even a simple doodle can express ideas so vast and complex that people could not understand them without the imagery.  Art also communicates across language barriers.  A beautiful painting or sculpture can be appreciated without language.  A diagram of a triangle, its angles, and the relationship between them, conveys knowledge across the centuries, much like Pythagoras and the theorem named after him.  Don S. Lemons has put together an amazing little book, valuable to anyone interested in the progress of scientific thought, and in the creative ways which scientists portray their discoveries.  I felt inspired and uplifted, in awe of the creativity and intellect of my fellow human beings.  Highly recommended.

(This book can be purchased here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535199/drawing-physics/ )

Wolfram Eilenberger Explores the Lives, Times, and Work of Four Great Philosophers

 

Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy - Wolfram Eilenberger, translated by Shaun Whiteside (2020)

 

            “Philosophy…is the talk on a cereal box.  Religion…is a smile on a dog.” – Edie Brickell and New Bohemians.

            The years between the Great War and World War II were a time of intense change for everyone, and nowhere was that change more evident than in the world of philosophy, specifically academic philosophy in Germany.  During those years, the four men listed in the title of this book achieved groundbreaking and deeply original work, publishing books that changed intellectual discourse and sought to dig into the core of what philosophy is, and how it makes any sense at all.  Like some sort of philosophical Great Attractor, these four men, and their lives and work, reached a critical mass of ideas and thoughtful inquiry in Germany between wars.

            Wolfram Eilenberger weaves an engrossing narrative out of the lives of these four philosophers.  He is masterful as he describes the early days of each man, their intellectual developments, and how they managed to elicit support, both financial and emotional, as they sought to grapple with ideas and thoughts so obscure, so esoteric, and so NEW, that they left little room for normal, human behaviors.  Each of these men sought to, in their own words and through their own original thought, not only understand the big questions in life, (Why do we exist?  What does it mean to “be?”) but also even more primal questions, such as “How are we able to discern truth?” and “How can we describe the infinite with our finite tools of language and words?”  These were heady times.

            Philosophers deal with pure thought.  Their lives are spent inside their heads, only occasionally popping up out of their studies and libraries to face other philosophers and engage in discourse about their ideas.  The life of the mind is a brutal and lonely one, especially if one is truly devoted to it.  These four philosophers and their lives shine a light on how difficult it truly is to not only achieve gainful employment as a philosopher, but to also have the time and resources needed for original, groundbreaking work.  If there is anything a philosopher despises it is a lack of originality, whether in their work or in another’s.

            One thing that struck me as I read about these four eminent thinkers, is that, no matter how orderly or precise their internal thoughts and writings present them to be, they are actually a hot mess of dysfunction, distraction, and human folly.  Several of these men sought to understand what the primal source of knowledge is, with some arguing for language, others arguing for the idea that the language represents.  In several instances, their ideological constructions come crashing down due to an aspect of life, seemingly not important to most 20^th century philosophers.  That one thing is Love.  Whether as young men or in middle age, once these philosophers discover true Love, real Love that is not tied to status, or money, or anything tangible, their lives are upended.  They did not account for the power of Love to rewrite one’s mind, to reconstitute what is important and not important, and to provide its own inherent satisfaction.  In many cases, it is enough just to be in Love.  Once this happens, their worldview begins to change.  For some, Love itself becomes the biggest mystery.

            I must heap some praise upon the translator of this work, Shaun Whiteside.  Having read many German books in their English translations, I can honestly say that Mr. Whiteside’s translation work is exquisite.  Ensuring that the information provided is correct is hard enough, but Mr. Whiteside also manages to convey the humor and wit found in German literature, which far too often is lost in the translation efforts to English.  I kind of wish he had translated Werner Herzog’s memoir.

            Either way, and I have stated this before on the Book Journey, most philosophy is a slog to read.  I find myself either agog at the obtuse mental gymnastics that much philosophical work consists of, or enraged by my inability to speak directly to the authors to point out the inconsistencies, errors, or plain delusions involved in their philosophical arguments.  Philosophy means “lover of wisdom.”  Sometimes, these philosophers act as if they were the one and only arbiters of truth and wisdom, excluding any other. They are always proved wrong.  No one has an irrefutable claim on what is Truth, Beauty, or Love, although nearly everyone who thinks themselves as smart or gifted will wish to assure you that they do in fact know what Truth, Beauty, and Love are. 

            I believe that studying philosophy is valuable, and can lead one’s mind into uncharted territories of thought.  I also believe that pure thought is just one aspect of human Truth.  Physical action also brings about Truth, Beauty, and Love, and does so without a single shred of philosophical thought, just pure human bodily experience.  Our Universe is one of constant motion and change, for, in a very real sense, we are all living within a giant, ongoing, nearly eternal (to our limited human timeframe) explosion.  To believe that, out of the myriad of possible consciousnesses arisen from within our Universe, one has reached a kernel of absolute Truth, is ego of the highest order.  Modern philosophers have a very tough road ahead, as they must contend with, and understand, all of the current scientific advancements before they can truly offer original thought.  Back in the old days, that would have meant reading 10-15 Greek classics, perhaps some Arabic masterworks, and some Latin works of literature.  Today, the world of thought is so vast, so splintered, that absolute Truth is a ridiculous concept, much less an actual possibility. 

Perhaps that is the brutality that confronted these four great minds, for not only was their world ending, with the imminent rise of totalitarian fascism in Europe and the terrors of WWII, but the very idea that the world is fully comprehensible purely by thought was soon to be deemed irrelevant and erroneous.  Physics soon showed how the vast microscopic structures of our Universe defy logic and human rationality.  Physics also showed how miniscule our initial ideas about our Universe were, for the Cosmos is far vaster than anyone ever dreamed it could be.  In fact, the Universe is so big that much of it is too far away for us to see, having expanded faster than light can travel.  It is facts like these, corroborated by evidence and bolstered by theory, that drive philosophers insane, for these truths are not reachable by the Mind alone.  I posit that the future of philosophy will no longer consist of individual minds, perusing the Universe and providing their ideas, but an amalgam of minds and thought, capable of including as much of the natural world as possible, and allowing for the differences in individuals.  If philosophy is a slow and steady path towards Truth, then it must include everyone and everything for it to be valid.  Let us hope humanity never runs out of lovers of wisdom.

(Thanks go to Dietmar Froehlich, Associate Dean, and Professor of Architecture with the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston for the great recommendation.)

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576741/time-of-the-magicians-by-wolfram-eilenberger-translated-by-shaun-whiteside/ )

Joan Halifax Elucidates the World of the Shaman for us Wanna-be's

 

Shaman: The Wounded Healer – Joan Halifax (1982)

 

            Sometimes the good books just keep coming!  Whether through synchronicity, plain coincidence, or just dumb luck, this amazing book found its way to my hands, and I am exceedingly glad it did.  Joan Halifax has managed that most-rare of feats, to write a slender volume packed with information and wisdom that is able to elucidate exactly what a shaman is, how they come to be, how their visions and experiences are seemingly universal, and how shamans themselves communicate about the experiences they endure for the betterment or benefit of the tribe around them.  It is eye-opening and quite a departure from the many other ethnographic and historical books I have read about shamanism and the role of the shaman in their respective cultures.

            In a very real and basic sense, the shaman is the one tasked with experiencing pain, death, and rebirth in order for them to understand and act upon the various otherworldly forces and powers that threaten, disrupt, or wrongly influence the tribespeople.  This is why this book is titled “the Wounded Healer.”  Only someone with the experience of death and rebirth can travel the worlds above and below ours.  Only they can talk to the spirits, travel through space and time, and come back to our mortal coil safely with their consciousness intact.

            Joan Halifax describes the various symbols which seem to be near-universal among shamans worldwide.  Some of them, such as the eagle, are emblematic of the shaman’s spirit rising to the world above.  Other symbols, such as the swan, or the water lily, serve as stand-ins for the shaman, for they not only inhabit, but thrive, in all three realms.  The Swan is just as comfortable flying in the heavens, walking around on land, and swimming on and in deep waters, just as the shaman is comfortable existing in our world, the underworld of demons and primal forces, and the aboveworld of the divine and beneficent spirits.  One universal symbol of shamanism is the World Tree, which serves as the Axis Mundi, or center of the world.  The roots of the World Tree reach down into the primordial lower world.  The trunk rises through our corporeal world, and the top of the World Tree reaches into the heavens.  It is this World Tree that shamans “climb” in their journeys and initiations.  The pictographs and artwork showing the World Tree are found everywhere humanity exists.

            One of the most profound statements in this book is a quote from an Iglulik Eskimo (Inuit) shaman told to the explorer Knud Rasmussen,

            “The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls.  All the creatures that we have to kill and eat, all those that we have to strike down and destroy to make clothes for ourselves, have souls, souls that do not perish with the body and which must therefore be (pacified) lest they should revenge themselves on us for taking away their bodies.”

            It is this truth that runs through all shamanistic activity.  If we have souls, then everything has souls, and because of that, everything has its own consciousness.  Shamans do not claim that a stone is as intelligent as a human, but they do claim that the stone has its inherent right to exist just as we do, and that it carries a form of consciousness which is far older than short-lived human creatures.  The same is true for everything we see around us, including mother Earth, and the Universe itself.

            Shamans know that the process of creation, the birth of the Universe and of Life, is always ongoing.  They also are aware that the process of destruction, of the end of things, is also constantly occurring.  They do not see Time as a linear, step-by-step process, like a recipe, or a list of Ikea furniture instructions.  Everything exists in the ever-present Now, and only our faulty human senses show the world to be past, present, and future.  This is how the energy of creation can be harnessed by the shamans, and how they lose the fear of inevitable destruction that we all experience as the fear of death.  It makes for a powerful, if lonely existence. 

Most shamans lead solitary lives, devoted to their calling, and do not interact much with the tribes they protect.  The wisdom and experience gained by their shamanistic initiations and study distance them from the everyday people they serve.  Many people fear the shaman and their powers, yet they are an invaluable and requisite part of human society.  Our modern world, with its emphasis on technology and scientific advancement, has turned its back on shamans, but even so, individual humans seek out and explore the shamanistic way.  Something in our nature is drawn to the unknown, to the rarely explored, and many of us are especially attracted to the inner life of the mind.  The shamans are still all around us, separating themselves from the day-to-day static noise we call human endeavor, exploring that which cannot be seen, and holding the forces of the universe at bay for the rest of us.

Fred Gettings Gives us Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

 

 The Occult in Art – Fred Gettings (1978)

            “Occultism is the study of the spiritual world which is hidden from ordinary vision.  The word itself is derived from the Latin occulta, ‘hidden things’, and implies that the visible world is not the only one of importance to man.”

            Thus begins the most enlightening and insightful book on the occult images and ideas hidden in classical art I have ever come across.  This Library I work for is a GOLD MINE!  Born in 1937, Fred Gettings wrote extensively on occult and symbological matters, publishing many works before his death in 2013.  This book deals specifically with artists who embedded hidden imagery or knowledge within their artwork, and how to best “read” these works to understand the occult information conveyed within.

            First, I must define the “Occult” and what it means in this context.  As stated in the quote above, occult knowledge just means hidden knowledge.  Too many people buy into the lie told by christian leaders that occult knowledge is inherently evil, or satanic.  This is how they scare the deluded idiots into not asking questions or making their own decisions.  For example, when telling very young children about procreation, the story of the stork is often used.  This story occults the true process of procreation (carnal fornication, male ejaculation inside the female, and the coming together of two zygotes to form a living cell, which then splits and splits, cells differentiating, until a baby is popped out the vaginal tube, ready to breathe the good air of this world), replacing it with an inert and inoffensive tale of a stork that delivers all new babies to their mothers.  Until the child grows up and is taught, or discovers, the actual truth of procreation that knowledge is willfully occulted.  The reality has been hidden from children for their own good, or so many parents used to think.  This is also how religious and political leaders think of the great unwashed masses of humans outside their castles, temples, and private mansions.

            Fred Gettings was exasperated with the state of art criticism and art history at the time of his writing this work.  He was adamant that to understand the art of the past, historians and critics must take into account the intended purposes and meanings portrayed in the art itself, many of which related to the occulted knowledge shared by mystery schools, secret religious orders, and others who seek to retain and disseminate these ancient ideas.  Gettings’ complaints about art critics and historians still ring true today.  Too many art critics analyze work from the past through a very modern lens, one that places importance on modern artistic ideals, instead of the ideals of the artists in question.

            For example, one may view a 300-year-old painting of the crucifixion, which, through modern eyes and ideas, can be analyzed structurally, compositionally, and emotionally.  It is a valid form of criticism, but it leaves out the most important part of the artwork, the theme and subject, as well as the artist’s personal connection to the image he or she created.  William Blake was a well-known mystic and weirdo, yet many of the modern analysis and critiques of his work ignore that most salient point.  Each of Blake’s artworks come from a place of deep wonder and exploration into the metaphysical and spiritual inner mind of man.  In order to share those ideas in a visual medium, new symbols and metaphors must be created.  These symbols and the compositional elements are what Fred Gettings masterfully describes.

            Occult knowledge has a deep human past.  Initially drawn from the ancient Mystery schools that kept the advanced knowledge of our world and universe secret and safe amongst chosen initiates and away from the ignorant and violent masses, this knowledge has reached our modern world, surviving the past two thousand years of omnipresent suppression by the Catholic Church.  Many of the early christians had deeply symbolic and mythical ideas about the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and the role of man in the cosmos.  It is man’s place in the world that many of the artists in this book analyze and explore.  Because of this, great insight is gained into the work of William Blake, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and other masters.  It is impressive how occult knowledge influenced the creation of abstract art, something modern critics fail to recognize, even as it stares them in the face.

            The main way to maintain occult knowledge and to share it with subsequent generations is through architecture.  It lasts much longer than written texts, or painted images.  The modern fraternal organization of Freemasonry is one of the descendants, at least in spirit, of the early secret societies.  During the first thousand years of organized christianity the builders of the churches designed and decorated them with many occult symbols and ideas.  If the wisdom is displayed in stone, it is available to any and all, even the illiterate and uneducated.  Including esoteric teachings and wisdom in images and architectural details ensured that only those “with eyes to see and ears to hear” understood the message, preserving the hidden knowledge from those that seek to destroy it, namely, the catholic church that styles itself as the supreme arbiter of what is real, important, christian, holy, etc. 

Fred Gettings is clear and concise in his explanations, and astute in his observations.  His attempt to share the hidden world of art serves to expand the mind, and open it up to new ways of seeing, of learning, and of understanding the artistic creations of our ancestors.  I look forward to digging up some more of Mr. Gettings insightful books, and sharing my thoughts about them with my readers.

Lawrence M. Krauss Shares How Far We Have Come, and How Much Further We Have To Go

 

The Known Unknowns: The Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos – Lawrence M. Krauss (2023)

 

            If I could define myself with just one word, it would be “reader.”  Everything in my life either stems from, or draws from, the many books I have read in my 49+ years on this planet Earth.  My biggest heroes, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Anton Wilson, Richard P. Feynman, etc., came into my life through the written page.  When I began RXTT’s Book Journey almost ten years ago, I dreamed of the possibility that book publishers and authors would appreciate my reviews and want to share their soon-to-be-released work with me.  Dreams do come true.

            The latest advance copy received by the RXTT household is physicist Lawrence M. Krauss’ forthcoming book, The Known Unknowns. (That is the UK title.  The book will be titled The Edge of Knowledge in the USA, probably because Donald Rumsfeld’s use of the phrase “known unknowns” became such a joke in ignorant America.)  After requesting it from Mr. Krauss himself, he contacted his publisher on my behalf and I was sent the book.  MIND BLOWN.

            The reason I read is to enlighten myself, both with new ideas and new information, for I am a curious mind.  Sometimes, the most useful and valuable books are not the ones with the most data, but instead the books with the best questions.  One such book, among many faves, is Richard Feynman’s The Character of Physical Law, a book full of ideas and questions which, it turns out, was also a guiding light for Lawrence M. Krauss.  Feynman’s spirit, willing to share ideas in a thoughtful manner, directly engaged with the toughest questions, and able to explain the most obtuse scientific thought in a manner where a layperson can grasp the fundamentals, is alive and well in Mr. Krauss.  We are all very fortunate.

            Krauss divides this book into five chapters, each one concerning itself with a specific topic where science has shed some light, but where there are still far more questions than answers.  Time, Space, Matter, Life, and Consciousness are the guideposts for Lawrence M. Krauss to not only sum up our current knowledge, but to also point out the vast gaps.  Our collective ignorance is the greatest impetus towards science, scientific discovery, and new knowledge.  The very worst of humanity arises when humans feel absolute certainty, whether political, religious, or social.  Not knowing is the greatest gift to an inquisitive mind.

            My biggest surprise as I devoured this book was its readability.  There are many amazing minds in the world of science, and physics specifically, but very few have the ability to provide us their thoughts and knowledge in such a fun and engrossing manner.  Some books, even great ones, can be a chore to read.  Lawrence M. Krauss has succeeded in creating a book that will enlighten young and old alike, while also opening up their minds to the myriad possibilities yet available for exploration and research.  This may be this book’s most valuable contribution, sparking the mind of some young students out there, and starting their paths toward new discoveries, new fields of research, and, hopefully, new questions.  Questions are truly important.  Anyone claiming to have all the answers is trying to rip you off, and should be treated accordingly.

            Each chapter begins with questions.  For example, the chapter titled Matter starts with these:

What is the World Made of?

How Many Forces are there? 

Is Anything Fundamental?

Is Quantum Mechanics True? 

Will Physics Have an End?

Will Matter End?

Krauss perfectly encapsulates our current state of knowledge in each chapter, sharing it with the reader through the specific details of past scientific achievement.  He then explores how we came to find that knowledge, use it, and seek to understand the underlying principles involved.  One of the best attributes of scientists is their humility in the face of new data.  It allows for self-correction, which is why the scientific method has been such a valuable tool for humanity.  Krauss details the baby steps taken in our human search for knowledge, steps often met with wildly erroneous interpretations, each of them critical points in our collective knowledge.

            Krauss brings his physics knowledge to bear on what is the most complex and mysterious part of our everyday world, the quantum realm.  He guides the reader through the many different steps us humans required to comprehend that the sub-atomic world even existed, and details plainly why it remains such a difficult science to explain.  Everything in our modern world is touched by subatomic processes, from the manufacture of medicine, to the Global Positioning Satellite System, to the various smart phones and gadgets we all take for granted.  None would work without our collective understanding of the processes involved in the quantum realm.  The irony remains that, even as we use quantum science to create new wonders, we still do not fully grasp exactly what processes allow for these modern marvels to function.  We are much like the ancient humans who used fire to bake clay, cook food, warm their home, and provide light, but had no clue as to what caused the fire to exist in the first place.  We now know that free oxygen atoms in our atmosphere combine with the carbon in wood, and that this reaction creates new compounds (Carbon dioxide, water vapor) and energy (light, heat).  It seems common sense to us now, but to a human living 500 years ago this would be utter nonsense.  They “knew” that fire was but one of the four basic constituents of everything that exists, along with Water, Earth, and Air.  For centuries, this basic explanation served its purpose, but it did not actually provide verifiable, repeatable truth.  Only the scientific method does that.

            I hope that this book receives a very wide readership, for it is as equally valuable to a young scientist as it is to a layperson interested in big ideas.  Our world bounces back and forth from close-minded totalitarian fundamentalism to wide-open progressive ideals.  It is very easy for a society to lose ground, to lose hard-earned knowledge and wisdom, because someone, or something, claims to know all the answers.  Beware of anyone telling you to stop asking questions.  RUN AWAY from anyone telling there are no new answers out there and we already know all we need to know.  They are Liars and con-artists and only seek to control you so they can line their pockets.  Find those among us who are kind, who seek new answers and new questions, who understand that, for all we know as humans, our knowledge is dwarfed by the vast amounts we do not know.  Lawrence M. Krauss has crafted an amazing book, one that not only tells us what we know and how, but informs us of what we have yet to find out.  I highly recommend it.

(This book can be purchased here: https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9781637588567 )