Bibliofinds

I acquired a series of books last week that have had me mesmerized. It was Lynn Thorndike's History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947-1953), covering in six volumes the interaction between magic (from shamanism through the various western machinations of alchemy and astrology) and early science (as expressed most profoundly in the writings of Aristotle) between the first and 16th centuries.

Page one of the first volume begins with the heading: A history of magic and experimental science and their relation to the christian thought during the first thirteen centuries of our era. And opens with a quote from Hegel, "magic has existed among all peoples and at every period." Its opening paragraph explains the nature of the work:

This book aims to treat the history of magic and experimental science and their relations to Christian thought during the first thirteen centuries of our era, with especial emphasis upon the twelfth and thirteenth centuries....Magic is here understood in the broadest sense of the word, as including all occult arts and sciences, superstitions, and folk-lore...My idea is that magic and experimental science have been connected in their development; that magicians were perhaps the first to experiment; and that the history of both magic and experimental science can be better understood by studying them together.

And he continues...

Magic is very old, and it will perhaps be well in this introductory chapter to present it to the reader, if not in its infancy--for its origins are much disputed and perhaps antecede all record and escape all observation - at least some centuries before its Roman and medieval days. Sir J. G. Frazer, in a passage of The Golden Bough...remarks that "sorcerers are found in every savage tribe known to us; and among the lowest savages...they are the only professional class that exists."

The wording is somewhat antiquated, but the point is that magic historically tends to predate religion.

Lenormant affirmed in his Chaldean Magic and Sorcery that "all magic rests upon a system of religious belief," but recent sociologists and anthropologists have inclined to regard magic as older than a belief in gods. At any rate some of the most primitive features of historical religions seem to have originated from magic.

Thorndike's hermeneutic study is vast in scope and deep in detail. Volume II introduces the early scholastics Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, and the Jewish thinker Maimonides.

It was not surprising that Albert and Aquinas should cite Maimonides, for he did for Jewish thought what they attempted for Christian, namely, the reconciliation of Aristotle and the Bible, philosophy and written revelation...he tried to discover in the Old Testament and Talmud all the Aristotelian philosophy, and was convinced that the prophets of old had recieved further revelations of a philosophical character, which had been transmitted orally for a time but then lost during the periods of Jewish wandering and persecution.

Volume III & IV finish out the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while V & VI are devoted to the culmination of experimental science in the sixteenth century. Chapter XLII of volume VI begins with a quote from Hallam:

The ancient philosophers, and especially Aristotle, were, with all their errors and defects, far more genuine high-priests of nature than any modern of the sixteenth century.

Thorndike's metahistory deserves some special attention, especially since it is so unfamous. It is a melting of many metals into a strong alloy, a filtering of esoteric thought through a screen of reason and method. It is a masterful work from one of the great historicists of the twentieth centry.

Triskaidekaphobia

Or Paraskavedekatriaphobia, if you dare.


Happy Friday-the-13th, a Triskannual first here at Esoterica Obscura. I hope to stimulate your metaphysical appetite, and make you want to dine with the very man who started this 700 year-old Fri-13th cottage industry, Jacques De Molay, once Grand Master to an obscure kind of warrior monk of the middle ages. De Molay is blamed for wedding the young lovers, Friday and 13. Not much is

known of Jacques DeMolay's childhood, except that he was born in the year 1244 in an area called Vitrey, Department of Haute Saone, France. but what is known is that in 1265 at the age of twenty-one, he joined the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were an organization sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1128 to guard the road between Jerusalem and Acre, an important port city on the Mediterranean Sea. The Order of Knights Templar participated in the Crusades and earned a name for valor and heroism.

The Templars, who I really don't want to elaborate on presently, were a band of medieval knights who defended pilgrims on their journey to and from the holy land. Much has been published on their supposed connections to the holy grail, and their foreshadowing of late medieval groups like the Scottish Rite and or course the Masons. While there is some truth to these ties, the actual history is relatively obscured by the enormous amount of conjecture being peddled like nickel t-shirts at the corner market...so engage the filters when researching this stuff.

But, we do know that on Friday October 13, 1307, an order was put out by the Pope via the King of France to seize and capture the individuals and assets of the Knights Templar. On that day Molay was arrested in Paris. Reportedly, while being burned at the stake Molay cursed: Pope Clement, Chevalier Guillaume de Nogaret, King Philippe, before a year, I am ordering you to appear before the tribunal of God. Cursed you will all be! Cursed until the 13th generation!'

But the story doesn't stop there. Legend has it that during the days of the French Revolution, nearly 500 years after de Molay's death, an anonymous man from the crowd jumped onto the guillotine just as Louis XVI had been decapitated, dipped his hand in the king's blood, and cried: 'Jacques de Molay, tu es vengé!' (you are avenged).

Western culture has since developed a complex mythology surrounding Friday-13th, that much is certain.

So what of the day itself? Friday is an Anglo-Saxon word derived from the Goddess Frigg (the word in Old English is frigedæg). Frigg was the Germanic Goddess of beauty, and as the Anglo-Saxons were of Germanic origin so kept the mythology of the tribes out of which they originated. Another example of this use of Germanic pantheistic figures in days-of-the-week is the god Woden, who presides over the middle of the week, namely Wednesday.

The number 13 has historically been associated with the feminine, though I'm not entirely sure why. It is considered unlucky in part because of Judas being the 13th guest at the last supper. I would assume that the taboo has a much longer history than is seen through Christianity, regardless it remains obvious Christianity played a large role in popularizing the darkness and enigma that now surrounds, like a Grecian death mask, this number.

13 is our alter-ego, our pandering tiptoe over the darkness of life. 13 takes from us our banishing, and most of the time keeps them well entertained. But we chuck our baggage into that dark corner knowing full well that every now and again we'll be reminded of it, like every Friday the 13th, and that's why this is an auspicious day; we don't let ourselves face the shadow often enough. So, in celebration of facing the grist and ripping it with your canines like the jerky it is, I offer you a contextually perfect poem, composed by the illustrious RR.

earth. worms. contexts.

what is that?

over there beyond that obstacle, beyond that obtrusion?
where is it at specifically in relation to the present location?
how could i measure that,
taking also a measure of the context of it?
"i know that beneath that is something solidified."
"i think that defines its own category;"
"do you think that?" that said.

ultimateification: "when hegel missteps to avoid nietzsche tripping."

that thirteenth day in the sequence of days.
on that day the certain earth,
understood, and occurred tersely,
intensified by taciturnacity, and
perspicacity. i could have said it happened rapidly;
unslowly,
as morning broke breadge, like a bread which doubled as a bridge,
quite quickly like the quivering hummingbird wing, in a wedge.
like cutting warm mayonnaise with a long slice of frozen butter-
the set of sub variables in a category, with an edge.
(one can not ultimateificate and not speak of quivering wings, nor pledge:)
like a black cat or a hedgehog in the morning on the ledge.

a cup of coffee on a table. a white plate with warm toast not on a table.

four billion years and thirteen days ago: a vista of stark simplicity,
the faintest image blasts its way across the vast vista:
a tumble weed the size of a speck of sand seen from the moon,
with binoculars,
like nocturnal wading birds on the edge of a dark sea:
the faintest image of a white plate of warm toast on the black canvas of
the night sky.
there is a white cloud in that sky making the perfect likeness
of drifting steam from warm toast on a white plate.

the view of earth from a place by a thing not capable of conceiving of a place like
earth.

a thing sees, because it can see,
though not beyond that obtrusion,
because it is an obstacle.
though in relation to the obstacle, on a certain day,
it may use the obstacle to bend light
and see things beyond the obtrusion,
relate said thing to its present location.
it is so far away, but it is constant.
sometimes it glows green.
"what is the color green, that it should glow in such a state?",
i thought on it's behalf.
"alkd twe skeiroqw[ tyopaeqiunse" it said.

a cloudy day in context.

it could have been beneath a big montana sky,
or any other sky just as large
in any other place.
and,
it could have been on any day where not a cloud in the sky was seen.
on just such a day,
an earthworm made its way nonchalantly through a good patch of soil,
and sort of had an epiphany.
encouraged, the worm wended its way through the rich loam...
and composed a poem.
at the end of the poem,
there was a new category for poems, defined by the worm's understanding.

true blue

true blew true-blue to who knew true blew true to.
true-blue flew true to who flew true to true-blue.
who flew to true blue?
who blew true blue?
who knew true blue?

ultimate realifying is a pot roast in the oven.
a riddle tinctured in a clue. the rind of a watermelon latent in a seed.
a coriolous storm. today it is the subtraction from context,
of earth and the worm thirteen strands woven
to a game a glass and a beade.

copyright 2007 rrz

Enjoy, and don't let the ghouls get you down.