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Now, having finished this, an amusing read, pop-psychology-new-age-jibber-jabber, the Bible contemporized, "Secret Esoteric Teachings" done in the Vernacular; "The Secret", which, of course, is no secret at all, it has been written about for thousands of years - change yourself, change your thinking, and you will change the world...
The entertaining part of this is the authors' "Mental Imagery", or provided "Psycho-Pictographs", stories that he tells, contemporary, that illuminate or illustrate his point.
Now I'm somewhat struck by the fact that he's simply recycling and updating the Bible, the Psalms and Gospels actually illustrate the same points, only they are in need of some contemporizing; few people can nowadays relate to the imagery of a shepherd and their flock.
But an introduction to more obtuse authors along the same theme, for example Richard Maurice Bucke, author of "Cosmic Consciousness", others who I will have to look up later, a curious read, and as I've the idea already, the plot, the theme from a hundred, thousand other authors I'll soon have to find the time to apply all of these abundant teachings...
Now, herein lies a problem, that most of what I'm reading in one way or the other reinforces my thinking, and I'm in need of something that rather challenges it...
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Started in on Stanley "Out of Darkest Africa", a heavy, thick Volume that is largely concerned with the various English Military campaigns in the Soudan and the Belgian Campaigns in the Congo.
Imperialism at it's finest. But not a book I can carry around, and so I set it aside in favor of this other book I picked up in Creston, which is proving surprisingly good reading and parallels a lot of other "New Thought" or "New Age" books I've come across...
Plus the cover is a hoot:
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Lost Continents - The Atlantis Theme in History, Science and Literature
Now this was an enjoyable read, in which the author, formidably well read with hundreds if not thousands sources, discusses the intent of Platos' Atlantis, and then gives a rundown of all the expeditions that sought to place it on a map, why it can't be placed on a map, arguing not just from history but from geology, geography, literature and myth.
I mean, he's right, but this is an imaginary place used by Plato to advance his theory of a golden age fallen into decline, but - for an imaginary place it's had an outsized influence on history.
Named in the book are Blavtsky, Manly P Hall, Edgary Cayce, Percy Fawcett, Bulwer Lytton, - amongst countless others, and the argued precursors to Atlantis Mu, Lemuria, Mt Shasta, - Atlantis - for an imaginary place - has a large citizenry and distinguished geological history, which de Camp dryly - and drolly - narrates and explains. This is important, because Atlantis, as a place that exists solely in the unfettered human imagination, is one of the hotbeds of "New Thought", and it becomes an atlas, as it were, of all that new aged flapdoodle and balderdash that people care to deposit there.
A few of the more interesting things and people I came across:
- The Glozel Artifacts
- Hanns Horbiger's Welteislehre theory
- James Churchward's Mu
- Jean-Frédéric Waldeck (Artist, Explorer, Pornographer...)
- Guy Warren Ballard
- Ignatius T.T. Donnelly
- Ziusrudra
- Edgar Lucien Larkin
- R. Swinburne Clymer
- W. Scott Elliot
- Pierre Benoit - "Each of Benoit's novels consist of exactly 227 pages and have the heroine's name begin with the letter "A""
- 'Count' Byron Khun de Prorok
I could go on. The entire book should be a Wikipedia article, with every named character and place a hyperlink that leads you down another rabbit hole, and de Camp drolly sums up the essential flavour of the characters and places and underlying ideas.
Five Stars.
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I was familiar with this, but never read.
And, so, reading, a curious book that quotes Eddington & H. G. Wells, the premise of which is that time is an illusion created by our focusing our waking attention too narrowly at a "spot" in our existence; and that as we move our attention forward the illusion of time is created. He argues that while sleeping our focus is lessened, and so what we experience as dreams are as much a view of the future - if we would recollect them - as they are of the past.
Some curious ideas within, and - a hundred years later, many of his ideas find their echo in contemporary physics. Some interesting thoughts to assimilate and consider.
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I hate to admit, but the good Marquis is a man after my own heart. Condescending, supercilious, yet he has a way with words. The translator, Coward, is clearly a fan - and - to be sure, the Marquis's reputation is built largely upon a few sexual peccadillos when it should rather be built upon his philosophy.
That is to say, much, if not all he did was a rebellion against the "Virtues" Church and State imposed upon it's involuntary members, yet rarely practiced themselves.
His irony and contempt of the mores expected of him merely reflect the hypocrisies recommended the populace by it's leaders.
So, in a sense, still very relevant today. His primary relevance lies in speaking truth to power.
And he does so in so very droll a fashion, the descriptions, for example, by Justine of her rape, told by the victim as if it were the sole intent to inspire and titillate the reader.
He was not unaware.
Anyways, a good deal more intelligence than you'd suspect, given his reputation, and - very much like Celine and Henry Miller he was very much out to provoke his audience. And he succeeded.