How interesting! I knew James was into some dark stuff because of the Demonology book, but I never realized he was in this deep.
And personally since I work in construction, I get where he's coming from on his Stonehenge theory. I swear some architects make things so confusing and difficult that you might as well be using black magic instead of a blueprint 🤣
I love the idea of blueprints being their own arcane language! Are you familiar with Robert Greene’s play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay? There’s a section where a magician tries to use black magic to ‘build a wall’ (!) around Britain so it can’t be invaded. I imagine the plans for that were equally baffling!
I'm quite fascinated with Merlin as a character, especially in his middle period, before he was sanitised in the Renaissance. A very enigmatic being who was uniquely bound between Heaven, Hell and Earth.
A long time ago I wrote about Merlin when I was working on female prophetesses of the English civil war. Merlin becomes associated with male-authored prophetic tracts because he’s actually quite feminine/androgynous and is thus a better conduit for prophecy. It’s sort of a quirk of misogyny that believing women are brainless means their prophecies are more likely to come from God than their own interfering intellect, so men have to feminise themselves to convince their audiences that they’re channelling true prophecy!
Now do the Pyramids at/of Giza! THEN I'll roll up my nerdy speculative sleeves! Is it possible (cue Ancient Aliens voice-over) that what we know as The Bible is simply a compilation of translations and iterations over time that ended up as the singular book 📖 of books 📚 that we know today which, as you know, never was made whole-cloth but pieced together over time, codified, and heavily vetted, before the printing press, so much so that Apocrypha is the word? That tangent aside, and not having studied intensely for this short essay exam, it's fascinating how the efforts to parallel the building of Stonehenge with Solomonic lore and steer away from Arthurian legend came from way back in history! Revisionist history I guess has always been around! The Roman baths (and the town of Bath) come to mind! Public baths as the panacea from everything from skin lesions, Legionnaire's disease, to dia- rhymes with panacea, making em a hot tub of vectors!
I dig the recent discoveries of just how much more MASSIVE was the complex of Stonehenge and what there is today is all that remains of the ancient (not aliens) past!
It's fascinating isn't it! The story of what did and did not make it into the bible has always intrigued me, there are so many bizarre stories that might have made it into the canon. It's such a shame Judith was cut, she is a cool ancient heroine... there's a 'Wisdom of Solomon' book which is sometimes included as an apocryphal extra in early modern bibles.
Back in my Cambridge days, they'd having showings of this, Woodstock and Song Remains the Same at the Regal/ABC the start of every academic year. It became a ritual.
Thanks for another intriguing post. The changing association of places and people throughout history is fascinating, particularly discovering the benefit brought by the alleged connection at the time.
Don't dismiss Tsoukalos though - look up "Centauri hairstyle" and consider what extraterrestrial knowledge he might have 😆.
The subject of your PhD thesis fascinates me. I dig deep into esoteric and occult history.
I reckon aliens are one aspect of the same phenomenon as fairies, angels, demons, ghouls, ghosts and any other spectral being. Different apparitions of the same experiences. I had visions since before I was six years old. I been took by strange beings and haunted by terrible entities since as long as I remember. Divine ecstasies, to horrific Abyss of woe. I also have magic and mystic abilities. They say it's all part of me being schizo, but I don't know. I think they're wrong. Either way, these things come as demons, angels, aliens, ghosts, and all sorts. I'm fifty-three now, and well used to it. Terrifying as a child and adolescent.
But I'm certain all these beings are various manifestations of the same sort of phenomenon/experience.
Popping in with another early modern theatre story!
In my graduate program, we performed (maybe for the first time in the U.S.) The Birth of Merlin by William Rowley, which is a play about a woman named Joan Go-to't who has sex with the Devil and then gives birth to a fully grown wizard Merlin.
Much chaos ensues after that - some dragons show up, a portentous comet, a war with Wales, and a 1v1 showdown between Merlin and his father. After defeating the Devil, Merlin tells Joan that he's magically constructed Stonehenge as a kinda-prison for her to live out the rest of her life in for 1- having premarital sex and 2- having that premarital sex with the Devil.
Our production cut that speech because we thought that was too much of a bummer! Joan is a good mom to Merlin and the script says she wasn't aware the guy she was sleeping with was the Devil himself. Justice for Joan!
Someone on the same masters course as me at Oxford wrote their thesis on early modern werewolves. Ferdinand thinks he's become a werewolf in Duchess of Malfi, of course.
Ah the Birth of Merlin! Such an acid trip, I love it. I've been writing a chapter for an upcoming book of essays on another Rowley play The Witch of Edmonton today. Very much one that leaves a modern reader itching to rewrite it so that a wronged woman can have her justice. I completely forgot that the last speech mentioned stonehenge. From what I remember, Birth of Merlin, is kind of a send up of Merlin tropes pushed to ridiculous extremes. The legend of Merlin being the 'boy without a father' is originally quite sombre - I think his mum is supposed to have been a nun - so poor Joan is a kind of ridiculously sexualised parody.
I loved this piece! So interesting -- also I'm super interested in the esoteric legends of Solomon that you mention. I love that passage in the Talmud that talks about all the different kinds of wisdom he mastered, like the language of animals, the language of demons, the sounds of trees, the wind, etc
Thanks so much Elie! It's a cool history and one that collides with Christianity in strange ways in the era of John Dee and other early modern magical experimenters. My whole thesis was about how magicians compared themselves with Solomon to try to avoid criticism of their occult work (and how playwrights challenged that idea!)
It always fascinates me how we frame the past through our present and this is a fun window into how our ancestors did that
I agree!
I thought he used small rocks and they grew over time.
How interesting! I knew James was into some dark stuff because of the Demonology book, but I never realized he was in this deep.
And personally since I work in construction, I get where he's coming from on his Stonehenge theory. I swear some architects make things so confusing and difficult that you might as well be using black magic instead of a blueprint 🤣
I love the idea of blueprints being their own arcane language! Are you familiar with Robert Greene’s play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay? There’s a section where a magician tries to use black magic to ‘build a wall’ (!) around Britain so it can’t be invaded. I imagine the plans for that were equally baffling!
Thanks for sharing this with us
I'm quite fascinated with Merlin as a character, especially in his middle period, before he was sanitised in the Renaissance. A very enigmatic being who was uniquely bound between Heaven, Hell and Earth.
A long time ago I wrote about Merlin when I was working on female prophetesses of the English civil war. Merlin becomes associated with male-authored prophetic tracts because he’s actually quite feminine/androgynous and is thus a better conduit for prophecy. It’s sort of a quirk of misogyny that believing women are brainless means their prophecies are more likely to come from God than their own interfering intellect, so men have to feminise themselves to convince their audiences that they’re channelling true prophecy!
Now do the Pyramids at/of Giza! THEN I'll roll up my nerdy speculative sleeves! Is it possible (cue Ancient Aliens voice-over) that what we know as The Bible is simply a compilation of translations and iterations over time that ended up as the singular book 📖 of books 📚 that we know today which, as you know, never was made whole-cloth but pieced together over time, codified, and heavily vetted, before the printing press, so much so that Apocrypha is the word? That tangent aside, and not having studied intensely for this short essay exam, it's fascinating how the efforts to parallel the building of Stonehenge with Solomonic lore and steer away from Arthurian legend came from way back in history! Revisionist history I guess has always been around! The Roman baths (and the town of Bath) come to mind! Public baths as the panacea from everything from skin lesions, Legionnaire's disease, to dia- rhymes with panacea, making em a hot tub of vectors!
I dig the recent discoveries of just how much more MASSIVE was the complex of Stonehenge and what there is today is all that remains of the ancient (not aliens) past!
It's fascinating isn't it! The story of what did and did not make it into the bible has always intrigued me, there are so many bizarre stories that might have made it into the canon. It's such a shame Judith was cut, she is a cool ancient heroine... there's a 'Wisdom of Solomon' book which is sometimes included as an apocryphal extra in early modern bibles.
I shall seek out this Wisdom of Solomon tome 📖 📜 then! 🙏 🕊 Oh and my mom's name is Judith! She IS a heroic force to be reckoned with!
Oh come on, we all know it was Atlanteans, not aliens!
Atlantaliens?
That's what they WANT you to think!
“ITS THE MARTIANS MAN! ITS THE DAMN MARTIANS! But NOOOO! People want to believe bizarre stuff like “magicians” did it…”
This song hits so much better when I imagine James singing it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg
Now I'm disappointed. I clicked through hoping for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw
Now you wouldn’t need to resort to occult magic to transport their Stonehenge! Always makes me laugh that clip
Ah, the little people of Stone'enge...
Back in my Cambridge days, they'd having showings of this, Woodstock and Song Remains the Same at the Regal/ABC the start of every academic year. It became a ritual.
Why did they build a stoneheeeeenge!!! (I so nearly linked to that in the article)
Thanks for another intriguing post. The changing association of places and people throughout history is fascinating, particularly discovering the benefit brought by the alleged connection at the time.
Don't dismiss Tsoukalos though - look up "Centauri hairstyle" and consider what extraterrestrial knowledge he might have 😆.
Well if his hair can defy the laws of physics like that i guess all bets are off! Thanks Tracy, I’m glad you enjoyed it
The subject of your PhD thesis fascinates me. I dig deep into esoteric and occult history.
I reckon aliens are one aspect of the same phenomenon as fairies, angels, demons, ghouls, ghosts and any other spectral being. Different apparitions of the same experiences. I had visions since before I was six years old. I been took by strange beings and haunted by terrible entities since as long as I remember. Divine ecstasies, to horrific Abyss of woe. I also have magic and mystic abilities. They say it's all part of me being schizo, but I don't know. I think they're wrong. Either way, these things come as demons, angels, aliens, ghosts, and all sorts. I'm fifty-three now, and well used to it. Terrifying as a child and adolescent.
But I'm certain all these beings are various manifestations of the same sort of phenomenon/experience.
It's interesting that the King and Jones didn't consider that Stone Henge was so much older than Solomon's Temple.
Yes I think their understanding of pre Roman Britain was extremely limited and the Bible seemed to be the most ancient account of history!
Calling Stonehenge "a primitive ancient British copy" is wild. And once and for all, you HAVE to watch Attack on Titan!!
Okay I’ll visit and we’ll watch
Yes yes yes it’s the first horror dystopia mystery series I watched and I need your thoughts
Noice
I wonder, with the dumbing down of humanity, when fanciful tales will be told of the origins of such marvels as modern bridges and skyscrapers.
Popping in with another early modern theatre story!
In my graduate program, we performed (maybe for the first time in the U.S.) The Birth of Merlin by William Rowley, which is a play about a woman named Joan Go-to't who has sex with the Devil and then gives birth to a fully grown wizard Merlin.
Much chaos ensues after that - some dragons show up, a portentous comet, a war with Wales, and a 1v1 showdown between Merlin and his father. After defeating the Devil, Merlin tells Joan that he's magically constructed Stonehenge as a kinda-prison for her to live out the rest of her life in for 1- having premarital sex and 2- having that premarital sex with the Devil.
Our production cut that speech because we thought that was too much of a bummer! Joan is a good mom to Merlin and the script says she wasn't aware the guy she was sleeping with was the Devil himself. Justice for Joan!
I hope your production kept Merlin's closing lines, though, Kailey:
"...a place that I will hollow for your rest,
Where no Night-hag shall walk, nor Ware-wolf tread,
Where Merlin's mother shall be sepulcher'd."
Nice to see Jacobean audiences already terrified of lycanthropes!
Someone on the same masters course as me at Oxford wrote their thesis on early modern werewolves. Ferdinand thinks he's become a werewolf in Duchess of Malfi, of course.
The Duchess of Malfi is a FANTASTIC play!
Ah the Birth of Merlin! Such an acid trip, I love it. I've been writing a chapter for an upcoming book of essays on another Rowley play The Witch of Edmonton today. Very much one that leaves a modern reader itching to rewrite it so that a wronged woman can have her justice. I completely forgot that the last speech mentioned stonehenge. From what I remember, Birth of Merlin, is kind of a send up of Merlin tropes pushed to ridiculous extremes. The legend of Merlin being the 'boy without a father' is originally quite sombre - I think his mum is supposed to have been a nun - so poor Joan is a kind of ridiculously sexualised parody.
Inigo Jones is such an iconic name
You don't meet many Inigos these days!
I loved this piece! So interesting -- also I'm super interested in the esoteric legends of Solomon that you mention. I love that passage in the Talmud that talks about all the different kinds of wisdom he mastered, like the language of animals, the language of demons, the sounds of trees, the wind, etc
Thanks so much Elie! It's a cool history and one that collides with Christianity in strange ways in the era of John Dee and other early modern magical experimenters. My whole thesis was about how magicians compared themselves with Solomon to try to avoid criticism of their occult work (and how playwrights challenged that idea!)