has anyone read this book?
James Jordan · 07 Sep 2003, 20:27
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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) has anyone read this book?
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2003 15:27:53 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0309-4066 at digest.urth.net>
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At 08:20 PM 9/6/2003, you wrote:
>http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/pubs/books/saturn/
>
>All this site shows is the table of contents and a synopsis but I'd bet=20
>dollars GW has read it. Anyone know anything about it? My reading list=20
>is hopelessly backed up.
It's post-Velikhovskian hyper-Velikhovskian stuff. Astral=20
catastrophism. All kinds of material explicable on other grounds is put=20
together to argue that the planets were moving all around the solar system=20
in the ancient world. I know the book from some studies a few years ago. It=20
was pretty obscure then. I seriously doubt GW knows of it or would care.
GW, now, IS open to historical revisionism. He likes Barry Fell's=20
books about the Phoenician, etc., visits/explorations of the Western=20
continents (the Americas). He's interested in other chronological and=20
cultural revisionism of the ancient world history, which after all (despite=20
one article after another that parrots the same thing), is in fact all that=20
certain. There are, for instance, good arguments for shifting the date of=20
the fall of Troy to about 800 BC, thus revitalizing the story of Aeneas's=20
founding of proto-Rome. (See *Centuries of Darkness* by James).
But I seriously doubt if GW is interested in astral catastrophism.
While I'm at it, I think it would be well to remember when rooting=20
around for sources for GW's stuff, that his main source is the Bible and=20
Church history. I don't doubt that he has drawn motifs from Graves, and=20
maybe from Santillana, but the Bible contains a lot of the same motifs and=20
symbolism, and in the form Wolfe sees as foundational and authoritative.=20
Wolfe need go no farther than the Bible to see four-faced cherubim as=20
guardians of doors, or to find four great empire-ruling monsters arising=20
from the sea (Daniel chapter 7).
I'm not denying other sources. But I recall when I asked GW about=20
Briah and Yesod, and asked about the rest of the Qabbala worlds, that he=20
replied that he had just grabbed those two words out and used them for his=20
own narrative. I'm not sure his use of Quetzl(acoatl) is any more than just=20
the use of the name and a couple of common associations (serpentgod from=20
elsewhere), for his own purposes. I don't know for sure, but I wonder if=20
reading up on Aztec/Mayan myths in detail is going to illuminate what GW=20
actually intended.
This is just a caution about assuming too much, and/or ranging too=20
far in seeking for sources for things in the books.
FWIW.
Nutria
--=20
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