Daily Archives: April 30, 2024

Top Tens – Miscellany: Top 10 Youtube (Special Mention) (12) Tominus Maximus

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Youtube channel banner as at 30 April 2024

 

(12) TOMINUS MAXIMUS (2008)

 

 

“Dedicated to Ancient Rome, 753 BC – AD 476”

 

Yes – it’s yet another Roman history Youtube channel, one that is similar to my favorite Roman history channel Dovahhatty in humorous tone but not quite as comprehensive.

 

In fairness, few Roman history Youtube channels are as comprehensive as Dovahhatty, who after all did his Unbiased History of Rome from its founding and fall (and beyond to Byzantium).

 

Also in fairness, Tominus has a flair at looking at overlooked but intriguing aspects of Roman history such as why the empire had to fall or why the Praetorians were such degenerates – or the burning question of who was gayer, ancient Romans or Greeks (made more memorable by the Roman’s distress – in the form of the soundbite of Darth Vader’s “NOOO!” – at having his catamite booted by his wife once Christianity came into play).

 

I’d rank him higher if he had more videos as the more substantial videos he does have are top notch – but sadly he seems somewhat semi-dormant lately, albeit not as dormant as Dovahhatty.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (Special Mention) (12) Sciomancy

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A moonlight shadow by W.Carter on a jetty at Holma Boat Club by Gullmarn fjord, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden – public domain image Wikipedia article “Shadow”

 

(12) SCIOMANCY

 

“And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you”

Literally a divination from or of shadows, although Wikipedia’s list of methods of divination also includes it as divination by spirits, presumably along the lines of the usage of shades for spirits or ghosts in the underworld, a meaning in use even today although it originates from usage in classical Greece and Rome.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn’t elaborate on either in terms of method of divination, linking sciomancy to an article on theurgy. I’d like to imagine it involving oracles as some form of literal shadow play or shadows cast on a wall, perhaps even originating from the shadows cast from the flickering fires of prehistory.

One might even argue that Plato saw all but philosophers like himself as metaphorical sciomancers, as the reality of our perception effectively consists of shadows cast from the true metaphysical reality of ideal Forms.

Or in other words, the world of our perception is smoke and mirrors – although that seems an awesome combination with sciomancy as a method of divination or school of magic of shadows, smoke and mirrors, which would obviously lean heavily into illusion and perception. Throw in echoes as well and now we’re cooking.

Or for that matter combining sciomancy with the abacomancy of the previous entry – or with the necromancy of the more metaphorical use of shades or shadows. Or of darkness in general. Or all of the above.

Interestingly, Dungeons and Dragons has effectively featured sciomancy as part of its prestige or specialist classes of character, albeit typically as an arcane or magic enhancement of its rogue class.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (Special Mention) (12) Ghosts & Ghost Lore

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The bedsheet ghost – that common visual representation of ghosts in Western popular culture. And what better illustration for one than a Scooby Doo villain – Phantom from “Hassle in the Castle”, Season 1 episode 3 “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?”

 

(12) GHOSTS & GHOST LORE

 

Boo!

Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology. I aways recall Pascal Boyer in his Religion Explained proposing the origin of such beliefs (and in part religion itself) to the persistence of dead people in our dreams. In which case I am haunted by the ghosts of people who are still alive – not to mention haunting the world as a ghost in turn.

Although there are many more rational explanations for ghosts and haunts, essentially most involving brain states or phenomena conducive to ghost-like hallucinations – once again including toxic and hallucinogenic plants or substances, some of which associated with necromancy and the underworld. Ah yes, hallucinogenic plants – is there nothing they can’t do?

And yes – ghost lore is the term used by Wikipedia for ghost foklore, albeit perhaps more in its modern context.
“Ghostlore is still widespread and popular… It might be expected that a rational age of science would destroy belief in the ability of the dead to return. I think it works the other way: in an age of scientific miracles anything seems possible”

Although I’ve always wondered that ghosts seem remarkably narrow-minded, apparently moping around where they died or other familiar haunts, when they are literally without any corporeal limitation, and could be anywhere or do anything. I’d at least want to haunt the space station for a bit. Not that it stops me, like most other people, being fascinated by ghosts and ghost stories.

Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.

I mean – how do objects have ghosts, or be ghosts? For that matter, how do ghosts have clothing or any other objects? Shouldn’t all ghosts be naked? Although that starts to get towards spectrophilia. And yes – that is an actual thing, an attraction to or arousal by ghosts. Hello, White Ladies and Ladies in Red…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention) (12) Jonathan Kirsch – A History of the End of the World

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(12) JONATHAN KIRSCH – A HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD

 

Jonathan Kirsch is the author of some of my favorite studies of the Bible. Not of the whole Bible, mind you – for one thing, he tends towards a Jewish focus on the Old Testament (with one notable exception), and for another, he has a particular focus on points of interest there as well.

The Harlot by the Side of the Road was his first such book and its subtitle says it all – Forbidden Tales of the Bible. As does the usual expression of shock he quotes in his introduction – do you mean THAT’S in the Bible?!

“The stories you are about to read are some of the most violent and sexually explicit in all of Western literature. They are tales of human passion in all of its infinite variety: adultery, seduction, incest, rape, mutilation, assassination, torture, sacrifice, and murder”

We’re talking Lot and his daughters in Genesis, then echoed by the Levite and his concubine in Judges, only worse. Much like Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis is echoed, only worse, as Jephthah actually sacrificing his daughter in Judges. Which pretty much sums up those two bloody books of the Bible, which would do Quentin Tarantino or Game of Thrones proud.

Indeed, most of the book is from either Genesis or Judges. There is a couple of exceptions, including the one where God tries to kill Moses, until Moses’ quick-thinking wife Zipporah does a spontaneous circumcision of their infant son and smears Moses’ forehead with the bloody foreskin. Which is just odd, akin to of those weird variants of vampire that can be held at bay by some bizarre obsessive-compulsive ritual.

Which perhaps brings us to his book on Moses, although I just don’t find Moses as intriguing a character as the subject of his similar book on King David. After all, Exodus and its related books might easily have been summed up with the subtitle Are We There Yet?

I do like how he compares God and Moses to a constantly bickering old married couple. I mean, I’m only paraphrasing slightly with this exchange:

GOD: “I have had it with these Israelites! I’ll kill all of them and start over with you and your descendants!”
MOSES: “And what would the Egyptians say? That you saved the Israelites from slavery only to kill them in the desert?”
GOD: “Hmmm. Okay – I’ll just kill some of them.”

I’ve always imagined one Israelite turning to another as the God in a box starts yelling again from the Ark of the Covenant – “I preferred the calf”.

As I said, I prefer King David to Moses, because despite the former’s many flaws – and David could be a monumental ass at times – he’s just such a charming rogue, so much so that even God was charmed by him as God’s golden boy. Or at least, he charmed the original author of the Bible – I particularly like the theory Kirsch references that the nucleus of the Bible started as a court biography of David, to which preceding events were added almost as a legendary Hebrew Dreamtime.

However, my absolute favorite Kirsch book remains his study of the Book of Apocalypse or Revelations, not coincidentally my absolute favorite book of the Bible, in A History of the End of the World (and that one notable exception to his focus on the Old Testament I noted at the outset).

Again, the subtitle of the book sums it up – How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Civilization. Or for that matter, the scholarly quip he quotes in his introduction – “Revelations either finds a man mad, or leaves him so”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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