The Unexpected Cosmology

The Last Magician | Sir Isaac Newton and the Quest for Immortality - THE SCENE was Sotheby’s Auction House in London. It was just after luncheon on July 13, 1936. The clock struck one. Bidding began. If appetites were not yet assuaged by the food and drink presently settling in their bellies, it is simply because the item before them was a truly remarkable find. From the bidding […]

Do We Look Upon History as History Looks Upon Us? - THOUGH IT is true that there is much we do not know of the past, the same can be said of the ancients—there is much they did not know of themselves. While the Macedonian king advanced towards ancient Babylon, he couldn’t have possibly comprehended that time as we know it today was in reverse; that […]

Alexander & the City of Immortals | #4 Pharaoh, Avatar of Egypt, and His Household of Ascended Masters - THE AGE OF HELLENISM INEVITABLY BROUGHT the cult of Demeter at Eleusis to international fame. The Eleusinian mysteries were so well-financed and world renowned that other religions explicitly rebranded themselves through the efforts of her initiates. This is of course the overarching narrative of Hellenism. Hellenism conquered practically every belief system of the old world. […]

Alexander & the City of Immortals | #3 Alexandria, Spiritual Bread and Butter of the World - ROME WAS LITTLE MORE THAN A VILLAGE when Philip II of Macedonia went to war with the Persians. The year was 336 BC. In turn, Darius III had the king of Macedonia assassinated. He would come to regret that decision. At just twenty years of age, his son began the most remarkable military career in […]

Alexander & the City of Immortals | #2 The Soul Lives On in the Fields of Eleusis -  “The living are ruled by the dead” — Elysian Neophyte   SHE WAS MINDING HER OWN BUSINESS, PICKING FLOWERS on a spring day, when the young Persephone was brutally raped and abducted by a god. When she didn’t return home, her mother went looking for her. She too was a goddess. As she broadened the […]

Alexander & the City of Immortals - Visions of Homer, the Blind Bard of Ionia   HIS OWN precious copy of Homer was safely locked in a golden casket, which he furthermore clutched between his fingers, when Alexander the Great stood along the Egyptian shore. Alexander had in mind a grand city which would bear his name; a Greek metropolis; a philosophical […]

“The Contagious Superstition” | #4 Are Christians Stupid? Celsus Thought So (and Even While Defending Them, Origen Agreed) - NOT A SINGLE COPY OF CELSUS’ BOOK SURVIVES. This is due to the astonishing fact that Christian emperor Valentinian III, tag-teaming with Archbishop Theodosius, ordered in 448, and successfully saw to it, that every copy of The True Doctrine was destroyed. Then again, such aspirations were not unheard of. In fact many books were destroyed […]

“The Contagious Superstition” | #3 When Origen of Alexandria Rocked the Cradle of Christianity - THE DAWN OF YET ANOTHER CENTURY WAS ALREADY AFOOT, and what better way to celebrate it than with a high tide of persecutions against the superstitious faith? The year was 202 when Emperor Severus’ orders found their way to the doorstep of Origen’s childhood home. The young Origen (184-253) insisted on accompanying his father, Leonides, […]

“The Contagious Superstition” | #2 Celsus, Orator of Rome, and the True Doctrine - MORE BAD NEWS FOR CHRISTIANS EVERYWHERE—the year was 175 or perhaps 180, when along came a man, and his name was Celsus. Christianity’s first noted intellectual tormenter had likely been raised in a Jewish home, possibly even Christian. He had been on the inside. He had listened in to dinner table conversations. He speculated on […]

“The Contagious Superstition” | #1 Second Century Christian Atheists and Pliny the Younger’s Cure-All - AMONG THE MANY DECORATIVE ACCUSATIONS heaved upon the infant Christian faith, one particular claim was presented, rather early on, which can be deemed as true. Christians refused to worship the gods. As early as 111 AD, Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia along the Black Sea, wrote Emperor Trajan a letter. He accused Christians of […]