In recognition of St Valentine’s Day, I thought I had better write about demon sex in the Middle Ages. And Church theologians thought this actually happened, where demons could appear to a woman and have sex with her, making her pregnant. The character Merlin from Medieval Arthurian legend, was born from a woman and […]
Incubus and Succubus Read More »
In the 6th century, a wandering monk from Ireland known as St Gall settled down at a monastery in Switzerland. The Medieval account of his life written about three hundred years later tells much of the saint’s holiness, which brought him the ability to do miracles (like – order a bear to put a log
The Ogham Alphabet Read More »
Is this the face of the Slavic pagan Goddess Mokosh? If so, it would be one of the only remaining images of the powerful fertility deity whose influence eroded with the arrival of Christianity among the Kievan or Kyivan Rus in the 10th century. Much about this period is unknown, but the Kievan/Kyivan Rus
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This is the childhood face of one of the most famous Ukrainians in history, the pro-Zionist, pro-labor, and former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir. Born Golda Mabovitch in 1898 to a carpenter father in the city of Kyiv, which was then part of the Russian Empire, Golda’s Jewish ancestry put her in company
Let’s talk about apotheoses in domes in art, shall we? This term comes from Ancient Greek and means “to make into a God.” Some heroes of Classical myths ended up ascending into the heavens to be with the other Olympians, such as Hercules. In Ancient Rome, emperors beloved by the Senate could be given the
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This strange building, rendered by contemporary artist Yasen Stoilov, is the moveable homestead of the legendary Baba Yaga of Slavic origin. Her stories probably go back much farther in time than our written sources permit us to see, so scholars have argued about the meaning of her tales. Baba Yaga appears as an old
This is a late 12th-century illustration of “the Witch of Endor,” a prophetess from the Bible who could raise the spirits of the dead and talk to them. Artists have enjoyed illustrating her almost as much as religious people have enjoyed debating about her powers. In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament First Book of Samuel
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Moses Maimonides is not only fun to say (alliteration!), but also the name of one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. Born around 1135 in Spain, Maimonides was influenced by the great mix of religious cultures that made the Medieval Iberian peninsula unique. And this brings me to one of his most
Moses Maimonides, Medieval Mind Read More »
In the late 1400s, Japanese Zen monks brought a particular style of splashed-ink painting to its acme. Here, you see a scene that looks like an embankment with trees, a fence, and a building: or is it just a random oddly arranged page of smudges? The Zen monk who painted this, Josui Sōen, was a
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This is a statue in the Smithsonian Museum’s Freer Gallery of the Buddha Vairochana: a.k.a. The Cosmic Buddha. It really is a fantastic piece, with the artful designs on the Buddha’s clothing depicting various “Realms of Existence” — different planes that made up the cosmos of the Mahayana Buddhist universe. Created in the
My favorite time period in Japan (and there are many) is the Muromachi era, when a militarized aristocracy ruled in a de-centralized state. The shōgun were just coming on the scene, and they had aspersions of refinement but lacked the intellectual legacy of the ruling class they had usurped. Into this world entered Zen Buddhism,
Rinzai and Zen Buddhism Read More »
This is a statue in the Smithsonian Museum’s Freer Gallery of the Buddha Vairochana: a.k.a. The Cosmic Buddha. It really is a fantastic piece, with the artful designs on the Buddha’s clothing depicting various “Realms of Existence” — different planes that made up the cosmos of the Mahayana Buddhist universe. Created in the
After the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the literature that had flourished went into abeyance. For instance, the entire genre of playwriting just went out of existence. It was finally a tenth-century woman named Roswitha of Gandersheim who revived this art. Her plays today read charmingly clunky, like fourth-grade presentations. As with much about
“Dulcitius” and the Revival of Playwriting Read More »
VIKING HOARD ALERT! Not, like, the immanent threat of hoards of Vikings coming to invade, but the other sort of hoard — as in, the stashed treasures from Viking-age Scandinavia and Britain, buried for safekeeping but never reclaimed by their owners. Hundreds of such hoards have been discovered in modern times, many by amateur treasure-seekers
Scottish Viking Hoard Read More »
The United States has a complicated relationship with Christianity. On the one hand, the First Amendment to the US Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. On the other hand, the country’s past includes a litany of deeply religious people who frequently have
The Apostle to Millionaires Read More »
This advertisement appeared in _Life_ magazine July 1952. Put out by Conrad Hilton, famous hotel millionaire and ardent anti-Communist, Hilton was one of many Americans who supported a sense of nationalism that entwined Christian religion with patriotism at altogether new levels. In the twentieth century, the drive to portray America as a Christian nation was
How Corporate America Created Christian America Read More »
Here’s a humongous Hellmouth harvesting hardened humans! This 15th-century depiction of tortured souls was a common artistic motif and gets at the real fear that permiated Medieval society about what one’s place in the afterlife would be. Notably missing from the damned, here, were children. And yet, folks did worry. The general view was that
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See the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sign on this tombstone from 1819? It really is, and this isn’t like the History Channel’s claims that aliens built the pyramids. But Spock, rather, borrowed from an actual human custom originating in Jewish tradition. Leonard Nimoy’s hand signal is half of a sacred gesture made by the
The Jewish Origins of the Vulcan Greeting Read More »
Ah, the poor doomed philosopher Giordano Bruno. Whereas Galileo had been allowed to live after recanting his astronomical views that ran counter to Roman Catholic teachings, Bruno — himself a Dominican friar — was executed by the Church in 1600. His death and his willingness to buck the Catholic Church’s stranglehold on acceptable views about
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This surrealist painting by Mariusz Lewandowski, called “demiurgos unmoved mover” shows a haloed figure standing outside of a frame which contains a scene of a vast sky and water tumbling over the lip of the picture — maybe the figure is just watching the image, or maybe they are actually tipping it. Either way, the
