Old Blood
by John Reece
Birch Island Books
reviewed by Peter M. Fitzpatrick
"A rock protects a root, a root feeds a tree and a tree reprocesses our carbon dioxide. Isn't it obvious that a rock is part of the life force?"
Police in five different cities around the world are finding dead bodies hacked to death by sword blades smacked across their neck. What is even stranger, they are found lying in a pile of large feathers. While detectives in London, Paris, and Chicago start to pool their resources, battles between supernatural-like beings begin to take place. It becomes more apparent to the investigators that some "secret society" using feathers as a symbol has either ecological activism or political activism against the rulers in Iran as a motive. Who is this secret society? Is it the CIA or the MI5? Exiled Iranian activists or agents of the Iranian government? Who are the perpetrators and who are the victims? And why are all these dead bodies missing any kind of mutation in their DNA?
The author winds all these loose ends together in a tightly constructed plot that draws on ancient history, genetic bloodlines, and the possibility of "angelic" beings who have co-existed with us since the beginning of time. In the meantime, he explores modern phenomena like neo-paganism and goddess worship, drawing parallels to the ancient Neolithic cultures that flourished from around 10,000 BC to 2000 BC. This era was so marked by advances in human culture, from the beginning of agriculture to the building of great monuments like the Pyramids, some believe that aliens must have intervened. Reece artfully asks the question if these "aliens" might not have been the "angels" of our myths and religions. And in page-turning action, he shows how the "fallen" variety could be hell-bent on regaining control of Earth. This is an intelligent and nuanced thriller that will open up your mind while it starts your adrenaline flowing.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Page 268: What you humans commonly call a demon
"Noncanonical" is a great word that I didn't really know until a few years ago.
It first popped up for me in conjunction with the "gnostic gospel" mini-craze of a few years ago. The idea of gospels that had been expurgated from the bible was a difficult one to get my head around. Even in a religious context, there is a real tension between the concept of the "word of God" and the humans that have translated, edited, and canonized "the word" over the past couple of thousand years. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett poke fun at the controversy at the end of Good Omens. In Good Omens, the Metatron (the angelic voice of God) claims to speak the word of God but, because God's word is ineffable, even the Metatron himself can't be entirely sure he has it right. If the Metatron has that problem, think about being one of King James' translators!
Outside of the context of a religion, the issue is even more explosive. To a skeptic, does the existence of noncanonical sources undermine or even contradict the basic teachings of established religion itself? It's like a bigger, uglier version of the Climategate emails.
It was that exact flashpoint of controversy that Dan Brown touched upon with The Da Vinci Code. While ancient symbols are fun, the parts of the book that really make you tingle are the ones that suggest the western world may have misread its own history. The book Holy Blood, Holy Grail from which Brown got the idea for Da Vinci essentially suggests that our understanding of the gospel stories is based on a translational error and a two thousand year cover-up of convenience by male, very human, and effable religious leaders who wanted to write Mary Magdalene out of the Bible for their own reasons.
Luckily, Old Blood doesn't wade into those waters. However, angels and demons do come up. Angels and demons are all over writings from virtually every culture in the ancient world. And while they are given only bit parts in the modern Bible (usually as messengers), to people 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, they were much more important. In the Books of Enoch or the Book of Jubilees they have a starring role. They are also all over other parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The gnostic gospels are relative newbies compared to the ancient, noncanonical Jewish books mentioned above. So many ancient fragments of the Book of Jubilees exist even today that it is clear that it was a very important text in the millennium before the Christian era began. Likewise, the Book of Enoch is effectively quoted throughout the early books of the Bible -- usually stripped of its angel and/or demonology. In Joseph Lumpkin's analysis of the Books of Enoch, he lays the texts of Enoch up against our Genesis. The results are astounding -- it's as if someone just went through and erased most of the bits where the angels were the focus. They'd been edited out. Other elements of the Dead Sea Scrolls mix angels together with humans quite liberally as well. Having avoided the canonical cut, we get to see their role more clearly in the old texts.
To the ancients, angels and demons were everyday companions. While the modern canon has written them largely out of the story, the old texts reveal that they were in there originally. That may explain why they continue to exist so prevalently in our language. Once you start listening for the number of times angels are invoked, mentioned, or imagined you won't believe how often they come up. Billy is an "angel" while little Tommy is a "little devil". Angels and devils dance on your shoulders when you make a decision. Our "better angels" guide our hands while our "inner demons" drag us down. It's pervasive. Once you start listening, you feel like the kid who could see dead people: angels and demons are everywhere.
While the editors of the canon wanted to leave them on the cutting room floor, our vestigial memories (as reflected by our language and literature) keep the angels and demons in a starring role. The real question is why? Why are angels and demons so important to us? Of course, ahem, our modern reasoning tells us that it is their power as metaphors. But what if there's another, noncanonical, reason?
It first popped up for me in conjunction with the "gnostic gospel" mini-craze of a few years ago. The idea of gospels that had been expurgated from the bible was a difficult one to get my head around. Even in a religious context, there is a real tension between the concept of the "word of God" and the humans that have translated, edited, and canonized "the word" over the past couple of thousand years. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett poke fun at the controversy at the end of Good Omens. In Good Omens, the Metatron (the angelic voice of God) claims to speak the word of God but, because God's word is ineffable, even the Metatron himself can't be entirely sure he has it right. If the Metatron has that problem, think about being one of King James' translators!
Outside of the context of a religion, the issue is even more explosive. To a skeptic, does the existence of noncanonical sources undermine or even contradict the basic teachings of established religion itself? It's like a bigger, uglier version of the Climategate emails.
It was that exact flashpoint of controversy that Dan Brown touched upon with The Da Vinci Code. While ancient symbols are fun, the parts of the book that really make you tingle are the ones that suggest the western world may have misread its own history. The book Holy Blood, Holy Grail from which Brown got the idea for Da Vinci essentially suggests that our understanding of the gospel stories is based on a translational error and a two thousand year cover-up of convenience by male, very human, and effable religious leaders who wanted to write Mary Magdalene out of the Bible for their own reasons.
Luckily, Old Blood doesn't wade into those waters. However, angels and demons do come up. Angels and demons are all over writings from virtually every culture in the ancient world. And while they are given only bit parts in the modern Bible (usually as messengers), to people 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, they were much more important. In the Books of Enoch or the Book of Jubilees they have a starring role. They are also all over other parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The gnostic gospels are relative newbies compared to the ancient, noncanonical Jewish books mentioned above. So many ancient fragments of the Book of Jubilees exist even today that it is clear that it was a very important text in the millennium before the Christian era began. Likewise, the Book of Enoch is effectively quoted throughout the early books of the Bible -- usually stripped of its angel and/or demonology. In Joseph Lumpkin's analysis of the Books of Enoch, he lays the texts of Enoch up against our Genesis. The results are astounding -- it's as if someone just went through and erased most of the bits where the angels were the focus. They'd been edited out. Other elements of the Dead Sea Scrolls mix angels together with humans quite liberally as well. Having avoided the canonical cut, we get to see their role more clearly in the old texts.
To the ancients, angels and demons were everyday companions. While the modern canon has written them largely out of the story, the old texts reveal that they were in there originally. That may explain why they continue to exist so prevalently in our language. Once you start listening for the number of times angels are invoked, mentioned, or imagined you won't believe how often they come up. Billy is an "angel" while little Tommy is a "little devil". Angels and devils dance on your shoulders when you make a decision. Our "better angels" guide our hands while our "inner demons" drag us down. It's pervasive. Once you start listening, you feel like the kid who could see dead people: angels and demons are everywhere.
While the editors of the canon wanted to leave them on the cutting room floor, our vestigial memories (as reflected by our language and literature) keep the angels and demons in a starring role. The real question is why? Why are angels and demons so important to us? Of course, ahem, our modern reasoning tells us that it is their power as metaphors. But what if there's another, noncanonical, reason?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Page 138: The Balaclava Ball
The famous Charge of the Light Brigade occurred on the 25th of October, 1854 during the battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. In it, a British brigade of light cavalry charged suicidally across the "valley of death" into the mouth of Russian cannons. Of the more than 600 horsemen who went into the charge, 278 became casualties.
The Charge has become both a touchstone for more romantic times ("gallantry and dash") and a symbol of the futility of much warfare (the Charge achieved nothing in a war that itself achieved nothing). Indeed, the Charge of the Light Brigade is well-known, but its context (or even what it was) is practically lost. In its way, it has become a fossil disconnected from its own time. Some know it as a poem (Tennyson), or a piece of music (the score from the 1936 film is well known), or a sign of futility, but few know it as a feature of the Crimean War.
About 60 years ago, the descendants of the five cavalry regiments that took part in the charge held a fancy dress party to celebrate the Charge and the memories of those that fell. It was held at what is now known as the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel and was called the "Balaclava Ball".
For those in the know, her attendance at the ball is an early clue that not all is as it may seem with Rashiel.
The Charge has become both a touchstone for more romantic times ("gallantry and dash") and a symbol of the futility of much warfare (the Charge achieved nothing in a war that itself achieved nothing). Indeed, the Charge of the Light Brigade is well-known, but its context (or even what it was) is practically lost. In its way, it has become a fossil disconnected from its own time. Some know it as a poem (Tennyson), or a piece of music (the score from the 1936 film is well known), or a sign of futility, but few know it as a feature of the Crimean War.
About 60 years ago, the descendants of the five cavalry regiments that took part in the charge held a fancy dress party to celebrate the Charge and the memories of those that fell. It was held at what is now known as the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel and was called the "Balaclava Ball".
For those in the know, her attendance at the ball is an early clue that not all is as it may seem with Rashiel.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Page 119: Property Reallocation for America's Future
If the legal basis I used in Old Blood for governmental seizure of private property seems a bit far-fetched, check out the spotted history of eminent domain, the process by which the government seizes the land of people in its way. Eminent domain, like the Patriotic Property Reapportionment Act in Old Blood, makes use of the provision in the Fifth Amendment that the government can take whatever it wants as long as it provides "just compensation'.
The Wall Street Journal has reported on a number of egregious examples, here is one:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/04/eminent-domain-week-continues-on-new-ulm-and-wind-space/
The Wall Street Journal has reported on a number of egregious examples, here is one:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/04/eminent-domain-week-continues-on-new-ulm-and-wind-space/
Friday, December 11, 2009
Page 49: The Blitz
I'm fascinated by fossils.
By fossils, I don't just mean coelacanths in limestone or ancient flies in amber (though they are great).
I also mean cultural fossils. These include rituals that we continue to go through without any memory of their original meaning. For example, have you knocked on wood today? You were saying 'hi' to the tree faeries.
They also include words or phrases that have been left embedded in our language, their original meaning left to rot away over time. The English language, for example, holds a huge number of seafaring fossils. Have you ever said 'there'll be the devil to pay'? Did you think you were referring to giving cash to a little red devil with horns? You weren't. The original phase is 'there'll be the devil to pay and no pitch hot.' The devil is the all-important seam where the deck and sides of a wooden ship come together. To 'pay' is the nautical word for caulking. Caulking, in the time of wooden ships, was done with tar (ever heard a sailor called a 'tar'? There you go). Tar is also known as pitch. So, having the devil to pay and no pitch hot means that you have a leak in your ship and nothing to plug it with. It is probably my favorite 'word fossil'.
A third kind of cultural fossil is a place or building with a meaning lost in time. Stonehenge is an obvious example, but there are a lot of others, from the profound to the mundane. Our grandchildren might wonder what all those little blocky, windowless buildings are that are scattered around. Some old geezer like me will remember that they were once 'telephone exchange' buildings where operators physically hooked up wires in order to complete phone calls. "That's weird," my grandchild will say, unable to imagine a time when phones even had wires. But I digress.
My favorite place, London, is marked by many cultural fossils embedded by the blitz. Do people wonder why a newish (usually ugly) building in London sits next to a gorgeous old one? More often than not, the original building wasn't torn down, but rather blown up. This link, protected by copyright, is a map of part of London that shows how bomb damage happened. Take a look:
http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/schools/jubilee/walk1/bombingmap.htm
It's amazing. One group of buildings (the black-colored ones in the circle) completely destroyed while the buildings across the street were untouched. By blind, stupid luck one building survived and another was blown away.
Hanover Square is an example. Here is a picture of what I had in my head as I wrote about an insufferable woman inside an insufferably horrible building.
By fossils, I don't just mean coelacanths in limestone or ancient flies in amber (though they are great).
I also mean cultural fossils. These include rituals that we continue to go through without any memory of their original meaning. For example, have you knocked on wood today? You were saying 'hi' to the tree faeries.
They also include words or phrases that have been left embedded in our language, their original meaning left to rot away over time. The English language, for example, holds a huge number of seafaring fossils. Have you ever said 'there'll be the devil to pay'? Did you think you were referring to giving cash to a little red devil with horns? You weren't. The original phase is 'there'll be the devil to pay and no pitch hot.' The devil is the all-important seam where the deck and sides of a wooden ship come together. To 'pay' is the nautical word for caulking. Caulking, in the time of wooden ships, was done with tar (ever heard a sailor called a 'tar'? There you go). Tar is also known as pitch. So, having the devil to pay and no pitch hot means that you have a leak in your ship and nothing to plug it with. It is probably my favorite 'word fossil'.
A third kind of cultural fossil is a place or building with a meaning lost in time. Stonehenge is an obvious example, but there are a lot of others, from the profound to the mundane. Our grandchildren might wonder what all those little blocky, windowless buildings are that are scattered around. Some old geezer like me will remember that they were once 'telephone exchange' buildings where operators physically hooked up wires in order to complete phone calls. "That's weird," my grandchild will say, unable to imagine a time when phones even had wires. But I digress.
My favorite place, London, is marked by many cultural fossils embedded by the blitz. Do people wonder why a newish (usually ugly) building in London sits next to a gorgeous old one? More often than not, the original building wasn't torn down, but rather blown up. This link, protected by copyright, is a map of part of London that shows how bomb damage happened. Take a look:
http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/schools/jubilee/walk1/bombingmap.htm
It's amazing. One group of buildings (the black-colored ones in the circle) completely destroyed while the buildings across the street were untouched. By blind, stupid luck one building survived and another was blown away.
Hanover Square is an example. Here is a picture of what I had in my head as I wrote about an insufferable woman inside an insufferably horrible building.
Do you see that awful white thing rising from the street like a tumor? "Like a blackened tooth in an otherwise perfect smile"? That's a blitz fossil, a mostly forgotten memory of war.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Page 62: Bird Worshipping Cults of Cornwall
Cornwall is situated in the extreme southwestern corner of England and forms a peninsula that separates the English Channel from the Celtic Sea.
The ancient history of England and Wales is marked by the migration of several tribes following the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. The original inhabitants of Cornwall migrated from Bretagne in France and came to be known as Britons. Celts made their way over from Gaul and mixed with the Britons. After the Romans came and went, a wave of immigrant invaders from Europe were invited or forced their way in, including the Germanic Angles and Saxons (of Anglo-Saxon fame).
The cultural and ethnic diversity of England was reflected in a patchwork of kingdoms. These included Northumbria, Mercia, several Anglias, East Saxons (""Essex"), West Saxons ("Wessex"), South Saxons ("Sussex") and the Britons out in Cornwall and Wales. These kingdoms were able to stay largely independent until waves of Danish/Viking invaders started to arrive, forcing consolidation and/or destruction of the independent kingdoms.
The champion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms turned out to be the West Saxons, or Wessex. Alfred the Great won a series of battles just before 900 AD that solidified Wessex as a kingdom and set the stage for English unification under his progeny.
The West Saxons were the closest to Cornwall, and it has long been assumed that the Britons of Cornwall joined up with the Saxons of Wessex to fight off the Vikings and stayed loyal ever since. However, nobody seems to be able to find the documents to show that the two areas officially united. As a result, there is a bit of an independence movement going on in Cornwall.
From a religious standpoint, Cornwall is the oldest part of England and its cultural heritage is from the oldest inhabitants of the island. Not surprisingly, its religious history is an amazing mix of influences. Old Blood talks about the Cornish Saints and the Sacred Wells, but there is a lot more. Pre-Christian Cornwall worshipped multiple gods and deities and was very naturalistic in its outlook. Christianity arrived fitfully via missionaries from Wales and Ireland starting near 500 AD. Cornwall being somewhat off the beaten path, the Catholic Church did not impose its dogma uniformly, and therefore the ancient religions and Christianity mixed to local tastes. Missionaries built churches, churches begat "church towns" and each one was a little center of beliefs, typically organized around a "Cornish Saint". Churches tended to be founded by points of natural resources, so the deities that guarded wells, bridges, and other important places slotted in neatly along with the highly local Christian bureaucracy. In that way, cultural "fossils" are to be found in Cornwall along with true fossils.
Speaking of fossils, the Cornwall bird cults are as described in Old Blood. Local Cornish people would dig a small pit and place in it the remains of a bird along with other artifacts. It is believed that the pits were ritually dug for the purpose of enhancing fertility. The witchcraft and imagery of the pits is clearly pre-Christian, but is attached to the Christian St. Bride. In that way, it is "classic" Cornish religion -- a tidy mix of old and new religious influences designed to keep all the gods happy.
Here is an article on the archaeology:
http://www.archaeologyonline.org/Site%20-%20Area%20Feather%20Pits.html
And here is one that provides more information on the witchcraft element:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/images/witchcraft1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://islesproject.com/2008/03/12/1640s-the-saveock-water-pits-and-an-ecology-of-magic/&usg=__rUPa5oq1Z-PvWw5xgJPywESV7bw=&h=493&w=300&sz=162&hl=en&start=11&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=erMZeym7rVPmIM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=79&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsaveock,%2Bcornwall,%2Bengland%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
The ancient history of England and Wales is marked by the migration of several tribes following the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. The original inhabitants of Cornwall migrated from Bretagne in France and came to be known as Britons. Celts made their way over from Gaul and mixed with the Britons. After the Romans came and went, a wave of immigrant invaders from Europe were invited or forced their way in, including the Germanic Angles and Saxons (of Anglo-Saxon fame).
The cultural and ethnic diversity of England was reflected in a patchwork of kingdoms. These included Northumbria, Mercia, several Anglias, East Saxons (""Essex"), West Saxons ("Wessex"), South Saxons ("Sussex") and the Britons out in Cornwall and Wales. These kingdoms were able to stay largely independent until waves of Danish/Viking invaders started to arrive, forcing consolidation and/or destruction of the independent kingdoms.
The champion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms turned out to be the West Saxons, or Wessex. Alfred the Great won a series of battles just before 900 AD that solidified Wessex as a kingdom and set the stage for English unification under his progeny.
The West Saxons were the closest to Cornwall, and it has long been assumed that the Britons of Cornwall joined up with the Saxons of Wessex to fight off the Vikings and stayed loyal ever since. However, nobody seems to be able to find the documents to show that the two areas officially united. As a result, there is a bit of an independence movement going on in Cornwall.
From a religious standpoint, Cornwall is the oldest part of England and its cultural heritage is from the oldest inhabitants of the island. Not surprisingly, its religious history is an amazing mix of influences. Old Blood talks about the Cornish Saints and the Sacred Wells, but there is a lot more. Pre-Christian Cornwall worshipped multiple gods and deities and was very naturalistic in its outlook. Christianity arrived fitfully via missionaries from Wales and Ireland starting near 500 AD. Cornwall being somewhat off the beaten path, the Catholic Church did not impose its dogma uniformly, and therefore the ancient religions and Christianity mixed to local tastes. Missionaries built churches, churches begat "church towns" and each one was a little center of beliefs, typically organized around a "Cornish Saint". Churches tended to be founded by points of natural resources, so the deities that guarded wells, bridges, and other important places slotted in neatly along with the highly local Christian bureaucracy. In that way, cultural "fossils" are to be found in Cornwall along with true fossils.
Speaking of fossils, the Cornwall bird cults are as described in Old Blood. Local Cornish people would dig a small pit and place in it the remains of a bird along with other artifacts. It is believed that the pits were ritually dug for the purpose of enhancing fertility. The witchcraft and imagery of the pits is clearly pre-Christian, but is attached to the Christian St. Bride. In that way, it is "classic" Cornish religion -- a tidy mix of old and new religious influences designed to keep all the gods happy.
Here is an article on the archaeology:
http://www.archaeologyonline.org/Site%20-%20Area%20Feather%20Pits.html
And here is one that provides more information on the witchcraft element:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/images/witchcraft1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://islesproject.com/2008/03/12/1640s-the-saveock-water-pits-and-an-ecology-of-magic/&usg=__rUPa5oq1Z-PvWw5xgJPywESV7bw=&h=493&w=300&sz=162&hl=en&start=11&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=erMZeym7rVPmIM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=79&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsaveock,%2Bcornwall,%2Bengland%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
Friday, December 4, 2009
Page 223: They attack loyal Persian allies all over the world
This article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal discusses the Iranian regime's efforts to disrupt opposition from the Iranian diaspora. Iranian security forces inside Iran are arresting relatives of exiled dissidents in order to stop them criticizing the regime of Twitter and Facebook. It seems amazing that the secret police would be monitoring Twitter and Facebook in order to find more people to persecute, but it appears to be happening.
Here's the article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125978649644673331.html
Sometimes truth is at least as strange as fiction!
The facts in Old Blood regarding Iranian agents attempting to penetrate exile groups directly come from articles such as this one, which documents a Swedish situation:
An annual report recently published by the Swedish security service (Sapo) mentions the expulsion of a spy who had been working as an embassy advisor in Sweden, thus uncovering a part of the Iranian regime intelligence services plots against Iranian dissidents and refugees residing in Sweden. The report refers to gathering of information and identifying regime opponents, impeding opposition activities through threats and bribes, spreading misinformation, propaganda, and conducting a demonizing campaign against the opposition, working to diminish trust toward regime opponents, infiltrating their ranks, and coercing refugees into cooperation with the regime’s intelligence services by making threats about imprisoning and torturing their family members still living inside Iran.
And Sweden is hardly the top concentration if the Iranian diaspora...
The whole article is here:
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25622-europe-iran-spies
Here's the article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125978649644673331.html
Sometimes truth is at least as strange as fiction!
The facts in Old Blood regarding Iranian agents attempting to penetrate exile groups directly come from articles such as this one, which documents a Swedish situation:
An annual report recently published by the Swedish security service (Sapo) mentions the expulsion of a spy who had been working as an embassy advisor in Sweden, thus uncovering a part of the Iranian regime intelligence services plots against Iranian dissidents and refugees residing in Sweden. The report refers to gathering of information and identifying regime opponents, impeding opposition activities through threats and bribes, spreading misinformation, propaganda, and conducting a demonizing campaign against the opposition, working to diminish trust toward regime opponents, infiltrating their ranks, and coercing refugees into cooperation with the regime’s intelligence services by making threats about imprisoning and torturing their family members still living inside Iran.
And Sweden is hardly the top concentration if the Iranian diaspora...
The whole article is here:
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25622-europe-iran-spies
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