I thought I would talk a little bit about the difference between alternative historians and real scholarship today, and also plug my new book. (Hey, at least I'm honest about it.) When Erich von Däniken wrote about the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts in 2000, in his book The Odyssey of the Gods, he based his theories entirely on what was most convenient for him to use. In this case, he cited a centuries-old German translation of the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes. When Element Books translated Odyssey of the Gods into English, they decided to translate the German translation, which, as in the game of "Telephone," resulted in a great deal of nonsense.
Of course, this translation issue wasn't Däniken's fault. What was his fault, however, was his decision to accept Apollonius' poem, written in the third century BCE, as the "official" version of the Greek myth, without understanding or considering the broader context--that Apollonius' Argonautica was one of three ancient poems of that name (the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus and that of Orpheus being the other two) as well as three extant ancient prose versions (of Diodorus Siculus, Apollodorus, and Hyginus), one major ode (Pindar's Pythian 4), and numerous allusions, references, and other discussions--none of which agree on the details. Apollonius understood this, too, since he tried to pull together divergent traditions by cramming as many of them as possible into his poem, reworking some to make the pieces fit. Blindly accepting as definitive one ancient text--which was neither the oldest (Pindar's) nor the youngest (the Orphic Argonautica)--underscores the poverty of research and the shallowness of thinking in so many ancient astronaut claims. Just because the modern word "astronaut" was inspired by the Greek Argonauts hardly qualifies Apollonius' self-consciously literary poem as a testament of the alien gods. So, of course, here is where I put in a plug for my translation of the Orphic Argonautica, which includes a full introduction explaining the many traditions about the Argonauts, explanatory notes to place the poem in its Greek poetic and religious context, and translations of other versions of the myth from late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
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I recently wrote an article about the Scholomance, the devil's school located in the wilds of Transylvania where the Devil claims every tenth scholar as his due. This actual folk legend was featured in Bram Stoker's Dracula as the vampire's own alma mater. In my article, I related the Scholomance to ancient Dacian religious teachings.
Now, I've come across a fascinating legend from the other end of Europe that says essentially the same thing. First, let's take a look at the legend as given in a standard book of Icelandic folklore. Then, I'll have a few thoughts about the relationships of Iceland's "Black School" to Transylvania's Scholomance. I came across a fascinating German folktale that has eerie echoes of the Necronomicon for any Lovecraft fan. The story tells of a book supposedly written by Doctor Faust, the scholar who sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge. The details are very similar to The Dunwich Horror, from the attempt to keep the book locked fast, to the way it can be used to summon a powerful entity from another dimension. Granted, Yog-Sothoth from beyond the spheres isn't exactly parallel to the Devil in the bowels of Hell, but the similarity is still fairly interesting.
I translate here directly from the German: Faust’s Book of Compelling Hell (Höllenzwang) In the church at Zellerfield, there lies secured by an iron chain the Book of Compelling Hell. It was written by Doctor Faust. Few are able to read it, and it is extremely dangerous to read. He who wishes to read it without losing his life must be able to read it forward and then backward. If you read it forward, then the Devil appears. If you read it backward, he vanishes again. If anyone reads the Book of Compelling Hell forward and cannot read it backward again, then the Devil will do the rest. Source: Hermann Harrys, Volkssagen, Märchen und Legenden Niedersachsens, vol. 2 (Celle: Verlag von E. H. C. Schulze, 1840), 20. I have just published the newest release from JasonColavito.com Books, my translation of the Orphic Argonautica, a late Antique retelling of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts that has been frequently used by alternative theorists to support fringe theories, including the reality of Noah's Flood and the idea that the ancient Greeks visited South America in the Bronze Age. This was made possible by the fact that the epic remained untranslated into English down to the present day. The only full English translation published prior to mine, by Siegfried Petrides in 2005, was extensively criticized for its poor English and the author's decision to re-order the verses to support his theory that the Argonauts visited South America around 2200 BCE. Now, this ancient poem is available in a fully-annotated English prose translation. Click to learn more!
Back in the summer, the History Channel's Ancient Aliens devoted an episode to hyping Cowboys & Aliens, a film about extraterrestrials invading the nineteenth-century American West from History's corporate cousin, Universal Studios. The cross-promotional opportunity proved less than fruitful, however, when Cowboys & Aliens flopped at the box office. Now we learn that Universal knew it was terrible and foisted it on the public anyway.
At the Savannah Film Festival, Universal's head Ron Meyer said: Cowboys & Aliens wasn’t good enough. Forget all the smart people involved in it, it wasn’t good enough... All those little creatures bouncing around were crappy. I think it was a mediocre movie, and we all did a mediocre job with it… Cowboys & Aliens didn’t deserve better. … We misfired. We were wrong. We did it badly, and I think we’re all guilty of it. I have to take first responsibility because I’m part of it, but we all did a mediocre job and we paid the price for it. It happens. They’re talented people. Certainly you couldn’t have more talented people involved in Cowboys & Aliens, but it took, you know, ten smart and talented people to come up with a mediocre movie. It just happens. The only lasting legacy of Cowboys & Aliens appears to be the episode of Ancient Aliens, now in perpetual rotation on the History Channel. The amount of cynicism involved in purposely promoting a "crappy" movie, subverting a documentary series to hype a "mediocre" product is disheartening. It seems we're going to have a bit of break from Ancient Aliens until November 16, but that doesn't mean that the ancient astronaut theorists have stopped spreading their lies. Nevertheless, I am shocked to find that Giorgio Tsoukalos and I actually agree on something for once!
After Tsoukalos recommended William Bramley's Gods of Eden (a truly awful ancient astronaut book), one of Tsoukalos' followers recommended that interested parties download an illegal PDF of the book. Tsoukalos took offense and wrote on Twitter: "...and the author will make his living how? He deserves nothing for his work?" When Twitter users took exception and compared downloading pirated copies to visiting a library, Tsoukalos offered a spirited defense of authorial rights and the necessity of an economic model that allows authors to make money from their labors. He even called illegal downloaders thieves. Tsoukalos and I obviously differ on the value of Bramley's Gods of Eden (at $7.99, it's far overpriced), but we agree that if authors can't earn money from their work, then the very concept of high-quality, professional writing with deep, detailed research is in jeopardy. Yesterday, Salon ran an interview with Robert Levine, the author of a new book about digital piracy. In the interview, Levine argued that digital technologies have contributed to the collapse of the culture industry, including publishing. Levine noted that Google relies on traditional media to provide the content its search engines index, but that Google makes that content available in a way that benefits Google, not necessarily the content producer.
This is an issue that has affected me in multiple ways, some good and some bad. On the positive side, Google's Book Search has made an enormous amount of previously-inaccessible content available. The work they have done digitizing rare volumes and public domain material is invaluable. But at the same time, Google, in concert with my various publishers, has made available much of the content of my books, for which I receive nothing. Nor was my permission ever asked. Google receives page views and sells advertisements, and the publishers receive a share of the revenue generated through book searches. While theoretically some of the money is supposed to trickle down to the author, I have received a grand total of zilch. Worse, because Book Search makes available only around 20 percent of each book, those readers who encounter my work only through Google Book Search (an increasing percentage of readers, to judge by my email) often come away with mistaken impressions of what I have written because they see only part of a train of thought. Of course I don't expect everyone who wants to read or consult my books to run out and buy a copy, but Google Book Search has also reduced demand for library copies, further eroding my ability to make money from my books. And without money, it becomes more difficult to write more books. Then, of course, there is the piracy problem. My 2009 anthology A Hideous Bit of Morbidity, for example, was pirated on Chinese-run book piracy blogs within minutes of its e-book release. Thousands of websites offered free copies (and still do, despite take-down requests), and the book was downloaded illegally thousands of times. If even a fraction of those readers had purchased legal copies of the book or e-book, the profits would easily have paid for the research needed for my next book. As it is, the decline in publishing, due both to the stresses of electronic intervention and ever-increasing competition from other media outlets, is inexorably turning publishing into a hobby for all but the top few writers. This is a loss for everyone involved. This picture caught my attention. It's a fish-man (actually, shark-man) statue allegedly representing King Béhanzin of the Dahomey kingdom of Africa created around 1890 by Sossa Dede. Of course, we all know this is really a picture of a Lovecraftian monster (or, if you prefer, the Babylonian god Oannes). This fine bit of Lovecraftian art is currently in Paris' Musée du quai Branly.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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