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Review of "The Return of Holy Russia" by Gary Lachman

1/4/2020

69 Comments

 
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The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World
Gary Lachman | May 2020 | Inner Traditions | 448 pages | ISBN: 978-1620558102 | $32.00
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Occult histories can be interesting, provided that we don’t take them over-seriously. It is a rare occurrence when occultism takes the wheel and steers history toward mystical ends, though it is less rare to find powers and potentates making use of occultism to drive their policy goals. For Gary Lachman, however, occultism is the secret stream of knowledge animating all of world history. His last book, Dark Star Rising, tried to envision Donald Trump as a literal chaos magician harnessing supernatural forces to enact an evil agenda. Continuing to mistake incompetence and arrogance for supernatural genius, Lachman’s new book, The Return of Holy Russia, casts the whole of Russian history as a centuries-long conversation with occultism about Russia’s supposedly unique place in the world as the embodiment of Christian virtue (hence, holy) and occult power.
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The tone for the book is established early on, when Lachman opens with Theosophy and its spinoffs before declaring that Russian nationalistic belief in the country’s “special ‘mission’ in history” must be taken seriously. He lavishly praises nationalistic Russian philosophers, claiming that they have solved the riddle of the “evolution” of consciousness, and he speaks tirelessly—seriously, over and over again—about the “Russian soul,” which he treats not as a metaphor for Russian cultural beliefs and practices but as some quasi-mystical entity embodied in a group of people, many of whom, as best I can tell, have only been “Russian” occasionally as borders shifted around Eurasia over the past five centuries. Since “Russia” began in Kievan Rus’, centered on Kyiv, it’s not even clear that the mystics of Moscow would be direct lineal heirs to this holy heritage that began in what is now Ukraine. Politics, genetics, and culture make it hard to give mysticism an eternal national heritage when populations and borders move and mix so promiscuously.
 
This difficulty persists throughout the book, where Russian culture is taken not as something fungible and defined by circumstances but rather as an innate occult force incarnated in whatever people happen to be under the Russian government at the time. Lachman relies heavily on Western nationalistic writings that cast Russia as an alien other to support his views, and it’s not entirely clear that he has examined what he means by the “Russian man” and the “Russian soul” in detail, swapping between cultural Russians and those under the political domination of the Russian central government without clear distinction. The book’s production design reinforces the challenge, for it uses Soviet iconography—the hammer and sickle—as a repeated motif to stand for Russia. But the Soviets chose that iconography specifically not to be Russian. They imagined it as universal, and they applied it across the Soviet Union, for all its subject peoples, only some of whom were Russian. The same problem applies to the tsarist era, and more so, when an even broader array of peoples made up one empire. Even after centuries of Russification, not all the people in Russia are the same brand of “Russian.”
 
I did, however, find it hilarious that Lachman apologizes to readers who are offended by him describing the Russian “soul” as lazy and sedentary by justifying his conclusions as the result of reading “multiple sources.” I was offended for a different reason—there is no such thing as a “national soul,” nor inherent characteristics of a national man or national woman. This is lazy Victorian nationalist essentialism masquerading as occult insight. There is danger here, too: To argue that different ethnic groups have different essential traits is to implicitly argue that some are superior to others, more evolved, better adapted, etc. Seeing ethnicities or nations as genetically, morally, or cosmically separate is a path whose ends we have seen in fascist and communist death camps. And lest you think that I am exaggerating Lachman’s position or ignoring some symbolic level, he claims on p. 27 that this heritage is passed in the blood: “If Russian inertia can be attributed to its Asian past, can the sudden outbursts of anarchy and chaos traditionally recognized as part of the Russian character have their roots in the old Nordic blood, which carried memories of their berserker ancestors?” No, that is not how culture or genetics work. If it did, then all of us of European descent should possess the dignity and ruthlessness of Charlemagne, the collective (and just as recent) ancestor of most European males. According to Lachman, however, I am simply and inherently biased against his book because I am half Polish and therefore filled with ancestral “enmity” toward the Russians.
 
All of it, though, seems to be designed as an elaborate defense of Helena Blavatsky, the ethnically Russian psychic fraud who was born in what is today Ukraine but was then part of Tsarist Russia—a pet subject of Lachman’s. She keeps popping up in the book even though she left the Russian Empire for America and elsewhere.
 
I could go on about the biases and flaws in his examination of Russian spiritual and occult history, but it would make for exceptionally boring reading. For the majority of the book, Lachman presents a superficial but straightforward popular “great man” history of Russia interspersed with occasional commentary on the religious and spiritual developments in the territories that eventually fell to the tsars. Some of it is conventional spirituality, some of it is occultism, and some is just philosophy. A lot of it has nothing to do with the stated topic of the book except through a vague connection to religiosity and spirituality in the broadest sense.
 
To be entirely honest, I’m not sure what the purpose of the long middle of the book is supposed to be. It is a history of Russia through the lens of Christianity and the occult, but its history is too focused on the lives and times of princes and kings to offer much insight into Russian life, its historiography is decidedly Victorian in tenor and scope, and its religious discussion is too colored by the author’s beliefs in magic and occult power to have any value as an explanatory theory of Russian history. The text also has a certain old-fashioned bias toward seeing the late Victorian period—Russia’s so-called “Silver Age”—as the yardstick against which past and future are measured, with the future a departure from it and the past an anticipation of it. There is also enormous repetition of ideas—trust me, you will hear that the Russians considered themselves the heirs of Rome and Byzantium, many times, and then a few more. The majority of the middle chapters flesh out claims already made in the introduction, adding only extraneous detail that contributes little to the overall argument. It is, frankly, dry reading, even by my tolerant standards for weighty histories. The book could be cut in half without losing anything of value. And don’t get me started on the heavy use of a very few, often older, popular sources in place of thorough scholarly research.
 
The book becomes a bit strange in its latter parts. The major chapter on the Soviet Union is framed around ESP, for example, and it is in this part of the book that Lachman’s interest seems to drift from Russian history to the paranormal and occult, and the story abruptly breaks from an endless litany of kings and clerics to a series of vignettes about occult and esoteric speculators, science fiction writers, and believers in all manner of paranormal claims. The rapid change from the political to the paranormal doesn’t entirely make sense, except insofar as it reinforces Lachman’s overarching—but wrong—theme that the dissenting forms of spirituality offer the most effective path for individual and collective freedom. This is why he sees the fraudulent Blavatsky as a hero, for example. But he never once makes the case that any occult ideas percolated below the thin crust of cosmopolitan elites to have any real impact on the supposed “Russian soul” in the cities and towns outside of the St. Petersburg-Moscow axis. Was Vladivostok also overtaken with desire for an occult utopia? Siberia? Lachman never tells us.

The only thing I found interesting in this section was Lachman’s discussion of the influence on Russian occultism of Morning of the Magicians—co-authored, though he doesn’t mention it, by a Russian émigré. Here there was a missed opportunity, since Lachman fails to mention that Morning is itself influenced by Soviet paranormal and ancient astronaut ideas (the authors literally quote Soviet sources), creating a feedback loop that reinforced these ideas in Europe and the Soviet Union. My cutting out this part of the story, Lachman tries to separate the Soviet occult opposition from the official promotion of UFOs and ancient astronauts as part of Soviet propaganda aimed at undermining Western religions and confidence in science. Instead, he only briefly and largely uncritically alludes to Soviet research into ESP and “psychic warfare.”
 
Lachman minimizes the Soviet Union’s propaganda use of paranormal claims—seeding them into Western media through the dubious imprimatur of Soviet “science”—because he wishes to create a greater contrast between the Soviet past, which he views as anti-spiritual, and Putin’s Russia, which he wishes to see as restoring the tsarist fusion of Christianity and the occult. I find Lachman somewhat naïve in assuming that Putin has broken dramatically from Soviet practice, or that his official promotion of Orthodoxy and pseudoscience can be divorced from his utilitarian pursuit of power at the expense of truth. In sum: Lachman seems to argue that Putin acts because he believes in occult nationalist myths about Russia, but the evidence might better support the idea that Putin uses occult nationalist myths about Russia to legitimize and institutionalize his own assumption of tsar-like powers. (In the epilogue, Lachman very briefly admits this could be a possibility.) In the end, Lachman concludes that Putinism is not the answer to life’s mysteries, but nineteenth-century Russian philosophy is. This latter point is, to say the least, a debatable proposition, and one he never quite manages to justify.
 
Ultimately, Lachman’s book builds to nothing because he is so consumed with listing nearly every pro-Putin or anti-Putin occult and paranormal speculator that the chapter has no overarching purpose or point. It is an info-dump masquerading as an argument. He concludes the book by suggesting that Putin is creating a “third way” that fulfills a Theosophy-inspired occult prophecy about the fusion of “feminine” East (!) and “masculine” West. His argument is superficial and ill-conceived, not least because he accepts the Romantic notion of the “nation” and its deep historical essence, even though the concept of a “nation” is modern in origin, not primeval.

By framing his argument around nineteenth-century fictions about the unity of ethnicity, nation, and state, Lachman ends up justifying the kind of historical fantasies that led to the instability that ended the Gilded Age and troubled the interwar years. It bothers me that after writing a book about Russian exceptionalism, Lachman admits that he never considered whether other countries and peoples experienced similar developments. Instead, he condemns the West for ignoring Hermetic and occult gnosis, unlike the great Russians, who apparently are driven by secret esoteric connections to “true” knowledge, which he defines as seamlessly uniting a rational understanding of the material world with a deep inner spirituality. Like most books I have reviewed in these pages, this one turns out to be another cri de coeur calling out for God to save us all from scientific materialism. It’s starting to get boring.

69 Comments
Joe Scales
1/4/2020 10:04:27 am

"According to Lachman, however, I am simply and inherently biased against his book because I am half Polish and therefore filled with ancestral “enmity” toward the Russians."

No, that's not where your bias is.

"His last book, Dark Star Rising, tried to envision Donald Trump as a literal chaos magician harnessing supernatural forces to enact an evil agenda. Continuing to mistake incompetence and arrogance for supernatural genius..."

Ah, there it is.

Reply
Jim
1/4/2020 12:04:39 pm

^^^ Butt-hurt Joe strikes again ^^^

Reply
Kent
1/4/2020 05:15:59 pm

^Jim "Has to type it three times because issues" strikes again.^

JBob
3/23/2020 04:31:17 pm

Uh yeah, first time on your blog and I must say just by the tone you take in the article and your responses I am completely unimpressed.
Nicely done, the very things you are criticizing others about you are guilty of yourself in even a cursory glance - reads like a pissed off movie critic.
I'm also half-polish and don't give a rats a** enough to be offended so easily.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain
1/4/2020 01:42:12 pm

A man who constantly brags about what a genius he is, babbles on about Mosul when asked a debate question about Syria, tells border agents to simply ignore the law, doodles on an NOAA weather map to try to justify his own incorrect statement about the path of a hurricane, and says critics and whistleblowers are committing treason by accusing him of crimes can't be arrogant or incompetent. No, if you reach that conclusion, you must just be biased.

Reply
Arrogance, incompetemce, cartel & lies
1/4/2020 07:27:37 pm

The history of New Testament scholarship. Full of sewage.
Mainstream scholarship is every bit as bad as the likes of Lachman.

Joe Scales
1/4/2020 10:26:14 pm

Why so serious man? Can't we have a laugh here?

Not the Comte de Saint Germain
1/5/2020 03:03:15 am

The blithering idiot is trying to start a war with Iran as we speak. Your contrarian-asshole schtick is about as funny as a dead man on the doorstep.

Kent
1/5/2020 05:29:23 am

The U.S. war against Iran began in 1953 or 1979 depending on whom you ask.

You are the dead man on the doorstep. Passing homeless satisfy themselves in your flaccid-jawed mouth. The flies don't seem to mind.

Never mind Iran
1/5/2020 06:35:04 am

Paying the price for not nuking North Korea when that should have happened. Should have listened to MacArthur about Russia as well so that the Kremlin could have been nullified as well.

Joe Scales
1/5/2020 10:45:50 am

"The blithering idiot is trying to start a war with Iran as we speak. "

Yes, I suppose we could pay them instead. But in your myopic partisan fervor you miss the point completely; and why this place has become the cesspool of your own making.

You don't confront bias. You live it. And see? I didn't even have to call you an asshole. You imbecile.

Arrogance, incompetemce, cartel & lies
1/5/2020 02:53:38 pm

Of course, by continuously repeating that crap about the Gospels dating from the first century, and that the Gospels were not contrived during the second century, the reason for the second century fakery is being overlooked and distracted

Homer Sextown
1/5/2020 03:56:25 pm

Dude, no one cares.

Dude, no one cares
1/6/2020 05:22:45 am

Hey, the crap dished out by the establishment is the Holy of Holies that no-one is allowed to question and it's as bad as anything pushed by Scott Wolter, Graham Hancock, Erich Von Daniken, Jacques Vallee and the like. And it's mainstream education.

No one cares
1/6/2020 05:31:05 am

This professor dude believes that the Gospel of Mark dates from between 65-75 AD without mentioning its topographical mistakes and the fact that no first century Christian mentioned the existence of the Gospels.

James G. Crossley, The Date of Mark's Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (T&T Clark, 2004)

Jim
1/4/2020 02:09:17 pm

Joe Scales:

"No, that's not where your bias is."

https://www.amazon.ca/Dark-Star-Rising-Magick-Power/dp/0143132067

"Within the concentric circles of Trump's regime lies an unseen culture of occultists, power-seekers, and mind-magicians whose influence is on the rise. In this unparalleled account, historian Gary Lachman examines the influence of occult and esoteric philosophy on the unexpected rise of the alt-right."

Seems to me that Lachman is saying that Trump and the alt-right has a special relationship with the Fringe, no ?

Are you saying Jason is biased towards Lachman because they agree on this point ?

You sound powerful confused and you are not making any sense, perhaps have a nice lie down ?

Reply
Kent
1/4/2020 05:02:30 pm

"Within the concentric circles of Trump's regime lies an unseen culture of occultists, power-seekers, and mind-magicians whose influence is on the rise."

Jim. Jim. Are you saying that this assertion of Lachman's is true? This doesn't sound a lot like Pizzagate to you? Are you backing this assertion? Jim.

"Power-seekers" are a given but "occultists" and "mind-magicians"? What is a "mind-magician"? Jim.

Kent
1/4/2020 05:12:53 pm

"Continuing to mistake incompetence and arrogance for supernatural genius...'"

I would like to see someone posit a "competent" President in the post-Nixon era. It's clearly not a job requirement.

Reply
AMHC
1/5/2020 10:43:20 am

Judging by this thread the Boobosie are alive and thriving. ItsI most likely pointless in this crowd to point to historical dualism as independent of religion and essentialism, to posit panentheism as a counter to pantheism or to note that the author of the book in question, Lachman, seems oblivious to the decentered subject of the shadow of American Imperialism (all those Cherokee Grandmothers in the heart of SEC territory no less) that he has projected onto the wall of Putin's rather than Plato's cave.... Never youy mind my dears. Jason has clearly heged his bets on his forth coming book as any self respecting writer would.

Thanks for the laugh
1/6/2020 12:14:55 pm

That came across as something a college freshman would write after learning new words in class and then straining to find a way to force them all into one incoherent paragraph.

AMHC
1/6/2020 03:43:11 pm

Try again. Perhaps someone will find you have something of value to say about Anti-Intellectualism. However, it remains BENEATH MY DIGNITY to dally with gutter trash.

http://blog.locustfork.net/2005/12/mencken-the-ame-2/

Avacado asselstine
1/6/2020 03:53:30 pm

The all caps really helped you make an effective point about your DIGNITY.

I'm not here
1/6/2020 04:36:20 pm

Fat man looking in a blade of steel
Thin man looking at his last meal
Hollow man looking in a cotton field
For dignity

Wise man looking in a blade of grass
Young man looking in the shadows that pass
Poor man looking through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searching high, searching low
Searching everywhere I know
Asking the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breaking out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hoping to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary Lou
She said, “I don’t want nobody see me talking to you”
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would’ve gone deeper, but there wasn’t any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn’t any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, going to ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinking man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors
Looking into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints running across the silver sand
Steps going down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the border towns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I’m on the rolling river in a jerkin boat
Trying to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man looking for the doctor’s cure
Looking at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
For dignity

Englishman stranded in the black-heart wind
Combing his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it’s going to take
To find dignity

DIGNITY
1/6/2020 05:47:01 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecRhoySlOwQ

Ivan The Not-So-Terrible
1/4/2020 10:47:27 am

Coming soon on History Channel ... "Putin Meets Rasputin"
The show that tells the true story of how Vladimir, with the help of Grigori's ghost, found real love in Mother Russia.

Reply
Bing
1/4/2020 01:21:17 pm

Vladimir ♥ Donald

Reply
Dr Trendy Legbroken
1/4/2020 12:24:40 pm

We always look forward to your negative reviews of everything.

Reply
AMHC
1/4/2020 06:39:04 pm

QAnon and Pizzagate BELIEVER teams up with conspiracy theorists to plan kidnapping.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cynthia-abcug-qanon-conspiracy-theorist-charged-in-kidnapping-plot

Jason, Why not review Against The Modern World by Mark Segwick for a different view on a very pertinent topic? I'd love to compare and contrast your review of the book above with my own. I would RELISH your review if you make time....

Reply
Kent
1/4/2020 07:55:09 pm

No worse than Gunn Sinclair, Patrick Shekleton, Anthony Warren, Philyaw, Jim, Scott Wolter, Hillary "Vast right-wing conspiracy" Clinton, Reverend What's His Name, ...

Apparently the non-existent Q-Anon has a good track record against the Mafia:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/nyregion/gambino-shooting-anthony-comello-frank-cali.html

Reply
Kent is Anthony Warren
1/6/2020 05:19:39 am

No worse than Kent and his anti-Semitism

Kent
1/6/2020 04:46:26 pm

You make it sound like hating Jews is a bad thing. It's meat and milk to me! Hey that's another thing, meat and milk isn't kosher. Another reason to hate Jews. They hate cheeseburgers! Stupid Jews, I don't understand how anyone can not hate them.

Hating Jews
1/6/2020 05:44:36 pm

Then you should hate the New Testament for having been created by the Old Testament.

Kent
1/6/2020 06:01:19 pm

I do! Hate 'em both! Also anything Jew related or Jew adjacent. That includes Hollywood. But if I have a legal issue I always go Jew lawyer.

If you think you're going to shame me or catch me in a contradiction, have at it!

a gay cabbie
1/6/2020 07:29:22 pm

It’s preferred that “cannot” be written as one word — you used “can not” in one of the above comments.

Kent
1/6/2020 09:45:19 pm

When you call yourself "gay" you mean "Jew" right?

"Cannot" and "can not" have different meanings. "Cannot" means "can't" and "can not" means "is able to not".

As in "I cannot understand how anyone can not understand the difference between 'cannot' and 'can not'."

If you're a Jew you're a shanda.

Hebrewski
1/6/2020 09:51:45 pm

Be careful, the phrase “is able to not" implies that you plan to split an infinitive. That would greatly upset me!

Kent
1/6/2020 11:26:24 pm

You clearly don't know what a split infinitive is.

I am able to not discuss this subject further
1/6/2020 11:55:23 pm

I apologize, you certainly may have planned to place a noun or adjective after the phrase “is able to not” instead of a verb. I won’t bother busting my brains trying to figure how you could have avoided a split infinitive (which itself is no longer considered ungrammatical when used in casual settings) and just be thankful that we won’t have to fight that battle. Thank you sir for the spirited discussion!

T. Franke link
1/6/2020 09:50:05 am

I found that the book is not published, yet. It is even not listed on the auhtor's page! So I cannot look into its Table of Contents or other preview.

Basically, the chosen topic is of high interest. There is indeed a strong mystic undercurrent in the Russian soul. But I miss important names in the review. If they miss in the book, it failed.

For example, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and his book "Mystery of the West: Atlantis-Europe" (1930). Or Vladimir Solovyov. These are authors to be taken seriously, in good and bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Merezhkovsky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Solovyov_(philosopher)

Maybe the book follows a rather "Western" and "modern" concept of mysticism which is exactly not what Russian mysticism is? This would really be a failure.

Reply
Mystic In Russian Soul
1/6/2020 12:31:37 pm

Thank goodness for Marx and Lenin and the dictum Religion is the Opium of the People. All those ignorant peasants slobbering over statues of Jesus Christ - that ain't the son of god but a plaster cast. Foolish idiots.,

Reply
No one cares
1/6/2020 01:37:03 pm

Pompous ass.

Reply
Pompous Ass
1/6/2020 02:20:48 pm

If Lachman, Wolter, Hancock and Vallee are going to be targeted, let's do the whole job

Kent
1/6/2020 06:04:20 pm

A German talking about a "national soul". That always ends well.

Reply
Kent
1/6/2020 06:11:38 pm

If you "found" that the book is not yet published, that's because you didn't "found" the May 2020 publication date that Jason kindly typed for you. It's at the top of the page.

Reply
The russian sole of my boot
1/6/2020 07:36:55 pm

“Basically, the chosen topic is of high interest.”

What does the word “basically” add to that sentence?

Reply
Jim Davis
1/6/2020 12:40:25 pm

"There is danger here, too: To argue that different ethnic groups have different essential traits is to implicitly argue that some are superior to others, more evolved, better adapted, etc."

Setting aside the unpleasant consequences, is there any particular reason why different ethnic groups might be, well, different, in various respects?

Reply
some are superior to others
1/6/2020 01:13:17 pm

God's chosen people - as given in the Bible

"How Odd of God to Choose the Jews" by Dan Cohn-Sherbok (in Richard Noake, Nicholas Buxton (Editors), Religion, Society and God: Public Theology In Action, SCM Press, 2013)

Reply
Kent
1/6/2020 06:17:27 pm

Jews are unsurpassed in mistreating Palestinians and Afghans and Saudis are unsurpassed in buggering boys. African-Americans are unsurpassed at giving their kids stupid names.
https://www.google.com/search?q=dyheam+williams&rlz=1CAHKDC_enUS830&oq=dyheam&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.2153j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Reply
PLO
1/6/2020 07:00:09 pm

Palestine NEVER EXISTED when the Jews occupied Judea in Old Testament times.

The Palestinians are the usurpers.

Kent
1/6/2020 09:54:51 pm

According to the Jew scriptures they (the Jews) invaded and slaughtered tens of thousands of people, so no. Have you read the Bible?

The golan mites
1/6/2020 10:12:51 pm

Yes, I did read all of those parts (1) but the invasion and slaughtering (and also raping) was sanctioned by God with Whom the Chosen People had a Holy Covenant and (2) because the Chosen People slaughtered the previous occupants of the country (as you mentioned), there’s no one to whom the country can be returned. The current usurpers must understand these unalterable truths. And thank you for capitalizing the word “Bible” — I noticed that subtle admission on your part.

Kennt
1/6/2020 11:39:17 pm

I also capitalize Winnie the Pooh. Doesn't mean anything.

We are born to suffer
1/7/2020 12:07:42 am

I also capitalize the word “POO” — in fact I use all caps to provide further emphasis — and it does mean something. It means that I really have to take a number two! You see Kent, I ate a sandwich known as the “Corned Beef Explosion” earlier at the local Jewish deli and boy am I finding out how it got its name! Oy vey!

NO ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
1/6/2020 10:47:41 pm

Where is the archaeological evidence that the Israelites slaughtered the Canaanites.

Where is the archaeological evidence for Exodus? Where is the archaeological evidence for the existence of Moses? Where is the archaeological evidence for the existence of David? Where is the archaeological evidence for the Line of David ??

The world leaders are suckers because they fundamentally believe in the fictions found in the Bible and people have to suffer through bloodshed and warfare because of those Fundamentalist Biblical Beliefs that are rejected by historians and archaeologists.

The politicians are as bad as Scott Wolter, Erich Von Daniken, Graham Hancock and Jacques Vallee, as well as all those posters to this Blog like yourself. Knocking yourself out over made-up fictions contained in the Bible.

Reply
How many more times?
1/6/2020 10:52:01 pm

How many more times must it be repeated on this Blog that there is no archaeological evidence for Exodus, thus also nullifying the slaughter of the Canaanites in the process - for which also there is no archaeological evidence. All those politicians need to be put into the sea on a boat and sunk.

Reply
Kent
1/6/2020 11:35:15 pm

What matters is not the truth of the story, but that the Israelis claim that they slaughtered and invaded, and therefore are by their own account murderous squatters.

The founding of Israel, which was set in motion before the first World War, was the greatest mistake of the 20th century. Worse than the atomic bombing of Japan.

Parable
1/6/2020 11:38:32 pm

Yeah - that's what the Israelites claimed - a parable of the conflict of good over evil - the Jews were the chosen people and all other nations were doomed. I explained that on this Blog centuries ago. Canaan symbolically represented those countries that worshipped pagan idols.

Why is there no historical evidence for Exodus
1/6/2020 11:42:21 pm

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_is_there_no_evidence_of_the_Exodus

Joab the Enforcer
1/8/2020 02:40:41 pm

You are not murderous squatters if your invasion is successful and you write the history books. Rather you are some of god's chosen carrying out his will or are carrying out manifest destiny or are on a civilizing crusade, or (insert additional justifications here)...that makes it easier to look in the mirror.

Reply
Kent
1/8/2020 05:44:01 pm

You misunderstand. I'm not saying the Jews were murderous squatters, just that they claim to be. Don't confuse the Bible with a history book.

Joab the Enforcer
1/8/2020 10:42:05 pm

If you think that I misunderstood then you misunderstood everything that I said about the winners writing their own history. No shortage of histories written by winners that rival the bible as fiction or semi-fiction. Maybe less time here jabbering and more time reading up on what you presume to jabber about.

Kent
1/8/2020 10:56:36 pm

As has been pointed out, there's no archaeological evidence of ANY winners corresponding to the story where the Jews claim victorious slaughter. I put this story in the same category as Exodus.

The Jewish claim to Israel is "We invaded and slaughtered the inhabitants so this place is ours." Maybe they thought the truth would make them look like wusses. I put this story in the same category as Exodus, he repeated.

Remember there's also the claim to have slaughtered 45,000 Persians. I put this story in the same category as Exodus, he repeated again.

Kal
1/6/2020 11:14:31 pm

Bob Dylan lyrics? Well at least someone has some posting taste, but still, what was the topic? Oh yeah, Holy Russia. I guess they just ran out of ideas for that premise. Maybe the author sent his critics to Siberia.

Reply
Lachman languish
1/6/2020 11:36:05 pm

What can you expect from some pop musician whose been on cocaine for most of his life

Reply
Larry storch
1/6/2020 11:41:57 pm

Ignoring the fact that every Bob Dylan song consists of disorganized collections of psychedelic non-sequiturs that have no literary value outside of demonstrating that someone with no talent can produce nonsensical wailings that rubes will stupidly consider genius, I think Dylan is relevant because his ancestors emigrated to the US from the Ukraine and Lithuania in what were then parts of the Russian Empire (and what are now independent nations with separate cultural identities) and so he symbolically represents the kind of incompetent analysis (highlighted by Jason in his review of the buffoon’s book) which conflated the Russian soul with various ethnic groups that were subjects in the polyglot Russian (and later Soviet) state.

Reply
Joe Scales
1/7/2020 10:32:46 am

But did you give his country album a listen?

"Now come here baby
Put your little hand in mine
I've got something to tell you,
That I know'll change your mind
When things go wrong,
So wrong with you...
It hurts me too"

Ketn
1/8/2020 12:59:02 am

This just proves we're the same persimmon, but I go along with the crowd and consider Nashville Skyline "the country album."

Of course "Good As I Been to You" and "World Gone Wrong" are arguably pre-country.

"Are we rolling Bob?" That's right, hot Bob on Bob action!

Joe Scales
1/8/2020 10:40:25 am

Freshman year, my roommate arrived on campus with thirty-three Bob Dylan albums. Thirty-three. I'm a bit fuzzy on all the names of them.

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1/14/2020 01:21:46 am

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    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Eridu Genesis
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Resurrection of Marduk
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Zoroastrian Fatal Winter
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Fragments of Artapanus
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Fragments of Bruttius
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Byzantine World Chronicle
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Chronicle to 724
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Pseudo-Diocles Fragmentum
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • Popol Vuh
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • Arabic Names of Egyptian Kings
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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