Today, I stumbled upon this interesting article by David Brooks for the New York Times
The great escape
by David Brooks The New York Times
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Over the past 15 months, I’ve been writing pretty regularly about the presidential campaign, which has meant thinking a lot about attack ads, tracking polls and which campaign is renouncing which over-the-line comment from a surrogate that particular day (…) But on my desk for much of this period I have kept a short essay about how people in the Middle Ages viewed the night sky, and it’s about a mentality so totally removed from the campaign mentality that it’s like a refreshing dip in a cool and cleansing pool.
(…)
The essay, which appeared in Books & Culture, is called “C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem,” by Michael Ward, a chaplain at Peterhouse College at Cambridge. It points out that while we moderns see space as a black, cold, mostly empty vastness, with planets and stars propelled by gravitational and other forces, Europeans in the Middle Ages saw a more intimate and magical place. The heavens, to them, were a ceiling of moving spheres, rippling with signs and symbols, and moved by the love of God. The medieval universe, Lewis wrote, “was tingling with anthropomorphic life, dancing, ceremonial, a festival not a machine.”
The modern view disenchants the universe, Lewis argued, and tends to make it “all fact and no meaning.” When we say that a star is a huge flaming ball of gas, he wrote, we are merely describing what it is made of. We are not describing what it is. Lewis also wanted to include the mythologies, symbols and stories that have been told about the heavenly actors, and which were so real to those who looked up into the sky hundreds of years ago. He wanted to strengthen the imaginative faculty that comes naturally to those who see the heavens as fundamentally spiritual and alive.
(…)
As many historians have written, Europeans in the Middle Ages lived with an almost childlike emotional intensity. There were stark contrasts between daytime and darkness, between summer heat and winter cold, between misery and exuberance, and good and evil. Certain distinctions were less recognized, namely between the sacred and the profane.
(…)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/22/opinion/edbrooks.php
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
A energia da origem de todos os seres humanos, energia inicial antes de nos transformar-mos em matéria, está em parte localizada em nossa glândula pineal!
Aprendemos isto lendo os livros Universo em Desencanto!
There’s a fantastic book called Universe in Disenchantment, and it surely presents the only solution that satisfies both scientists and religious.
After glancing through this book I came to believe that this book is of luciferian origins. Who else would want to disenchant the universe? Who else would rational understanding over genuine love and faith. Glad I stopped reading this material. I believe a course in miracles has a more agreeable explanation of the universe from a more trustworthy source. My OPINION
just like a candle.
Dear Paulo and Readers,
I too love the stars and galaxies and embrace the mysteries as well as the stories born of this.
And love magic too! The child in me does not want a full explanation because not knowing, is so much more fun!
But also enjoy the Hubble’s photographs of stellar nurseries and such, like ‘Cat’s Eye Nebula’.
Then, earlier this year, went to The Body exhibition with my daughter, and my goodness!!!!!!! Saw that the inner tissues of human body looked exactly like the universe. And I fell in love alllllllll over again, with the wonder of it all. Thank you Hubble, and thank you to the artist and everyone responsible for working on The Body exhibition.
Much Love to All, Jane : ) xo
Stars are alive. And also they have different caracteristics of being each. Some are moving very fast from a constellation to another. While others turn on themselves for a time we don’t know.
Stars are speaking to us, using a language we can’t hear. They use waves.
Plus, some researches tend to demonstrate that Earth architectural blanket is equally drawned as the constellations. Maybe the tectonic order is meant by moving stars..!
In mythologic legends, we are told Gods or godesses leave a place in the sky to another, expelled for a fault they committed. What our scientists consider as a simple dominion.
On Earth, Men bannished gods and Godesses, for a most part. But we can easily recall a time where they daily lived with , and invoked them for the goods of the community.
Individually, people were certainly quite emotive. When living in honour accompanied by Elements, increase or dicrease vibrations fastly, and so feelings.
According to that belief, Human should catch a glimpse of the living stars. Maybe they give us our dreams, teaching us while we are sleeping. Maybe they back artists in their work. Maybe they answer to our prayer. Surely they would be blissful to see us sharing the Earth Aliments.
“On Earth as in Sky” could assure the idea, there are antagonists lives over there. But all of us could rely on them, whenever we want. One have only to believe, and look at the sky to have a quick answer.
With gratitude.
;) “Sur la terre comme au ciel”
Very interesting coz fafa and i were discussing the same topic yesterday and he was explaining to me the universe,the real one .hmm ya i think people should give more thought to it.
” The West developed a new disease: the conflict between science and religion. The critical philosophy of science became as it were negatively metaphysical – in other words, materialistic – on the basis of an error of judgement; matter was assumed to be a tangible and recognizable reality. Yet this is a thoroughly metaphysical concept hypostasised by uncritical minds. Matter is an hypothesis. When you say “matter” you are creating a symbol for something unknown, which may just as well be a spirit or anything else; it may even be God.” C G Jung CW vol 11
My husband and I we have a telescope and sometimes in clear starry nights we go out to a place where artificial lights are not so much disturbing (places not easy to find) and we watch astronomic objects (lunar eclipses, star clusters, galaxies, planets, comets and so on). My husband also takes pictures of special astronomic events like comets or sun eclipses.
I don’t have the feeling at all watching an black, cold empty vastness, but watching a fascinating, overwhelming wonder of nature of great aesthetic.
Astronomic knowledge must not deprive universe from dignity and magic!
Also in our modern world watching universe brings you to amazement and philosophical thoughts arise.
The way you see it depends only on the view of the watcher and not of scientific knowledge!
Thank you Paul.Lol
And Paulo
I love this enchanted universe am in.
xxxx
I love to go out side and talk to the sun and the moon ,sometimes I even consult with the heavens , there is nothing like looking up at a full moon and invoking all the powers of the universe to come out and play .Blessings Tania
How can the Universe be anything less than magical, amazing, fascinating? The infinite space where all the emotions, all the love, the passion fill out every gap?
We are part of it and we’re so full of emotions, full of energy, then everything around us…the Universe must be like a one big ball full of energy.
Is love…the Universe? :-)
And what is energy if not also…the love, the light, the heat?
When we listen to the music at night, we feel…the heat of the night!!! Don’t we?
And what is the Universe if not one…endless night? Night where all the dreams take place, where imagination interlace with passion, with love and light, where the heart beats…hard to the music of our soul, and…the senses fly high!!!
<3
Agnieszka