Priest of the Trojans at the time of the Greek invasion, Laocoon is punished by Poseidon for advising his people to refuse the gift of the wooden horse. What power did Laocoon possess that enabled him to see its inner dimension? What enabled him [...]
Prisoners of a closed universe from which there is no escape, Escher’s monks climb an ever-upward, ever-downward staircase. No matter how many steps they take, their trance-like, persistent tread will only return them to the point where they began. As is often the case [...]
As the gods evolved from their animistic origins, their powers simultaneously increased. Modeled on the first gods of every child's home--one's parents-- they were expected to protect and to be responsive to every child's needs. They were create in man's image and likeness, not [...]
First arising as an attempt to control animal spirits and guarantee future success in the hunt, religion germinated for many thousands of years before it made a regressive leap into the “ethical” future. The journey begins with the cave paintings of Cro-Magnon. Serving a [...]
Surveying the savage disintegration of their temporary island paradise, Piggy asks Ralph: “What makes things break up like they do?” Identifying the source of Evil has dominated religious discussion for centuries. And for those same centuries our best thinkers have attempted to find an [...]
The great wheel spins, turns away from itself, twisting the strands of moments into one continuous thread of time. The shuttle clatters as the thread–always the same thread–is worked into the tapestry of life. Camped by the great world tree Ygdrassil, the Norn sisters [...]
Whether the universe is the intentional work of a designer, or whether it is the result of a blind, spectacular concatenation of unknown processes, cannot be known. Perhaps only atheists would be satisfied with the latter choice. Atheists do not clamor for cosmic certainty, [...]
A Just So Story… Mind and Body are the inventive odd couple of human evolution. One rides high, head in the clouds. The other pushing off heroically in pursuit of newly discovered strategies that maximize fitness. Together they swam, slithered, trotted or stumbled forward [...]
A fragile vessel bobs like a sodden cork beneath heavily threatening clouds. Some of its passengers are resigned, others near to expiring, and still others are intent on keeping watch, perhaps believing in the imminence (or immanence) of rescue. They have gathered at what [...]
"To be, or not to be, that is the question...To die, to sleep, perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub: for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause--there's the rub." I [...]
Santayana was wrong. History does not repeat itself because we have failed to learn from the past. History repeats itself because evolution and its phenotypic servants--culture and reason--have been structured to preserve the pugnacious, conservative behaviors that guaranteed human survival. These inheritances are the [...]
Featuring Arthur Miller: The Crucible "I say, I say God is Dead!" John Procter: The Crucible The stories of Orpheus, Demeter, Persephone, Semele, Dionysus and Jesus are derived from Mystery Cults: tales of divine beings who suffer, journey to the underworld, and who are [...]
Much like Northwest natives who believed that earth was the the spiritual repository of departed ancestors, we moderns also tread upon the ancients who have preceded us. The patterns and beliefs of the past are never really surpassed, and new generations merely reiterate the [...]
She swoons languidly upon a coral-like bed of dreams that floats above the altar of the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. Head tilted back invitingly, throat beginning to emerge from a ravishing swirl of polished drapery, Teresa seems about to fall into a [...]
Socrates final words, uttered from beneath the sheet that he had drawn over his face to hide the poison grimace, were thought to point the way out of humanity’s existential dilemma: Crito, I owe a cask to Aesclepiius. Please see that the debt is [...]
In our nation’s capitol, the gigantic statue of an Illinois lawyer sits comfortably in the throne room of a Doric temple that only a Zeus or an Athena could have legitimately occupied in the ancient world. That he rose to power as the result [...]
The successes of both Pythagoras and Plato will ironically open the way for a final skeptical assault on the immortality project itself. Though most evidence about Pythagoras’ life is fragmentary, we do know certain aspects of his philosophy from reports left by his students [...]
Introduction to the Epigenesis of Totemism The discoveries of the new sciences hammer away at humanity’s most cherished, delusions. Galileo set the earth spinning in an intergalactic void; Darwin posited a theory of origins which required oceans of blind, godless time. And still more [...]
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. (Wm. Blake) William of Champeaux, teacher of Abelard, proposed the idea that the universal is [...]
"We awaken from the childish dream at last. We had never left home. We shall not cease from exploring... And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started... And know the place for the first time." Five thousand years [...]
