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De Rozenkruisers In Nederland * Govert Snoek (1997)

This impressive book has a complete title which goes (translated) “The Rosicrucians in the Netherlands, particularly in the first half of the 17th century, an inventarisation”. It is written in Dutch, but has a summery in French. The book was initiatlly written as a master’s thesis in 1989 (in the same year Peter Huijs wrote his at another university, both have published books through the publishing house of the contemporary Rosicrucian organisation Lectorium Rosicrucianum) studying history. Later the thesis was expanded for a PHD thesis in theology (1998). Actually, the book is more the work of an archivarist. Snoek ploughed through a gigantic amount of works (his bibliography is 100 pages!), but not just primary and secondary works, he tried to find each and every reference to the Rosicrucians in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Therefor he read a great number of writings of many many religious apostates (and there were many of them), but also he studied auction lists to see who possessed Rosicrucian books. You will read about the Family of Love (actually the House of Love), David Joris, Hiël, chiliasts, (ana)baptists and whatever there was in those days. People who spend time in the Netherlands or had contacts here bring famous names as Tycho Brahe, John Dee, Jacob Böhme, Thomas à Kempis and many more. Within our own country almost anybody who made some name seems to have has some kind of interest in the Rosicrucians, scientists (Cornelis Drebbel), painters (Pieter Paul Rubens), poets (P.C. Hooft) everybody gets a background investigation. Interesting webs are uncovered, unexpected links made and ‘maybe’s of earlier investigators are proved or disproved. Yes, the book is almost purely historical, factual and purely informative, but interesting. Snoek mostly manages to present his dry information well enough and here and there says a few things about the ideas of the people discussed which makes things even more interesting. Yes, finally I found a book that looks into all the links and contacts of this highly interesting. Old acquintances and people I had never heard of, Snoek has it all.
1997 Rozekruis Pers, isbn 9067323241

Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World * Joscelyn Godwin (2009)

Quite a while ago I saw this book laying in the most beautiful bookshop of the Netherlands (Selexys Maastricht, soon bankrupt I am afraid). A massive book about Kircher for a massive price. When I got a load of book-coupons much later, my first idea was to go and get this book and so I did. I know Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) mostly for his magnificent images as they are often reproduced in books about hermeticism, Renaissance esotericism, alchemy and similar subjects. I knew Kircher was more of a “homo universalis” and that he was the last of the Renaissance men, but I had this romantised idea that Kircher was an esotericist with a broad interest. Godwin’s book first appears as a look-through book. Over 400 images of Kircher have been reproduced. When I had the book home, I noticed that Godwin discusses them all, so this book is a reading book after all. Well, a reading book. With its over 300 heavy pages, 30x30cm size and +2 kg in weight, this is not a book to read all night while laying on your couch. Godwin took the wide interests of Kircher and divided them over the different chapters of the book. Instead of esotericism, you will read about archaeology, geology, science, medicine, wonder-machines (Kircher liked to show off with weird machines that were magic to the unknowing spectator), music, Egyptology (Kircher was the first to translate hieroglyphs), information about the religions of the world (from China and Japan to South America) and much, much more. Indeed, Kircher was a man who wanted to know everything. So how did he come about knowing about all these things? Kircher was a devout Jesuit and his masters realised that he was more valuable at home than in some far country converting people. Thus Kircher became the spider in the web of Jesuit missionaries worldwide who sent him artifacts, stories, drawings, texts to translate, etc. and Kircher investigated them all and wrote about it. He set up a museum with exotics and weird machines and thought he was superiour in knowledge to his fellow man. However this book is a nice read, not all subjects interest me equally. I mostly enjoyed the first chapters with Kircher’s religious and symbolic drawings (Godwin goes nicely into detail) and the last chapter with didactic images. Indeed, do not expect too much alchemy, Kabbalah and hermeticism as suggested on Amazon (Kircher did not want to have too much to do with such subjects), but more a book showing the pursuits of early science.
2009 Thames & Hudson, isbn 0500258600)

Blutleuchte * Gerhard Hallstatt (2010)

Gerhard Hallstatt (or Gerhard Petak or Kadmon) is best-known for his musical outlet Allerseelen, but for a long time he also published magazines under the titles Aorta and Ahnstern.

These “tracts” first appeared in twenty issues of Aorta and nine of Ahnstern. They were homemade bilingual booklets done with typewriter, copying machine, and stapler. The print was cramped, the illustrations blurred or blackened, and the English translations extremely quaint (in contrast to Gerhard’s beautiful German.)

So a few people set up to make new translations of Gerhard’s articles and present them in a beautiful cloth-bound book with two-colour print. What is presented is a cabinet of curiosities that go from the Cathars to crop circles and man-made UFOs. The articles are only those of Gerhard and span about the decade from 1990 to 2000. It is great to find a man with an interest in a wide variety of subjects as myself not trying to hang around in the same allies all the time. Somehow many of the articles circle around the period of the two world wars though. Through interviews and articles you will learn about Kenneth Anger and his films, a woman with stigmata, characters such as Codreanu and Willigut, musicians such as Z’ev and Michael Moynihan, magic, shamanism, the far corners of science, artists, religions and cults. Several articles are very personal accounts of travels to ancient festivals or mystical places. At least one text is a made-up story which makes me wonder about one or two other personal accounts. Gerhard introduces new terms such as panzermaterialismus and heidnat and describes visions caused by eating mushrooms. Satanism, magic, controversial elements of history it is all here in Blutleuchte. The book is a very enjoyable read with nice, short texts about subjects that I was mostly familiar with, but for example the author rekindled my desire to watch the pre-WWII films of Riefenstahl and I do not believe that I ever heard of the subterranean midget worlds called “Erdställe”. The book is not cheap, but worth the money a worthwhile homage to a lifelong traveller. Speaking of homage, the introduction that I quoted is written by noone less than Joscelyn Godwin the famous scholar on music and Western esotericism and who is apparently no longer frightened by a bit of controversy, since he also wrote introductions to English translations of Evola and articles in the Tyr Journal. I admire the man for knitting his name to such publications which will hopefully make them appear less black (and white).
To get your own copy, people from Europe best get in contact with Gerhard himself (aorta(at)gmx(dot)at), in the US with the publisher (linked below).
2010 Ajna, isbn 9780972182034

The Secret Of The Hittites * C.W. Ceram (1956)

This book was first published in 1955 under the vague title “Enge Schlucht und schwarzer Berg” (‘Narrow canyon and black mountain’), but soon translated to English. It is not a book about the Hittites, but a book about ‘Hittitology’, the branch of science that came after the investigations started with a few lucky findings. Ceram (a pseudonym for Kurt Marek) is not a ‘Hittitologist’ either, but a man who started writing for newspapers and later dedicated his skills to books. The book gives the fascinating story of the discovery of an ’empire’ that had long been thought to have been just one of the Palestinean tribes mentioned in the Bible. Different archeologists have made some lucky discoveries in areas far away from eachother in the late 19th century. Later these findings were connected to the same peoples and (falsely) called “Hittites”. As investigations continued, the Hittites proved to have been a power not only living between the Egyptians and the Sumerians, but also of comparable power and eloquence. Ceram fills his book with anecdotes about the people digging for treasures, their adventures in the inhabitable lands of nowadays Turkey, the people trying to decipher the ‘unknown script from an unknown culture in an unknown language’, the problems of dating the findings and all the problems the scholars of a new science run into. The book reads easily and is well-written. There is of course some information about the Hittites, but the Hittites themselves are not the subject of this book. Ceram’s book is an amusing read, but I hoped for other sort of information.
1956 Phoenix Press, isbn 1842122959

The Hittites * O.R. Gurney (1952/1990)

A while ago I read about the Hittites, a people who lived in Asia Minor and held the middle between Indo-European and the Sumerian peoples. After having read a book with myths, here we have a book about the Hittites themselves. Gurney wrote his book in 1952, it has been revised three times by the time the version that I bought was printed. The book is mostly a history lesson. It goes from “the earliest period” to “the old kingdom” (1680-1420), “the empire” (1420-appr. 1200) to “the neo-Hittite kingdoms”. That is the first part of the book. In the next parts Gurney continues with the subjects “Hittite state and society”, “life and economy”, “law and institutions”, “warfare”, “languages and races”, “religion”, “literature” and “art”. The Hittites are known from the Old Testament as an Israelic tribe. The summing up of the Hittites as one of those tribes does not give them the credit they deserve. In fact, the Hittites formed a mighty people, rivaling with the Egyptians and the Sumerians of their time. Actually there was no thing as the Hittites. There were different peoples with different languages and different texts living in different times. Moreover, when the Hittites were at the peak of their power, they had excellent contact with other powerfull peoples and correspondence (often chiseled in stone!) was in a variety of languages, several with cuniform letters, but also one using hieroglyphs that are not unlike the Egyptian. The same goes for the divine pantheon. Inspite of the fact that there was a state religion, which was somewhat of an artificial conglomerate of the rest, the state supported local cults and also the Gods and Goddesses of neighbouring peoples found their places in the hearts of the Hittites. Especially because of the mix of Indo-European with non-Indo-European elements, the Hittites make an interesting, but not easy subject for study. Then there is the fact that scholars have not been able to make sense of every text that was found. Several texts are found in different versions, even in different languages. Since they are found on stone tablets which have been damaged in the course of time, many texts display greater or smaller lancunas. The sort of texts that are found is of a great variety. This varries from letters of one king to another, laws, religious texts with ceremonies, stories, a few myths have been left and there are many magical inscriptions found. The latter the author shoves under the label “primitive”, a term that the author uses now and then for the “lower” elements within the “high” society. All in all this little book (just over 200 pages Penguin format) is a nice introduction to an interesting piece of history. I am personally not immensely interested in the purely historical part of what king followed who and when some tribe moved to another place, but the (short) part about religion and the quotes from the texts that are left are interesting.
1952 (1990 revised reprint) Penguin Books, isbn 0140126015

Koning Artur In De Nederlanden * J.D. Janssens (1985)

Some time ago I was rereading Koenraad Logghe’s “De Graal“, a book about the Arthurian legends that thrives heavily on the texts in the Dutch language and has a lot of references to the “Shah Nameh”, the Persian “Book Of The Kings”. While visiting a local second hand bookshop that I rarely visit these days, my eye fell on a shelf where the Shah Nameh stood right next to a little book with fragments of Dutch Arthurian texts. Coincidence? I have not yet finished the Shah Nameh, but Janssens booklet with fragments is only 200 pages so that went a lot quicker. Janssens wanted to make a book to bring the less known, but of the same age (or even older) as the famous French texts, to a larger, Dutch audience. He choose fragments of Perchevael, Ferguut, Walewein ende Key and Graalqueeste. There is a lengthy interpretative introduction which is very interesting and thought-provoking. The fragments themself are in the original language (Middle Dutch), but have ‘normalised writing’. Notes at the bottom of the pages explain uncommon words and structures. It appears that literary scholars are pleased with the fragments, personally I think it are not the most interesting passages that Janssens choose. Besides, the authors of the texts used many lines to describe the entering of a castle or whatever, the intermediating pieces in which Janssens summerises the events are more enjoyable in my opinion. It was nice to read these Dutch texts in the original language. I find this old Dutch not too hard to read, so it went pretty quickly. A nice little booklet that you will have to find second hand. It is well available from about € 10,-.
1985, uitgeverij HES

Sixty-Five Anglo-Saxon Riddles * Louis Jerome Rodrigues (1998)

Initially this was the first publications in Rodrigues’ series of Anglo-Saxon texts rendered into modern English. He completely reworked the booklet in 1998. As the title says, this booklet is filled with the famous Anglo-Saxon riddles, many of which come from the Exeter Book. I find this one of the least interesting books in the series. The texts are short, most of them not too interesting and worst of all, I do not understand the larger part of the riddles, not even with the proposed answers that Rodrigues found among different authors (up to 10 for one riddle). There is some nice word-play to be found here and there and it is amusing that one author gives the sollution “phallus” for almost every riddle. Perhaps a funny book to annoy people. I will quote one riddle that I like to give you an idea. There are 64 more of these, shorter and longer.

A moth devoured words. That seemed to me
a curious fate, when I heard of that wonder,
that the worm swallowed up a certain man’s song,
a thief in the darkness filched the fine saying
and strong man’s support. The thievish guest was
no whit | the wiser, though he swallowed words.

1998 Llanarch, isbn 1861430620

Anglo-Saxon Religious Verse Allegories * Louis Jerome Rodrigues (1996)

Next in the series of Rodrigues booklets is one with four poems, together forming an Anglo-Saxon Physiologus or Bestiary. First there is a long and very nice poem about the Phoenix with a thick religious undertone. The other poems are about the lovely panther, the dreadfull whale and two halve lines about the partridge. In the introduction Rodrigues says that the poems are very much alike more southern Physiologi so the appendices this time are Lactanius’ Carmen de ave phoenice, Ambrose’s Hexameron (the part about the Phoenix), another Anglo-Saxon text about the Phoenix (Vespasian) and two Latin Physiologi of Carmody. All texts, so also the Latin ones, are printed on the left pages in the original language and on the right in modern English. Because of the Exeter Book version of the Phoenix, this is one of the more enjoyable compilation of Anglo-Saxon texts.
1996 Llanerch, isbn 1861430223

Anglo-Saxon Elegiac Verse * Louis Jerome Rodrigues (1994)

The term ‘elegy’ used to describe a group of fairly short poems in the Exeter Book and certain other passages from longer works, was a nineteenth-century invention, since the poems and passages it collectively describes are neither ‘elegies’ nor ‘elegiac’ in the classical sense of composition in the elegiac metre nor in the tradition of later English pastoral elegy.

Rodrigues apparantly did not just try to publish the wealth of Anglo-Saxon texts, but rather present them thematically. There is an overlap in texts between this title and the earlier reviewed Anglo-Saxon Verse Charms, Maxims & Heroic Legends. After saying why the texts presented can still be called “elegiac” Rodrigues names the texts that he presents in this little (123 p.) book: The Wanderer, The Seafearer, The Riming Poem, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s Lament, Resignation, The Husband’s Message, and The Ruin. A few other texts are added and the appendix gives “some modern English verse rendering of The Ruin” in which Rodrigues writes about the difficulties of translating (ancient) poetry and the different sollutions that ‘translators’ come up with. This time the book is filled with some longer poetical texts of which I only enjoyed Resignation which is a call to God of a person who seems resently deceased and looks back at his life. The texts are obviously laments. Of course there is a lengthy introduction again and at the end a gigantic bibliography.
1994 Llanarch, isbn 1897853319

Anglo-Saxon Verse Runes * Louis Jerome Rodrigues (1992)

In July last year I reviewed another little book of Rodrigues. Already then I planned to get me some more of these books, so a while ago I found five of them from the same bookshop. The text looks like it is made with an electrical typewriter and the only ‘luxery’ is plastic around the simple, soft cover. Rodrigues made a whole range of these Anglo-Saxon textbooks. The booklets have a large variety in price, so look around well when you want to get them. They read rapidly. The current title has a lengthy and slightly too scholarly introduction, too detailed to be really interesting for a layman. The texts themselves are again printed in the original language of the left and in translation on the right. What we have here are runic verse inscriptions (the most famous that from the “Franks casket” and the Ruthwell cross), poems that contain runes, riddles, “the husband’s message”, “the first dialogue of Solomon and Saturn” and the Anglo-Saxon rune poem. For convenience sake Rodrigues also included the Norse and Icelandic rune poems. At the end there are quite a few illustrations of a photocopy quality.
Again a nice little book and an easy way to get some Anglo-Saxon material in your collection. When the other booklets read as quickly as this one, you can expect some more similar reviews soon.
1992 Llanerch, isbn 0947992944