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Central Asia

More Silk Road Adventures - The Caucasus - Kish

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Kish

 

Then it was onwards and upwards to an Albanian Church in the village of Kish, again in a fleet of taxis as the street is steep and winding.  It's also described as an Albanian 'Temple' as the church is built over a pre-Christian temple. Construction of the existing Christian church building began around 990 and was completed around 1160 CE but the temple it was built over was much older. 

Radiocarbon dating of sacrificial objects found beneath the existing altar and in Bronze Age graves in the grounds revealed some to be around five thousand years old.  So the church is something of a time-capsule. Christianity was introduced here in the 1st century through St. Elisæus of Albania whose mission was to convert the polytheistic tribes. As I later discovered, among their observances, probably to appease to their angry earthquake and volcano generating gods, people here practiced human sacrifice (like Abraham - before his God, Yahweh, stopped him).  As I've noticed during our travels, human sacrifice seems to have been practiced in many earthquake zones and volcanic places - like other religious practices I suppose it works - until the next one.

Since Soviet times this site's been of considerable archaeological significance. Several Bronze Age graves found in the grounds are now opened, under glass, to reveal the skeletons of the ancient dead.

 

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Albanian Church in the village of Kish
Radiocarbon dating of objects and graves found on the site revealed some to be around five thousand years old
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Laos

 

 

The Lao People's Democratic Republic is a communist country, like China to the North and Vietnam with which it shares its Eastern border. 

And like the bordering communist countries, the government has embraced limited private ownership and free market capitalism, in theory.  But there remain powerful vested interests, and residual pockets of political power, particularly in the agricultural sector, and corruption is a significant issue. 

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Read more: Laos

Fiction, Recollections & News

On Point Counter Point

 

 

 

 

Recently I've been re-reading Point Counter Point by Aldus Huxley. 

Many commentators call it his masterpiece. Modern Library lists it as number 44 on its list of the 100 best 20th century novels in English yet there it ranks well below Brave New World (that's 5th), also by  Aldus Huxley. 

The book was an experimental novel and consists of a series of conversations, some internal to a character, the character's thoughts, in which a proposition is put and then a counterargument is presented, reflecting a musical contrapuntal motif.

Among his opposed characters are nihilists, communists, rationalists, social butterflies, transcendentalists, and the leader of the British Freemen (fascists cum Brexiteers, as we would now describe them).

Taken as a whole, it's an extended debate on 'the meaning of life'. And at one point, in my young-adult life, Point Counter Point was very influential.

Read more: On Point Counter Point

Opinions and Philosophy

Science, Magic and Religion

 

(UCLA History 2D Lectures 1 & 2)

 

Professor Courtenay Raia lectures on science and religion as historical phenomena that have evolved over time; starting in pre-history. She goes on to examine the pre-1700 mind-set when science encompassed elements of magic; how Western cosmologies became 'disenchanted'; and how magical traditions have been transformed into modern mysticisms.

The lectures raise a lot of interesting issues.  For example in Lecture 1, dealing with pre-history, it is convincingly argued that 'The Secret', promoted by Oprah, is not a secret at all, but is the natural primitive human belief position: that it is fundamentally an appeal to magic; the primitive 'default' position. 

But magic is suppressed by both religion and science.  So in our modern secular culture traditional magic has itself been transmogrified, magically transformed, into mysticism.

Read more: Science, Magic and Religion

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