Book & site list

[Boreades]

Coincidentally, "our Rupert" is in the press again. This time, for getting banned from TED!

See
http://www.mind-futures.com/ted-knowledge-and-power/
and
http://www.mind-futures.com/censoring-t ... knowledge/

Summary: The TED organisation's decision to take down two videos by radical thinkers Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock raises genuine questions about the way knowledge is now created and distributed.

As Marcus Anthony points out:
The great irony in this saga is that it only adds weight to the argument put forward by Sheldrake that establishment science has become the new Church, ready to silence those with new ideas that challenge the entrenched scientific materialism of so many public, educational and scientific institutions.

[Boreades]

Has anyone read Defective Gods?

"Defective Gods is a satirical novel about the human propensity for building monuments, and the first of the two selected just has to be Stonehenge. The other is the M4 motorway, the earthworks of which dig into similar landscape a little to the north."

http://defectivegods.com/

[jon]

I've only read part of it and am occasionally in touch with Jack about related ideas. The book cover possibly gives an incorrect impression of what it's all about.

[Rocky]

Defective Gods looks interesting, though I wonder why it's written as a novel. Perhaps it's too speculative to be 'history'?

I notice that one of books listed in the recommended reading is Prehistory: the making of the modern mind by Renfrew which I've dipped into. One chapter called The Sapient Paradox is centred around the question of why "the new species, Homo sapiens" who arrived in Europe c. 40,000 BC took so long to get the agricultural revolution c. 10,000 BC going. The answer is one, very short, word.

[Boreades]

New Stonehenge stuff

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... sing_Link/

Now back dating parts of the Stonehenge area -

Research at a site around a mile from Stonehenge has found evidence of a settlement dating back to 7500BC, 5,000 years earlier than previous findings confirmed. And carbon-dating of material at the site has revealed continuous occupation of the area between 7500BC and 4700BC.

That was around springs that feed the River Avon.

[hvered]

With summer hols approaching I borrowed Freakonomics by Steven Levitt as a potential beach book only to find it's so engrossing it'll be devoured before I get on the plane never mind the beach. The more you read about cause-and-effect, the quicker you foresee the conclusions.

[Boreades]

With summer hols approaching I borrowed Freakonomics by Steven Levitt as a potential beach book only to find it's so engrossing it'll be devoured before I get on the plane never mind the beach. The more you read about cause-and-effect, the quicker you foresee the conclusions.

It's good to understand the difference between cause and effect. Sadly and surprisingly a lot of folks can't tell the difference, and get upset when it's pointed out. Still, at least, in the land of the blind, a one-eyed person can be king or queen!

[Boreades]

Another excuse to go back home:

"Saviour of Stonehenge and Avebury", physician, druid, vicar, antiquarian, archaeologist, architect, artist, writer, poet, musician, numismatist, cosmologist, traveller, friend of Newton and Halley....

The "William Stukeley - Saviour of Stonehenge" exhibition will be held at Hartland Abbey, North Devon starting next Sunday, 9th June 2013.

See here - http://www.hartlandabbey.co.uk/exhibition.htm

As a Druid, and one of the earliest Freemasons, William Stukeley was very much in the circle of folks that promoted the idea that freemasonry existed in the time of King Solomon and that Phoenician traders had initiated the Druids. As expressed by Thomas Paine: 'Masonry...is derived, and is the remains of the religion of the ancient Druids; who, like the magi of Persia and the priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the Sun. They paid worship to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause...'

See http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/prescott10.html

By the way, Hartland Abbey is in a megalithically-significant part of North Devon. If you go there, it's also worth a detour to visit the Valley of The Stones in Lynton. I went there many times, it always felt special somehow.
e.g. http://leeabbey.org.uk/devon/visiting-l ... ding-area/

[Boreades]

In case it's new or useful information:

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/

A nice collection of online copies of old maps of the whole of the UK, with its own Wiki and Forum to discuss UK roads.

The one that I like is the Historic OS 25,000 series, where old milestones are shown with their inscription.
e.g. on Salisbury Plain

[Boreades]

Freebie alert!

The printed book is £5, but the PDF version is a free download.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publ ... s-project/

Lots of pics of hilltop enclosures in Wessex.