Roger Bacon’s (thirteenth century) foresight of an aeroplane

Another passage from Kurt Seligmann (as quoted on page 104 of Les explorateurs de l'impossible ou les maîtres des pouvoirs inconnus) prompted me to check the original quote. On page 212 of his book on Magic (1948), the quote Seligmann attributes to Roger Bacon reads as follows: ‘Flying machines can be made also. A man sitting in the center controls something which makes the machine’s artificial wings flap like those of birds.’ A quote he seems to have borrowed from page 27 of Tenney L. Davis’s Roger Bacon’s Letter Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art and of Nature and Concerning the Nullity of Magic (Eaton, PA, 1923), which reads as ‘It is possible that a device for flying shall be made such that a man sitting in the middle of it and turning a crank shall cause artificial wings to beat the air after the manner of a bird’s flight.’

The earliest version of the text carrying this quote in Latin which I have been able to trace without devoting too much to this pursuit dates back to 1542: De his quae mundo mirabiliter eveniunt : ubi de sensuum erroribus, & potentiis animae, ac de influentiis caelorum. De mirabili potestate artis et naturae, ubi de philosophorum lapide. Should you be interested in checking the text in that copy of Bacon’s work, it starts on the ninth line from the bottom of https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k541127/f93.highres. Otherwise let me transcribe the lines for you: ‘possunt fieri instrumenta volandi, ut homo sedens in medio instrumenti reuolens aliquod ingenium, per quod alæ artificialiter compositæ aërem verberent at modum avis volantis’ – which I would translate (rather literally) as ‘They can make instruments to fly, so that a man sitting amidst the instruments manoeuvres some resource, through which wings made artificially beat the air in the same way birds which fly do’.

Given that Norman Johnston De Witt says on page 281 of his College Latin (an anthology of texts written in Latin for college translation purposes): ‘In his writings the English scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon (1214?-1294) predicted many devices that have actually been made in modern times’,  hopefully, I shall provide at some point in the future a full entry on this blog on some of the inventions the English monk had foreseen in his imagination and which came into being only starting from the 1850s.

Addendum a couple of hours later

I have so many topics to write about that, in my rush, I did not even bother to look at the next page (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k541127/f94.highres). What a horrible mistake on my part because Roger Bacon adds the following extremely important piece of information: ‘antiquitus & noftris temporibus facta sunt, & certum est quod sit instrumentum volandi, quod non vidi, nec hominem qui vidisset cognoui, sed sapientem qui hoc artificium excogitauit explicite cognosco, & infinita talia possunt fieri’. Here is how I would translate  the above (again in a rather word-for-word fashion): ‘They were made in antiquity and are made in our days. What is certain is that such a flying instrument exists, which I did not see, or know of any man who has seen [one], but I know a wise man who devised one practicably, and infinite other such things can be made: ’

What a bold statement; unfortunately, one must trust Roger Bacon’s word for it as I know of no other mediæval source regarding this topic, but I am not a historian of aeronautics...



Cagliostro: I still have not done my homework!

On Saturday, in a French anthology about the paranormal, metapsychics, magic, occultism, etc., I read a short outline of the life of Giuseppe Balsamo, a con-man, trickster and probably a secret agent and revolutionary, who, in the eighteenth century under the usurped identity of Count Cagliostro, visited many of Europe’s main cities and performed what some claim to have been acts of magic, in addition to petty acts of theft and to even prostituting his wife. The passage I am quoting below is not a translation of the original outline I read in French. In the French anthology, it is followed by a biographical outline of another 18th century trickster, the Count of Saint-Germain, written by the Swiss-American engraver and author of The History of Magic (New York: Pantheon, 1948), Kurt Seligmann. I wrongly assumed the outline of Cagliostro’s life to have been written by Seligmann; however, given that Seligmann’s outline very much resembles that penned by François Ribadeau-Dumas and that it was written in (American) English, this is the one I shall be quoting below. I am doing so because of the highly worrying implications the following lines would have if what they describe were true – especially if some special energetic powers are gained through what to me seems to have been some child molestation ceremony. Given that the system that followed the French Revolution is the one in which we live (meaning, which rules our lives), it would be very interesting to check the sources Seligmann used for his outline of the life of Cagliostro – which, from having looked at the titles listed in his bibliography, may have been:
D’Alméras, Henri, Cagliostro, la franc-maçonnerie et l’occultisme au XVllle siècle, Paris, 1904
Fiard, l’Abbé, La France trompée par les magiciens et les démonolâtres, Paris, 1803
Gouriet, J. B., Les charlatans célèbres …, Paris, 1819
Laroche du Maine, Mémoires authentiques pour servir à l’histoire du comte Cagliostro, Hamburg, 1786

In short, I still need to do my homework as regards Cagliostro, freemasonry and its impact on politics and its possible use of magical props...

Page 473 of Kurt Seligmann’s The History of Magic:

[…] To Lavater’s question: “In what precisely does your knowledge reside,” Cagliostro answered laconically: “In verbis, herbis et lapidibus,”3 in words, herbs, and stones—alluding  to his marvelous cures which he performed with simples concocted from minerals and vegetables, and with the suggestive power of his word. Such an answer was unusually modest, as the “count” (whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo) made little secret of his miraculous knowledge, his adventurous travels in the Orient and his most noble descent. Cagliostro was less talkative when referring to his stay in London where he had committed several frauds. Nor did he mention the fact that he had been expelled from Russia for similar reasons. Goethe, in his Voyage in Italy, refers to Cagliostro in the following terms: “I answered that indeed, in the eyes of the public, he posed as an aristocrat of high birth, but that to his friends he liked to acknowledge his humble origin.”
     In spite of Cagliostro’s shady past, even his enemies did not deny the magician’s astounding intelligence. And many friends and followers acknowledged their master’s scandals and lies as extravagances to be weighed against his wisdom, his charity and truly superhuman talents of a seer, healer, and Hermetic.
     It was in Strassburg that Cagliostro produced alchemically a diamond which he offered to Cardinal Louis de Rohan. The gem was evaluated by the prelate’s jeweler at twenty-five thousand livres. One day Cagliostro conjured up a dead lady whose memory the cardinal cherished. De Rohan’s affection for the magician was boundless. In his study he placed Cagliostro’s bust bearing the inscription: To the Divine Cagliostro.
[…] p.474
     During the séances, magical ceremonies were performed with the intention of communicating with the seven “pure spirits.” An innocent girl, the “Dove,” was led to a table where a glass bottle was flanked by two torches. The girl had to stare into the bottle, in which absent persons, future happenings, or angels would appear; or she was led behind a screen where she would experience a mystical union with an angel. Similar rites were performed in the Egyptian Lodge “Isis” whose members were women. Their Grand Master was Lorenza Feliciani, Cagliostro’s wife. Men were admitted in these séances, and the highest Parisian nobility was wont to gather there. But still greater was Cagliostro’s influence upon the populace. [...]
3 Cagliostro’s answer recalls Johann Rudolph Glauber’s treatise Explicatio, oder Auslegung über die Worte Salomonis: in herbis, verbis et lapidibus magna est virtus, Amsterdam, 1664

Posted on the twenty-first day of June 2021


Even the flags had had enough of social distancing.

When I feel like checking the latest news headlines, I often head to RT.com. Obviously, I know that this news outlet is certainly not unbiased (after all, it is funded by the Russian government); however, over the past half a decade or so, RT.com has allowed me to reconsider my stance on certain issues or to think about them from a wider perspective, not the least because of its relative openness to allowing some controversial comments from readers to be displayed at the bottom of the articles published on their website. On Thursday, an animated picture of one moment of the recent meetings in Geneva between Biden and Putin (and their teams) caught my attention, in part because it was shot in the library of the villa where one of the meetings took place (near which I would like to rest on the lawn or on a bench in summer or in autumn at two different times of my employment history in Geneva), in part because the lead-in caption ended with ‘PHOTOS’. The final picture displayed to accompany the article (https://www.rt.com/russia/526736-biden-putin-meeting-pictures) is one that shows the two presidents and each respective team of advisers seated face to face maybe only a metre and thirty centimetres from each side. Even the two flags had been placed closer than in the library...  Hence my title ‘Even the flags had had enough of social distancing’. Now, I shall let you guess what the subtext of this is – think of masks, social distancing, the Russian vaccine being usually touted as inferior to the Pfizer and Moderna gene therapy inoculations and the J&J or AstraZeneca vaccines by Western media, etc. Finally, notice that each team had a different set of water bottles (apparently, plastic bottles) and that the painting in the background looks like a Canaletto.

Posted on the nineteenth day of June 2021


Odor aromaticus: Swedenborg’s first English translator on the odour of sanctity

When two days ago I read the section entitled De hominis Resuscitatione a mortuis, ac Introitu in vitam æternam in the 1758 edition of Swedenborg’s ‘De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus, et de inferno, ex auditis et visis’ I was surprised to find in paragraph 449 of Swedenborg’s (imaginary?) description of his own death (and of the process immediately afterwards) a short segment about what is usually called the odour of sanctity (it is also known as the odour of sainthood and it is associated with another weird phenomenon, the incorruptibility of the corpses of some saints: Bernadette Soubirous, Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Saint Catherine of Sienna, Dashi Dorjo Itigilov, etc.): 

[...] Spiritus tunc, qui circum me fuerunt, se removebant, autumantes quod mortuus essem; sensitus etiam est odor aromaticus, sicut cadaveris conditi, nam cum Angeli cœlestes adsunt, tunc cadaverosum sentitur ut aromaticum, quem cum spiritus sentiunt, non possunt appropinquare : ita quoque arcentur mali spiritus a spiritu hominis, cum primum introducitur in vitam æternam. [...]

Nonsense, did I hear you say?  Well, I am afraid that you are wrong. Interestingly, the eighteenth century translator of Swedenborg’s ‘Heaven and Hell’ had sounded a note of caution (and humility) to the potential naysayers in the footnote he added to his translation of this very passage:

This may serve to explain what many readers have met with, as related by authors of good credit, concerning certain persons of eminent piety, who are said to have died in the odour of sanctity, from the fragrancy that issued from their bodies after death. A truth easily admissible by all who believe an intercourse as subsisting between the spiritual and natural worlds; and they who do not, are ill qualified to receive benefit from our author’s writings. Tr.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t3st7v654&view=1up&seq=360

Now can this be construed as proof of the veracity of Swedenborg’s visions? Not necessarily, as Swedenborg could have read about the phenomenon of the odour of sainthood in, say, Acta Bollanda, or he could have heard about it (for instance, in the preface of ‘Heaven and Hell’, he claims that he knows personally all ten of Sweden bishops). To investigate this question fully would take up too much of my time, so I am happy to continue to live without knowing the answer to this...


Almost a Russian doll of a quote

I came across the following quote almost two months ago:

‘This analogy of the “flat universe” had come to me after reading C. S. Lewis’s essay “Transposition,”3 which posed the question: If you lived in a two-dimensional landscape painting, how would you respond to someone earnestly telling you that the 2D image was just the faintest reflection of a real 3D world? Comfortable in the cave of your 2D mind, you had 2D theories that explained all you experienced in flatland—the pigments of paint, the parallax relationships of near and far objects, the angles and edges.’

George Gilder, Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy, p.8

Now it is off my mind, I have shared it! May the above idea spread and, hopefully, become part of the Zeitgeist.

Lausanne, the short paragraphs above were posted on the eleventh day of June 2021



Sailing the winds of translation with gusto: a nice translator’s note.

     The difficulties which Kant’s style presents to the translator into English need not be dwelt upon with those who are familiar with his works. My main endeavour has been to produce a readable translation. I have, therefore, laid stress on the faithful and lucid  representation of the author’s thought, while the preservation of the periodic constructions of the original was of secondary interest. I am, however, conscious that I have not in all places succeeded in sailing with even keel between the extremes of strictly literal
translation and paraphrase.

Emanuel F. Goerwitz.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.,
July, 1899
Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a spirit-seer: illustrated by dreams of metaphysics, London (Swan Sonnenschein & Co), 1899
https://archive.org/details/dreamsofspirits00kant/page/n7/mode/2up


A reluctant Swedenborgian (I am).

As part of the excerpts dealing with near-death experiences which I have been publishing on this website recently (even though my interest in this phenomenon goes back several years – which means that I have plenty of excerpts to post here), I have found myself in a quandary  as to whether or not to add to my posts about the soul, the afterlife, near-death accounts, etc., Swedenborg’s highly unusual description of what he claims is the process which takes place after death. This because I fear that the spirits with whom the Swedish scientist, theosophist and Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg consorted through quasi tantric and cabbalistic techniques could have played tricks on him and deliberately deceived him. Should you be interested in Swedenborg’s description, let me refer you, as I am still pondering what to do (i.e. make the eighteenth century English translation available or not), to an excerpt in the original language of Swedenborg’s strange text [the bits in green as well as in bold are my emphasis]:

450. Cum Angeli cœlestes apud Resuscitatum sunt, non relinquunt eum, quia unumquemvis amant, sed cum spiritus talis est, ut in Cœlestium Angelorum consortio non amplius esse possit, tunc ille ab iis discedere avet, quod cum fit, veniunt Angeli e Regno spirituali Domini, per quos datur ei usura lucis, nam prius nihil vidit, sed solum cogitavit: ostensum quoque est quomodo hoc fit: videbantur Angeli illi quasi evolvere tunicam oculi sinistri versus septum nasi, ut aperiretur oculus, et daretur videre, spiritus non aliter appercipit, quam quod ita fiat, sed est apparentia: cum visum est evolvisse tunicam, apparet quoddam lucidum sed obscurum, quasi dum homo in prima vigilia per palpebras spectat; hoc lucidum obscurum mihi visum est coloris cœlestis ; sed dein dictum , quod hoc fiat cum varietate : postea sentitur e facie quoddam molliter evolvi, quo facto inducitur cogitatio spiritualis; evolutio illa e facie etiam est apparentia, nam per id repræsentatur, quod a cogitatione naturali in cogitationem spiritualem veniat; cavent angeli summa opera, ne aliqua idea a resuscitato veniat; nisi quæ sapit ex amore: tunc dicunt ei quod sit spiritus. Angeli spirituales, postquam data est lucis usura, novo spiritui omnia officia, quæ usquam desiderare in illo statu potest, præstant, ac instruunt de illis quæ sunt in altera vita, sed quantum capere potest: at si non talis est, ut instrui velit, tunc Resuscitatus cupit ab Angelorum illorum consortio; sed usque Angeli non relinquunt illum, verum is se dissociat ab illis; Angeli enim unumquemvis amant, et nihil prius desiderant, quam officia præstare, instruere, et auferre in Coelum, in eo eorum summa delectatio consistit. Spiritus cum se sic dissociat, excipitur a spiritibus bonis, in quorum consortio cum est , etiam ei omnia officia præstantur : at si vita ejus talis in mundo fuerat, ut in consortio bonorum non esse potuerit, tunc quoque ab iis cupit, et hoc tamdiu et toties, usque dum se associat talibus, qui vitæ ejus in mundo prorsus conveniunt, apud quos vitam suam invenit, et tunc, quod mirum, similem vitam agit, qualem in mundo.

From the section entitled De hominis Resuscitatione a mortuis, ac Introitu in vitam æternam in the 1758 edition of ‘De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus, et de inferno, ex auditis et visis’ [short title in English: ‘Heaven and Hell’]: https://archive.org/details/decoeloetejusmir00swed/page/188/mode/2up?q=450.

Addendum a couple of hours later: link to the English translation of 1778: https://archive.org/details/heavenhellcontai00swed/page/292/mode/2up?q=450.

When the fruit is ripe?  [the bits in green are my emphasis]

We will follow the system of instruction of the East, rather than that of the Western world. In the East, the teacher does not stop to ‘prove’ each statement or theory as he makes or advances it; nor does he make a blackboard demonstration of spiritual truths; nor does he argue with his class or invite discussion. On the contrary, his teaching is authoritative, and he proceeds to deliver his message to his students as it was delivered to him, without stopping to see whether they all agree with him. He does not care whether his statements are accepted as truth by all, for he feels sure that those who are ready for the truth which he teaches will intuitively recognize it, and as for the others, if they are not prepared to receive the truth, no amount of argument will help matters. When a soul is ready for a spiritual truth, and that truth, or a part of it, is uttered in its presence or presented to its attention by means of writings, it will intuitively recognize and appropriate it.
Source: William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932) https://archive.org/details/cu31924022985398/page/n6/mode/2up?q=ready+for+your+trip


Sixty years before the sixties [because it was published in 1905…]

Are you ready for your trip? Well, here is your guide.
You have gone into the silence, and suddenly become aware of having passed out of your body, and to be now occupying only your astral body. You stand beside your physical body, and see it sleeping on the couch, but you realize that you are connected with it by a bright silvery thread, looking something like a large bit of bright spider-web. You are conscious of the presence of your guide, who is to conduct you on your journey. He also has left his physical body, and is in his astral form, which reminds you of a vapory something, the shape of the human body, but which can be seen through, and which can move through solid objects at will. Your guide takes your hand in his and says, ‘Come,’ and in an instant you have left your room and are over the city in which you dwell, floating along as does a summer cloud.
Source: William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932) https://archive.org/details/cu31924022985398/page/n205/mode/2up?q=silvery+threa


I came across the following on 3rd June:
Israel finds ‘likely’ link between Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and cases of heart inflammation in young males
https://www.rt.com/news/525451-israel-link-pfizer-heart-inflammation