The Spiritual Science of the Stars: A Guide to the Architecture of the Spirit
Architect, author and bagpipe aficionado Stewart, apparently inspired by a 1969 essay ("Hamlet's Mill") by historians Hertha von Dechend and Giorgio de Santillana, pursues the link between cultural myths and celestial cosmology is this eye-opening but uneven anthropological study. Showing how early myth, like science, was based on precise astronomical data measured similarly around the world, the author attempts to resurrect respect for the ancient intelligence that navigated the earth using only the galaxy as a guide, and who established still-dominant concepts of time and its measurement. As such, he argues convincingly that "mythology is the work of science, and science alone can explain it," linking common concepts across cultures and times (locating, for instance, the serpent that bites its own tale in the creation myths of Hindus, the Unambal culture of Australia, the Fon people of West Africa and the ancient Mayans) through their development of sophisticated proto-scientific methods. While the book succeeds in bringing further inquiry to a refreshing world view, it falls short of the (ceaselessly referenced) essay that inspired it; lacking Dechend and Santillana's rich allegorical language and vast collection of ancient art and poetry, Stewart falls into summarization and occasionally tone-deaf translation.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.