The John Michell Reader
Writings and Rants of a Radical Traditionalist
By (Author) John Michell
Introduction by Joscelyn Godwin
Availability:
In Stock
- Edition: New Edition of Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist
- Pages: 320
- Book Size: 6 x 9
- ISBN-13: 9781620554159
- Imprint: Inner Traditions
- On Sale Date: April 26, 2015
- Format: Paperback Book
John Michell (1933-2009) was beloved and reviled for his heretical views. In this collection of essays he takes on Darwinism, superstition, Jesus, the Grail legend, agribusiness, the madness of modernity, and much more. Michell always took the larger view, reminding us that the “paradise of the philosophers” is still within reach for those with the vision to see it.
Deepest thoughts and musings of a 1960s countercultural icon
• Includes 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays on diverse topics ranging from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity
• Describes principles to live in tune with the divine order of the world and discover the “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times.
• Includes an introductory overview by Joscelyn Godwin of Michell’s entire career
A countercultural icon of the 1960s, John Michell (1933-2009) was perhaps best known for his books on sacred geometry, Earth mysteries, and unusual phenomena. He was also beloved and reviled for his radical, idealistic, yet classically traditional views on a wide range of heretical topics, from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity and the unfolding apocalypse.
Carefully selecting 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays from his column in the monthly magazine The Oldie, esoteric scholar Joscelyn Godwin presents a colorful collection of Michell’s writings and rants that cover nearly every aspect of society, history, and traditional wisdom. In these short essays, Michell takes on agribusiness, Darwinism, superstition, Stonehenge, the insanity of modern society, UFOs, Jesus, fairies, the Grail legend, among many other topics. No matter how small the topic under consideration, Michell always takes a larger view on it, illuminating it with light from above.
Godwin’s artful selection and ordering of essays reveals Michell’s overarching grand view of the world at large. We glimpse the heart of Michell as idealistic Platonist and radical traditionalist, absorb his common sense lessons for living in tune with the divine order, and are reminded that the elusive “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times is still within reach for those with the strength of vision to see it.
• Includes 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays on diverse topics ranging from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity
• Describes principles to live in tune with the divine order of the world and discover the “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times.
• Includes an introductory overview by Joscelyn Godwin of Michell’s entire career
A countercultural icon of the 1960s, John Michell (1933-2009) was perhaps best known for his books on sacred geometry, Earth mysteries, and unusual phenomena. He was also beloved and reviled for his radical, idealistic, yet classically traditional views on a wide range of heretical topics, from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity and the unfolding apocalypse.
Carefully selecting 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays from his column in the monthly magazine The Oldie, esoteric scholar Joscelyn Godwin presents a colorful collection of Michell’s writings and rants that cover nearly every aspect of society, history, and traditional wisdom. In these short essays, Michell takes on agribusiness, Darwinism, superstition, Stonehenge, the insanity of modern society, UFOs, Jesus, fairies, the Grail legend, among many other topics. No matter how small the topic under consideration, Michell always takes a larger view on it, illuminating it with light from above.
Godwin’s artful selection and ordering of essays reveals Michell’s overarching grand view of the world at large. We glimpse the heart of Michell as idealistic Platonist and radical traditionalist, absorb his common sense lessons for living in tune with the divine order, and are reminded that the elusive “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times is still within reach for those with the strength of vision to see it.
Introduction
“A Prophetic Vision” By Joscelyn Godwin
It is not too much to say that John Michell was a prophet. Prophets do not foretell the future so much as warn what may come to pass if events continue on their present course. Nowadays this is so blindingly obvious that we hardly need prophets to tell it to us. But there is a rarer prophetic gift, which is the seeing of forms in what Plato called the World of Ideas--not the imaginary ideas of men and women, but the divine or daemonic ideas after which the material world is formed. Ezekiel saw the Chariot of the Most High; John the Divine saw the New Jerusalem; Mohammed in his night-journey passed through the planetary spheres and met the other prophets of his lineage. Such visions may be warnings too, but they also inspire confidence in the meaning and goodness of the cosmos; they enable us to imagine Paradise here and now, and to adjust our lives in harmony with it.
John Michell’s other role was that of a guardian of tradition and its defender against the “new men” who mistrust everything ancient, beautiful, or suspect of elitism. These tinpot emperors come in for a sound chastisement in these pages, and it is not sheer malice to enjoy hearing someone shout that they are stark naked. The tradition that Michell defends has always been elitist, but not in the sense of favoring birth, money, or even brains. Instead, it fosters the quality, in every sphere, of being truly and comfortably what one is. In this sense, those who live by cultivating the land or by the careful work of their hands are more deserving of respect than media stars (even royal ones) or socialites. Moreover, Michell has a particular empathy for those at the bottom of the ladder, who might have found their place in a more traditional social order but whom present-day conditions have made outsiders.
5
Staying Put and Rushing About
March 2001
My grandmother used to say, “You young people are so restless, always rushing about from here to there. When we were girls it was so lovely at home that we never wanted to leave, even to get married.”
It is true that we were always rushing about, in dangerous motor cars, with desperate episodes of drunken driving. I shudder now to think of it. In Granny’s youth there were no motors, so staying put was the normal thing in the country. But later it became a sort of disgrace, and now everyone keeps going away, rushing about in planes and boasting about their constant, far-flung travels as if there were virtue in their restlessness.
Americans are at the forefront of this movement--they are said to move house on average every three or four years--but all our colonials are the same. Unable to settle properly in the lands they took from the natives, with no traditional ties to the landscapes they were born in, they are condemned to wander, and that is why we have the pleasure of so many overseas visitors each year.
A few generations ago, when the enchantment of old England still lingered in country districts, most villagers had never been farther than the local market town, and many had never set foot outside their own parish. It was like in that Chinese poem about the idyllic community, where nothing unusual ever happened, where it was so quiet that they could hear dogs barking in the next village, which none of them had ever gone to.
One of my hobbies is collecting examples of good people who have enjoyed long lives, happy and complete, while scarcely moving an inch from where they were born. It began during the Falklands war, when a reporter said that he had met islanders in the outlying “campo” who had never been to the capital, Port Stanley, in their whole lives. Then, in the way these things happen, I heard from another journalist something even more extraordinary, that on the island of St. Helena, which is only ten miles across at most, there were rustics who had never been to their only town, Jamestown.
Best of all was the example of staying put which I came across in a book about the Faroe Islands by two highly informed and entertaining subarctic women, Liv K. Schei and Ounnie Moberg (they also wrote the best modern book on Shetland). On the remotest island of the Faroes, Fugloy, barely two miles long and with two small villages, they heard of a woman who lived in one of the villages and had never bothered to visit the other one. Nor had she ever left the island. On her seventieth birthday the treat she asked for was to be shown the next village. It was a few minutes’ walk and she thoroughly enjoyed the novelty.
A traditional view of such lives is that they are compensations for hyperactivity in a previous existence. At the end of Plato’s Republic is a description of souls destined for rebirth, where each was allowed to choose the pattern of its next life. The foolish among them grabbed lives of wealth and power, only to find too late that they ended nastily. Among the last souls to pick a life was Ulysses, whose former career was of constant rushing around. Most of the lives had gone, but thrown away in a corner he found the life of a quiet, retiring country gentleman. That, he said, would have been his choice if he had had first pick. So in one life you rush around and in the next you stay put.
That is only a story, but it is the best one you are likely to find that accounts for the coexistence in human nature of those opposite types that you see in children, the one who sits there happily and the one who simply cannot keep still.
“A Prophetic Vision” By Joscelyn Godwin
It is not too much to say that John Michell was a prophet. Prophets do not foretell the future so much as warn what may come to pass if events continue on their present course. Nowadays this is so blindingly obvious that we hardly need prophets to tell it to us. But there is a rarer prophetic gift, which is the seeing of forms in what Plato called the World of Ideas--not the imaginary ideas of men and women, but the divine or daemonic ideas after which the material world is formed. Ezekiel saw the Chariot of the Most High; John the Divine saw the New Jerusalem; Mohammed in his night-journey passed through the planetary spheres and met the other prophets of his lineage. Such visions may be warnings too, but they also inspire confidence in the meaning and goodness of the cosmos; they enable us to imagine Paradise here and now, and to adjust our lives in harmony with it.
John Michell’s other role was that of a guardian of tradition and its defender against the “new men” who mistrust everything ancient, beautiful, or suspect of elitism. These tinpot emperors come in for a sound chastisement in these pages, and it is not sheer malice to enjoy hearing someone shout that they are stark naked. The tradition that Michell defends has always been elitist, but not in the sense of favoring birth, money, or even brains. Instead, it fosters the quality, in every sphere, of being truly and comfortably what one is. In this sense, those who live by cultivating the land or by the careful work of their hands are more deserving of respect than media stars (even royal ones) or socialites. Moreover, Michell has a particular empathy for those at the bottom of the ladder, who might have found their place in a more traditional social order but whom present-day conditions have made outsiders.
5
Staying Put and Rushing About
March 2001
My grandmother used to say, “You young people are so restless, always rushing about from here to there. When we were girls it was so lovely at home that we never wanted to leave, even to get married.”
It is true that we were always rushing about, in dangerous motor cars, with desperate episodes of drunken driving. I shudder now to think of it. In Granny’s youth there were no motors, so staying put was the normal thing in the country. But later it became a sort of disgrace, and now everyone keeps going away, rushing about in planes and boasting about their constant, far-flung travels as if there were virtue in their restlessness.
Americans are at the forefront of this movement--they are said to move house on average every three or four years--but all our colonials are the same. Unable to settle properly in the lands they took from the natives, with no traditional ties to the landscapes they were born in, they are condemned to wander, and that is why we have the pleasure of so many overseas visitors each year.
A few generations ago, when the enchantment of old England still lingered in country districts, most villagers had never been farther than the local market town, and many had never set foot outside their own parish. It was like in that Chinese poem about the idyllic community, where nothing unusual ever happened, where it was so quiet that they could hear dogs barking in the next village, which none of them had ever gone to.
One of my hobbies is collecting examples of good people who have enjoyed long lives, happy and complete, while scarcely moving an inch from where they were born. It began during the Falklands war, when a reporter said that he had met islanders in the outlying “campo” who had never been to the capital, Port Stanley, in their whole lives. Then, in the way these things happen, I heard from another journalist something even more extraordinary, that on the island of St. Helena, which is only ten miles across at most, there were rustics who had never been to their only town, Jamestown.
Best of all was the example of staying put which I came across in a book about the Faroe Islands by two highly informed and entertaining subarctic women, Liv K. Schei and Ounnie Moberg (they also wrote the best modern book on Shetland). On the remotest island of the Faroes, Fugloy, barely two miles long and with two small villages, they heard of a woman who lived in one of the villages and had never bothered to visit the other one. Nor had she ever left the island. On her seventieth birthday the treat she asked for was to be shown the next village. It was a few minutes’ walk and she thoroughly enjoyed the novelty.
A traditional view of such lives is that they are compensations for hyperactivity in a previous existence. At the end of Plato’s Republic is a description of souls destined for rebirth, where each was allowed to choose the pattern of its next life. The foolish among them grabbed lives of wealth and power, only to find too late that they ended nastily. Among the last souls to pick a life was Ulysses, whose former career was of constant rushing around. Most of the lives had gone, but thrown away in a corner he found the life of a quiet, retiring country gentleman. That, he said, would have been his choice if he had had first pick. So in one life you rush around and in the next you stay put.
That is only a story, but it is the best one you are likely to find that accounts for the coexistence in human nature of those opposite types that you see in children, the one who sits there happily and the one who simply cannot keep still.
Introduction “A Prophetic Vision” by Joscelyn Godwin
Pa r t I
The Good Old Days
1 Why Are We So Short of Time?
2 Fireside Wisdom
3 The Deserted Village
4 Fear and Loathing of the Greens
5 Staying Put and Rushing About
6 Victoria’s Enchanted Realm
7 A Good Protestant? How and Why
8 Kings of Glory
9 Drink, Drugs, and the Art of Conversation
10 Manx Fairies
11 Nothing to Sing About
12 Population Control and Feng Shui, Again
P a r t II
Albion
13 Albion, the Spirit of the Party
14 A Lost Cause
15 The Re-Conversion of England
16 Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
17 Brassy Britain
18 The Centre of Britain
19 Citizens of Stonehenge
20 Sacred Monarchy
21 Taking the St. Michael
22 A Musical Enchantment
23 A Dream of Old Tracks
24 When Jesus Came to England
Pa r t III
Phenomena
25 Abductions
26 UFO Abductions and the End of Innocence
27 Bogus Social Workers
28 Just a Coincidence
29 Just Another Coincidence
30 The Persistence of Crop Circles
31 Dreams of Ape-Men
32 Roll Your Own Superstitions
33 Demonic Reality
34 The Demons among Us
35 Lost and Found
36 The Flight from Reason
P a r t I V
People
37 Beyond the New Age
38 A Man You Can Trust
39 The Philosopher’s Ideal Woman
40 Our Silent Queen
41 Building the Future
42 Enoch Powell and the West Indians
43 Science for Us Simple Folk
44 Sheldrake and the Revolution
45 New Light on Old Stones
46 A Rad-Trad Englishman, and an Italian
47 Bruce Chatwin’s Glimpse of Truth
48 How Can Jesus Be God?
P a r t V
Sacred Cows
49 Television, Degradation, and the Ideal
50 Cannabis and the Law
51 The Demon of Sex Obsession
52 Down with School
53 A Good Irish Education
54 Outliving the Experts
55 A Rotten Genius
56 Freudian Analysis
57 The Bohemian Myth
58 Art, Money, and Revolution
59 The Art of Going to Hell
60 A Fox’s View of Foxhunting
P a r t V I
Science
61 The Missing Link Fantasy
62 Darwin and the Damage
63 The State Myth
64 Stopping the Unstoppable
65 Too Noisy and Violent
66 Collisions with God
67 A Shiver of Cold Fusion
68 The Agribusiness Racket
69 How Talking Began
70 Who Settled America?
71 Geller, Adler, and Beyond
72 Don’t Worry, It’s All Taken Care Of
P a r t V II
Modern Madness
73 Jews, Christians, and the Heavenly Jerusalem
74 The Temple at Jerusalem
75 Two Dogs and a Bone
76 God’s Flower Garden
77 A Multicultural Dream
78 The New Crusaders
79 The Crusade Against Islam
80 The Matter of Ireland
81 The Burning of a Prophet
82 Bringing Light to Europe
83 The Closed Loop
84 Evil Conspiracies
Pa r t V III
Apocalypsis
85 The Modern Illusion
86 Chasing the Millennium
87 The End Is Nigh-ish
88 What of the Future, My Friend?
89 Millennial Prognostications
90 The Beast in Man
91 Old Boys, New Agers, and Sacred Order
92 The Horror That Spoils Breakfast
93 Horrors and Real Horror
94 After Blair, the Antichrist
95 Six-Six-Six and the Coming of the Beast
96 Prophets, Saviours, and Fanatics
P a r t I X
Paradise of the Philosophers
97 Turn On and Tune In to God’s Kingdom
98 What Is the Point of Love?
99 What Good Manners!
100 Life, the Universe, and Everything
101 How to Be Lucky
102 Platonic National Service
103 Visions of Heaven and Hell
104 Mirrors of Celestial Harmony
105 Totally Stoned
106 More Tea, Vicar?
107 Buried Treasures
108 Finding Firm Ground
Appendix Dynamic Symmetry in the Work of Maxwell Armfield
About John Michell
Pa r t I
The Good Old Days
1 Why Are We So Short of Time?
2 Fireside Wisdom
3 The Deserted Village
4 Fear and Loathing of the Greens
5 Staying Put and Rushing About
6 Victoria’s Enchanted Realm
7 A Good Protestant? How and Why
8 Kings of Glory
9 Drink, Drugs, and the Art of Conversation
10 Manx Fairies
11 Nothing to Sing About
12 Population Control and Feng Shui, Again
P a r t II
Albion
13 Albion, the Spirit of the Party
14 A Lost Cause
15 The Re-Conversion of England
16 Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
17 Brassy Britain
18 The Centre of Britain
19 Citizens of Stonehenge
20 Sacred Monarchy
21 Taking the St. Michael
22 A Musical Enchantment
23 A Dream of Old Tracks
24 When Jesus Came to England
Pa r t III
Phenomena
25 Abductions
26 UFO Abductions and the End of Innocence
27 Bogus Social Workers
28 Just a Coincidence
29 Just Another Coincidence
30 The Persistence of Crop Circles
31 Dreams of Ape-Men
32 Roll Your Own Superstitions
33 Demonic Reality
34 The Demons among Us
35 Lost and Found
36 The Flight from Reason
P a r t I V
People
37 Beyond the New Age
38 A Man You Can Trust
39 The Philosopher’s Ideal Woman
40 Our Silent Queen
41 Building the Future
42 Enoch Powell and the West Indians
43 Science for Us Simple Folk
44 Sheldrake and the Revolution
45 New Light on Old Stones
46 A Rad-Trad Englishman, and an Italian
47 Bruce Chatwin’s Glimpse of Truth
48 How Can Jesus Be God?
P a r t V
Sacred Cows
49 Television, Degradation, and the Ideal
50 Cannabis and the Law
51 The Demon of Sex Obsession
52 Down with School
53 A Good Irish Education
54 Outliving the Experts
55 A Rotten Genius
56 Freudian Analysis
57 The Bohemian Myth
58 Art, Money, and Revolution
59 The Art of Going to Hell
60 A Fox’s View of Foxhunting
P a r t V I
Science
61 The Missing Link Fantasy
62 Darwin and the Damage
63 The State Myth
64 Stopping the Unstoppable
65 Too Noisy and Violent
66 Collisions with God
67 A Shiver of Cold Fusion
68 The Agribusiness Racket
69 How Talking Began
70 Who Settled America?
71 Geller, Adler, and Beyond
72 Don’t Worry, It’s All Taken Care Of
P a r t V II
Modern Madness
73 Jews, Christians, and the Heavenly Jerusalem
74 The Temple at Jerusalem
75 Two Dogs and a Bone
76 God’s Flower Garden
77 A Multicultural Dream
78 The New Crusaders
79 The Crusade Against Islam
80 The Matter of Ireland
81 The Burning of a Prophet
82 Bringing Light to Europe
83 The Closed Loop
84 Evil Conspiracies
Pa r t V III
Apocalypsis
85 The Modern Illusion
86 Chasing the Millennium
87 The End Is Nigh-ish
88 What of the Future, My Friend?
89 Millennial Prognostications
90 The Beast in Man
91 Old Boys, New Agers, and Sacred Order
92 The Horror That Spoils Breakfast
93 Horrors and Real Horror
94 After Blair, the Antichrist
95 Six-Six-Six and the Coming of the Beast
96 Prophets, Saviours, and Fanatics
P a r t I X
Paradise of the Philosophers
97 Turn On and Tune In to God’s Kingdom
98 What Is the Point of Love?
99 What Good Manners!
100 Life, the Universe, and Everything
101 How to Be Lucky
102 Platonic National Service
103 Visions of Heaven and Hell
104 Mirrors of Celestial Harmony
105 Totally Stoned
106 More Tea, Vicar?
107 Buried Treasures
108 Finding Firm Ground
Appendix Dynamic Symmetry in the Work of Maxwell Armfield
About John Michell
Educated at Cambridge and Cornell, Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D., is a professor of music at Colgate University and the author, editor, and translator of more than 30 books, including Atlantis and the Cycles of Time and Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. Known for his translations of the works of Fabre d’Olivet and Julius Evola as well as Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, he lives in Hamilton, New York.
“A self-styled Merlin of the 1960s counterculture who inspired disciples like the Rolling Stones with writings about UFOs, prehistoric architecture and fairies . . .”
New York Times
“In this interesting collection, full of memorable details, John Michell commits many charming acts of political heresy against the received wisdoms of contemporary life, advocating by example where freedom still resides.”
Richard Heath, author of Sacred Number and the Lords of Time
“Joscelyn Godwin has shown exceptional empathy with Michell’s worldview in his judicious arrangement of the writings.”
Patrick Harpur, author of The Secret Tradition of the Soul and The Philosophers’ Secret Fire
“Refreshingly original, yet genuinely grounded in tradition. John Michell is wise, mischievous, and amusing. He has expanded the frontiers of British sanity and enriches the lives of those who know him and his works.”
Rupert Sheldrake, author of Morphic Resonance
“Forget trepanning, John Michell opened my third eye years ago. His revelations and the mysteries he touches upon are in my head forever--life would be dead dull and probably impossible without this extra and true dimension.”
Candida Lycett Green, coauthor of The Garden at Highgrove
New York Times
“In this interesting collection, full of memorable details, John Michell commits many charming acts of political heresy against the received wisdoms of contemporary life, advocating by example where freedom still resides.”
Richard Heath, author of Sacred Number and the Lords of Time
“Joscelyn Godwin has shown exceptional empathy with Michell’s worldview in his judicious arrangement of the writings.”
Patrick Harpur, author of The Secret Tradition of the Soul and The Philosophers’ Secret Fire
“Refreshingly original, yet genuinely grounded in tradition. John Michell is wise, mischievous, and amusing. He has expanded the frontiers of British sanity and enriches the lives of those who know him and his works.”
Rupert Sheldrake, author of Morphic Resonance
“Forget trepanning, John Michell opened my third eye years ago. His revelations and the mysteries he touches upon are in my head forever--life would be dead dull and probably impossible without this extra and true dimension.”
Candida Lycett Green, coauthor of The Garden at Highgrove
SPIRITUALITY / ESOTERICISM
“Through the wit and humor, John Michell’s Platonist soul shines like a beacon, confirming him as a vital link in the Golden Chain. A sparkling collection of essays by a truly great writer.”
--Steve Marshall, Fortean Times
A countercultural icon of the 1960s, John Michell (1933-2009) was perhaps best known for his books on sacred geometry, Earth mysteries, and unusual phenomena. He was also beloved and reviled for his radical, idealistic, yet classically traditional views on a wide range of heretical topics, from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity and the unfolding apocalypse.
Carefully selecting 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays from his column in the monthly magazine The Oldie, esoteric scholar Joscelyn Godwin presents a colorful collection of Michell’s writings and rants that cover nearly every aspect of society, history, and traditional wisdom. In these short essays, Michell takes on agribusiness, Darwinism, superstition, Stonehenge, the insanity of modern society, UFOs, Jesus, fairies, and the Grail legend, among many other topics. No matter how small the topic under consideration, Michell always takes a larger view on it, illuminating it with light from above.
Godwin’s artful selection and ordering of essays reveals Michell’s overarching grand view of the world at large. We glimpse the heart of Michell as idealistic Platonist and radical traditionalist, absorb his commonsense lessons for living in tune with the divine order, and are reminded that the elusive “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times is still within reach for those with the strength of vision to see it.
Educated at Cambridge and Cornell, JOSCELYN GODWIN, Ph.D., is a professor of music at Colgate University and the author, editor, and translator of more than 30 books, including Atlantis and the Cycles of Time and Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. Known for his translations of the works of Fabre d’Olivet and Julius Evola as well as Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, he lives in Hamilton, New York.
“Through the wit and humor, John Michell’s Platonist soul shines like a beacon, confirming him as a vital link in the Golden Chain. A sparkling collection of essays by a truly great writer.”
--Steve Marshall, Fortean Times
A countercultural icon of the 1960s, John Michell (1933-2009) was perhaps best known for his books on sacred geometry, Earth mysteries, and unusual phenomena. He was also beloved and reviled for his radical, idealistic, yet classically traditional views on a wide range of heretical topics, from sacred practices of the Stone Age to the evils of the metric system to the madness of modernity and the unfolding apocalypse.
Carefully selecting 108 of Michell’s most insightful, erudite, witty, and occasionally scathing essays from his column in the monthly magazine The Oldie, esoteric scholar Joscelyn Godwin presents a colorful collection of Michell’s writings and rants that cover nearly every aspect of society, history, and traditional wisdom. In these short essays, Michell takes on agribusiness, Darwinism, superstition, Stonehenge, the insanity of modern society, UFOs, Jesus, fairies, and the Grail legend, among many other topics. No matter how small the topic under consideration, Michell always takes a larger view on it, illuminating it with light from above.
Godwin’s artful selection and ordering of essays reveals Michell’s overarching grand view of the world at large. We glimpse the heart of Michell as idealistic Platonist and radical traditionalist, absorb his commonsense lessons for living in tune with the divine order, and are reminded that the elusive “paradise of the philosophers” of ancient times is still within reach for those with the strength of vision to see it.
Educated at Cambridge and Cornell, JOSCELYN GODWIN, Ph.D., is a professor of music at Colgate University and the author, editor, and translator of more than 30 books, including Atlantis and the Cycles of Time and Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. Known for his translations of the works of Fabre d’Olivet and Julius Evola as well as Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, he lives in Hamilton, New York.
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