Gerald Everett Jones's Blog: Gerald Everett Jones - Author, page 14

Our Mysterious Moon

Listen to these intriguing podcast episodes from my colleague K-Town of Mysterious Radio Have you ever wondered why our Moon and the Sun are (very nearly) the same apparent size in the sky?

There is no reason in astronomy or in astrophysics why this should be so. The coincidence of this “perfect fit” is statistically extremely unlikely.

Isaac Asimov called it the sheerest of coincidences:

The oddity of the Moon’s convenient diameter - and the solar eclipse peculiarly - and highly coincidentally the Moon’s diameter - combined with its distance from Earth allows our sister world to perfectly blot out the Sun during a solar eclipse. This is just another one of those oddities, it seems, because no other planet in our solar system has a moon that will do this anywhere nearly so perfectly, and there are hundreds of such moons. There is no astronomical reason why the Sun and the Moon should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion.

Until I listened to these podcasts, I’d had no idea this question has been such an active subject of debate among scientists.

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In times of stress, have a 'good wheeze'

In P. G. Wodehouse’s satirical stories, the horrors of the recent world war and the Spanish Flu pandemic were best met with deliberate silliness.

Like a wise parent who never scolds, Jeeves warns Bertie the consequences of his jokes could be unintended and dire, then dutifully cleans up afterward.

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Jesus in Alexandria

Roger Weir lectures on 'Hellenistic Judaism'

The late esoteric teacher Roger Weir was a lifelong student of philosophy, history, and science. Although a prolific lecturer, he wrote only a few books, which hardly cover the breadth of his work. I took his course on The Hermetica, which he gave at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles years ago. Before he passed away in 2018, he gave a two-year series of lectures at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore in West Hollywood.

From the earliest days I knew him, he claimed to have written a 300-page manuscript titled Jesus in Alexandria. As far as I know, the book was never published. A paperback, The New Aion, includes the title in its compilation, but the text is simply the transcript of his lecture.

He said he’d been intrigued by notions that the “lost years” of Jesus (from adolescence to age thirty) were spent in India. However, after years of diligent research, Weir concluded that Jesus practiced healing arts among the Therapeuti of Alexandria, a Jewish cult associated with the Essenes, the group visited by the ancient historian Philo. Weir believed that St. Thomas then carried those teachings to India and founded churches there, which was the origin of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church). Further evidence of this contact, according to Weir, was the emergence of Mahayana from traditional Buddhism, which took place in the first century AD and shows the influence of what Weir termed Hellenistic Judaism.

And from those origins comes much of what people today know as New Age philosophy, many with no awareness of its roots.

The Shared Presence Foundation (sharepresence.org) has captured Weir’s legacy, and many of his lectures are available as streaming audio or video on the website. Below is a link to one of his lectures on Jesus in Alexandria.

Weir’s thinking was exceptionally fluid, and at times he seems to free-associate, flitting from one topic to another. Yet he almost always comes back to his point. In some of my interviews I’ve posted here, I’ve been accused of the same behavior, which can be either annoying or intriguing. I offer no apologies.

So do be patient and open your ears. Weir can be both baffling and fascinating.

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TT025 Thoughts on Revisiting The Handmaid's Tale

When Atwood wrote this dystopian novel in 1985, the prospects of a Christian national state and dictatorship seemed remote. Not anymore.

The time is now! In staged event to promote release of the streaming series “The Handmaid’s Tale” on Hulu in April of 2017, red-robed nuns paraded on the USC campus during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (GEJ photo).

Discussion with D. M. Needom, Host of 'Better to Podcast'

Dauna is a Tarot reader, a minister, and, well, a thoughtful person!

Click here to view on YouTube. Or here for the podcast. Yes, we talk about the suspenseful story of Preacher Stalls the Second Coming and also its themes of cults, religion, and the politics of fear.

Fourth in the award-winning mystery series.

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Margaret Atwood and the Politics of Fear

When Atwood wrote this dystopian novel in 1985, the prospects of a Christian nationalist government seemed remote.Not anymore.

Many thoughtful people these days are wondering out loud why electorates - not only here but in many other countries - seem to be craving authoritarian leaders. The election-year conversation in the US often points to immigration and inflation as issues that motivate this movement.

But I submit that the root cause is more basic: People the world over are afraid. Continual fear triggers daily anxiety, and people demand relief.

Just make the bad things go away! And I don’t care how you do it!

But why is everyone so fearful now? I’d say it’s because, with the deluge of information in our interconnected world, there are today more reasons to fear the demise of the human race than ever. And if we’re paying attention to our phones (who isn’t?), we get those messages all day long.

When I was in elementary school, there was one major fear of cataclysm - worldwide nuclear war. That one hasn’t gone away. But added to the list now are climate crisis, wildlife extinctions, food insecurity and contamination, supply-chain disruptions, cyber attacks, multiple asymmetrical regional wars, potential racial and cult conflicts, mass shootings… and I doubt I’ve listed them all.

Worried? Take your pick.

Before she was a published author, Margaret Atwood was a professor of English. However, she has also been a diligent student of history. I rather think that she modeled the character Tony in her novel The Robber Bride on herself. Tony is a professor of military history - specifically, seige techniques of the Middle Ages. This sense of what literary theorist Linda Hutcheon calls historiographic metafiction informs all of Atwood’s work.

So here’s my book review, which dates from April of 2017 when the Hulu streaming series was released:

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Mick & Moira & Brad - Audiobook Release

How about something light, not filling, and faintly inebriating?

Here’s five minutes for your first sip, read by the lovely Erin Alexis.

Google Play link $9.95 promo Also available on

Apple

Kobo

Audible

More Google Play audiobook deals

Hint: You’ll also find the Preacher Finds a Corpse audiobook here on the Bonus Audiobook Episodes tab - free with your $5 monthly subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog.

Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. With a paid subscription ($5 / month or $30 / year), you’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, including podcasts, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.

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The Eye of the Needle

Complex Origins, Rich History

In a previous post, I wondered about Bible translator George M. Lamsa’s footnote stating that the Aramaic word for camel might be more correctly rendered as rope.

In both Matthew 19:24 and Mark 10:25, Jesus proclaims that a rich man will have more difficulty getting into heaven than a camel (or rope) could pass through the eye of a needle.

In either sense, the point would seem to be that it’s simply impossible.

But some interpretations of this saying imply that there is a way - if the rich man can pass a test.

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Here's What I'm Wondering About

Did Jesus walk on water?The Syriac edition says something else.

There is a Syriac edition of the Holy Bible (the Peshitta) translated by linguistic scholar George M. Lamsa and published in English in 1933. The ancient Syriac language was a written version of the Aramaic that Jesus is believed to have spoken. The oldest manuscripts of most if not all of the New Testament were written in Koine Greek. Writings in Koine were widely read among scholars in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. Bible scholars through the ages have assumed that the authors of the gospels chose to write in Greek so the message could be distributed and read as widely as possible throughout the known world. But those writers must necessarily have worked from the original Aramaic sayings and accounts.

It’s an old saying that youth is wasted on the young. Can the same be said of curiosity?

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Ever wonder about your father's love stories?

… when the past is blurry and memories are in pieces

What? Did you think I was talking about side hustles? Not necessarily. But surely he had crushes and teases and flirtations before he and your mother got together.

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