Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy, page 2

Review of Jim Haskins, Voodoo and Hoodoo: The Craft as Revealed by Traditional Practitioners (Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1990).

Voodoo and Hoodoo by James Haskins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a good, short introduction to voodoo and hoodoo that is useful to the layman or to someone just beginning research on these practices. Haskins summarizes the origins of both practices in West African religions and does a good job of tracing their development in time. He discusses the influences of Roman Catholicism on voodoo as well as on some hoodoo practices. There is a large section of the book with recipes for spells that hoodoo practitioners have used for good or evil. The principle of like influences like looms large in hoodoo magic. Thus two sticks put together and pulled apart may represent separation. It is an interesting read.

There should have been more discussion of varieties of root doctor in the South--their practices are not uniform from region to region, although there are some similarities. Haskins also gives short change to the alleged precognitive powers of hoodoo practitioners, a power that looms large in some accounts of root doctors in the South. However, I recommend this book as a good introduction to voodoo and hoodoo, especially in the American context.



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Review of Fay Bound Alberti, Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotion by Fay Bound Alberti

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Fay Bound Alberti's book is a fascinating journey into the cultural history of the heart and its relation to emotions. From the time of Descartes's sharp separation between mind and body and his reduction of the body to a machine, the traditional view of the heart as the seat of emotion was subject to challenge. However, this was a live debate up until the early twentieth century, when contemporary science pushed the brain into the place of the heart so that the brain became the seat of emotions. Yet throughout the so-called process of mechanizing the heart, nineteenth century physicians still tended to accept the view of the centrality of the heart to emotional experience.

Although I cringe when I see the term "gendered," recalling the identity politics of postmodern cultural criticism, Alberti's historical account of functional vs. structural heart disease and which patients tended to be diagnosed with which in nineteenth century medcine. It is true that women tended to be diagnosed with functional heart disease and men with structural heart disease. She also notes the interesting fact that among the Victorian literati, having heart disease was a kind of status symbol, indicating greater sensitivity of emotions.

The nineteenth century view of the heart suggested a more holistic approach to the body and emotion than was later characteristic of the brain-centered view. The march of medical reductionism, in which the whole was understood in terms of its constituent parts, led to increasing specialization in medicine, including a sharp separation between neurology and cardiology, and a devolution of the heart to a mere pump.

Today, at least in some circles, this situation is changing. Stories of organ recipients allegedly taking on the personality of their donors abound. The Institute of Heart-Math accepts the view that the heart in itself is the chief causal factor in many emotions. The Canadian physiologist Andrew Armour (whom I met at a conference at the Vatican in 2005) has done considerable work on the "mini-brain" and nervous system in the heart. Yet reductionism remains strong, and we will have to wait and see whether holism will make major inroads into the current paradigm of medical practice.

If you want an excellent, scholarly book that brings the history of attitudes toward the heart from Descartes' time until today in to focus, then this is the book for you.



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Review of Stephen Klaidman, Coronary (New York: Scribner, 2007)

Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry by Stephen Klaidman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One of the worst violations of medical ethics in the last twenty years occurred in 2002 at a hospital in California. Two doctors -- one a cardiologist who did the angiograms and other testing and referrals to surgery and a cardiac surgeon were doing bypass surgery on patients who did not need it. Some had complications; some died. Klaidman's book tells the story of this sordid case that reveals in detail the problems still haunting American medicine.

Although the evidence was overwhelming, many physicians were reluctant to testify against other physicians, and a few even defended them. The company that owned the hospital, which had put pressure on the doctors to gain more cardiac cases for money, paid out around $500,000,000 in fines, which it was allowed to do in increments. The doctors were never prosecuted, and while the cardiologist lost his license, the cardiac surgeon did not. Luckily he did not want to continue practicing medicine anyway. Justice was not done despite a major FBI raid and investigation. The U.S. Attorney did not prosecute the case because of the difficulty of proving conspiracy, but indictments may have been an incentive for other doctors to come forth and testify. The hospital had earlier kept its accredited status despite a known lack of peer review of its heart procedures because the agency that accredits hospitals teaches them, for a fee, how to pass their inspections.

This is a story of failed justice, of moral cowardliness, of moral courage shown by a few good people, and of the failure of American doctors to police themselves. Doctors, like other professionals such as lawyers, police themselves since they have the technical knowledge to make good judgments. However, there is a "thin white line" which forbids doctors to turn in other doctors. If the medical profession cannot police itself, what recourse to patients have to trust their physicians?

This book would be a valuable supplemental text to medical ethics courses and is worth reading by the general public as well. I highly recommend it.



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Review of D. Bruce Lockerbie, Dismissing God: Modern Writers' Struggle against Religion

Dismissing God: Modern Writers' Struggle Against Religion by D. Bruce Lockerbie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


D. Bruce Lockerbie is a long-time writer of Christian non-fiction and was one of the editors of the Macmillan English Series books for grades 10 and 12. Dismissing God is a fascinating account of the rejection and outright rebellion against the Judeo-Christian God by modern writers. The book traces the history of that rebellion to its roots in the nineteenth century, arguing that it was spurred on by the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 and the rise of modern critical Biblical scholarship. Thomas Hardy's reluctant loss of faith was replaced by Swinburne's outright rebellion against God, saying that if Christ came and everyone bowed, he would remain standing. The Decadents revived the Romantic vision of the artist as rebel against conventional moral values, especially the values of orthodox Christian faith. Some may be offended by his discussion of the decadents, especially regarding sexual ethics, but Lockerbie is simply reiterating the standards the Christian Church has held from the beginning.

Lockerbie's discussion of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) is valuable for the insight into his rejection and ultimate hatred of Christianity. Later, nihilist writers denied any meaning to life at all. Of course Sartre and Camus are discussed, and there is also a fine chapter on post-Holocaust Jewish writers who find a God who could or would not help them in the death camps to be irrelevant. I would add that since this book was written over twenty years ago, things have not changed -- postmodern writers are just as hostile to traditional Christianity today, if not more so, than in the past. There is much anger at God among writers -- and my question to them is, "Why be angry at a being that you do not believe exists?" There seems to be, as Lockerbie himself points out, a residual belief in God that remains in these writers. Lockerbie's analysis of eight types of atheism in contemporary writers is valuable.

The book has excellent style throughout and flows well. Even though it is an older work, I highly recommend it as a text in Christian colleges and universities as well as in seminaries. It is valuable reading for anyone interested in modern and contemporary writers' rejection and hostility to God.





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Review of Mike Duran, RESURRECTION

The Resurrection by Mike Duran

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"The Resurrection" is Mike Duran's first book; I had previously read and reviewed his second book, "The Telling." Again, this is well-written Christian horror fiction. The Evangelical Christianity is slightly too much "in your face" compared to "The Telling," but it does not become a bit off putting until near the end of the novel, and even then there is sufficient suspense to keep the reader going. The plot is similar to the second book; a preacher has lost his faith due to the death of his sister in a car accident and the subsequent devastation in his life, including a divorce from his wife. A woman in his congregation prays over a man at a funeral, but has no idea that after she prays and touches him the dead man will sit up, alive and well, in his coffin. This leads to a battle between good and evil that reminds me somewhat of the plot of some old Hammer films. There is a mysterious society of intellectuals, demonic "gods," a secret altar -- the author's descriptive powers are strong, so I imagined the scenery throughout. The grouping of witches and New Age people into one Satanic group was off putting, but that is standard Evangelical fare. One interesting aspect of the book is that it raises the possibility that ghosts exist, something that most Evangelical Christians are loathe to believe. Duran, in an appendix, mentions the possibility of ghosts or other entities and suggests that Evangelicals at least be open-minded about the possibility of their existence. The ghost described in the text is sufficiently creepy, different than many other ghosts in the literature. Duran has a knack for putting new twists on old tropes. Thus within its genre, I think it deserves four starts; it is an interesting, scary, and worthwhile read.



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Review of Allen Tate, Poems: 1922-1947 (Denver: Alan Swallow, 1960)

Poems 1922-1947 by Allen Tate

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Allen Tate comes from an age when the field of English Literature had high standards, when there was a belief that aesthetic truth was a unique source of knowledge, when most poets were classically educated with knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman poets. Tate was one of the original Southern Agrarians at Vanderbilt University, but later went his own direction. He joined the Roman Catholic Church with the great Thomistic philosopher Jacques Maritain as his sponsor. His poems are more formal than many today, some based loosely on Greek and Roman forms and others more like free verse but a more constrained free verse than is currently fashionable. Like Wallace Stephens' poetry, one has to get an "ear" for it before appreciating it. Many of the poems refer to Greek and Roman mythology and literature as was common in modernist poetry (think Ezra Pound, for instance). Tate dislikes the modern tendency to reduce humans to "economic man." Consider these lines from "To the Lacedemonians":

When the peace is a trade route figures
For the budget, reduction of population,
Life grow sullen and immense
Lust after immunity to pain.

That does seem to be an accurate portrait of contemporary Americans; consider the reaction to COVID-19 compared to the reactions to the 1957 and 1968 Asian Flue epidemics. The contemporary world desires immunity to pain, disease, and death, which clashes with the reality of the world as it is.

In his splendid poem, "Ode to the Confederate Dead," a poem that captures the "concrete universa" since it can be applied to any battlefield, to any bed in which the dead rest, we hear the poet's voice:

In the riven trough the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the causal sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death...

Death and mortality are a constant theme in Tate's poetry -- not only the loss of physical life, but the constant passage of time, the changing of the seasons, the inevitability of old age, and the loss of love. In "The Paradigm," there are the striking lines,

For in the air all lovers meet
After they've hated out all their love...

This seems harsh, though it certainly reflects the lives of some people in "love-hate" relationships, as Tate's own troubled relationships attest.

Tate converted to Catholicism after he wrote many of these poems, but the pre-Catholic poems reveal a man struggling with the idea of a void after death. In "Horatian Epode to the Duchess of Malfi," there are the striking lines,

Now considerations of the void coming after
Not changed by the "strict gesture" of your death
Split the straight line of pessimism
Into two infinities.

In some ways this attitude reflects the classical view of death: pessimism, combined with making the best we can of the life we are given (though even it is subject to Fate). Tate affirms the role of myth in trying to make sense of death in "Retroduction [sic] to American History": "Antiquity breached morality with myths." Ultimately this does not change the fact that, as Tate expresses it in "Causerie", "we know our end / a packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues." His skepticism at the time is seen later in the same poem: "For miracles are faint / And resurrection is our weakest clause of religion." Yet he "waits".... "For the incredible image."

Tate's poem on reaching the age of thirty, "Fragment of a Meditation," begins:

Not yet the thirtieth year, the thirtieth
Station where time reverses his light heels
To run both ways, and makes forward back;
Whose long coordinates of birth and death
And zero i the origin of breath:
* * *
All thanks that mid-mortality is done.

Other poems focus on a sense of place, of ancestry, so lacking in the contemporary world which drives apart past and future and separates people into lonely isolates. There is much richness in these poems, richness that can easily be filed away like slivers of metal in a heap to be thrown away. One must have an eye to see and an ear to hear these poems, in which gems of light sparkle through the splendor of form.



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Review of Stephen Chbosky, Imaginary Friend

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is one of the best novels I have read in my life. Although it begins as a traditional horror story about a boy having an "imaginary friend" whom he calls "the nice man," it turns into a horror/fantasy novel of epic proportions. It reminded me of some of the speculative fiction by George MacDonald. It also has similarities to C. S. Lewis' The Last Battle in the Narnia series, although the worldview in the book is not quite "orthodox" (with a small "o") Christian. There is a bit of good old fashioned American Gnosticism included, but that can be fun to read, too.

Imaginary Friend is one of the most frightening horror novels I have read. Chbosky's sense of timing a scare is exquisite, and some chapters end with lines that made me close the book to have time to absorb the scare.

The characters stand out and are well-developed. I grew to like the good characters and really dislike the bad ones, although even they have enough good so that I did not grow to hate them. Christopher, the main character, and his mother are particularly well-developed, but even the minor characters stand out almost as vividly as real people.

There are numerous plot twists, which I shall not give away. Generally I did not expect them and found them shocking, but they fit into the previous context in hindsight, like puzzle pieces into the right slot. I was kept guessing until the end.

The world-building is amazing. Some critics have said he does not develop the nature of his secondary world sufficiently; I disagree. The epic scope of Imaginary Friend reminds me of Tolkien.

This is theological horror, which may turn off people who hate religion, but that is not the author's problem. Chbosky was reared Roman Catholic, but does not practice and is a kind of "general theist;" that is, he believes in God. Even a non-religious person should be able to pretend a little while and be drawn into the story, which is well-worth the read. The critics who claim that the book leaves no room for redemption have not read the book. It is clear as a bell that the novel is a novel about redemption and forgiveness, and this is communicated through the story. I was lost in the story and did not find the book to be didactic or preachy. The novel will, however, make you think, and as a philosophy and religion professor, I found that aspect fulfilling.

As a writer myself, I know what a well-crafted novel is, and this is the best crafted novel I have read in years. The strangeness of the plot may be off putting to some readers, but everything does follow logically in the plot

If you want to read a horror novel with elements of the thriller and epic fantasy as well as expert characterization and plot and a high "creep-factor," then read this book from start to finish. It will be worth your time.



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Review of van Dongan, Gerding, and Sneller, "Wild Beasts of the Philosophical Desert: Philosophers on Telepathy and Other Exceptional Experiences"

Wild Beasts of the Philosophical Desert: Philosophers on Telepathy and Other Exceptional Experiences by Hans Gerding

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


von Dongan, Gerding, and Sneller's book fills a major gap in philosophy and parapsychology. They summarize the views of important philosophers on psi phenomena and show how important such phenomena were in the development of their philosophical thought. Kant's critical method, for example, developed in part as a reaction to Swendenborg's alleged precognitive powers. Other philosophers mentioned include Schelling, Schopenhauer, William James, Henri Bergson, Gabriel Marcel, and Jacques Derrida. It was not necessary for the authors to discuss C. D. Broad and H. H. Price, since they are already well known for their work in twentieth century psychical research. Also omitted are discussions of Antony Flew, Stephen Braude, and others who have done work in contemporary philosophy and parapsychology, but their works are known and readily available. The secondary literature in philosophy on the philosophers they discuss almost invariably omits discussion of their views on psi phenomena and psychical research. Now that this book has been out for years, there is no excuse for writers on these philosophers to ignore the influence of psychical research on their thought. Highly recommended.



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A Splendid Book on the Philosophy of Medicine and Ethics that Should be More Widely Read

Ethics and the Clinical Encounter by Richard M. Zaner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Professor Zaner was my master's thesis director at Vanderbilt University, and his book recalls both class discussions and private discussions with him. This is an enlightening book, holding that contemporary medicine has adopted an unnecessary dualism between body and mind, leaving only the "corpse," the body as mechanism, to treat. The person qua person who is ill is ignored--only clinical data count. Zaner rightly criticizes this model of medicine, noting that the man often identified with dualism, Rene Descartes, considered dualism only as a conceptual exercise, a part of philosophical meditation, and that the body treated in medicine is a mind-body unity. He calls for a re-modeling of medicine on the basis of the existing person in the actual world, who is a mind-body unity. This means that the doctor must listen to the patient--everything the patient says, in order to understand the patient's illness, not just whatever pathological lesion is causing disease. Illness disrupts not only the person's own life, but her social network of relations, both relatives and friends as well as co-workers; thus illness takes place in a social context. Understanding these dynamics helps the physician to better understand the patient as a whole--and in that way better understand the patient's illness and make wiser therapeutic choices.

There is a fascinating journey into ancient medicine between the Dogmatists and the Empiricists, and Zaner points out the similarities between their models of medicine and contemporary models. Then Zaner focuses on medical ethics, including the Hippocratic Oath, in order to understand its notion of medicine and ethics. Zaner proposes a bedside approach to clinical ethics in which the ethicist on consult not only interviews the patient and listens carefully to all that the patient says, but also interviews family members to better understand family dynamics that affect moral choice. It is a holistic approach to ethics that does not focus on ethical theory, but rather with a concrete encounter with an existing person embedded in a network of social relations. The existing person is ill and comes to the doctor for help overcoming her illness, not just the disease. This involves a power and knowledge disparity between doctor and patient that implies that the doctor use such power and knowledge to benefit, not harm, the patient. Thus medicine is an inherently moral enterprise.

My only criticism is that at times the book becomes repetitive, but that is a minor point. This book should be widely read by all medical practitioners as well as by medical ethicists and other members of health care institutional ethics committees.



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Review of Paradise Understood," edited by T. Ryan Byerly and Eric J. Silverman (Oxford, 2017)

Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven by T Ryan Byerly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Paradise Understood is a collection of philosophical essays from analytic philosophers about the concept of Heaven. "Heaven" here means the abode of the righteous in the afterlife in Christianity and Islam (and in some strands of Jewish thought). The essays are all high-quality, though some are more accessible to a general educated audience than others. The topics range from whether we are active and grow in Heaven or whether it is static, the nature of emotions in Heaven (is sadness possible), the possibility of non-human animals in Heaven, how we can be the same persons in Heaven as the persons who died (preservation of personal identity from this earth to Heaven), and whether we shall be free in Heaven. This book has my highest recommendation for philosophers, especially analytic philosophers and philosophical theologians who are analytically trained, who are interested in the topic of Heaven. The book is expensive, but it is worth borrowing a copy through Interlibrary Loan and working through the articles.



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