Other Essays of General Interest

1. "Cathar Slide Show", http://catharslideshow.blogspot.com/

This is the record of a talk I gave to the Gnostic Society of Portland in November of 2010. It is a brief history of the Cathar movement of the 11th through 13th centuries in the Languedoc of France and in Northern Italy, and using images gleaned from books and from my two personal trips to these areas (one just to Languedoc in 1999, then a second to both areas in 2001). In 4 sections, about 8600 words.

2.  "William Blake's Spiritual Journey." http://williamblakesspiritualjourney.blogspot.com/

This is the record of a slide talk I gave to the Gnostic Society of Portland in Nov. 2005 tracing Blake's spiritual journey in two of his illuminated books, The First Book of Urizen and Jerusalem, Emanation of the Giant Albion. I used photos taken of these texts at the Beinecke Library of Yale University. In 9 sections, about 17.150 words.

3. "Cupid and Psyche: a Tale Told in Art and Alchemy", http://cupidpsychealchemyart.blogspot.com/

This is the record of a slide talk I gave to the Gnostic Society of Portland in April of 2006, going through Apuleius's tale of Cupid and Psyche with numerous images from art and alchemy to show various takes on particular episodes and integrating them with various psychological analyses of the tale. In 10 sections, about 8700 words.

4. "The Round Dance, Text and Commentary", http://psychandgnosticessays.blogspot.com/2006/11/round-dance-text-and-commentary.html.

 This is a collaboration between another writer, Linda Phelps, and myself, i.e. my expansion of a piece originally written by Linda, so as to include more research. The text is a famous passage in the Acts of John in which Jesus, on the eve of the crucifixion says the words to a hymn while the disciples dance around him.Linda wrote the introduction and the parts on G. R. S. Mead's interpretation of it. I added more on the history and authenticity of the manuscript from which it comes, as well as information from other scholars on the interpretation. I am not sure when the essay was first done, but I did the blog, with one section, in 2006, made minor revisions in 2012; it is about 4000 words.


5. "The Round Dance Litany in the Acts of Philip", http://psychandgnosticessays.blogspot.com/2006/11/blank_116409240000549180.html

In 1974 Francois Bovon found at Mt. Athos a short version of the "round dance" ritual, embedded in the form of a prayer that Philip offers to Jesus, apparently many years after his death, prior to Philip's administering of communion to the apostle Bartholomew and a woman named Mariamne, who may be Mary Magdalene. In this essay I give a translation of the passage from Bovon's French and of his explanatory comments, 1996. plus those of Frédéric Amsler in a second volume issued in 1999. The essay was written in 2006, the essay has one part and is about 3700 words long.

6. "Dali's Illustrations to Montaigne", http://dalisillustrationstomontaigne.blogspot.com/

Reading Montaigne, I came across an edition edited by Salvador Dali. I thought the illustrations delightfully illustrated the essays and thought, for Christmas in 2008, some of my friends might enjoy the juxtaposition of the illustrations with quotations from the text. Here it is in blog form. In 12 sections, about 12,000 words.

7. "Interpreting the Engravings in Polanski's Ninth Gate," http://psychandgnosticessays.blogspot.com/2006/11/interpreting-engravings-in-polanskis.html

I was puzzled by the engravings shown in the movie "The Ninth Gate", so I researched the interpretations given in the book on which the movie was based, Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas and also wrote down what the film itself had to say at various points. There was also the context of the story, in both the book and the film, and finally the tarot cards of which the engravings are variations. I'm not exactly sure when I wrote this essay; the blog is 2006, about 5500 words.