The idea of creation scientists brings this picture to mind:
I'm sure, had Bosch been aware of control groups or Chi Square Goodness of Fit tests, or a proper use of statistics, he would have painted a portrait where the Stone of Madness is ground up and smoked.
Basically same picture, just all those creation scientists all stoned and trying to figure out how fast was the First Man licked out of a block of ice by the Primeval Cow Audhumla, which really ought to be taught in public schools, instead of all that Mesopotamian silliness of waters separating from the waters*.
I hear Canada is minting a coin showing Tiktaalik, the transitional fossil between fish and quadrupeds.
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| courtesy: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary |
Meanwhile, in America, we have our wannabe chief warlock waving his hands to weave a spell designed to preserve and protect the "democracy of the market". (Did he really say that? Yeah, he really said that. Wow. What a primitive and paranoid culture we Americans aspire to)!
*One of the demands the Almighty made to his beloved foreman and right hand man, Lucifer, in his rather removed and dictated act of Creation. "By Friday, boss!" replied Lucifer.
This Bosch is an alchemical painting depicting signalling amanita muscaria as the philosopher's stone. The "surgeon" is a puffer or practicing alchemist. The "stone" is the "flowering" part of the fungus conspicuously depicted in its characteristic red/white glory.
ReplyDeleteThat the secret work of the alchemists might have been mycological, whether seeking after the "stone" in the wild or cultivating it through laborious laboratory procedures - is one of the best kept secrets of western occultism.