The Lion, the Therianthrope and the Fruitcake
Warren and I went to the cinema for the first time in years last weekend, to see the Chronicles of Narnia-the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , which I remember fondly growing up reading.
The film didn't disappoint either-it was so lightly Hollywoodised that I hardly noticed, and all the characters were pretty much as I had imagined them so many years ago. What did take me by surprise was the evidence of the Death of the Cinema . There we were, Saturday night, a fairly new release showing, and the place was not even a quarter full.Oh well, not too many tears will I shed, especially as one of the ploys the theatres is using is full-on advertising for a tedious half hour before the film.(you thought the new Coke ad was pretty cheesy, until you saw it on the BIG screen.Then you knew it was conceptualised by, produced by and for complete morons). Now, Narnia the fillum was quite good on the Special Effects Creatures. Aslan the lion was spectacular (I know I know-he's supposed to represent Jesus but what the fuck , I never saw him that way when I was eight , and I certainly don't care now), as were the mythical creatures: Fauns
Centaurs
Minotuars
And many others. One of the great anthropological questions is:from where did we dream up these therianthropes (from the Greek 'therion'-wild beast and 'anthropos'-man)(oh yes, it's my New Word of the Month, that one) ?
One man who has taken a stab at answering that is Graham Hancock , in his new work Supernatural which I'm plodding through at this moment(actually I bought a copy on the same night I went to see Narnia-how's that for meaningless coincidence, eh?).
His main premise seems to be (so far-I'm about a third of the way through) that our ancestors were inspired in their subject of rock art by hallucinogenic drugs, trance-dancing, and other ways of reaching an altered state of consciousness, in which they would-well-err..hallucinate these strange entoptic patterns and icons like The Sorcerer at Trois Freres .Or is that The Shaman? Can't remember.This bloke:
As part of his research, Hancock, who, as much as I'd like to, I can't call an out and out fruitcake, undertook to ingest various hallucinogens in legal and illegal use. The ayahuasco visions with which he enlivens the first chapters of Supernatural are quite good examples
although frankly not something I'd like to try.
Even for visions like this one.
The film didn't disappoint either-it was so lightly Hollywoodised that I hardly noticed, and all the characters were pretty much as I had imagined them so many years ago. What did take me by surprise was the evidence of the Death of the Cinema . There we were, Saturday night, a fairly new release showing, and the place was not even a quarter full.Oh well, not too many tears will I shed, especially as one of the ploys the theatres is using is full-on advertising for a tedious half hour before the film.(you thought the new Coke ad was pretty cheesy, until you saw it on the BIG screen.Then you knew it was conceptualised by, produced by and for complete morons). Now, Narnia the fillum was quite good on the Special Effects Creatures. Aslan the lion was spectacular (I know I know-he's supposed to represent Jesus but what the fuck , I never saw him that way when I was eight , and I certainly don't care now), as were the mythical creatures: Fauns
Centaurs
Minotuars
And many others. One of the great anthropological questions is:from where did we dream up these therianthropes (from the Greek 'therion'-wild beast and 'anthropos'-man)(oh yes, it's my New Word of the Month, that one) ?
One man who has taken a stab at answering that is Graham Hancock , in his new work Supernatural which I'm plodding through at this moment(actually I bought a copy on the same night I went to see Narnia-how's that for meaningless coincidence, eh?).
His main premise seems to be (so far-I'm about a third of the way through) that our ancestors were inspired in their subject of rock art by hallucinogenic drugs, trance-dancing, and other ways of reaching an altered state of consciousness, in which they would-well-err..hallucinate these strange entoptic patterns and icons like The Sorcerer at Trois Freres .Or is that The Shaman? Can't remember.This bloke:
As part of his research, Hancock, who, as much as I'd like to, I can't call an out and out fruitcake, undertook to ingest various hallucinogens in legal and illegal use. The ayahuasco visions with which he enlivens the first chapters of Supernatural are quite good examples
although frankly not something I'd like to try.
Even for visions like this one.
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