Meaden, George Terrence
The Goddess of the Stones
Souvenir Press, 19--
Keywords:
megaliths
Meaden, George Terrence
The Stonehenge Solution: The Secret Revealed
Souvenir Press, 1992
224 pp., b&w and colour illustrations
ISBN 0-285-63057-1
Keywords:
natural sacred sites, megaliths, mounds, houses of worship, funerary-cemetery-burial sites, archaeoastronomical observatories, labyrinths,
symbolic landscaping, religion, myth, folklore, cosmology, religious iconography, prehistoric, Europe
Comment:
Meaden is a professional meteorologist who proposes a novel
theory to explain the 50 known neolithic British cursus
monuments, low double-banked earthworks up to several miles in
length, most now only visible through aerial photography. These,
he says, memorialized the paths of tornados, which were seen as
matings of the sky god with the earth goddess. He backs up the
hypothesis with artifacts and with statistics on the orientation
of tornado-paths in present-day England. This is sufficiently
radical to recommend the book, but there is more: It is the
author's contention that the solar alignments of British
megaliths were used in "divine marriage" ceremonies whereby the
shadow of an upright "god stone" would touch upon a "goddess
stone" or the sun's directed rays in a passage grave would
penetrate the recesses of a "womb shrine." Therefore, he
contends, archaeoastronomers have been looking at Stonehenge
backwards, trying to view the rising sun over the heelstone when
they should be viewing the shadow of the heelstone as it falls
onto the altar stone at the summer solstice. Meaden also
discusses holy springs, with particular reference to the sacred
source of the River Cunnt (now called the Kennet, alas) and he
presents otherwise hard-to-find illustrations of a number of
chalk phalli found in British barrows and cursus monuments. Had
he refrained from mentioning crop circles, his presentation would
have been more credible; even so, he has pried the lid off a very
full box of wonders. Ignore the crop circle crap and read this
book in conjuncton with Gimbutas' "The Goddesses and Gods of Old
Europe," Mohen's "The World of Megaliths," and Ritchie's
"Scotland B. C." See also Howard's "Sex Worship" and Jennings'
"Phallicism" for 19th century views on the "divine union" as a
theme in shrine and temple architecture. CY
Miller, Naomi
Heavenly Caves: Reflections on the Garden Grotto
George Braziller, 1982
142 pp., b&w illustrations
LC 81-18159
ISBN 0-8076-0967-8
Keywords:
natural sacred sites, houses of worship, funerary-cemetery-burial sites, vernacular architecture, symbolic landscaping, religion, myth, folklore,
prehistoric, ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern, Europe, Greece, Rome
Comment:
The only book of its kind; traces the development of the
"grotesque" in landscape architecture from the genre's ancient
roots in the Mediterranean and Adriatic regions, where natural
sea-grottos were used as holy sites, through the cryptoporticus
or architecturally-facaded grotto of the Romans, to the late
Renaissance and early modern period, when the grotto spread
northward into land-locked areas and became a garden feature. The
emphasis is on the grotto as Nymphaeum, especially with reference
to Greco-Roman classicism during the 16th through 18th centuries.
Numerous examples of garden grottoes no longer in existence are
depicted via period engravings and paintings. Only grottoes in
which water is a feature are considerd, and short shrift is
intentionally given to those with a chthonic or Hadean motif.
Having deliberately shied away from the Hadean grotto, the author
draws no connection between humanist garden grotto architecture
and the contemporaneous religious tradition of ossuaria. This is
unfortunate because the similarities between shell-encrusted
French grottoes and bone-encrusted Austro-Hungarian ossuaria is
striking to those who have studied them both. The Hadean garden
grotto may supply a "missing link" between the two, but in the
absence of examples, one can only guess at the distribution and
appearance of the overlap in development of these seemingly
divergent follies. Still, the text is excellent and the work
deserves to be reprinted in a revised, colour-illustrated
edition. CY
Moffett, Robert
Tantric Sex
Berkeley Medallion, 1974
Comment:
A useful introduction, albeit dated; for a selection of
quotes from this book (and commentary on the quotes) see the page
in which Alice Bunker Stockhams' Karezza is compared to
John Humphrey Noyes' Male Continence
Mookerjie, Ajit
Kali: The Feminine Force
Thames and Hudson/Destiny Books, 1988
112 pp., 86 b&w illustrations, 18 colour illustrations
LC 88-14872
ISBN 0-89281-212-5
Comment:
A well-photographed picture book on the worship of the
goddess Kali as practiced in India. CY
Mookerjie, Ajit
Kundalini: The Arousal of the Inner Energy
Thames and Hudson, 1982; 3rd edition: Destiny Books, 1988
112 pp., many b&w iand colour illustrations
LC 81-5466
ISBN 0-89281-020-3
Comment:
A beginner's picture book on Kundalini yoga as practiced in
India, with some reference to tantra yoga. CY
Mookerjie, Priya
Pathway Icons: The Wayside Shrines of India
Thames and Hudson, 1987
80 pp., 76 colour photos
ISBN 0-500-27428-2
Keywords:
houses of worship, vernacular architecture, religion, folklore, religious iconography, modern, Asia
Comment:
A well-photographed picture book of vernacular shrines to
Shiva, Kali, and the rest of the Hindu pantheon. The sacred sites
range from simple rocks painted red with a square of tin foil and
two eyes appliqued to kitchy plaster figures in garish
"naturalistic" colours. Notable are the many Shiva linga and
goddess stones. CY
Muir, Charles and Muir, Caroline
Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving
Mercury House, 1989
134 pp., colour illustrations
LC 88-7854
ISBN 0-916515-55-9 (cloth); ISBN 0-916515-86-9 (paper)
Comment:
A fine beginner's book and a compelling
argument for Tantra. Their workshops are highly
recommended. They have a lovely new video out. JT
Comment:
This is a good example of the current tendency to combine
marital self-help with neo-tantra yoga; i recommend it
for couples who may be a little put off by Hinduism but want to
explore sacred sexuality. It is well written, kind-spirited in
tone, and may be the best introduction to the subject that an
interested person could give to a reluctant mate. CY
The Bibliography is organized alphabetically by author's last name
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