Christmas Resources Pt. 2, Historical Farm Series

 

 

 

From Victorian Farm, left to right: archaeologists Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands and historian Ruth Goodman 

Kindly see Christmas Resources Pt. 1.

As I continue to compile my Yuletide resource list, I found it necessary to dedicate an entire post to BBC Two's historical farm series. 

There are five of these series, strictly speaking, plus the related series Victorian Pharmacy and Secrets of the Castle; all were produced by David Upshal.

I have included links to all of the relevant December/Christmas episodes below. 

Now, to my mind, these series together constitute an extraordinary achievement in the history of television. 

Each series features a team of historians and archaeologists meticulously carrying out period activities, sometimes using techniques not seen in the British Isles for hundreds of years, with principal figures like Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn, and Alex Langlands appearing in all series; historian Ronald Hutton is a recurring guest, who comes to impart holiday lore. 

In Tales from the Green Valley, for instance, the team recreate a Welsh farm of the Stuart era "for a full calendar year." (This phrase is a memorable feature of the opening.) To that end they bring in many experts in order to plow fields, thatch roofs, prepare food, and more. Each episode documents one month's work.

Naturally, the Christmas episodes are my favorites. In preparation for the coming season, I have re-watched these particular episodes in order. Among other things, these recreations go a long way towards dispelling the notion that there is a modern "Christmas creep" (an ever-expanding holiday season). The episodes show that, on the contrary, there was historically a long feasting season based on the patterns of rural life, and these traditions were dealt a blow by capitalist modernity — namely with the industrial revolution and Protestant Reformation. 

If the Victorians revived Christmas, and consolidated the holiday as we know it, the revival itself speaks to the depth of the traditions, to their seeming irrepressibility. 

In any case, the episodes:  

1. Tales from the Green Valley (2005) Period explored: 1620	Christmas Episode
2. Victorian Farm (2009) Period explored: 1837-1901	Christmas Episode
3. Victorian Pharmacy (2010) Period explored: 1837-1901	N/A
4. Edwardian Farm (2011) Period explored: 1901-1910	Christmas Episode
5. Wartime Farm (2012) Period explored: 1938-1946	Christmas Episode
6. Tudor Monastery Farm (2013) Period explored: 1457–1509	Christmas Episode
7. Secrets of the Castle (2014) Period explored: 13th century	N/A

Christmas Resources, Pt. 1

 

Since we are sinking deeper into the Christmas season, I wanted to compile links to miscellaneous Yuletide things that I have found interesting or useful over the past several years. Included are YouTube playlists, books, podcasts, and more.

Note that although the present blog is dedicated to esotericism in the broadest possible sense—it is an occult blog—matters treated in the linked materials may be more-or-less exoteric in their respective cultural contexts. For contemporary U.S. Americans, the likes of Krampus may have dark and even counter-cultural connotations, and result in a frisson of the strange and the eerie; though, Krampus has become more mainstream. 

Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes. But I suspect that any of these things could be interesting those looking to plumb the depths of the season in various ways. 

1. Magic and Legends of Old Christmas

Media Type: YouTube series

A couple years back, a certain Benito Cereno produced a 12-part YouTube series covering huge swaths of Christmas lore and practices. His style is humorous and the approach encyclopedic. Cereno takes us from Russia to the North American lands of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Occasionally, his cats make their presence known.

Notes on the Esoteric Plato

 

November 14, 2022

These are notes that I found on my outdated but useful AlphaSmart word processor. The reading and notes are a response to the Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast (SHWEP), which I began listening to in the autumn of 2020. Therefore, the notes were written after that, and likely in 2021. I will reproduce the text here—as an artifact—with only a few grammatical corrections and expansions for clarity. The latter are indicated in brackets.

***

Listening to the SHWEP has prompted me to return to Plato’s texts after many years. Actually, the detailed discussions on the podcast have inspired me to read Platonic texts I had never read before (i.e., the Parmenides and the Timaeus). I have been struck by how holistic Plato is when it comes to bridging the gap between rational and extra-rational modes of knowing, let us [call them]. [What follows will be] overly schematic in order to highlight some points I find significant.

From the perspective of intellectual history (that is, from the perspective of what might be presented in a course with “intellectual history” in the title), Plato comes across as the father of rational philosophizing in the traditions stemming from the Greeks. A nod is given to the pre-Socratics. I take it that this is roughly how Plato appears in the analytical cannon, at least as a necessary link in the chain leading to Aristotelian logic. I do not think that this is entirely inaccurate.

Nevertheless, I have been struck by all the ways that Plato describes extra-rational inspiration impinging upon the person, and therefore impacting discursive philosophy itself. In fact, he seems to be always trying to integrate the extra-rational into the latter, as if making it an essential moment of the whole.

Lokilech, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Diagram of the sheep's liver found near Piacenza with Etruscan inscriptions"—Wikipedia article on the Haruspex 

Through the Hag Stone

 Flying, here, is akin to falling.

For without ground, there is infinite sky.
Let us go! We will slip down further,
As shadows, as echoes, like voices in an empty house...
Open the old, rusted gate: Nothing can be seen beyond.

"I am dead. I never was."
—I said that in a dream once, or, in a dream, once, that was said.

We'll drift down through rocks and bones.
Let us go.
In this dream: We are dead!
We'll drift down to Mimir's head.
He was a god or a giant, or something unnamed.

"Do you hear us, Mimir? Do you remember all? What might we see without our eyes?"