Mark O'Connell, The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs. HarperCollins, 2017. A human life can be read as the totality of its enigmas. The questions to be asked, naturally, will differ from person to person. For J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986), the brilliant … [Read more...]
The Daimon, the Witch, and the Moon-Journey – “The Dream” of Johannes Kepler (Part 4)
Johannes Kepler's story "The Dream," about a daimon-propelled journey to the moon and the strange and often horrifying beings one might find there, ends as dreams do. "And then I woke up." "When I had reached this point in my dream, a wind arose with the rattle of rain, disturbing my sleep and … [Read more...]
The Daimon, the Witch, and the Moon-Journey – “The Dream” of Johannes Kepler (Part 3)
William Anders: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty. Frank Borman: Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled. (joking) Anders: (laughs) You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, would you... James Lovell: … [Read more...]
The Daimon, the Witch, and the Moon-Journey – “The Dream” of Johannes Kepler (Part 2)
The story so far, of pioneer astronomer Johannes Kepler's pioneering science-fiction story "The Dream": The young hero Duracotus has gone with his witch-like mother to a crossroads, the kind of place where witches perform their rites. There she's conjured up a "daimon." Not a demon, exactly. A … [Read more...]
The Daimon, the Witch, and the Moon-Journey – “The Dream” of Johannes Kepler (Part 1)
A not-so-trivial trivia question: who was the astronomer whose mother was tried as a witch? And who blamed his own unpublished science-fiction story--regarded by some as the first science-fiction ever written--for getting her in trouble? Welcome to the wonderful world of the 16th and 17th … [Read more...]
