Mysteries of Primeval China, Part 2: Who Killed the Gods?
Gods and monsters are surprisingly scarce in China’s earliest recorded legends. Who killed them off — and why? To understand the heart of a civilization, we have to start with its myths. How did the world get to be the way it is? Where did people come from? What are we doing here, and what’s […]
Kingship, Knowledge, and the Path to Gnosis
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $2 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.
Get Your Copy of "The Cradle and the Sword!"
Read Chapter 1 right nowfor FREE. A historical opera of sweeping proportions, The Cradle and the Sword hurtles the reader from the classical ages of Greece and Persia back into the mists of prehistory, chronicling the wars, intrigues, discoveries and triumphs of the world’s first great civilizations. A web of tales brings together an unforgettable […]
Why Do We Fetishize History's Greatest Monsters?
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $2 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.
How my friend’s art connects Hollywood and ancient Egypt Last weekend, I took a trip up to Milan. My friends and I hit all the usual sightseeing spots — the big famous Gothic cathedral, the sprawling neoclassical shopping mall known as the Galleria — but I had one special destination in mind. My friend, the painter Tracy Molis, had a […]
James Needham’s “Bathroom Selfie” Painting Continues a 40,000-Year Artistic Tradition
But to prove it, we’re gonna have to get NSFW. We’ve all gotten pulled into one of those conversations at one party or another: “Art is on the decline! No ones creates original work anymore! Music is produced by robots and armies of slave children! All we do is take selfies and mindlessly share them!” That’s […]
The Insanity That Keeps Us Sane
We’ve got some strange ways of dealing with violent thoughts. Hey, want to hear a cool story? In the 1280s, the Mongol warlord Hülegü Khan was getting ready to make war on the city of Baghdad — which was, at that time, the epicenter of the civilized world. The Khan sent a threat letter to the Caliph […]
The “G” Word: “Gypsies” Aren’t Who You Think They Are
They’re called Roma, their culture is ancient and intriguing… and the word “gypsy” is a slur. All right my friends, let me tell you about “Gypsies” — or as they’re actually called, the Romani people, or simply the Roma. They’ve been in the news a few times lately for child abductions. They’ve got a reputation as musicians and […]
Gidi's Story: No One Hears You Shouting From the Slums of Mombasa
Gidi’s story: a tale of a man, a city, and a piece of truth. The estate where we live is not in the slums. It’s a nice middle-class neighborhood — about ten acres with a big stone wall around them, and a whole community of small shops and apartments and houses and cow-grazing patches inside, all connected […]
An interactive experience in speaking with people from the past Certain photos demand your attention: vintage mugshots of Australian criminals; portraits of soon-to-be victims of Stalin’s Great Purge, or of nomads in the desert or the steppe. You stare into these peoples’ eyes and wonder what they were thinking about, what their days were like, how their […]
Previous page Next page