The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All things depend on each other. As has been said, 'Everything breathes together.' (Plotinus)

All very nice, but scientific? Nonsense, you retort. Well, it is the oldest profession, mother of all our sciences. Until the 17th century, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition, and it helped drive the development of astronomy. 

It was originally for the ruler and his wars and lineage. Only with the gradual emergence of horoscopic astrology, from the 6th c BC, were the techniques and practice of natal astrology developed. Ptolemy's work the Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition, and 'enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers.' Ptolemy was so obsessed with getting horoscopes right that he began the first attempt to make an accurate world map (maps before this were more relativistic or allegorical) so that he could chart the relationship between the person's birthplace and the heavenly bodies. While doing so, he coined the term geography. Yet Cicero's De divinatione (44 BCE) rejects astrology and other allegedly divinatory techniques.

Religious conversions later in life are generally greeted as evidence that something terrible must have happened to the converter. The Onion published a satire in 2016, ridiculing Paul D'Amatol, who took up a life of Christian piety in late middle age. It must be 'drugs or maybe he killed someone in a car accident. Something super messed up.'

No room in satire for something good as the cause. Interestingly, it's not Protestant evangelical born-again-ism but the Catholic bells-and-smells and Islamic mysticism that attract those interested in spiritual growth as they approach the end, despite (because of?) Rome's/ Islam's hard teachings on divorce, homosexuality, the ordination of women. Catholics and Muslims take their religion seriously.

From fire by water: My journey to the Catholic faith, a memoir by Iranian American Sohrab Ahmari, is provocative, to say the least.

Conspiracy is not the way out of our deadend, nor is quasi-Marxist wokeness. Huxley's vision is new-old, a rediscovery of spirit-soul, the other dimension in life denied in our age of scientism. Simple truths which are found in all the great religions, but have been shelved, blinded as we are by the dazzling smoke and mirrors of technology.

Grandson of Thomas Huxley, notorious critic who declared Darwinism was becoming a religion, a cult, younger brother of Julian Huxley, atheist and popularizer of science, Aldous trumps them with his quiet pacifism, his spiritual quest, looking for truths in the ancient past, not the slick, exciting world of atomic bombs and miracle cures. What's the point, if we are doomed to extinction through world war?

A prophet is a translator (mutarjim) of the workings of sacred imagination. The prophet Muhammad (pbuh*) conveyed the messages he channeled into 'the recitation/ reading', the Quran. Unlike the Bible, which claims (along with The communist manifesto) to be the most widely distributed book, the Quran is the most read, the most recited, the most memorized book. What accounts for the enduring popularity of the Quran?

 This is an ambitious work, like Graeber's The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity, building on the radical anthropology of prehistoric man, and Graham Hancock's Netflix Ancient Apocalypse, promising a radical rethink of both the how and why of homo sapiens. We need a 'new old' vision, linking us with the 80% of our history that preceded private property, slavery, war, and, oh yes, cities.

Evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein use Chesterton’s fence as their central metaphor: try to understand things before changing them.