Latest news with #SamuelTaylorColeridge
TimesLIVE
12 hours ago
- Science
- TimesLIVE
At Antarctica's midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent's long history of dark behaviour
As Midwinter Day approached in Antarctica — the longest and darkest day of the year — those spending the winter on the frozen continent followed a tradition dating back more than a century to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: they celebrated having made it through the growing darkness and into a time when they know the sun is on its way back. The experience of spending a winter in Antarctica can be harrowing, even when living with modern conveniences such as hot running water and heated buildings. At the beginning of the current winter season, in March, global news outlets reported that workers at the South African research station, SANAE IV, were ' rocked ' when one worker allegedly threatened and assaulted other members of the station's nine-person winter crew. Psychologists intervened — remotely — and order was apparently restored. The desolate and isolated environment of Antarctica can be hard on its inhabitants. As a historian of Antarctica, the events at SANAE IV represent a continuation of perceptions — and realities — that Antarctic environments can trigger deeply disturbing behaviour and even drive people to madness. Early views The very earliest examples of Antarctic literature depict the continent affecting both mind and body. In 1797, for instance, more than two decades before the continent was first sighted by Europeans, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It tells a tale of a ship blown by storms into an endless maze of Antarctic ice, which they escape by following an albatross. For unexplained reasons, one man killed the albatross and faced a lifetime's torment for doing so. In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published the story of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, who journeyed into the Southern Ocean. Even before arriving in Antarctica, the tale involves mutiny, cannibalism and a ship crewed by dead men. As the story ends, Pym and two others drift southward, encountering an enormous, apparently endless cataract of mist that parts before their boat, revealing a large ghostly figure. HP Lovecraft's 1936 story At the Mountains of Madness was almost certainly based on real stories of polar exploration. In it, the men of a fictitious Antarctic expedition encounter circumstances that ' made us wish only to escape from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could'. One man even experiences an unnamed ' final horror ' that causes a severe mental breakdown. The 1982 John Carpenter film The Thing also involves these themes, when men trapped at an Antarctic research station are being hunted by an alien that perfectly impersonates the base members it has killed. Paranoia and anxiety abound, with team members frantically radioing for help, and men imprisoned, left outside or even killed for the sake of the others. Whether to gird themselves for what may come or just as a fun tradition, the winter-over crew at the US South Pole Station watches this film every year after the last flight leaves before winter sets in.
Sydney Morning Herald
17-05-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why religious architecture has the power to inspire even the most sceptical
The principle of Gothic architecture, wrote 19th-century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is infinity made imaginable. There is something almost inexpressibly inspiring about a 1000-year-old cathedral which lifts us into something much bigger than ourselves, reminds us of our finitude and inspires us to look beyond our daily lives. Europe has many buildings of ancient lineage that are beautiful and grand, with every proportion designed to impress and delight – historic palaces or opera houses, for example. But only places of worship explicitly connect us to the numinous. Cathedrals, soaring upwards, are designed to point worshippers to God, to the eternal, through their airy space, majestic proportions and wonderful decorations. I love entering a historic Gothic cathedral (or small stone church) and knowing that I am standing, sitting or kneeling where untold thousands have done the same, worshipping the same God, and doubtless praying very similar prayers for themselves, their families and their communities. I love that I stand in this vast continuity, connected with the past and the future. I love the faith and commitment of the master architects and masons who often laboured for decades, knowing the work would never be finished in their lifetime. Cologne Cathedral, the longest, took 632 years to complete. People sometimes look at the ambitious size and scope of churches, even in small towns and villages, and wonder why their communities went to such lengths. One of the reasons was that centuries ago most parishioners could not dream of personal riches but, together, the community could – and did – take pride and pleasure in the result. Of course, it is not only believers who seek a connection with what they hold sacred. Many find it in God's magnificent creation, which leads them to reflect on how small a mark our lives make on the universe, or in man-made achievements such as music or art. I, too, am moved by all of these. Perhaps the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, has written that he is a cultural Christian in this way, that he loves the visible cultural expression of faith – the architecture, the music – while conceding nothing of its inspiration.
The Age
17-05-2025
- General
- The Age
Why religious architecture has the power to inspire even the most sceptical
The principle of Gothic architecture, wrote 19th-century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is infinity made imaginable. There is something almost inexpressibly inspiring about a 1000-year-old cathedral which lifts us into something much bigger than ourselves, reminds us of our finitude and inspires us to look beyond our daily lives. Europe has many buildings of ancient lineage that are beautiful and grand, with every proportion designed to impress and delight – historic palaces or opera houses, for example. But only places of worship explicitly connect us to the numinous. Cathedrals, soaring upwards, are designed to point worshippers to God, to the eternal, through their airy space, majestic proportions and wonderful decorations. I love entering a historic Gothic cathedral (or small stone church) and knowing that I am standing, sitting or kneeling where untold thousands have done the same, worshipping the same God, and doubtless praying very similar prayers for themselves, their families and their communities. I love that I stand in this vast continuity, connected with the past and the future. I love the faith and commitment of the master architects and masons who often laboured for decades, knowing the work would never be finished in their lifetime. Cologne Cathedral, the longest, took 632 years to complete. People sometimes look at the ambitious size and scope of churches, even in small towns and villages, and wonder why their communities went to such lengths. One of the reasons was that centuries ago most parishioners could not dream of personal riches but, together, the community could – and did – take pride and pleasure in the result. Of course, it is not only believers who seek a connection with what they hold sacred. Many find it in God's magnificent creation, which leads them to reflect on how small a mark our lives make on the universe, or in man-made achievements such as music or art. I, too, am moved by all of these. Perhaps the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, has written that he is a cultural Christian in this way, that he loves the visible cultural expression of faith – the architecture, the music – while conceding nothing of its inspiration.
The Guardian
30-01-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Medicine that crosses the mind/body divide
While enjoying Aida Edemariam's review of current neuro-psychological research (The mind/body revolution: how the division between 'mental' and 'physical' illness fails us all, 26 January), I disagree with her assertion that 'A conceptual division between mind and body has underpinned western culture, and medicine for centuries. Illnesses are 'physical', or they are 'mental'.' Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term 'psychosomatic' in the late 18th century to describe bodymind conditions, while the term 'placebo' was first used in the same period, referencing a link between imagination and physical symptom. A few years later, in 1800, the physician John Haygarth published the widely read pamphlet Of the Imagination As a Cause and a Cure of Disorders of the Body. Franz Anton Mesmer (a friend of Haydn and Mozart) had infamously 'treated' so-called hysteria (a term invented by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC to describe a psychological condition noted in women, spuriously thought to be caused by a 'restless womb') with a combination of music-induced relaxation augmented by hypnotic suggestion and a questionable use of magnets passed over the body. This concentrated on what would come to be known as 'erogenous zones'. Mesmer's work with 'animal magnetism' was discredited, but nevertheless influenced the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, who – in the late 19th century – treated so-called hysterics at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris through induction of hypnotic trance and suggestion. During the winter of 1885-86, Sigmund Freud attended Charcot's theatrical demonstrations of psychosomatic treatment of women patients, where his idea of a deep relationship between body and mind – as a symptom linked to repression – was formed. Drawing on Suzannah Jones's work arguing that, in comparison with men, women are airbrushed from history, we might note that historically the 'psychosomatic' in medicine is largely gendered as 'women's issues'. Or the rest is 'hystery'.Alan BleakleyEmeritus professor of medical humanities, Plymouth Peninsula School of Medicine Aida Edemariam's article is magnificent. I have been waiting for it for years. I can say that I have been talking about monism all my career. The damage Descartes dealt us reached very far, even into the phraseology we use, not only when we talk about illness. As a consultant psychiatrist, I regularly used to draw attention to dualism in ward rounds and meetings. 'It's physical,' colleagues would say to exclude a condition from our interest, to which I would retort: 'Everything is physical.' I also noticed that many patients with anxiety and obsessional disorder, as well as functional disorders, seemed to conceptualise their condition in the most dualistic way. They would say: 'It's not me, doctor – it's my mind.' I maintain that the word 'mind' should be treated as a verb, not as a noun. It's an activity carried out by the brain at its highest level of and address supplied This article was a well-written summary of an understanding that I have used to hack my wiring as part of recovery from long Covid. Many others are doing this for conditions such as fibromyalgia (which the article mentions) and ME (or CFS – chronic fatigue syndrome). The role of the mind in illness is difficult to explain in a way that resonates with most people and is not interpreted as dismissive or as saying: 'It's all in the head.' The article does a really good job of this, and so it is a shame that illnesses including ME and long Covid are not even mentioned. Far more people suffer from long Covid today, for example, than most of the conditions mentioned in the this knowledge is helping many, it could help so many more people if it were more widely understood by both medical practitioners and society in general. Those searching online using 'ME' or 'long Covid' will miss this piece of otherwise excellent journalism and, potentially, the understanding that can help them recover. That is the real BlackLaurencekirk, Aberdeenshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
