by Joscelyn Godwin
Phanes Press, 1993; paper.
Joscelyn Godwin continues to surprise and delight the serious meta physical student. Arktos plows fresh territory, resulting in the first comprehensive survey of what until now has been a subject treated only in fragmentary fashion.
The Arktos theme accounts for the Fall from the Golden Age as a decline in the earth's angle of rotation from perpendicular to its current 23 ½ degree angle. From there, matters grow immensely complicated as we are guide d through a maze of complex explanations and theories. As with Rorschach inkblots, every manner of interpretation seems to have been thought up at so me time. Theories have ranged from the Harmony of the Spheres to UFOs, to the idea of Nazi survival (including the claim that Hitler is in Antarctica), to the Hollow Earth.
Godwin has broken fresh ground in mystical studies . Arktos resides on the fringes of mysticism, surfacing at times with an amazing driving power. We are transported to the core of mythogenesis through a study of a largely unfamiliar yet important theme. Much of New Age thought is directly connected to a century of speculation on this theme.
-KENNETH O'NEILL
Summer 1993