Kindred Spirits

“The nympholepts of old were curious and unhappy beings who, while carelessly strolling amidst sylvan shades, caught a hasty glimpse of some spirit of the woods, and were doomed ever afterwards to spend their lives in fruitlessly searching after it. The race of Fanatics are somewhat akin to these restless seekers. There is a wildness and excessive extravagance in their notions and actions which separates them from the calm followers of Truth, and leads them into strange courses and curious beliefs. How far the sacred fire of enthusiasm may be separated from the fierce heat of fanaticism we need not now inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has not shone brilliantly in many a noble soul and produced brave deeds and acts of piety and self-sacrifice. Those whose fate is here recorded were far removed from such noble characters; their fanaticism was akin to madness, and many of them were fitter for an asylum rather than a gaol, which was usually their destination.”

From Books Fatal to their Authors, by P. H. Ditchfield, c. 1894.


What an awesome concept for a book! I have this on a CD and I’ve never read it, but I’m going to bring it with me over the weekend to peruse. Might be something of interest – ghoulish interest, perhaps – with this topic. I mean, can you think of anyone who was killed by a book he wrote? Off the top of my head I can recall one, Tyndale maybe, who translated the Bible into English vernacular and was burned at the stake a short while later. I think. But Ditchfield’s book literally talks about over a hundred writers subdivided into various fields, such as religion, philosophy, politics, even science.

I can’t tell you how many strange and usually pointless books I read, mostly in part but sometimes in full, because I’ve “caught a hasty glimpse of some spirit of the woods.” I think it began when I was young, in the 1970s, becoming enraptured with science fiction and just plain science books (yes, and pseudoscience). My mother was a librarian back then, and some of my fondest memories are camping out in the 001 section of the library. Reading Tolkien at the cusp of manhood while my parents split up was enormously influential and formative. And, of course, slowly traveling through the Bible from Genesis 1 straight through to Revelation 22, beginning in a cold February and culminating on Easter, 1992, was a genuine spiritual, almost “mystical” experience for me.

But it left me dry. Cursed now, forever, to seek out what it was that I was allowed to see. I conservatively estimate close to 500 books in those near-20 years, but nothing satisfied me, though some have come close. I am even thinking the sacrilegious thought that perhaps what I am seeking cannot be found in a book. But that is too radical a thought for me to handle right now.

Sorry for being somewhat cryptic; this is a rather personal subject.

More on this man Ditchfield’s book in the days to come. Also, more from my friend, Michio Kaku, and his fascinating Physics of the Impossible.