Tea at Trianon: Magical Ritual or Holistic Healthcare?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Magical Ritual or Holistic Healthcare?

From Ancient Origins:

In the past it was not just the man, but also the renowned Asclepian centers that flourished in the ancient world. From the 6 ^th century BC to the 4 ^th century AD there were around 400 sites across Greece, Asia Minor and the Levant. The most famous were at Olympia, Corinth, Kos, Epidaurus and Pergamum, with Epidaurus and Pergamum having theaters that could seat up to 14,000 and 10,000 people respectively.
These numbers far exceed the capacity of London’s Royal Albert Hall (5,272), New York’s Metropolitan Opera House (3,800) or even the Sydney Opera House (5,748). What was it that attracted these multitudes? The answer is simple. Asclepian temples existed at a time when state-funded medical care was absent. The record of success of these religious-medical institutions saw their human founder elevated to the ranks of the demigods and mythologized as the son of Apollo, the god of healing. (Read more.)