Getting my hopes up

Received this email this morning:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Charles Taliaferro have also purchased The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) by G.A. Rogers. For this reason, you might like to know that The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) is now available. You can order yours for just $230.00 by following the link below.

The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)
G.A. Rogers
Price: $230.00

Just $230? And I was getting all excited when I saw "Cambridge Platonists" in the subject line of an email from Amazon...

Reason and Religion

I like his style!

But some are so strangely prejudiced against Reason (and that upon sufficient reason too, as they think, which yet involves a flat contradiction) as that they look upon it not as the Candle of the Lord, but as on some blazing Comet, that portends present ruine to the Church, and to the soul, and carries a fatal and venomous influence along with it. And because the unruly head of Socinus, and his followers, by their meer pretenses to Reason, have made Shipwreck of Faith, and have been very injurious to the Gospel; therefore these weak and staggering apprehensions are afraid of understanding any thing; and think, that the very name of Reason, especially in a Pulpit, in matters of Religion, must needs have at least a thousand Heresies couched in it. If you do but offer a Syllogism, they’d straightaway cry it down for carnal reasoning. What would these men have? Would they be banished from their own essences? Would they forfeit and renounce their understandings? Or have they any to forfeit, or disclaim?

- Nathanael Culverwel, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, 1652

Henry More, but not Henry More, grandson of Thomas More

To me, this seems a strange way to begin a biographical chapter in a book on Henry More, "Cambridge Platonist":

From Sir Thomas More, the former Lord Chancellor of England executed in the Tower in 1535, descended two grandsons named Henry, who were cousinds and Catholics. Neither of these was the Cambridge don, born in 1614...

Hmm.

A new superhero and a new calling

Inspired by an email conversation with Matt, and reading a couple of articles with titles* that reminded me of Harry Potter books, I have decided that I should write a series of books about a new superhero called Henry More. I've already dreamt about looking for action figures of the Cambridge Platonists, so this is only a small step further!

Here are my titles so far:

• Henry More and the Spirit of Nature
• Henry More and the Judaic Cabbala
• Henry More and the Antidote Against Atheism
• Henry More and the Materialist Hobbists
• Henry More and the Theistic Pagans

I think I've found my new calling!

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Update: I've just come up with another title! "Henry More and the Latitude-Men." Maybe the Latitude-Men can be his faithful sidekicks...

I think my PhD is starting to have an effect on my sanity. Starting to? Maybe not...

* "Henry More and the limits of mechanism" by Alan Gabbey, and "Henry More and the Scientific Revolution" by A. Rupert Hall, both in Sarah Hutton (ed.), Henry More (1614-1687): Tercentenary Studies, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1990.