Grasp Netherworld: Discovering The Oracle Of The Dead Compiled By Robert K.G. Temple Released As Text

not finished with this yet, but there is a vein of research in this about the connections between the I Ching and the Binary number system that is quite interesting.
There is some amazing stuff about the Oracle of the Dead installation found at Baia in Southern Italy that had an acoustic system so that moans and cries could be projected through the space.
There was an ornamental river styx and a platform for a real Cerberus,
You were given drugs and then lead down into this theatrical 'Tartarus' to meet the Oracle of the Dead.
I've always loved Temple. I read one of his books when I was in High School, so this is a treat, The fact that Kekrops and Fu Hsi were both Half Snake beings, and that Fu Hsi is credited with the invention of the I Ching.
When I was very young I called myself
"Chang Lang", as just a strange affect I cannot account for.
In this text one of the earliest and most intriguing authors about the I Ching is Discussed who is called Chang Liang.
It's cheezy,

but I start hearing the doors song "I'm a changeling", .

I did not know that Chess was originally part of an I Ching Divination style that vulgarized into the Military Chataranga.

The Black and White Kings and Queens were originally Sun vs, Moon, and each position on the board was a different Hexagram,

Temple is definitely a scholar, He was friends with Joseph Needham, but he feels a little new agey at times, Some people might not get into that, but for me his scholarship is sufficiently cogent as to make it totally excellent.
If I learn about people, places, things, then it is a good book, Very interesting view of what the underworld meant to various historical periods, This book I thought would be interesting but reading again and again how Temple just simply dismisses the work of others, with a they really do not know anything at all, annoyed me immensely.
What also annoyed me was the continual bragging by Temple through out the book, I have the biggest collection of this, I know more about this that they do, was just uncalled for.

I do not have a problem with people who present a different interpretation on history, I find the books normally quite interesting but this one did not do it for me at all.
I had hoped the Chinese part of the book would pick things up but the statement everyone else has got the history of chess wrong did not bode well for the rest of the book.

There are some interesting theories presented but overall Temple just did not inspire me with confidence at all.
Read to me more like I havepages to prove my point, not present a sound alternative, I found Temple in the oddest way, He had commented on an article in the online version of the Smithsonian magazine, A few other reader/ commenters gushed at him in response, I looked up his books, was intrigued, and ordered a few paper backs from some used bookstores in the UK thanks amazon.
uk! I'm hooked. He is a fantastic writer with a gentle wit, The material is fascinating and so exciting, His thought process is far reaching but he carries the reader with him easily, If you love history and can handle some esoteric thought, please read this! The extraordinary discovery of the Underworld of the ancient Greeks.


We tend to think of ancient stories of visits to the Underworld by Odysseus, Orpheus and Aeneas as being poetic fictions, but Robert Temple shows here that in fact, the Ancients believed the Underworld to be a place that actually existed.
It was maintained by a college of priests who would prepare, through ritual fasting, prayer, animal sacrifice, bathing and solitude, whoever wished to meet the shades of the dead.
The candidate would then be led through the entrance to the Underworld, a dark, terrifying place, far underground, where after a series of ordeals and apparitions, they would finally meet with the ghosts of the dead.
All these features recur in the ancient stories,

Recently Robert Temple heard that aarchaeological expedition had actually discovered the entrance in Italy, This is the amazing story of what he found when he was finally allowed to make his own descent into the Underworld the River Styx, false doors, a snake pit and carved invocations to the Goddess of the Underworld, all revealed for the first time since ancient times.
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