A world haunted by demons Science is a fiddler in Altai - Carl Sagan. Translated from English: Emmanuel Lotem. Hed Artzi Publishing House, Maariv Library, 430 pages
The book "Haunted World" by Carl Sagan is a sad and depressing document for three main reasons: it was written by a man like Sagan; He had to be written; He won't help. The sadness is not necessarily related to the fact that the author of the book passed away not long ago. The book is sad because Sagan's writing is a clear symptom, like a dark shadow on an x-ray of the lungs, of the sad state of American society. And since we are dealing with its Hebrew translation, we can immediately add - also of society in Israel; Although the book is written by an American and is intended primarily for an American readership, the scourge that is its symptom nests in Israeli society and culture much more than in American society.
What is sad about the book being written by Sagan is the thought that only a few decades ago such a book would not have been written, neither by him nor by anyone else in his academic standing. The fact is that the book was really written now, and not 50 years ago, even though the subject it deals with has accompanied man since the dawn of his existence on this planet. In the Israel of 50 years ago, the book would not have been written, because there was simply no market for it in Israel. For example, the Palmeers of the 40s, or the pioneers who founded the religious kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, would have found the book self-evident and almost completely unnecessary. Even any mid-level or higher scientist in those years would have considered writing such a book a complete waste of time.
And here, now, only three years before the end of the second millennium AD, Sagan devotes the last years of his life to writing this book. And Sagan is not suspected of being far from the media, that we do not know the market of book readers closely, or that he is cut off in his ivory tower from the audience of media consumers in America and the world. He knew that the book had a readership, and that there would be a demand for it in the market. He probably also knew that such a book would not be written by anyone else. In the world of the late 90s, the authority, name and publicity of Carl Sagan are needed to publish a book like this and hope that it will have some resonance.
And so, instead of writing, for example, a summarized and updated book for the end of the second millennium on the planetary sciences, his field of research and professional occupation throughout his life, or on the possible consequences of space exploration on civilization and human culture, Sagan goes and writes in the last year of his life a book that was only a few years earlier Therefore, it could have been written for the most part by any competent journalist, with a little effort and help from experts. "A Haunted World" is a sad book because it is an almost trivial book that should have been written.
The word "trivial" is perhaps somewhat harsh, since the book contains hundreds of anecdotes, stories and historical quotations that are not the property of every person, and certainly putting them in writing is a scholarly work. However, the basic thesis that the book offers and the main claim raised in it are quite simple. The main idea is that the minds and hearts of masses of people, perhaps even of the great majority, are flooded with superstitions, delusions and delusions which are based on error, lies and deceit.
The uncontrolled culture of belief not only has no blessing or benefit, but has the power to bring disaster and suffering. In front of the vast world of false fantasies and imaginations stands human rational thinking, which relies on constant doubting and severe and uncompromising criteria for the radical distinction between recognition that can be accepted as knowledge on the one hand, and what is nothing more than a hypothesis, a guess, a belief, an imagination, a hallucination or just something A lie, on the other hand.
In Sagan's opinion, the highest expression of this uniquely human quality, of rational thinking and judgment, is in a system called science. Sagan describes and explains this point mainly by a multitude of historical and modern examples of the flourishing and control of anti-scientific and anti-rational attitudes and concepts in different parts of the world and in different generations, and the enormous damage and suffering they brought in their wings to masses of people. The injured, by the way, were everywhere members of the weaker classes.
Sagan does not say this, but upon reading the book and the historical descriptions in it you cannot escape the thought that encouraging superstitions and delusions, and controlling blind faith in various statements and claims, while suppressing the criticism of reason, have since time immemorial been used as a tried and tested means of controlling a few with power and strength over the many who are subject to them in degrees Variation of encumbrance.
Apparently, in the world of book readers, this position expressed by the book hardly needs to be said, certainly not forcefully, at length, and with a certain degree of apologetics as it is presented in the book. However, Sagan thought that in the America of 1997 the book should be written, and we must testify, honestly and sadly, that in the State of Israel of 1997 it certainly should. Furthermore, parts of the book, such as chapter 7, which bears the book's title, chapter 8 (on the distinction between true and false visions), or chapter 12 (the sublime art of detecting nonsense), should be required reading material for every student and every educator in Israel, starting Kindergarten and up.
If the Ministry of Education wants to be true to its name, it should collect certain chapters and sections from the book, which is well translated into Hebrew and is very easy to read, re-edit them to some extent, and publish them as an instruction book for teachers and students. Such a book should be placed in a prominent place in every classroom in Israel. Colleges and universities in Israel should also place a book like this in a prominent and visible place in their libraries.
The need for such a book is a symptom of a disease, an unwelcome, and perhaps even dangerous, change during the social evolution in Israel and the world. He points out that culturally and cognitively we are once again where human societies stood a few generations ago, but in the opposite direction of change.
On page 74 it is said that in 1841 Charles McKay authored a book called "Extraordinary Popular Illusions, and the Madness of the Masses". According to his description, it was a book parallel in its trend and literary means to Sagan's own book. McKay's book was written towards the end of the Enlightenment period in Europe, and it contained a criticism and an attack on what were seen as remnants and remnants of the medieval world and other ancient dark ages, which would go away and disappear, partly with the help of books of the type McKay wrote. Sagan's book extensively describes a cultural reality that is largely similar to McKay's. However, while 150 years ago the trend of change was in the direction of reducing the "popular illusions" and weakening the "madness of the masses," today it seems as if the change is actually towards increasing
and the strengthening of these forces.
The third reason why the book "A World Haunted by Demons" has some depressing element is not directly rooted in the content of the book, but in the thought that it has no power to change the aforementioned negative trends, which we witness in Israel at every turn. Such a thought originates precisely from what the book does not deal with almost entirely, and this is perhaps its greatest weakness. There is no explanation in the book as to why American culture, or, for the purpose of our discussion, Israeli culture, is now so tainted by the scourge of belief in demons and the like, and why it is infesting scientists, magicians, alternative healers and astrologers. The book gives different psychological explanations for the same disease, such as the enormous power of self-delusion, or the unlimited ability of the will and the desires of the human soul to influence one's ability to judge and think, and even to overpower them.
However, these psychological explanations, backed up by examples and stories for the most part, may be powerful as an explanation on a personal level only, as an explanation for the behavior of individuals. They have almost no reference to the problem at its socio-cultural level. The phenomenon that now requires a special explanation, which general human psychology does not provide, is that the history of the last 200 years might have led to the conclusion that society in America - or the Jewish community that is being renewed in the Land of Israel - are in the process of freeing themselves from this scourge; However, in recent years we are witnessing a march back (in the Israel of 1997 even a real influx), back towards spiritual realms from which, it seemed, we had already left. To the old question, why is the world haunted by demons, a new question has now been added: why has the world become haunted again?
The book does not deal almost at all with two main factors, perhaps the main factors, of this dangerous change in culture, a change that Sagan noticed of course, and which led him to write the book. The two factors are related and intertwined, and they deserve extensive treatment and in-depth analysis. One factor is the unprecedented influence of electronic mass media, radio and television, an influence that has implications perhaps even at the Darwinian level of human evolution. The second factor is the educational-cultural power that has no rivals, given to the political rulers of the modern state. The spiritual power in the hands of central politicians, those in power but also those in the opposition, dwarfs the influence of all educational and spiritual institutions in the country: kindergartens, schools, universities, the theater, literature and research institutes. The book may have some hints about the first factor - on page 349, Sagan criticizes television and the programs it offers - but this criticism does not touch on such a profound influence of this medium on human culture, on the minds of people. It allows those who have access to it to literally change the mind structure of millions through propaganda. This power of the electronic medium is a major factor in the world's return to belief in demons of all kinds and the need for the occult.
The responsibility of the main political parties in the country for society's return to the lap of demons and zodiacs is also almost never mentioned in the book, and certainly not explained in it. Of course, we will not be able to complete here what the book lacked, but we may be able to hint, with the help of one example from the Israeli reality in recent months, how rulers help the anti-scientific trends and the movements to return to belief in demons.
Throughout the book, Sagan emphasizes that in the face of hallucinations and superstitions, the scientific method stands on its severe standards, one of the most important of which is the criticism of claims by quantifying them. He mentions already in the introduction the method of "calculation on an envelope," which he learned from the astronomer Gerald Kuiper, as a method that greatly influenced him. In the first chapter, he mentions mathematics as one of the strongholds of rational criticism, which must confront idols and superstition. This recognition was surely before the eyes of educators and teachers already in the days of Plato, and even before that, and is one of the reasons that the multiplication table is one of the first things children are taught in school in every civilized human society.
And here, in July 1997, the children of Israel witnessed the pathological spectacle of all Israeli government ministers, including the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister, voting in the Knesset against the government's decision, against their own decision. The children are also witnesses to this, that all these people continue to hold their high positions, and in addition carry positions with the heaviest responsibility for the fate of the country and the fate of all its citizens. You don't need to be an experienced pedagogue or a seasoned educator to see and understand that the damage that such a picture brings to the psyche of the child looking at it, and to his understanding of what rationalism is and what it is needed for, is immeasurably greater than learning the multiplication table with errors. Even a grandiose "computer for every child" program cannot repair this damage. The path from the television background where this shameful spectacle is seen, to some guru who explains that the purpose of man is to look with maximum concentration at his own Korkaban, or to a well-known kabbalist who promises that a piece of synthetic parchment provided by him brings a blessing to its bearer, is a very short path.
Finally, we can demonstrate the relevance of the book "A World Haunted by Demons" to Israel '97 through a short quote from page 143. This is a paragraph from a collection published in 1248 by order of the King of Castile, Alfonso the Wise. If it weren't for the date attached to it, it would be possible to think that its author lives in the State of Israel today. And so it is said there: "There are those who discover or build altars in the fields or in the cities to deceive, saying that there are certain holy relics in these places, and they pretend as if they have the power to perform miracles, and which therefore convinces the people of many places to make a pilgrimage there, and all this so that they can take They are something."
Prof. Elia Leibovitz is the director of the Weiss Observatory at Tel Aviv University
Published on - 14/10/1997
