Netherworld: Discovering the Oracle of the Dead and Ancient Techniques of Foretelling the Future

Always something interesting with Mr.Temple. Happy to have found him.

This book is more than an in-depth search for archaeological verifiability of ancient texts; it's a re-discovery of a deception perpetrated in ancient times that should appeal to conspiracy buffs!When studying the "myth" of Orpheus and Euridice as literature, it bothered me that this so-called spiritual story of undying love trying to transcend death was way too concrete in its details. To commune with the "shades" of his dearly-departed, Orpheus had to go down a literal tunnel, and pay an actual coin to a subterranean boatman, and so on. That didn't sound like anything I could accept as spiritual.As Temple discovered and documented in this truly amazing book, my suspicion was well founded. A real underworld setup with a short segment of a river, a tunnel, and a method of deception using a second tunnel with a false wall, actually existed!When the hoax was uncovered in classical times, the authorities angrily filled in completely with rubble that fake "River Styx" and all the tunnels, to prevent anyone else from being taken in and robbed. Most reprehensibly, the scam artists would administer drugs that would make their clients' minds malleable and their perceptions fuzzy, so that they would accept the actors as ghosts and believe vague statements as if coming from the real lost loved ones. Unfortunately the duped bereaved person might end up dying from the effects of the drugs, but his testimony about meeting the dead would circulate to lure others into the same trap.Due to our fragmentary records from so many centuries back in time, the memory of that hoax being exposed was not preserved. Instead, what was handed down to our time was the famous ancient myth of Orpheus. It's a FALSE myth, as probably most readers suspected, and as this author so rigorously proves in this really great book. It might even be that literary romantics at the time preferred the romantic falsehood to the truth about the callous exploitation and deception of people in mourning.Netherworld is also a very interesting read, providing details of the archaeological dig which Robert Temple visited and explored in person. He did his homework in terms of the scholarship, both finding accounts in ancient texts and detailed documenting of the tunnel and how it was set up. I was very excited to read about the archaeological evidence, and felt that my suspicions were vindicated concerning the untrustworthy content of the underworld mythology still lingering in our literary culture. Another reviewer talks exclusively about divination, but I can't remember reading much about that subject in this book. It's certainly not the main topic.As a cultural preamble, a setting the stage prior to getting into the meat of the book which is the archaeological evidence, Robert Temple gives an overview of the nature of an "oracle". In order to see the significance of this archaeological site, it is useful to know why people in ancient times would go to consult what they thought was "the gods". That process also involved drugging, which increased vulnerability to deception. This is undoubtedly the reason why the Bible strongly recommended against consulting the dead: as practised in the fake netherworld, it was a SCAM. People of faith shouldn't be deceived by such hoaxes, either in the past or now. Temple has showed us why.This is rigorously scientific, painstaking scholarship, as well as an adventure to discover the real history in ancient times. That even such a complex and expensive hoax could have been revealed a couple of thousand years ago shows that our cultural ancestors were not as stupid as the myths suggest that they were.Highly recommended. Top marks.

if you are interested in the I CHING, it's origins and relationships to hexagonal geometry, tesselations, cracks in pavements, Leibniz, binomial theorem etc. you will find lots of interest here....including glimpses of magnetic chessmen in ancient China.If you simply hope to disprove ancient legends concerning the 'reality' of oracles from the actual dead you may not be disappointed.At times this authors prose is really delightful....or perhaps irritating according to your point of view: this quotes from the chapter on the Book of Changes: ''.....to view the I Ching as a hodge-podge thrown together without organization would be totally wrong.The I Ching is both a miscellaneous grab-bag and a brilliantly unified entity which is entirely coherent and ultimately (though with difficulty) comprehensible.'What gives the I Ching this unity is the bizarre skeleton on which the flesh, pieced together, it would seem, from bits of dragon, phoenix and tortoise carcasses which have been found lying about, hangs with baffling splendour. The whole thing is every bit as complex as a totem pole, with just as many strange faces grimacing from it. But it stands up straight, it seems to know what it is doing, and it was carved with a single mindedness which cannot be disguised by its plethora of exotic imagery.'This skeletal structure of the I Ching is the famous system of the 64 hexagrams....''To some readers his description of the I Ching above might sound like a description of Robert Temple's compendious books. To some it's his compendious-ness that make him such an endearing companion in exploring 'mysteries of the forgotten kind.'

Robert Temple's book is an intriquing and well researched tome on the history and art of divination both in the Western, and Eastern tradition. Netherworld is very informative, and well written, however my main critique is that it takes too long to get to the meat of the issue. Though Temple does an excellent and thorough job describing the oracles made famous by antiquitity and ancient myths, I felt myself growing impatient to read about actual foretelling, and prohecy. As stated its obvious he researched this title very well, and I learnt much from it. It just wasnt quite as exciting or intriquing as I suspected though, through no fault of his. I would in conclussion recommend this book to real history buffs, and those interested in ancient practices of foretelling the future. I learnt a lot about the oracles I never knew so in that sense Temples book is education. I just wish he gave more details in parts and less in other topics covered in his book.

Another winner from Robert Temple, who seems to go where no one has been before. A well written tome, the first part of which had me enthralled ( that's not to say that I didn't find the rest of the work fascinating, of course). The discovery of the cave system leads me to think of how many other secrets are currently buried and awaiting discovery, under Mother Earth.First Class!

What a great book. Thank you.

Full of great facts and information on ancient cultures

I couldn't put this book down, I learned so much,and enjoyed it.

As advertised.