eBook Review: The Marian Cipher by Ric Kemp

Submitted by sem on Thursday, 29 May 2014 Page Views: 3102

The Marian Cipher is one of those rare books that both delights and frustrates at the same time. Author Ric Kemp examines the evidence for the survival of a sun goddess archetype from earliest times down to the present day in pagan traditions, folklore, folk-Christianity and orthodox hagiography (biographies of the saints).

I say delightful due to the eclectic nature of the subject and frustrating because the author changes topics regularly and there is no index to find his other references to the same topic. However the latter is purely a personal dislike of the E-book and their "search" facilities. Switching between archaeological "fact", religious, mythical and legendary "fiction", a personal travelogue and linguistics, it attempts to trace a path from Neolithic to modern belief in order to show that the Sun was originally considered to be a female deity. Whether the author succeeds must be left to the individual reader, as anything involving religion must include a leap of faith.

On the journey the reader encounters various deities from periods throughout history and the author often shows that male gods were originally female or had female consorts with whom they co-ruled. "Marian" of the title refers to the Biblical Mary. Though not specifically mentioned the link between the three Marys (Mother, Magdalene and Clopas) and the tripartite goddesses of other religions is certainly alluded to. At times the depth of research is staggering - all credit to the author for this. He also treats the reader to some little known facts. eg the Hengist and Horsa, of Saxon invasion (and a certain Carry On film) fame, are legends and are in fact names for horses rather than human beings.

This is not a book that is going to be to everyone's liking. In some cases the mytho-historical links could be judged to be so tenuous that they are meaningless. However, the reader should bear in mind that the subject is the evolution of human thoughts and ideas, and as such it stands up to close scrutiny.

The review version of ninety-plus pages, was sent in PDF format and includes thirty pages of footnotes plus over a dozen colour pics. The reviewer, being a complete luddite, printed out the forty-eight pages of text and in the process discovered his three year old printer was capable of double-sided printing (my thanks to the author for this).

All in all a very enjoyable read and I found the closing words of the author the best way to sum up the review -
"It is the hope of the author that a book such as this one may cause the curious to ask questions and may one day help re-set the mythological balance which I feel has been so decidedly favoured towards paternalistic myth and religion..."

Review by Sem

The Marian Cipher by Ric Kemp is available from LuLu and the Apple iBookstore, price £1.50.

File Format: ePub
File Size: 1.01 MB

Author's summary: Ric Kemp examines the evidence for the survival of a sun goddess archetype from earliest times down to the present day in pagan traditions, folklore, folk-Christianity and orthodox hagiography. Ric explores her ubiquitous presence in the ancient Middle East, Anatolia and Europe, and links her medieval cult to the mysterious daisy wheel circle – the Marian Cipher - which began appearing in churches from around the time of the Reformation onwards. Ric’s book takes us back through time beyond the Middle Ages into prehistory when small bands of hunter-gatherers traversed a primordial world, following herds of migratory reindeer across a post-glacial landscape, looking out nightly into the depths of space to trace their Mesolithic mythology in the ceaselessly revolving northern stars, charting the immemorial story of the loss of the sun goddess and her mythic return.

Contributor Bio for sem: Based in Bridgend,S.Wales, contributing since 2003. Favourite site: Carreg Cadno. Occupation: Retired.

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