Devil, illuminati, antichrist and Rebecca Black or the crazies came out to play

I knew that writing about the Devil will be hard, not because its the devil but because I would have to sift through god knows how much poop to find proper literature and go on trips to the far and weird corners of YouTube. 

For me any academic research starts with google. After typing in Satan, Devil, Lucifer, Antichrist, the Devil a Biography I came across some things worth sharing. 

My personal favourite is Decoding the past - The Antichrist a 'documentary' from History Chanel which I watched back in school. A documentary that seeks to prove that Antichrists is an educated, handsome, tolerant, young man already alive in Europe.

Of course there is also the super famous pseudo documentary Zeitgeist, which is the favourite oracle of truth of every stoner I know. Interestingly Zeitgeist starts to seem sane compared to some things found in the shady parts of YouTube. My new favourites are the videos that try to prove that Rebecca Black and Willow Smith are evil devil worshipping Illuminati.

I do remember saying that Rebecca Black is evil and was born to mark the end of music, I also remember sniggering at Willow Smith's I Whip My Hair Back and Forth because it is the gayest thing I have ever seen. Yet I still think that turning this 

in to this added a whole new level of comedy.

It turns out Amazon has its dodgy corners as well. Even if the author is considered to be more or less sane it does not mean that his work will not be a trip into esoteric, new age crazyland, like my unlucky purchase which Iam pretty sure has instructions on conducting spirit summoning seances.

and as a bonus, this lovelly second hand musty smelling book had this envelope inside.

If this was a Hollywood movie probably Johny Depp or Tom Hanks would apear in my life with a crazy illuminati group or a self harming Opus Dei monk, but in real life I use the envelope as a mug coaster and the book is on one of the far shelves.

Church Trip II: Italian Edition

So at the beginning of the summer I went on a cathedral/church trip around the East of England so as the summer is coming to the end what better way to bring it to a close then by going on another church trip. This one will be on the continent. After studying about Florence and Italian art this year I am breaking the habit and instead of studying I will actually go to see it.
So far the plan for the 5 days in Italy is to go to Milan, Venice, and Florence. How will this be managed I have no idea, but I am looking forward to making the lovely triangle of northern Italy.

Satanism: am I a closeted Satanist?

Witches' Sabbath, F. Goya, 1789. Oil on canvas.

I remember years ago when wikipedia was not as mainstream as it is now and I was still in school I became aware of Satanism mostly because I was in to rock and metal, but also because a couple of Daily-Mail-like newspapers had articles demonising satanism and with in depth descriptions of people gathering at night to boil babies and sacrifice kittens. So, intrigued, I googles 'Satanism.' I expected to find newspaper articles and maybe a couple of dodgy blogs somewhere on the 3rd search page but instead the official website of LaVey's church of Satan was the first thing I saw.

Witches' Sabbath, F. Goya, 1821–1823, Oil on Canvas.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed not to find recipes for puppy slaughter or manuals on how to thro the best witches Sabbath. Instead I found something very logic and not hypocritical or self righteous (the two Christian traits that make me wince). What shocked me most was the humanity and rationality of The Eleven Satanic Rules on Earth (well the 7th and the last one are debatable) but the first one should be tattooed on everyones' wrist as a constant reminder.

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.

3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.

6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

9. Do not harm little children.

10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.

11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

tacky/generic satanism image

Moreover the 9 Satanic Sins impressed me so much for a while I considered referring to my religious affiliations as 'Satanism' but then reconsidered because of the baggage that comes with the label.

1.Stupidity—The top of the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism. It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid.

2. Pretentiousness—Empty posturing can be most irritating and isn’t applying the cardinal rules of Lesser Magic. On equal footing with stupidity for what keeps the money in circulation these days. Everyone’s made to feel like a big shot, whether they can come up with the goods or not.

3. Solipsism—Can be very dangerous for Satanists. Projecting your reactions, responses and sensibilities onto someone who is probably far less attuned than you are. It is the mistake of expecting people to give you the same consideration, courtesy and respect that you naturally give them. They won’t. Instead, Satanists must strive to apply the dictum of “Do unto others as they do unto you.” It’s work for most of us and requires constant vigilance lest you slip into a comfortable illusion of everyone being like you. As has been said, certain utopias would be ideal in a nation of philosophers, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, from a Machiavellian standpoint) we are far from that point.

4. Self-deceit—It’s in the “Nine Satanic Statements” but deserves to be repeated here. Another cardinal sin. We must not pay homage to any of the sacred cows presented to us, including the roles we are expected to play ourselves. The only time self-deceit should be entered into is when it’s fun, and with awareness. But then, it’s not self-deceit!

5. Herd Conformity—That’s obvious from a Satanic stance. It’s all right to conform to a person’s wishes, if it ultimately benefits you. But only fools follow along with the herd, letting an impersonal entity dictate to you. The key is to choose a master wisely instead of being enslaved by the whims of the many.

6. Lack of Perspective—Again, this one can lead to a lot of pain for a Satanist. You must never lose sight of who and what you are, and what a threat you can be, by your very existence. We are making history right now, every day. Always keep the wider historical and social picture in mind. That is an important key to both Lesser and Greater Magic. See the patterns and fit things together as you want the pieces to fall into place. Do not be swayed by herd constraints—know that you are working on another level entirely from the rest of the world.

7. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies—Be aware that this is one of the keys to brainwashing people into accepting something new and different, when in reality it’s something that was once widely accepted but is now presented in a new package. We are expected to rave about the genius of the creator and forget the original. This makes for a disposable society.

8. Counterproductive Pride—That first word is important. Pride is great up to the point you begin to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The rule of Satanism is: if it works for you, great. When it stops working for you, when you’ve painted yourself into a corner and the only way out is to say, I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I wish we could compromise somehow, then do it.

9. Lack of Aesthetics—This is the physical application of the Balance Factor. Aesthetics is important in Lesser Magic and should be cultivated. It is obvious that no one can collect any money off classical standards of beauty and form most of the time so they are discouraged in a consumer society, but an eye for beauty, for balance, is an essential Satanic tool and must be applied for greatest magical effectiveness. It’s not what’s supposed to be pleasing—it’s what is. Aesthetics is a personal thing, reflective of one’s own nature, but there are universally pleasing and harmonious configurations that should not be denied.

The second point thought does sound funny considering that LaVey looked like this:

Anton LaVey founder of Church of Satan

Now years later I started googling satanism again just to make sure that my memory was not playing tricks on me, after all at around the same time I was studying Machiavelli in philosophy class and reading Nietzsche, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in literature (they do compliment each other yet it is a very big doze of the idea 'for the greater good' from which I still haven't really recovered).
The LaVey website is still up and running along with another Satanist site joysofsatan.com where you can find some charming links like 'kids and teens for Satan' or 'dedicate your soul to Satan'. Yet after a round of giggling I started reading. And I must admit that I have never encountered this much sympathy, tolerance, compassion and respect for personal opinion on any Christian website. Maybe the Rolling Stones were right and we should have some sympathy for the Devil.

I must admit despite the scary baby-sacrifice reputation Satanism seems soft and cuddly and less extreme and scary than some other forms of religion at the same time I don’t want to attach labels to myself and I will just stay the secular agnostic baptised-in-to-Catholicism (Go Pope!) that I am.

Counting Churches

I have a thing for churches (this sounds like an entrance sentence at an AA meeting according to sitcoms) so it is no surprise that my version of the popular car game 'I spy with my little eye...' is 'cpot the church' or 'who pots more churches'  after playing this game for a while I came to two realisations:

1) Britain is littered with churches they are everywhere.

2) If I was taking a picture every time I spotted a church I would have a a small yet diverse archive of churches.

So I decided to take the game digital and created http://countingchurches.tumblr.com/ a blog that has no text just bad-quality-taken-on-the-phone pictures of churches. The contributors so far are me and Adrian  as we compete for the amount of churches seen, so far I am winning but mostly because he works full time. However I will appreciate any photos of churches being send in with a brief note to their location and possibly name. Thank you. 

p.s. you can send the image of a church to jjudova@gmail.com

Devil the scapegoat

Virgin and Child and the 9th commandment, German, Rhine Land c. 1440-50, detail of the stain glass window in Burrell collection.

After reading a bit on the devil I am now sure that it is the ultimate scapegoat. There has always been a ruler of the underworld or an evil god but usually they were part of a bigger reality, monism could acknowledge that evil is a natural and necessary part of life. The devil, it seems, came in to existence the second someone said god is all merciful, god is all good (and happy clappy). Jeffrey Burton Russell describes the devil as the ultimate evil the example he uses to show that ultimate evil is an extract from Brothers Karamazov in which a mother tortures her young child. 

To me this approach seems dangerous because at its roots it rejects the idea that people are selfish and often do bad things to pursue their interests or in the words of Dr Cox from Scrubs:

Another problem is that good and bad are subjective - there is no such thing as universal evil just as there is no such thing as universal justice. Roald Dahl has a short story which depicts the subjectivity of every individual. The story tells about a young woman in labour and as she and her husband try to get to the hospital everything seems to be against them. The reader becomes emotionally involved and with every paragraph more upset with the cruel nature and the unjust world. Then despite the odds the happy ending is pronounced and then the story takes a U turn, I personally started hoping that the child was never born and feeling guilty that I wanted the story to have a happy ending. Everything is subjective and in retrospect somethings that seem great might turn out to be the worst things that happened. Good and evil are just a point of view.

My thesis will never be concerned with what is evil, with what the devil is or is not, yet it does not mean that I do not ponder the question. I myself will probably never be able to summarise an opinion as elegantly as Joseph Campbell in 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' :

The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit within ourselves, or within our friends, the fullness of that pushing, self-protective, malodorous, carnivorous, lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell. rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret; meanwhile imagining that all flies in the ointment, all the hairs in the soup, are the faults of some unpleasant someone else.

or in other words the devil is a by product of human hypocrisy and the inability to accept and embrace our faults. 

    

 

The Gaze and Batman

The Devil in Art is a humongous topic and I think I managed to finally narrow my thesis topic down to the depiction of the ‘special relationship’ between women and the Devil. I decided that I do not want to take the usual path and look at witchcraft, but rather indulge my passion for the Genesis 3 story of Adam, Eve, and the snake. In the Bible the snake is a snake and just that – a reptile, however, the reception and interpretation of the text turned it in to the devil. The snake being the devil makes the representations of the snake as a female all the more interesting.



One of the more famous representations of thesnake as a female can be found in theSistine Chapel.

This choice also means that my reading will consist of gender theory, sexuality, nakedness, and of course The Gaze. With the latter I always seem to be at odds mostly because I beve it is dated.

Yesterday I went to watch the new Batman, yes it is awesome it was also the first out of Nolans trilogy to have a bed scene. During the bed scene what struck me was that all the attention of the camera was on the naked male. The viewer got a good look at his chest, and arms, and muscles while the female sat wrapped up in the shade. I found this a very interesting turn, as it implies the scene was not so much for the heterosexual males pleasure and libido (if anything Christian Bale’s body will put many to shame) but for the pleasure of girls and male gays watching. Even more interesting, I expected that to balance it out Catwoman would show some skin but no, and her being dressed in latex still left a lot to the imagination. Thinking about it the latest Batman franchise is the ultimate eye candy for girls and gays and the fact that it was filmed by a male (and I am guessing straight) director puts the Male gaze theory out of date.  

Another example of such eye candy is again with Christian Bale, the opening scenes of American Psycho show him naked taking a shower and then working out in his underwear. This is a good example of the double standards of any feminist theory: if it was a naked female showering and working out filmed by a male it would have been labeled porn and one or two feminists would be at the director’s throat. However, since it’s a really good looking guy (and filmed by a female) the feminists are kept preoccupied with something to stare at.

Scene from the opening sequence of the American Psycho.

The Gaze theory is interesting and it is a valuable prism through which to examine some movies and artworks works yet it seemed that it cannot be applied to most of the contemporary culture. Laura Mulvey’s thought that “According to the principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification”  became obsolete the second a female character in a movie/show/book/sitcom said ‘Mmmm, look at his hot ass.’ It became dated the second voyeuristic websites such as http://tubecrush.net/  began to appear. The gaze theory should have died the second homosexuality came out of the closet because now when a male and a female are staring at a woman you cannot be too sure about who is admiring the breasts and who the handbag.   

Its ROUND!

Psalter map, London, British Library, Add. MS 28681, fol. 9, London? After 1262

I must admit that when I started studying Medieval Art (or as some would view it: when the lecturer started talking Medieval Art at me) what blew my mind was not the talent of the masons, not the perfection of calculations at Vezeley, not even the quirkiness of Green men and Shilah na gig, not the creative use of typology in Franciscan art for their propaganda. No, it was a simple fun fact that 'They knew that the world was round!' It was as if a light was switched on and the Dark Ages ceased to be so dark. Yes, the world was round, and that small piece of knowledge united me and them.  

 

Apparently the misconception became popular knowledge after in 1828 Washington Irving's highly romanticised biography, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, was published and mistaken by many for a scholarly work. In Book III, Chapter II Irving gave a largely fictional account of the meetings of a commission established by the Spanish sovereigns to examine Columbus's proposals. Where the more ignorant and bigoted members on the commission had raised scriptural objections to Columbus's assertions that the Earth was spherical. Of course there was no such meeting and there is nothing in the Bible about the shape of the world.

There probably were people that thought that the world was flat yet they were a minority, like now we have people that think that creationism is true, or 18% of Americans think that the sun revolves around the Earth (if you are British do not laugh 19% of UK think that).* Yet those crazy assumptions, then like today, had nothing to do with the Bible and had everything to do with personal ignorance.

To understand that the world is round one does not need to know maths, the power of observation is enough. One can observe that when a ship approaches the shore: it appears gradually from underneath the horizon. This is all prove needed. In other words any society with sea travel would know that the world is spherical. Moreover evidence of 'they knew about spherical earth' is found in the majority of art works. Look at the one above. It is Mappa Mundi from a psalter. It is not to be read like Google maps it has little to do with geographical navigation and all to do with navigation through the world view. The map is a circle. Of course it could be argued that it just shows that the Medievals though the world was a flat circle. Then look at the image again. In Christ's left hand you can see him holding the Earth shaped like a ball.This is pictorial evidence that our ancestors were not as dumb as we think they were but then it seems to be the guilt of every generation to think that we are swarter than the previous one. It also shows that art is a historic document that can be used as evidence and should be used as evidence. This (annoyingly) is often forgotten, and lies buried underneath the empty noise of pretentious 'arty' speeches about how 'my life is art and art will save the world.'

*http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

What happened to the imp?

I love imps they are funny, clumsy, cute, when they appear in folk stories you know that some funny mischief will happen. They are funny, and though they provide a conflict they are safe like Tom, or Sylvester, or the coyote who can not catch the road runner. One thing I could not understand is where did they go? If Latvian, Russian, some Germanic and Scandinavian folk stories are  stuffed with imps the British ones seem to substitute the word 'imp' for 'devil' or 'demon'. In art imps are also none existent there are a couple of small black imps in earlier manuscripts but that is about all.  The only imp I am aware of in Britain is the one hiding on one of the columns of Lincoln Cathedral. 

So what happened to the imp? Today I came across one plausible explanation - Theater. Let me explain. Obviously different art form influence each other. Literature, art, music, performance all have an effect on each other. For example it is believed that the 13th century ceiling mosaic of Florence Baptistery greatly contributed to the image of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy.

The punishments of the damned. Detail of Last Judgment scene in the Byzantine-style ceiling mosaic, 13th century. Florence Baptistery, Florence, Italy.

According to  J.B. Russell (in 'Lucifer' my current bedside book) it was hard to represent the little black imp on stage and even then it lacked horror and looked unimpressive. The desire to impress audience encouraged a more grotesque representation of the Devil in theater which then migrated in to visual representation. With that the representation of the little black imp declined by late medieval ages and was completely substituted by more grotesque images.

Introducing the first image of the Devil! (continued)

The Judgment of the Nations, early 6th century C.E., Mosaic,
Ravenna, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, upper register of the nave.

 After the excitement of finding the oldest image of the devil cooled down (I don’t think it will ever die out completely) and I got my head back I read up on the image.

The mosaic is dated 520 common era.  The halo in this case represents not divinity like in later medieval art but is a symbol of power negative and/or positive. Also it was typical to present the devil as a humanoid rather than as an animal hybrid which became orthodox from 11^th century.

Red as a color for the devil that we are accustomed to is a 9^th century development, earlier on he was usually black, blue or violet because he was composed of the dark, thick, lower air, as opposed to the good angels, who were made of ethereal fire and were thus colored red.   

In other words everything we think the devil is developed around the Middle Ages if not later.

My favourite book ever 'Lucifer' by J.B. Russell

Introducing the first image of the Devil!

The Judgment of the Nations, early 6th century C.E., Mosaic,
Ravenna, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, upper register of the nave.

This image of really poor quality is the first representation of the Devil (at least according to Jeffey Burton Russell). The Devil is shown without horns, and not as a hybrid, and without a psycho glare in his eyes, and with a halo. The best thing is the Devil is not even in red, so no fiery fires of hell, he is wearing light blue. Granted he is on the left of Christ not on the right and counting goats rather than sheep.

To me this image is enchanting its a first ever image and its so different from what we see 14 centuries onwards.

Healer or Devil's dealer?

There are activities and parts of human life which are associated with the devil (the irony is that usually these are the things that make us human), small vices like gluttony, or activities like art, music, culture, curiosity for knowledge, in other words the small things that make life worth living. This considered the comment that a true poet is of the devil's party. But medicine and doctors are usually not on that list od lovelly vices but according to Titian they are.
According to Titian daemons use medicine to deceive us and veil the true origin of illness. They [daemons] make people become ill, and when the doctor starts working on the patient the daemons leave his body. Thus making people believe that the doctors magic is responsible for the cure. In other words the best doctor is the closest to daemons.

Evil is like holes in cheese

If there is anything I will forever remember and take away from JBR's epic work is the brilliant analogy that Good and Bad is like Swiss cheese. This is one of the most colourful and imaginative explanations of evil through via negativa - evil as the absence of good.

"Christian theologians would argue that evil is non being, literally nothing, no thing, a mere lack of goodness. Evil exists in the cosmos like holes in a Swiss cheese: the holes are there but they are there only as non cheese and have no existence apart from cheese As one cannot eat a cheese and discard the holes into a box, one cannot remove good and put evil into another category. Evil is merely the absence of good." (JBR, The Devil 1977:205)

If the analogy is transferred on to God and Devil it sounds something like this:

 God is the slab of Swiss cheese, the holes are the absence of God within God and are the Devil.

This really sums up the problem of the devil, evil and dualism in Christianity. By asserting that God is wholly Good there must be an explanation for evil - hence the Devil appears, so the evil is separate from God, yet everything comes from god and thus evil(Devil) should be from God - like Swiss cheese and its holes.

Cheesus - God of cheese

 

  

The origins of the Devil or the grave of monotheism

Blabbering inspired by 'The Devil' by Jeffrey Burton Russell:

From movie 'Legend'

If I think about the devil the first things that come to mind are contemporary movies, literature (Inferno, Faust, Master and Margarita, Paradise Lost) and Medieval Art. If I am asked for his origins I would have to stop for a second before saying New Testament and then think hard if there is a devil or a devil like figure in the Old Testament to remember Satan in the Book of Job. As for ancient polytheistic faiths, they usually have rulers of the underworld but such divinities were not The Devil per se. But then so isn’t Satan in Job, if anything he resembles God’s pub buddy with whom God makes a drunken bet. Its far later that we come to the sinister Devil, and the devil found in contemporary popular culture has close to nothing to do with the Bible. So how does the devil come in to being?  

In short and liberally paraphrasing J.B. Russell’s (JBR) argument: we created him because we could not come to terms with god being Good and Evil at the same time (from my point of view this is a testimony to human egoism and self-righteousness, after all we created god in our image or he created us in his, either way if God is Good and Evil it makes humans Good and Evil, and for some reasons we find it hard to come to terms with the darker side of our nature).

JBR argues that the Devil is a personification of Evil then traces how evil became personified. It’s a fascinating story how polytheistic faiths and Judaism at its earliest stages could deal with the idea that god is good and bad in Isaiah 45:7 God proclaims that he created both Good and Evil:

I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things.

 

Yet as a religion developed there raised a need to explain evil and usually part of the explanation was differentiating it from God. It happened in the early Near Eastern religions, it happened in Egypt, and Greece, and Judaism. Reading thought JBR’s account is like watching trees lose their leaves in autumn. It happens so gradually that you don’t notice until one day you wake up and the trees stand in the nude.

Dualistic thinking comes gradually; slowly grey is divided in to white and black, a human into flesh and spirit. First God is both: good and bad, then there is an angel/god/semi-god/god’s minion who does his dirty work (for some reason I always think of Matt Damon in Dogma) and before you know it you have two opposing powers.

What I personally find interesting is how Christianity allows the devil to exist, because it is in the Devil that it finds its end. When the Devil was created a grave was dug up for every monotheistic faith. If the Christian God is wholly Good and the Devil is wholly Bad it puts God and the Devil as different sides of the same coin meaning that it ceases to be monotheistic and becomes dualistic. It is not only one God but God and Devil and this is the end of monotheism.

And now I cannot wait to get my hands on theological works to see elaborate arguments filled with ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that try to keep Christianity monotheistic while proclaiming the reality of the Devil. Any suggestions where to start?

Super Epic Cathedral Trip day 4 (last day)

The schedule for the last day was simple: Ely then London, unfortunately Cambridge and Canterbury had to be taken of the list of attractions for the simple reason of time and distance. We needed to be in London by 4 at the latest to give the car back, but we wanted to make it to Euston (the car drop off stop) by 1-3.

We were very lucky with the opening hours at Ely the cathedral was open from 7 till 8 or 9. We wanted to be there at the earliest possible time, yet with the journey taking around 2 hours it was decided that we do not torture ourselves by raising at 5am but rather sleep until 6am to arrive to Ely at around 8am.

The road to Ely was cold, miserable, and foggy, with white noise coming from the radio (again) but none of that really bothered me as I was finally going to see the great octagonal tower over the crossing of the cathedral.

The Cathedral was seen from a far distance, even before we entered Ely we could make out the silhouette of the cathedral through the fog, towering over the city. Of course the details came in to view only when we were right next to it.

I have to say that the exterior resembled a mixture of Lincoln and York. With niches and carvings similar to those in Lincoln

And gargoyles here and there like in York

On the road to Ely in one of the guide books I read that the furnishing of the cathedral is simple. It was a lie, unless by furnishing they called actual furniture because very few cathedrals have interiors as lavish as Ely Cathedral.

This column is reminescent of thouse at Durham

Though the painted wooden ceiling of the main nave is a 19th century addition the cathedral does boast some impressive 13-15 century vaulting.



the thing in the middle is dangling down like a drop

Now looking back at my notes on Ely made when I was there I came across this:

"Has the charm of Durham, the grace of York, and the size of Lincoln" in other words it is the perfect hybrid.

It also turns out that rising early is beneficial as the cathedral starts taking entry fee at 9-10 which we did not have to pay. After spending a couple of hours in the cathedral hunger overcame curiosity and it was time for breakfast which we ended up sharing with the ducks.

Ely was the last stop and from there it was a hop and a skip to London and an hour in traffic in London.

Looking back on the trip it was one of the best things I ever did. No matter how much you read about cathedrals, how thorough is your research you have to see them. An hour in the Cathedral is more informative than days of reading. For example Durham turned out to be stubbier than I thought, York far bigger than imagined, the octagonal tower in Ely shorter and wider than expected.

I also realized just how hard it is to write about a cathedral. They are overwhelming, you do not know from where to approach it and to sift through the layers of history and additions is a mission impossible.

Well one trip is done but there are still plenty of cathedrals to see in Britain!