Origins Posts
Trace the beginnings of inventions, ancient technologies, spiritual traditions, words, and ideas that continue to influence speculative fiction, from alchemy and the Holy Grail to the first robots.
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First Robots in Fiction
Was Frankenstein’s creature the first robot in science fiction? Tik-Tok, Čapek, the golem and a long line of automata say the answer is much older and messier.
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Inner Alchemy: How the Search for Immortality Gave Us Better Ways to Boil Water
From Taoist immortals and Egyptian metallurgists to medieval laboratories and the invention of the bain-marie, alchemy has been quietly influencing the modern world for thousands of years.
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Why Did We Forget Isaac Newton Was an Alchemist?
The father of modern physics wrote about a million words on alchemy. Why we forgot, and what inner alchemy says about experience science still can’t measure.
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Everyone Runs on Faith, Even Scientists
Ancient people weren't less intelligent, just less informed. On volcanoes, the problem of induction, and why faith in science resembles medieval faith.
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What Was the Holy Grail Before It Was Holy?
The first Grail story never calls it holy or even clearly a cup. How a golden serving dish became the cup of Christ—and what that teaches writers about myth.
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What the Knights Templar Found
A documentary said the Knights Templar dug up brotherhood beneath the Temple Mount. I think they found Asherah, the Canaanite Queen of Heaven.
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Wasteland
Merriam-Webster says a wasteland is barren and spiritually arid. So why does the word feel so good to write? A dig through etymology, Chernobyl, and 1838 law.
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Tell Me a Big Lie
A 2017 op-ed connecting "America First" rhetoric, The America We Deserve, and the Reform Party—daring readers to explain away what was standing in plain sight.