When they write about my generation, they’ll say the kings and queens wore hoodies and that they built their empires from laptops and strong Wifi connections. They’ll say creativity ran wild, that pretty things were built out of thin air, that muses danced with angels in the spaces between us.
When people imagine traveling to the past, they fear that even the most insignificant action could drastically reshape the present
Yet in the present, almost no one believes that those same insignificant actions have the power to reshape the future
This is The Devil’s Bible
According to legend, it was written in a single night by a monk who was about to be sealed alive inside a monastery wall.
In the 1200s, a monk broke his vow of celibacy and was sentenced to be sealed alive inside a monastery wall
Before the final brick was laid, he begged for mercy
The abbot gave him one impossible chance to save himself
If he could create, in a single night, a book containing all the world’s knowledge, his life would be spared
The monk agreed
All night he worked by candlelight inside the monastery
As the hours passed, it became obvious the task could not be finished in time
According to legend, sometime in the middle of the night he stopped praying to God and asked something else for help
By morning, the abbot returned and looked through the opening in the wall
The monk was sitting on top of a massive completed manuscript
He said he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for help finishing it
That manuscript still exists today
It’s called the Codex Gigas
The Devil’s Bible
The book is nearly three feet tall and weighs about 165 pounds. It is the largest surviving medieval manuscript ever created, and the entire thing appears to have been written by a single hand
Historians believe it would have taken decades of uninterrupted work to produce
Inside the manuscript is an entire medieval library containing:
• the full Latin Bible
• medical knowledge from the medieval world
• historical chronicles
• confession manuals used by priests
• monastic rules
• calendar systems
• written exorcism formulas
Near the center of the manuscript is a full-page portrait of the devil
According to legend, the monk included it as a way to thank Satan for stepping in to help him finish the book
During the Thirty Years’ War the manuscript was taken to Sweden as war treasure, where it still exists today on display
A human being is a part of the whole called by us “universe”
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN
A human being is a part of the whole called by us “universe”
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN
if they’re lying to your face about things happening right now in real time with cameras everywhere and the internet at your fingertips imagine how bad the history books are
Never trade a high-compounding, hard-to-replace asset (health, love, trust) for marginal upside in a replaceable asset (money, status) once sufficiency is likely