The Little Book of Cosmic Horrors

[Music] the end of the world is not something we like to think about especially as there are plenty of apocalypses to choose from in 1552 an anonymous author captured his doomsday fears onto parchment known as the book of miracles it is perhaps the world's most disturbing picture book with scenes of calamity and chaos and eerie hybrids that define logic all were believed to be omens that the apocalypse was on its way these mesmerizing images invoke a sense of dread the kind of dread that arises from things we don't understand with haunting creatures that inhabit our nightmares welcome to strange christian art this episode the little book of cosmic horrors [Music] the name of this book is the book of miracles now this implies something pleasant or wonderful but this book is far from that instead it's full of disturbing visions like the week in 1542 when the sky caught fire or in 1550 when a pool of human blood bubbled from the ground the sort of things that don't happen on the daily each one of these strange illustrations includes the year in which it happened and a very brief description there is no attempt however at an explanation but what is the purpose of this book why draw such disturbing images it's believed that this book was a warning illustrating omens believed to have been sent by god omens that suggested that the apocalypse was nigh it might explain why so many of these pictures are comments for millennia comets have been seen as signs of bad luck like in the bao tapestry which records the transit of halley's comet in 1066 the same year that the kingdom of england was conquered by the normans if you look closely at these illustrations you can see silhouettes of collapsing cities in the background the origin of this book is just as intriguing as its contents in 2007 it anonymously surfaced in an auction house in augsburg germany no one knows who wrote it or the journey it had been on up to this point to me it adds to the mystery as well as its supernatural quality the book has been dated to 1552 as after this year there are no further entries it was written during a time of conflict and upheaval as western christianity split between catholics and protestants a period known as the reformation at the time anxieties about the end of the world reached an all-time high the book was probably commissioned in response to those fears to keep track of god's signs throughout history the types of signs that typically precede an apocalypse let's take a look inside shall we the first few pages depict scenes from the bible taken from the old testament it includes familiar stories like noah's ark when god drowned the earth with a great flood or the destruction of sodom and gomorrah when god engulfed a town in a fiery inferno there are other less destructive scenes too even one including the old testament's weirdest chapter the vision of ezekiel perhaps familiar to viewers of the channel it's a fantastical glimpse of god's throne accompanying him are two creatures to the left a winged hybrid with the heads of a human an eagle an ox and a line to the right an interlocking set of rings with eyes on the outer rim in hebrew it's referred to as an ophanim or the wheels it's odd to see something so unnatural yet so apparently holy perhaps it's the multiple heads and eyes that make them so unnerving these mysterious angels are bizarre inhabiting a plane beyond human comprehension after exploring scenes from the bible the book records signs that have taken place throughout history right up to the modern day which in this case was the year 1552 many of these are a classic doomsday omens volcanic eruptions locust plagues comets they're your go-to's in apocalypse bingo but then the book starts to get really really strange with illustrations of some highly unusual incidents like the orb of 73 bc when a golden sphere suddenly appeared above ancient rome according to the description it came down to earth rolled about and flew back up into the air again blocking out the sun entirely there's no explanation as to what it could be just a very matter-of-fact description but i think i have an idea you see this orb story seems to be based on an actual report from ancient rome in 76 bc roman naturalist pliny the elder described a very similar event how a bright spark flew down to earth hovered about a bit and disappeared entirely what he had just described was a rare meteorological phenomenon known as a bolide these when meteorites burn exceptionally bright in the atmosphere giving the appearance of a glowing orb whilst they're incredibly rare some have been caught on camera just look at this video taken from russian dash cam in 2013 where would humanity be without russian dash cam footage the great library of weird goings-on going back to our image the orb of 73 bc was probably a bolide a burning hot meteorite which glows like an orb in the sky just like the one pliny the elder seems to have described although by the time of this illustration the original story had undergone a fair bit of creative embellishment many images featured disturbances with the sun in 1551 the sun allegedly multiplied into five of the town of leipzig this picture features the sun with a bright glowing ring followed by the devastation you'd come to expect some illustrations have these eerie halos and ghostly rings that illuminate the sky strangely there are accounts of this very same thing outside our book like this painting from 1535 with rings over stockholm sweden the celestial halos have a name sun dogs and are a real atmospheric phenomenon they occur when atmospheric ice crystals refract the sunlight creating an eerie halo illusion in the sky throughout history sun dogs have often been mistaken for divine activity who could blame them we know far more about atmospheric signs than we did back then now of course most of these events don't have a rational explanation like how a red warrior appeared in the sky along with a floating crimson fortress and a shadowy army or in 1533 when a ghostly horse appeared over bohemia with a nebulous rider climbing on that was a particularly odd year for the people of bohemia late that year the sky was also swarming with dragons wearing crowns a highlight for me has to be the cosmic baby battle of 1536 when three celestial infants appeared to be doing battle in the sky one is wearing the austrian coat of arms the other two are dressed up like ottomans possibly a reference to the failed turkish siege of vienna in 1529 with all these ultra strange events it's doubtful whether they actually happened however at the same time there's no way to prove that they didn't happen i can dream [Music] so far we've seen all the strange happenings in the sky but what about on the ground another core focus of the book is the various monsters from the giant whale that caused an earthquake in lisbon to this hydra-like creature that was caught by fishermen and taken to venice some of these beasts are very hard to spot this scene looks pretty normal until you notice this hairy creature with a human face i have no clue what this is but it does look like early drawings of sloths now this creature was reportedly dredged out of the tiber river in rome it is the head of a donkey the body of a human and two faces on its backside when i first saw this image i immediately recognized the sketch it was based on the same creature appears in this protestant cartoon by lucas cranach the elder it's a caricature of the pope who's dressed as a demonic donkey even the background is the same it appears that our illustrator might have misunderstood the image's original purpose instead of protestant propaganda he added a whole backstory about an actual monster that washed up in rome unless that is he was secretly joining in the satire there are other hybrid creatures just like this one malformed and misshapen beings both animal and human since ancient times hybrids have been seen as evil abominations that go against the laws of nature this revulsion towards hybridity continues today when we see a creature that shouldn't exist we tend to label it as creepy or unsettling whilst hybrids have often been seen as evil they were at the same time holy remember those angels at the start of the book those multi-bodied multi-eyed creatures well they're associated with the divine and are therefore good presumably our book contains these opposite approaches to hybrids on one hand they're hellish but on the other they're divine it's an uncomfortable balance but one that's interesting to see play out before our eyes the book ends where it started the bible it now focuses on the apocalyptic visions from the book of revelation if you've watched my survival guide to the biblical apocalypse you'll know all the gruesome devastation that's supposed to take place trumpets hailing destruction an explosion of man man-eating locusts dragons during corpses all the good stuff the last image depicts the arrival of the beast a multi-headed monster with ten crowns beside him is the antichrist who looks like a mix between a goat and a dog worshiping the arrival of these creatures are men dressed in catholic garb among them are bishops cardinals and even the pope this detail confirms that whoever wrote this was most likely a protestant who had a bone to pick with the catholic church with this foreboding image the book draws to a close the book of miracles is an incredibly strange piece of christian art a collection of bizarre signs each with a unique flavor of doom and destruction whilst you can identify what some of these signs actually were others defy explanation looking through the pages of this book there's one word which comes to mind fear fear of the unexplained fear of monsters fear of divine judgment you can feel this fear in every picture as our author draws the omens of a vengeful god who one day will bring his creation to a violent end and there's nothing we humans can do to stop it in this way it reminds me of a genre called cosmic horror you'll be familiar with its most famous writer h.p lovecraft whose gothic stories of dark magic and profane deities explore the fragile limits of human knowledge many of lovecraft's stories include catholic gods like cthulhu an octopus-like deity that lurks at the bottom of the sea you'll notice he relies on that same fear of hybrid monsters whilst lovecraft's stories and the book of miracles come from different time periods and weren't connected in any way both explore that idea of otherness things that don't make sense things we can't explain that fear of the unknown drives much of what we see in the book of miracles i guess it's fortunate that none of these grim visions have come to pass let's hope they never will [Music] hey thanks for watching i had a great time making this and i hope you enjoyed it as well if you like this video and want to see more why not subscribe a like and a comment also go a really long way anyway i look forward to seeing you next time goodbye

Channel: hochelaga

Views: 1,335,045

Keywords: Augsburg Book of Miracles, Apocalypse, Cosmic, Horror, Reformation, Strange, Christian, Art, Demons, Angels, Bible Accurate Angels, Hybrids, HP Lovecraft

Id: lZWAX5L_t9k

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022