Creed Crusher, or Spiritual Mill for Pulverizing Creeds &C.

September 13, 2011 3:05 PM

Creed Crusher, or Spiritual Mill for Pulverizing Creeds &C. is an 1867 poster by Dr. T. L. Lewis. In it, a pair of cherubs grind the religious and educational institutions of 19th-century against a an allegorical globe of philosophy dominated by the Great Ocean of Spiritualism. Below, Lewis quotes himself no less than four times. Similarly weird is the anthropomorphic map of Europe by Schmidt. (Both via the Big Map Blog previously)
posted by KirkJobSluder (24 comments total)

Funny that he includes Quakers in his slurry of things to be crushed, considering that, by tradition, we don't have a creed-- in fact, most Meetings are dead-set again them.
posted by WidgetAlley at 3:11 PM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yes, both the funnel and the globe are fascinating bits of 19th-century word salad. There's some obvious anti-semitism, and a three-headed (dead?) god stacked next to an angry devil. And then there's mercury singled out as part of the medical establishment.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:18 PM on September 13, 2011

I wish my name was Creed Crusher.
posted by michaelh at 3:22 PM on September 13, 2011 [7 favorites]

Take that, Scott Stapp!
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 3:27 PM on September 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm going to chill in Bliss Bay and wait for Samuel Taylor Coleridge to show up.
posted by Sailormom at 3:27 PM on September 13, 2011

"Religious and educational institutions of the 19th-century, I am ready to fight!"
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:49 PM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

What's the "Lust. Pagan" part on the Mormon box mean?
posted by circular at 4:00 PM on September 13, 2011

Creed Crusher sounds like the real name of a Spider-Man villain.

But this guy -- opposing creeds with a machine inscribed with bible verses? And what does "un-natural marriage" mean in this case?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:06 PM on September 13, 2011

"All un-natural governments and creeds result from un-natural marriages and births, ignorance, superstition, bigotry, pride, prejudice, hypocrasy [sic], egotism and deception."

Jeez, self-aware, much? I count at least four unintentionally ironic elements of that one sentence.
posted by darkstar at 4:19 PM on September 13, 2011

Creed Crusher sounds like the real name of a Spider-Man villain.

The Hulk, actually.
posted by Rangeboy at 4:21 PM on September 13, 2011

And Thor, too, I guess. I always associated him with the Hulk, though.
posted by Rangeboy at 4:22 PM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh my-- they're All-One-God-Faith! As promulgated on those lovely Dr. Bronner's soap bottles.

Dilute! Dilute! OK!
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:27 PM on September 13, 2011

This is basically the Map of the Internet, except for the 19th century. Fantastic!
posted by honest knave at 4:28 PM on September 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Creed Crusher needs to be a metal band.
posted by brundlefly at 4:50 PM on September 13, 2011

I like how 'Phrenology' appears on the continent of Harmony.
posted by fontor at 4:53 PM on September 13, 2011

In that second link, is Britain wearing ...a turban?
posted by BinGregory at 6:11 PM on September 13, 2011

A rather eclectic bunch of names here:

Socrates
Paul
Mesmer
I.T. Hopper: Father of the Underground Railroad
Abraham Lincoln
Jesus
Channing: Unitarian and Christian socialist writer
Grant
Franklin
Owen: founder of utopian socialism
Warren -- a mystery to me
Creely -- a mystery to me
Ballou: Abolitionist, pacifist, and communalist
C. Abbot -- a mystery to me
John Brown
Phillips: abolitionist
Murray: wife of Douglass
Emerson
Garrison
Tallmadge: abolitionist
posted by shii at 6:29 PM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like how 'Phrenology' appears on the continent of Harmony.

Ever met an unhappy phrenologist?
posted by cjorgensen at 7:28 PM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was surprised that the map had "POPE" on the continent of Wisdom until I realized it probably meant the poet Alexander Pope rather than the Bishop of Rome.

I also like how ATHEISTS and PRIESTCRAFT are labels on the same box.
posted by straight at 9:12 PM on September 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also Divine sounds like a concept but is actually part of a name, Father Divine, prophet & founder of the Universal Peace Mission Movement. I once worked with one of his descendants, a fellow with the unlikely name Born Divine.
posted by scalefree at 10:13 PM on September 13, 2011

scalefree, since the map is from 1867 I deem this unlikely. However, it's very interesting as a list of spiritualists from before the Theosophical movement.

Here's more:

A.J. Davis is not the architect but Andrew Jackson Davis, clairvoyant and magnetist.

Hare is Robert Hare, genius chemist and late life researcher of spirits and things spiritual. Hare's teaching included the concept of the "ladder of spheres", culminating in the "seventh sphere" which Christ, Confucius, Plato, and Socrates had all progressed to; see the labels "Seventh River" and "Sphere River" on the map. This interestingly parallels a modern Japanese New Age religion called Happy Science, where human beings can aspire to a number of dimensions of consciousness.

Hardinge is Emma Hardinge Britten, a medium who wrote an encyclopedia of spiritualism and wrote a set of spiritualist covenants.

Doten is apparently Lizzie Doten, a now-forgotten medium who channeled the spirits of Shakespeare among others.

Edmonds is Judge John Worth Edmonds who was regarded as an apostate and heretic for his Spiritualist beliefs.

Comte

Blind Tom was a disabled African-American savant who had excellent piano abilities but was considered a sort of pet by both his slave-master and his white liberal audiences.

Fox refers to the Fox sisters, who famously recanted their claims to mediumship.

I could not find anyone with the name "Edgar" to fit the time frame but it certainly looks cute on the map.

Basically this very quirky map was an attempt to explain how the big and nebulous world of the New Age is linked to abolitionism somehow and supercedes the perceived divisions of Christian spirituality.
posted by shii at 11:56 PM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

It reminds me of the Lionel Jones' Journal of Dentition in Mother Night.

Just for archival purposes I think that Jocko Homo Heavenbound belongs here.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:34 AM on September 14, 2011

BinGregory: In that second link, is Britain wearing ...a turban?

Never mind that... is that guy taking a dump on Iceland?
posted by Kattullus at 5:24 AM on September 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Love this stuff, thanks for the post.

Self links: F.W. Alden and Biblical charts.
posted by stinkycheese at 2:57 PM on September 14, 2011