A reader named Matt has sent me a couple interesting links on a theory about something tentatively called a “Manna Machine.” The first one is an alternate history interpretation of the Zohar, a mystical Jewish text, around the claim that the Ancient of Days was actually not a divine or semi-divine entity, but was a machine which created foodstuffs for the ancient Israelites. Here’s another page with a painting by William Blake of the Ancient of Days (although, not as a manna-producing machine). The second link Matt sent me picks this theme up again with the Holy Grail, as some kind of latter-day manna machine.

It’s sort of a fun romp, although I don’t particularly “buy” into it. My interpretation of it is more along with what I wrote in an article called Chariots of the Gods. People like Erich Von Danniken and Zecharia Sitchin have done a lot of work to basically try to update old religious and mythological imagery using modern technology and terms. I think it’s valuable in the sense that it brings us a little closer to understanding spiritual occurences as “real” things, which I expect is how ancient people originally experienced them. I think it’s more than likely wrong to assume that just because they experienced these things as “real” means that they were necessarily machines, or aliens or whatever. I think that’s too neat of an explanation, since much of spiritual experience bridges the gap between outwardly real and inwardly experienced phenomena. But I definitely enjoy going down paths like the “manna machine” as nice ways to re-tool how I think about things, and open me up to new and wild possibilities.