{The Sacred Fish}[26th August 1990]

[Redbook7:249][19900826:1728b]{The Sacred Fish}[26th August 1990]

.1728

[continued]

An article in the Independent on Sunday – I seem to be becoming Independent-dependent – describes the work of Dr. Horace Dobbs on the uplifting effect dolphins seem to have on the human mood: ‘he argues that getting into the sea with one [dolphin] is enough to raise the spirits of even the most darkly depressed. Wild dolphins have a mysterious, almost evangelical way of reassuring you that somebody loves you.’ The article makes the point that dolphins, which can kill sharks, have never once been known to kill people, despite the fact that people kill them.*

‘Dr. Dobbs says in his new book** that the freedom from gravity achieved by floating in saline water activates the right side of the brain, which is associated with intuition and imagination.’***

****

#

#*

* ‘...without being blasphemous, isn’t there something obviously religious – and specifically Christian – about the symbolism of dolphins? They visit from another world; they bring joy by loving mankind unjudgementally; despite their superior strength, they are never aggressive towards people, even when suffering; and they die because of Man’s stupidity and greed.’

**Dance to a Dolphin’s Song, Dr. H Dobbs (Cape)

***ref Ind[ependent] on Sun[day] 900826:10-11.

(The main picture is unfortunately too big for this journal [ms])

****ref The Night Sky (map) (Daily Telegraph)

& Star Names: Their Lore & Meaning, R.H. Allen (Dover, N.Y.): 198-201

#= ἱερος ἰχθυς, The Sacred Fish

= curvus (Cicero)

(Also Hindu ‘Porpoise’)

– Kown to Man from earliest recorded

times for its friendliness, & actions in

[piloting] & saving drowning mariners.

#*Now contrast this#** symbolism, from only 3 pages later [in the Independent on Sunday]:

[The long arrow at lower left of the diagram points directly to the next journal entry]

#**[See next journal entry]

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