The Moon is made of green cheese

Wolfgang Smith is a "Traditionalist" writer inspired by Guénon, Hossein Nasr and similar thinkers. He is also a Catholic, and seems to be mostly known for his attempts to square quantum physics with Thomist philosophy. While that project may have a certain intrinsic interest, many others ideas of Smith are fringy, to put it mildly.

In "The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology", Smith comes out as a geocentrist, claims that the universe is much smaller than suggested by modern science, and that the Big Bang theory is literally inspired by the Devil himself. (I always assumed it was Screwtape!)

Even more disturbingly, Smith claims that the stars are made of a special, imperishable stellar substance - as suggested by the ancient philosophers and astronomers. He means this quite literally, no allegory intended. Apparently, the stars emit the divine light, too.

And then there's the Moon...

The Moon, too, is made out of a celestial-spiritual substance. But how come we don't see it that way? Surely, the Moon is made of solid rock! Smith concedes that it *looks* that way, but that's because we have blinkered material vision. What we're seeing is really an illusion. It's all in our minds. Even the moon rocks in our museums are illusory, at least to the extent that they seem to be solid, perishable matter. They are not. Hallelujah.

Why not just deny the moon landing á la His Holiness A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada? Or is that too untraditional?

Obscurantist drivel of this sort is mildly entertaining, to be sure, but only for so long...

For more insight into this matter, see my review of "Root of All Evil? - The Original Program". :P