This list was drawn up for a friend but never used. I want to share it now, because I am excited about the possibility that a) my own Society’s past is irrecoverably clouded by time and fictions and b) someday, my own involvement in the Society will be as well.
Also, c) perhaps I could weave these figures together into a single fictive arc, or a single thread of thought about home/foreign land, or even movement/stillness… Or make a deck of adventuresome trading cards to sell on BoingBoing and Etsy…
That’s for the future. For now, cheers to the obscure-in-the-service-of-inward-enlightenment!
Timeline of a Few Obscure Adventuresome Societies and Adventurers of Note:
THE BRONZE AGE
- The Pythagoreans, ~500-400 BCE, they hated beans!
- Hadrian, CE 76-138, the wandering emperor
THE MIDDLE AGES
- Xuanzang, 603-664, epic walker from China to India
- Ibn Fadman and other Arab explorers of the North, 900s
- Leif Ericson reached the North American mainland around the year 1000 and called it Vinland
- Robert Guiscard, AKA Robert the Fox AKA Robert the Resourceful AKA Robert the Wily, 1015-1085, sailor-slayer-prince-adventurer, founder of the Crusading dynasty of Bohemond and Tancred, Norman Italy and Sicily
- Ibn Rushd, AKA Averroes, 1126-1198, ultragenius, doctor, Cordoba
- Marco Polo, 1254-1324, who had the get-up-n-go about him, Italy and Asia
- John Mandeville, mid-14th century,
- Erasmus, 1466-1536, scholar-human, the HRE
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Obscure Knowledge
- Abu’l Fath Jalaaluddin Muhammad Akbar, 1542-1605, Mughal emperor and patron of thinking
- Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, Viscount St.-Alban, gentleman-genius, (to some) the secret-Shakespeare
- Athanasius Kircher, 1602-1680, volcano-priest
Obscure Politics
- Ben Franklin, 1706-1790, O. G. nerd Hellfire Club patron — perhaps a spy – perhaps Jack Black? (See below)
- Francis Dashwood, 1708-1781, founder of the Hellfire Club, 15th Baron le Despencer, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Fais ce que tu voudras (do what thou wilt)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, poet-addict, his spying (also his failed commune based on Pantisocracy), did he really spy or was he simply pro-democracy?
MODERNITY
Obscure Religion
- Richard Francis Burton, 1821-1890, linguist-adventurer, translator of The Arabian Nights
- Isabelle Eberhardt, 1877-1904, desert explorer, convert to Islam, fighter against colonial injustice
Obscure Nature
- Alexander von Humboldt, 1769-1859, biogeodude
- Joseph Leidy, 1823-1891, paleontologist and the first forensic pathologist
- Teddy Roosevelt, 1858-1919, president-naturalist
- Carl Akeley, 1864-1926, taxidermist-superhero
- Percy Fawcett, 1867-1925, botanist with a gun
POSTMODERNITY
Obscure Depths
- Jacques Cousteau, 1910-1997
Obscure Cosmos
- Yuri Gagarin, 1934-1968, Wikipedia on astronaut terminology: “In China, the terms “yǔhángyuán” (宇航员, “sailing personnel in universe”) or “hángtiānyuán” (航天员, “sailing personnel in sky”) have long been used for astronauts.”
The Obscure Self
- V. S. Ramachandran, 1951-, exploring the mind, looking in instead of out
Our Obscure Back Yard
- The Clampers, or more properly, members of E Clampus Vitus – a group who, like Atlas Obscura, have dedicated themselves to exploring the known and finding it not so known after all
