In a talk inspired by the 1959 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, Mark Stavish discusses the preservation of knowledge – in particular occult and esoteric knowledge – as the world plunges into an ever more uncertain and unstable future.

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From an over-reliance on technology, to a lack of preparedness, and widespread general apathy, the potential threats to the entire library of human knowledge are growing in size and number. Spellbound by the myth of progress – the belief that progress is linear and ever upward – we are blind to the harsh lessons of history: the dark ages, wars, and catastrophes – man-made or natural – which mark the downfall of peoples, nations, and entire civilizations, and the heritage of their time. Although ancient knowledge has a way of surviving aeons of trial and tribulation, in this era of perhaps unprecedented danger, we would do well to consider what is in peril and what can be saved for our own sake and for the sake of those who come after us.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a social science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr., first published in 1959. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the book spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserve the surviving remnants of man’s scientific knowledge until the world is again ready for it.

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