Book review: Scavengers of Beauty: A personal, cultural and symbolic exploration of the Moon landing by Philippe Sibaud

I struggled with this book, but that says more about me than anything else! The subject is thought-provoking and clearly well researched, but I was out of my depth from the beginning. Scavengers of Beauty is not a book for everyone. However, if you have an interest in solar and lunar symbolism, astrology, alchemy and/or perhaps some knowledge of Greek mythology, then you will undoubtedly find this book fascinating.

As I did not finish reading the book, I asked Giles Bryant LL.B. founder of the World Healing Project to review Scavengers of Beauty. The following is his review:

This is a fascinating book and one that will really get you thinking. Philippe Sibaud has taken a deep look at the moon landing, as he says in personal, cultural and symbolic ways.

With Scavengers of Beauty, originally published in 2019 to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, Sibaud has looked into this historic event in a deeper way I ever imagined possible.

As a 5-year old, being woken by his parents to watch this era-defining event happen on a tiny black and white television had a profound influence on him, which was to affect his life.

He sees life-events in a way we may not even take much notice of, as in some way linked to the moon landing.  It is deep stuff indeed.

As a writer for the Gaia Foundation, like many environmentalists he sees the moon landing as a turning point in how we view, and ultimately treat the earth.  For the first time ever people around the world saw pictures of our blue-green planet from space. Sibaud claims this brought about an awakening in environmental consciousness, and certainly it coincides with the foundation of the Club of Rome, a year before, which has had a major impact on the environmental movement ever since.

A major theme in Scavengers of Beauty, and something I have never thought about before, is why the name chosen for the NASA mission to conjurer the moon (and ancient symbol of the goddess and feminine), was Apollo, a god of the sun (and symbol of the masculine).

If you are interested in exploring the symbolism of ancient myths,  Scavengers of Beauty could well interest you.

Ultimately, he hopes this will be seen as a sacred union of sun and moon, male and female – which will birth a new vision of care for our planet.