The thread about weird science sent me off down the rabbit hole which is Google. I wondered if anybody had ever coined the word grammatolatry, and (via a strange Italian forum) I saw a quotation from a 19th century spiritualist and US politician, Robert Owen Dale.

quote:

The worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images. Grammatolatry is the worst species of idolatry. We have arrived at an era in which literalism is destroying faith. ... The letter killeth. [From The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next (1872) (link)

That came via the incredibly weird book by Helena Blavatsky Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology (1877) (link). Grammatolatry would be literally the worshiping of letters, but I think could be extended to the worshiping of grammar.

Hmmmm.... I wonder how Isis would hold the key to science and technology? I can see the old death/resurrection tales' origin in the Isis/ Osiris story, but how letters/grammar?

I wonder how Isis would hold the key to science and technology?

Probably not at all. Don't get me wrong; Blavatsky was one self-deluded and deluding wack-job, and Robert Dale Owen did not seem like he would win a skeptics award. Blavatsky's writings are a hodgepodge of new-age crap avant la lettre. I just liked the word, grammatolatry, and enjoyed seeing that somebody else had coined it back in the 19th century. And, FWIW, Isis Unveiled or The Debatable land have no less to do with language, grammar, and usage than Strunk & White or Lynne Truss: i.e., the unqualified musings of the ignorant.