You In? I'm In.
By Tom Lanham
T
here are unsung heroes of science
throughout history. And then there’s
William Astbury, 1898-1961, a British
physicist and molecular biologist who –
while not always arriving at the perfect
theory – made trailblazing studies into the
structure of DNA and the X-ray diffraction
of biological molecules that would make
possible later, more definitive work from
Linus Pauling – who identified the alpha
helix – and Francis Crick and James
Watson, who correct makeup of DNA in
1953. From 1928 on, he lectured at Leeds
University, and was even funded by the
textile industry in his investigation of the
elastic properties of keratin and collagen,
common in wool. He is now honored in his
hometown via the Astbury Centre for
Structural Molecular Biology.
Equally important? The man – who
played both piano and violin – truly loved
music. And if you want to know where
brainy, zen-like, deep-thinking rocker Ian
Astbury gets it from, look no further than
this, one of his more prominent ancestors.
“I come from a family of physicists like
William Astbury,” says the frontman for
The Cult, which is preparing to release one
of its most topical, politically observant
efforts to date, Hidden City. “He didn’t get
the Nobel Prize – he just came up with the
science. So none of this is new stuff to me.
My grandmother was in a spiritual church,
she was a clairvoyant, so I’ve also been
around empaths, matriarchs.
“I mean, I’m a man, I’ve got stuff to
say,” he continues, off and running on a
particular pointed tangent – the way most
conversations with him usually unfurl.
“But really, we need to start listening to
women. I’m a firm believer that there will
be a woman in the White House – if not
now, it will be coming. It’s already happening in South America, in Germany, where
we’re seeing more female world leaders,
more women in positions of power. Man
desires to control nature, but look what
happens – the Exxon-Valdez oil spills,
power plant meltdowns. Yeah, we’re doing
a really awesome job. And what are the
guys doing? Building rockets to get off the
planet, like Elon Musk and his friends,
Like, ‘Dude – we are outta here, see ya
later! We’re going to Mars, somewhere else
where there’s water and life!’”
Yes, Astbury does have a few things
he’d like to discuss. And he invites all similar-minded Cult fans to Google his forward-thinking relative and read up on
him, just to learn a thing or two about the
past. Transfer of knowledge is important,
he stresses, and something that’s fast
becoming a lost art in these technologydriven days. He’s more intrigued by spiritual technology, he says. And it angers him
that auteur David Lynch is marketing
Transcendental Meditation to his followers, when it’s a discipline that can be
acquired by almost anyone, for free. Ever
since he was a kid, growing up in Canada,
the Brit has been fascinated with Native
American culture – the initial moniker of
his band was Southern Death Cult, then
Death Cult, which referenced a moundbuilding tribe from the Mississippi delta.
Their belief system is one of the world’s
greatest untapped resources, he swears.
“We really need to embrace the elders
and the medicine people, and start listening to what they’re saying,” Astbury
insists. “When you have an Inuit holy man,
up in the Northwest Territory in Canada,
saying, ‘We just want to tell you that our
women can no longer breast feed our children because of the level of mercury in the
fish – we just want to let you know that’ –
I mean, cancer is going through the roo