New video: The Pylos Combat Agate among the Infinite Realms

The Pylos Combat Agate brings an astonishing message from 3,500 years ago.

Above is a new video I've just made, entitled "The Pylos Combat Agate among the Infinite Realms," exploring the celestial correspondences in the incredible artwork on this recently-revealed treasure from humanity's ancient past -- as well as discussing their possible significance.

I hope you will enjoy this video, which delves into the discovery of this amazing gem, and the long-forgotten tomb of the Griffin Warrior in which the Pylos Agate lay, accumulating grime and mineral deposits, for over thirty-five centuries.

Previous discussions of this extremely significant archaeological find include:

• "The Pylos Combat Agate should radically alter our understanding of humanity's ancient past"

and

• "Celestial correspondences in the Pylos Combat Agate connect it to myths and art from other cultures around the globe"

Additionally, articles I've written about this extraordinary new discovery have been published at Ancient Origins, here: "Is this Minoan artistic marvel a miniaturization of the heavens?"

and at Graham Hancock's website, here: "The Dust of Centuries: Celestial Iconography in the Pylos Combat Agate."

I hope you will enjoy this brand-new video regarding the celestial connections, and profound significance, of the Pylos Agate. After making the video, I realized that video may be the preferred medium for exploring some of the staggering connections between this ancient masterpiece and the infinite realm of the heavens, and the significance of these connections for our understanding of our  own ancient history, and our understanding of the simultaneously spiritual and material world through which we are all traveling in this incarnate life.

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Vimeo version:

The answer of Clearchus

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In January of 2014, I published an essay on this blog entitled "The Warriors and the Ten Thousand."

That essay discusses the conscious parallels between the plot line of the classic 1979 film The Warriors and the ancient account of the "Persian Expedition" in the Anabasis of Xenophon (born around 430 BC).

According to Xenophon's account, a contingent of ten thousand Greek warriors who had ventured into the heart of the Persian empire in support of the Persian prince Cyrus (son of the previous King of Persia, Darius II, who died in 404 BC) against the new King of Persia, Artaxerxes II (Cyrus's elder brother) found themselves in a very tight spot when Cyrus was killed in the battle of Cunaxa (in 401 BC), near the place where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers flow closest together (before eventually joining one another further south towards the Persian Gulf).

Although the Greek warriors (who had been positioned at the rightmost flank of the army of Cyrus) had decisively defeated the forces of the king (whose army was far larger than that of Cyrus) positioned on the far left edge of the king's own army, the death of Cyrus by a javelin wound to the head effectively ended the resistance against the accession of Artaxerxes.

With Cyrus dead, the Greeks were completely isolated and vastly outnumbered. When the king sent his heralds to speak to the Greek leaders, the heralds were accompanied by a Greek named Phalinus, who was in the service of the Persians. Xenophon explains:

These heralds rode up and asked to speak to the Greek commanders. They said that the King, since he had won the victory and killed Cyrus, commanded the Greeks to surrender their arms, to make an appearance at the Court, and to get for themselves, if they could, the royal favour. [Rex Warner translation, originally published in 1949; page 104]. 

Xenophon then explains the reaction of the Greeks to this demand, including that of their leader, Clearchus (who was later killed, after which Xenophon himself became the leader of the ten thousand).  Clearchus, being busy consulting the gods, tells the other Greek war chiefs to give their reply, and he will get back to see how it is going after he has finished his more important business. Xenophon relates the scene, just after the heralds (including Phalinus) have issued their order to surrender their weapons:

This was what the King's heralds said, and the Greeks were indignant when they heard it. Clearchus, however, said: 'It is not for the conquerors to surrender their arms. But,' he went on, 'you other generals must make what seems to you the best and most honourable reply to these men. I shall soon be back again.' This was because one of his officers had called him to inspect the entrails which had been taken out from the victim, as he happened to be in the middle of a sacrificial ceremony. 104.

As Xenophon's account makes clear, the Greeks found such a demand most inappropriate and insulting. The first of the Greeks to reply, Cleanor the Arcadian, the eldest of all those present, told the Persians (and their accomplice, Phalinus), "that they would die before they surrendered their arms" (104).

Phalinus replied that resistance to the king's demands would be futile, as Artaxerxes "can bring against you such masses of men that you could never kill them all, even if he gave you the chance of doing so" (105).

To this, an Athenian identified as Theopompus gives an admirable reply:

As you see, Phalinus, the only things of value which we have at present are our arms and our courage. So long as we keep our arms we fancy that we can make good use of our courage; but if we surrender our arms we shall lose our lives as well. So do not imagine that we are going to surrender to you our only valuables. On the contrary, with their aid we shall fight for what you value too.

Xenophon relates that:

Phalinus smiled when he heard this, and said: 'Quite like a philosopher, young man, and remarkably well expressed! All the same let me inform you that you are crazy if you think that your courage can get the better of the King's power.' 105.

Finally, Clearchus returns and asks if Phalinus has received an answer, and Phalinus says he has received a variety of answers, and would like to hear what Clearchus has to say. Clearchus tells Phalinus he is glad to be speaking to a fellow Greek, and asked Phalinus to give his advice, since (as Clearchus tells him), future generations will judge whether the recommendation of Phalinus was honorable or not.

Returning to his theme that resisting the king's orders would be futile, Phalinus replies:

My advice is not to surrender your arms, if you have one chance in ten thousand of saving yourselves by fighting against the King. But if there is not a single chance of safety in going against the King, then I advise you to take the only steps you can to save yourselves. 106.

Then Clearchus gives his answer to these threats:

Well, then, so much for your advice. Now you can take back our answer, which is that we consider that, if it is a case of becoming friends with the King, we shall be more valuable friends if we retain our arms than if we surrender them to someone else; and if it is a case of fighting, we shall fight better if we retain our arms than if they are in someone else's possession.

Thus the response of a warrior of the ancient Greeks, who believed in living with dignity and freedom, and who trusted in the gods to give victory, even when faced with seemingly overwhelming odds. As Xenophon himself says later in the story, during an assembly in which the Greeks are debating what course of action to take next:

You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that bring the victories in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods' gift of a stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them. I have noticed this point, too, my friends, that in soldiering the people whose one aim is to keep alive usually find a wretched and dishonourable death, while the people who, realizing that death is the common lot of all men, make it their endeavour to die with honour, somehow seem more often to reach old age and to have a happier life when they are alive. 146.

At this time, more than four years after my original post on the Ten Thousand, any mention of sentiments such as those expressed by Clearchus, Theopompus, and Xenophon will doubtless be tremendously unpopular with huge numbers of people, especially in light of the very well-coordinated and emotionally-charged campaign which appeared almost immediately following the news of the despicable criminal murder of students at a Florida high school on Valentine's Day this year. 

This kind of automatic response is completely understandable -- especially because the vast majority of people (against overwhelming evidence) believe the completely untenable stories given to them by the "news media" about critical events such as the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the thousands of innocent victims killed on September 11, 2001 -- as well as uncritically believing the propaganda about the illegal wars launched by the government of the united states following September 11, 2001 which together have resulted in literally millions of additional deaths since then.

The vast majority of people, who simply cannot take the rather drastic mental step of admitting that the so-called "news media" might be blatantly lying to them in certain critical instances, also continue to believe the mainstream narrative of other extremely suspicious, traumatic, criminal, and emotionally-charged recent events such as Sandy Hook / Newtown (December 2012), the Boston Marathon (April 2013), Orlando / Pulse (June 2016), Charlottesville (August 2017), and Las Vegas / Mandalay Bay (October 2017) -- among many others.

Abundant and compelling evidence compiled by numerous researchers make a very strong case that each one of the events listed above was carried out in a manner which is completely different from the narrative which is incessantly repeated in the news media and drummed into the popular consciousness, and accepted almost by default by those who refuse to believe that the media could be lying to them or covering up critical information in order to paint a false picture of reality. 

I myself have presented just a few pieces of evidence regarding serious problems with the official narrative of a few of the most-recent of the above-listed incidents, in a video hereand a follow-up blog post here. Some of the evidence provided in that video is absolutely conclusive in demonstrating that something much more is going on in each of these incidents than what the captive news media is telling the public to believe.

Other researchers have published even more evidence which strongly suggests that the public is being lied to about these and other recent headline-grabbing, emotionally-charged, traumatic events. See for example this simple list of violent, traumatic, emotional incidents of the past several years which have taken place on or immediately after planned training drills at the same or nearby site for a nearly identical incident -- compiled back in 2015 by researcher Jon Rappoport. Or this 2015 interview about the analysis and research conducted by the tireless Ole Dammegard into similarly suspicious evidence.

Indeed, in the past several days, numerous independent media outlets have had their accounts suspended or even completely terminated by YouTube and other important social media outlets, over videos which contained discussion of some of the evidence that some of the recent traumatic events listed above might have much more to the story than the public is being led to believe. For example, below is an image from a tweet posted by independent podcast host Greg Carlwood of The Higherside Chats, regarding a "strike" against his account issued by YouTube, over an interview with a guest pointing out numerous inconsistencies with the official narrative of the Newtown / Sandy Hook events of December 2012:

As Greg pointed out when he published the above image in a tweet, it's very suspicious that this interview suddenly resulted in a "strike" against his account, given that (in Greg's words) "it's such an old ep, & not even the most damning Sandy Hook one" -- unless there is a concerted effort in the aftermath of the most recent traumatic event to chill discussion of the abundant evidence which suggests that the official narrative of other recent traumatic events might be built on deception.

As anyone who is familiar with Greg Carlwood and his show can attest (and I have not only met him in person but also appeared on his show more than once), he and his podcast cannot possibly be accused of being "a platform for things like predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, bullying, or intimidation," all of which are listed in the warning above from YouTube.

The fact that his podcast is being cautioned by YouTube (in a message which threatens that the next such caution will result in temporary suspension of his ability to post more videos, and a third one will result in permanent termination of his account) regarding an old interview questioning an event which is used as one of the central supports for the same anti-firearm agenda that is currently flooding the mainstream media (as well as most of the big social media outlets) suggests that there might be something in those events which will not stand up to scrutiny, and which fears open discussion and critical analysis by media platforms (including popular podcasts) which are outside of the control which is obviously being exercised over the so-called mainstream news.

I personally am not a supporter of "the right," the republican party, libertarianism, or the forces of reaction most commonly associated with opposition to gun control and disarmament. 

However, if some of the most traumatic and emotionally-charged violent incidents of the past several years (such as those events listed above, as well as others) have actually been perpetrated by forces completely different from those who have been blamed for them, and with tactics and methodologies completely different from what we are being told took place, then it is entirely possible that the knee-jerk reaction to these criminal events (and supported by a well-coordinated media blitz) is entirely misguided.

If there are serious efforts to chill discussion of these events outside of the official narrative, and to suppress critical analysis of evidence which contradicts the official narrative, then people who have never wanted to believe that the news media might be lying to them should start to wake up to the very real possibility that such lying is indeed going on, motivated by a specific agenda.

I continue to believe that the answer of Clearchus to the heralds of Artaxerxes II contains valuable lessons for us today. His message declared that if the king's intentions were truly friendly, he had nothing to fear from the Greeks and their weapons, and that they would be better friends to him if they retained their arms than if they gave them up. But, if the king's intentions were treacherous, which they indeed turned out to be, then the Greeks would have been foolish to surrender their arms.

It should also be pointed out that the collaborator Phalinus, who was acting on behalf of Artaxerxes, kept saying that the weapons of the Greeks were useless anyway, against the overwhelming force of the King of Persia. However, the fact that the king was so anxious that the Greeks give up their arms reveals that this argument is a lie -- and the calm confidence of Clearchus and the other Greeks in the face of the threats delivered by Phalinus shows that, as the Greeks believed, it is not numbers or strength which bring victory, but rather the gods' gift of morale, which derives from pursuing the honorable course rather than the seemingly expedient or even popular course.

The fact that even the act of repeating the words of Clearchus, and those of Theopompus and Xenophon quoted above, might be seen as heretical or immoral or insensitive or benighted by large portions of the population today (and certainly a majority of the voices on social media over the past two weeks) in nations supposedly descended from the freedom-loving civilization of ancient Greece, and supposedly devoted to many of their ideals and principles, and supposedly practicing forms of democratic governance inspired by some of their models, shows just how precarious our present situation has become, and how effective the propaganda outlets of the modern controlled media now prove themselves to be at drowning out independent thinking, critical analysis, and dissenting viewpoints.

It may be that the ghosts of the ancient Greeks are watching us now, and wondering what the fate of the heritage which they left to us will be.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

DaMo among the celestial realms

In honor of Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, which is celebrated in China and in surrounding cultures in Asia, I have created a new video examining the traditions and ancient stories regarding the important figure of Bodhidharma, known as DaMo in China, and as Daruma in Japan.

The video is called "DaMo among the celestial realms," and it explores some of the evidence that the story of DaMo -- like so many other ancient myths and sacred traditions from around the globe -- is based upon celestial metaphor and embodies the distinctive characteristics of specific constellations.

DaMo, or Bodhidharma, is credited with bringing Ch'an Buddhism to China, which became Zen Buddhism in Japan, and Seong Buddhism in Korea. His travels and adventures are described in texts dating back to at least the first half of what we call the sixth century AD (or CE) -- that is, the first half of the 500s AD. He is notable for his practice of extended meditation, sometimes for years on end. He is also notable for being credited with introducing a series of meditative movements to the monks he encountered at the Shaolin Temple -- meditative movements which became the basis for the famed martial arts of China and surrounding cultures.

Celestial aspects of the DaMo story -- especially his famous interaction with the learned monk Shen Guang (whose name DaMo later changes to Dazu Huike) -- are also discussed in my 2015 book Star Myths of the World, and how to interpret them: Volume One. As this new video shows, there are good reasons to conclude that Shen Guang corresponds to the figure of Hercules in the heavens.

Below is an image of DaMo and Shen Guang (Dazu Huike) found in a temple in Goseong, in the southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula. Note the startling correspondences between the depiction of Dazu Huike by the artist in this temple painting and the outline of the constellation Hercules as suggested by H. A. Rey -- a constellation who plays a role in countless myths around the world. The parallels are striking.

Special thanks to Dale Quarrington, whose website Dale's Korean Temple Adventures contains this image, and who gave me permission to use it in the new video. Dale's website discussing the beautiful temples of Korea and displaying numerous excellent and evocative photographs which Dale has taken in his visits to various temples is well worth exploring at length.

The above image can be found on this page of Dale's website.

Previous posts discussing artwork of mythical figures who can be shown to have likely connections to the constellation Hercules in the night sky include:

• "Celestial correspondences in the Pylos Combat Agate connect it to myths and art from other cultures around the globe"
• "The predictive power of the Star Myth system"
• "The Judgment of Solomon"
• "Shango and Oya of the Yoruba"
• "The Kojiki of ancient Japan"
• "Manipulation of Revelation 12 and the supposed connection to September 23, 2017"
• "Revelation chapter 22 and the Egyptian Book of the Dead"
• "The gorgeous night sky of June and July -- and mythical links from Greece to Kauai"
• "Mount Aetna and Typhon"
• "New article on the Pylos Combat Agate available at Graham Hancock's website"

Chinese New Year is traditionally observed from the start of the first lunar month (typically beginning on the day after the second New Moon following the winter solstice, although the calculation is a little more complicated than that) until the first Full Moon of that same first lunar month. The second New Moon after winter solstice this year took place on February 15, which is why the Lunar New Year began on February 16.

The first Full Moon of that new-year lunar month is associated with the ancient tradition of the Lantern Festival. This previous post discusses the Lantern Festival and some of the ancient sacred stories surrounding the Lantern Festival, stories which can also be seen to be connected to the constellations in the night sky.

I hope you will enjoy this new video about the celestial foundations of the DaMo story -- and, Happy New Year!!

New article on the Pylos Combat Agate available at Graham Hancock's website

Special thank-you to Graham Hancock and his team for publishing this new and expanded version of the analysis of the celestial artwork found in the recently-discovered Pylos Combat Agate: "The Dust of Centuries: Celestial Iconography in the Pylos Combat Agate."

This article from the Smithsonian Magazine dated January 2017 describes the discovery of the shaft-grave of a Mycenaean warrior in an olive grove near the ancient acropolis of Pylos, on the western coastline of the Peloponnese. Readers familiar with the Odyssey may remember the journey of Telemachos to "sandy Pylos" to seek counsel from Nestor and his family regarding the fate of Odysseus, the father of Telemachos.

By the time that Smithsonian article was published, in January of last year, the significance of the archaeological find was already being discussed -- but at that time, the most amazing artifact from the newly-discovered tomb had yet to be revealed, because it was still encrusted in limestone deposits after resting beneath the earth's surface for some 3,500 years. 

This article from News.com of Australia shows the gemstone covered in the hardened deposits, and after meticulous cleaning several months later, showing the incredibly detailed and artistically sophisticated scene carved into the surface of the agate. That article also contains a diagram of the tomb, showing the position of some of the artifacts -- and the remains of the grave's occupant -- at the bottom of the shaft-grave.

When the first photographs of the Pylos Combat Agate were published in early November of last year, I immediately recognized celestial correspondences in the artwork of the scene -- patterns which can be found in other artwork from around the world tying the subjects to specific constellations in the night sky (special thanks to the Twitter correspondent who initially sent me a link to the first images of the Pylos Combat Agate, as soon as those were published). This newly-discovered gemstone from the Minoan culture only serves to provide still more evidence to what I believe to be an overwhelming and indeed undeniable body of evidence in ancient artwork, ancient myths, and ancient scriptures proving the existence of an astonishing system of celestial metaphor which appears to have been worldwide in scope -- and of tremendous antiquity.

The Pylos Agate should completely upend the conventional understanding of artistic (and technical) capabilities in early antiquity -- and the celestial foundation of the Pylos Agate's artwork, which ties it to mythical episodes as widely dispersed as the Judgment of Solomonin the Hebrew Scriptures and the rescue of baby Maui from the foam of the sea by his ancestor Tama in the sacred traditions of the cultures of the vast Pacific Ocean, should completely upend the conventional understanding of humanity's ancient past, and show that the accepted narrative of early history is gravely flawed.

The diagrams and discussion in my new article at grahamhancock.com should demonstrate that the scene on the Pylos Agate corresponds to specific constellations in the heavens -- constellations which can still be observed in the sky tonight. They also demonstrate the connection of some of the patterns observed in the Pylos Agate to patterns found in other myths and other artwork from other cultures and other centuries.

Above is one of the diagrams from the article, showing one of the intriguing features included by the ancient artist -- the scabbard with a globular bulb at the tip, which I believe indicates the location of the bright star Vega in relation to the constellation Hercules (who corresponds to the triumphant Swordsman in the Pylos Agate, shaded in red in the top portion of the diagram above).

Previous discussions of this exquisitely carved gemstone, and its importance can be found here and here.

I hope this new article, and its publication on Graham's website, will help increase the awareness of the historic Pylos Combat Agate, and the important clues it offers to the secrets of our ancient past.

"All this has happened before": Professor Michael Hudson on neoliberalism, neo-feudalism, and the deliberate suppression of history

Above is a remarkable interview recorded back in February of 2014 with economist Michael Hudson, in which Professor Hudson explains that neoliberalism should really be understood as neo-feudalism, as he explicitly says at 16:30 in the conversation.

For an extended discussion and definition of neoliberalism, see this previous post entitled "Earth Day, 2017: the choices of Midas and Solomon."

Professor Hudson goes on to explain that neoliberalism seeks to weaken the power of representative governments -- and even to break them up -- in order to enable the privatization and exploitation of the public domain: the riches of the soil, the mineral wealth beneath the ground, the timberlands and forests, the seaports, the waterways and rivers, and all the other "gifts of nature" (or gifts of the gods). He says:

And that's what neoliberalism is: it's really neo-feudalism. It's a dismantling of democracy. It's a dismantling of democracy in favor of a financial oligarchy [this segment can be found beginning at 16:30].

Earlier in the interview, he explained that one of the goals of neoliberalism is the privatization of that which should actually be public:

And stage two is when the governments have to pay by selling off the public domain: the land, the natural resources, the forests, the ports, the electrical systems, the natural monopolies, and the infrastructure -- the roads and the bridges -- and the economy's turned into a tollbooth economy, and  so you're going very rapidly back to feudalism. And that's where Ireland is going: it's going back to the fourteenth century, quickly [this segment can be found beginning at 14:25].

The privatization of that which belongs to the public, in order to erect "tollbooths" on it, characterized the feudalism of the Middle Ages in western Europe -- a period of time which resulted from the overthrow of the ancient world following the rise of literalist Christianity, which captured the control centers of the Roman Empire with the accession of the Emperor Constantine in AD 313, and which shut down the Oracle at Delphi and the Eleusinian Mysteries during the reign Theodosius, who came to the throne about forty-two years after Constantine's death.

During the Middle Ages which followed, that which should really have been understood to be the gifts of the gods was divvied up for the benefit of the descendants of those who had replaced the ancient wisdom with the new literalistic faith (and who used that faith as justification for their seizure of what the ancient wisdom describes as belonging to the gods).

That's why Michael Hudson's framing of very modern problems -- subjects that are as fresh as this morning's news -- in the context of a much longer and deeper history, and his repeated references to the Middle Ages, are so important. As he says at 27:47 (towards the end of the interview): "All this has happened before."

However, as Professor Hudson also explains in this insightful interview, it is much more difficult to perceive what is going on if you've never been taught history -- and as he explains beginning at about the 7:00 mark in the interview and going until about the 9:24 mark (with further discussion beginning at about the 17:00 mark and 24:00 mark), the control of the narrative of the history of economic thought, and even of the narrative of history itself, can prevent the vast majority of people from even developing the perspective necessary to see what is going on or to even think about alternatives.

In other words, Professor Hudson argues, history is being actively suppressed and replaced with disinformation instead, with a very clear motive.

I would argue that we can find abundant evidence to conclude that this very same kind of suppression of history and deliberate propagation of disinformation is going on with respect to many aspects of humanity's ancient past as well.

I recommend listening to the above interview in its entirety, and carefully contemplating its implications. The interview's contents are all the more powerful when you realize that it was recorded in February of 2014 -- events that have taken place since then have confirmed many of the assessments and predictions that Professor Hudson provides in his responses.

You can download the file to take with you on a mobile device by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on this link and selecting "Download linked file as" (and then selecting a place on your device to save the file). You can also download the file by clicking on the small downward-pointing arrow in the embedded player at the top of this post.

Previous posts dealing with this same subject include:

• "Privatization vs the gods (and the people)"
• "Transforming everyone and everything into commodities"
• "Siphoning-off the gifts of the gods behind a cloak of Orwellian mind control"
• "Collaborators against the gods"
• "Some lessons from King Midas, who discovered he could not eat gold"

Step onward, John Anthony West

I was deeply saddened to learn today that John Anthony West has crossed from this mortal plane.

My thoughts are with his son Zeke and daughter Zoe and with the rest of his family and closest circle.

An eloquent tribute from Graham Hancock can be found here.

Readers of this blog and of my various books know that I hold the work of John West in the highest regard. His inspired analysis and tenacious pursuit of the evidence which shows that the conventional paradigm of ancient history is gravely flawed, and his exploration of the profound implications of that conclusion, almost singlehandedly (along with his friend and colleague, geologist and researcher Robert Schoch) initiated an entirely new line of inquiry into the forgotten wisdom of the ancient world -- and exposed the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the attempts by the mainstream "quackademics" (his term) to suppress, ignore, or otherwise obscure that evidence and its implications.

His book Serpent in the Sky continues to be a deep well of wisdom and insight to which one can (and should) return again and again.

His writing, speaking, and research inspired the transformative generation of researchers that includes Graham Hancock, Robert Schoch, Walter Cruttenden, Laird Scranton, and many others -- and the  researchers from successive generations which continue to arise as each new decade unfolds. 

A partial list of my own previous posts which have acknowledged his influence on my own thinking and which have drawn upon his writing and work would include:

• "Geology, mythology, cataclysms and the world's ancient wisdom"

• "John Anthony West on creativity, discipline, and consciousness"

• "The cobra and the vulture"

• "Scarab, Ankh, and Djed"

• "The high science of ancient Egypt"

• "The Pythagorean '3' in Egypt and Lao Tzu"

• "Mild but persistent torture" and

• "John Anthony West on the meaning of human existence" (written and published well before Red Ice Radio took its regrettable and misguided turn to the hard right).

John West was a brilliant interpreter of the world's ancient wisdom, particularly that embodied in the art and scriptures of ancient Egypt. He described his approach as being of the Symbolist school, which I interpret as a way of saying that he was opposed to attempts to force a literalistic interpretation upon the writings and iconography of the ancients, instead perceiving that the practitioners of the world's ancient high wisdom expressed profound truths through inspired symbols. Not only did the ancients employ sophisticated and incredibly subtle metaphorical symbol, but (as John West also perceived and explained) they knew how to manifest shape and space and proportion and alignment and number to create effects in the realm of vibration in ways that have largely been forgotten today

His video series Magical Egypt delves into this symbolism and ancient wisdom, and is well worth watching in its entirety if you have the opportunity to do so. Even if you have already seen it, now would seem to be a fitting time to take the opportunity to watch it again, and contemplate the massive scope of John Anthony West's gift to humanity and to the task of recovering from what he described as our collective amnesia about our own past.

Graham Hancock's powerful tribute to his friend and colleague, linked above, movingly cites the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. 

Alvin Boyd Kuhn argued (very convincingly, in my opinion) that when this ancient Egyptian text describes "the Dead," it is actually describing this incarnate life, and our condition here as souls who are passing through the "underworld" of the material realm and incarnation in a human body. 

In an amazing passage in Lost Light, published in 1940, Alvin Boyd Kuhn suggests that the descriptions of the divine Horus in the Book of the Dead should not be understood as referring to any individual historical personage but rather to that divine nature which comes down and manifests itself in seemingly mortal men and women, over and over, throughout the ages. Kuhn writes:

To the sages of old time the coming was a constantly recurring and only typical [that is, "purely symbolic"] event. [ . . . ] Horus, a form of Iu-em-hetep, was not an individual historical person. For he says, "I am Horus, the Prince of Eternity." [ . . . ] Horus calls himself "the persistent traveler on the highways of heaven," and "the everlasting one." "I am Horus who steppeth onward through eternity." Here is wisdom to nourish the mind and lead it out of its infantile stage and into maturity of view. Horus declares himself forever above the character of a time-bound personage. Let moderns ponder his other mighty pronouncement: "I am a soul, and my soul is divine. It is the self-originating force." It can perpetually renew itself [ . . . ]." 546 - 547.

I am convinced that John Anthony West understood the most sacred texts of ancient Egypt, and their teaching on the eternal path of the divine and undying soul, which itself is "the persistent traveler on the highways of heaven."  

I am convinced that because of his deep study and his penetrating insight, he knows how to navigate those highways. Not only that, but he strove mightily within this life to share what he knew and to pass it on to others in every way and through every medium that he could.

Those of us who have been touched and inspired by his life and work can join together in saying to him, "Go in peace, John, stepping onward through eternity."

Very important interviews with Chris Knowles and Gordon White on The Higherside Chats

Here are two outstanding recent interviews from what I consider to be an essential resource: Greg Carlwood's The Higherside Chats.

The first is a conversation with Chris Knowles, author of the Secret Sun website and blog. The most-recent interview is actually the second part of what I would consider to be a longer conversation which includes the previous interview with Chris, recorded just prior to the despicable events that took place in Las Vegas on October 1st, 2017.

The first of those interviews is entitled "Song to the Siren" and the second is entitled "Heaven or Las Vegas," and those are embedded in the two videos below. 

Note however, and this is very important, that The Higherside Chats is a subscription podcast, and that unless you subscribe for the very reasonable price of $5 per month, you're really only getting half of the content, as Greg likes to say. I consider Greg Carlwood to be one of the best interviewers in the world of independent media today, someone who really does his homework prior to each conversation and who shows up to his interviews with pages of insightful questions as well as an upbeat and positive attitude that -- at the same time -- doesn't suspend critical thinking. 

Rather than listening to the free portion only, I would highly recommend joining The Higherside Chats "Plus" membership plan available at this link. There's even a free trial period if you want to try it out before you pay any money. I personally am not affiliated with The Higherside Chats in any way and am not paid anything to promote Greg's show -- although I have appeared on The Higherside Chats show myself a couple of times. 

I have said before that I believe independent media to be extremely important, because it can be demonstrated beyond any doubt that conventional corporate media outlets are actively lying and suppressing the truth in many important aspects of what is being reported today as "news."

The second extremely important recent interview appearing on The Higherside Chats in the month of January 2018 is with returning guest Gordon White, author of multiple books and of the blog and podcast Rune Soup. That interview is entitled "The Dominant of Witchcraft" and is embedded above at the top of this post.

These two conversations -- the extended conversation with Chris Knowles which covers the two podcasts linked above and embedded below and the most-recent conversation with Gordon White -- should be absolutely paradigm-shifting for anyone who believes the materialist or naturalist paradigm which only arose relatively recently in history and which argues that there is no supernatural or Other Realm (or Realms) beyond the physical and material realm with which we are most familiar (a paradigm which is still aggressively propagated in institutions of education from the earliest grades all the way through university-level undergraduate and post-graduate levels).

While some might argue that cutting off the awareness to the Other Realm (the Invisible Realm, or the spirit realm -- the realm of the gods) was necessary to enable all the advances of modern science and engineering over the past few centuries (an argument which could certainly be debated), it should be quite evident that if there really are other realms or dimensions or realities beyond the material or naturalistic realm taught in school then it is actually quite "unscientific" to ignore that fact and to pretend that there are not.

I am convinced that the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories bequeathed to virtually every culture on our planet teach the reality of the existence of the Invisible Realm, or the realm of the gods. Previous posts which touch upon this subject and some of its implications include:

• "The gods are real"

• "How many ways are there to contact the hidden realm?"

• "Shamanic-holographic"

• "Outlaw drums: evidence of the suppression of the shamanic worldview"

• "The Cobra-Kai sucker punch (and why we keep falling for it, over and over)"

• "The Lord of the Rings, the Power of Music, and the Stories that Really Matter"

• "Ask yourself: would you drink whiskey from a pilsner glass?"

• "Mild but persistent torture"

• "Las Vegas (01 October, 2017) and the manipulation of history"

. . . and many others.

Obviously, pointing towards these particular interviews does not imply that Greg or his guests agree with anything that I myself write about, or that I necessarily agree with every single thing that they say -- but it should be extremely clear from the amount of evidence which is presented in these interviews that this is a vitally important subject and one which simply must not be ignored, particularly at this junction in human history.

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