The Ganges Fan, the Indus Fan, and the Great Flood

























In the previous post we discussed the lengthy undersea ridge pointing towards the region of the Himalayas and how this ridge provides powerful supporting evidence for the validity of the hydroplate theory of West Point and MIT graduate Dr. Walt Brown.

The northern section of that huge ridge sits right next to another enormous geological feature which likewise supports the hydroplate theory: the massive Ganges Fan (also known as the Bengal Fan), a tremendous network of canyons carved in a pattern resembling a mighty river-system on land, but stretching across the floor of the Bay of Bengal at depths of 2000 meters to over 5000 meters beneath the surface, starting at the mouth of the Ganges and running all the way down at some points to well south of the equator, terminating in the Ceylon Abyssal Plain near the Anafasiy Nikitin Seamount.

On the other side of India, in the Arabian Sea, a similar fan can be seen emanating from the terminus of the Indus River and stretching across the entire Arabian Basin at the bottom of the Arabian Sea, at depths well in excess of 4000 meters in its southernmost regions.

The Ganges Fan can be seen in the map on this web page (labeled in French) which discusses the formation based on conventional tectonic theory, and both the Ganges Fan and the Indus Fan can be seen in the 1967 National Geographic Indian Ocean Floor Map linked in the previous post (which allows some zoom-in capability when you hover your cursor over the map itself).

These submarine canyons -- and the many others found around the world such as the Monterey Canyon discussed in this previous post, as well as those cutting into the continental shelf beyond the mouth of major rivers such as the Hudson, the Amazon, and the Congo -- pose a real difficulty for conventional geological theory, which eschews catastrophic explanations for geological features and cannot possibly admit to the possibility of a worldwide flood. These steep-sided canyons resemble those carved on land by the rushing waters of rivers, but they are beneath the ocean's surface at great depths.

The conventional explanation currently popular is that "turbidity currents" that carry mud and sediments under the sea somehow gouged out these enormous fan systems -- a fairly ridiculous explanation. Discussions of how this might work can be found on the Wikipedia entry for "submarine canyons" under the heading "formation," as well as in more scientific discussions such as the one found in this report from 2000.

Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory proposes a much more plausible explanation. After the catastrophic flood event and the sliding and buckling of the continents and the deepening of the ocean basins (particularly the Pacific Basin), flood waters rushed off of the continents towards the oceans, carving the river basins we see today on land, and pouring off the continental shelves (which were still above sea level) and carving the submarine canyons we see today as they did so.

The ocean levels were much lower then than they are today, and the continents and their continental shelves much higher -- over time, the weight of the thickened continents would cause them to sink into the crust, which had the effect of raising the sea levels by thousands of feet. We have discussed this gradual process in previous posts, as well as the fact that this theory would explain the undersea ruins -- some of them at great depths -- which explorers may have found in several places around the world (and why this explanation is superior to an explanation that relies entirely on ice-age melt).

The hydroplate explanation is clearly superior to the current attempts to explain these undersea canyons and fans using non-catastrophic mechanisms. Dr. Brown highlights some of the problems with the current roster of non-catastrophic explanations in this page of his online version of his book:
Submarine Canyons. The ocean floor has hundreds of canyons, some that exceed the Grand Canyon in both length and depth. One submarine canyon is ten times longer (2,300 miles), so long it would stretch nearly across the United States. Many of these V-shaped canyons are extensions of major rivers. Examples include the Amazon Canyon, Hudson Canyon, Ganges Canyon, Congo Canyon, and Indus Canyon. How were canyons gouged out, sometimes 15,000 feet below sea level? Did ancient rivers (or major drainage paths) cut these canyons when sea level was lower or the ocean floor was higher? If so, why did those elevations change? Swift rivers supposedly cut most continental canyons. However, currents measured in submarine canyons are too slow, generally less than one mile per hour. Frequently, the flow is in the wrong direction. Submarine landslides that produce dense, muddy currents sometimes occur. However, they would not form the long, tributary patterns that characterize river systems and submarine canyons. Furthermore, experiments with thick, muddy water in submarine canyons have not demonstrated any canyon-cutting ability.
Note that these submarine canyons which were carved by floodwaters rushing off of the rising continents are very different from oceanic trenches, which pose different problems for tectonic theorists and which Dr. Brown addresses on that page and on following pages as well.

Few people in the general public are even aware of the existence of these massive submarine canyons, or of the networks of canyons such as the Indus Fan and the Ganges Fan (aka the Bengal Fan). However, they are yet another in a long list of geological clues which indicate fatal problems with the reigning non-catastrophic theories of earth's past.




90° East Ridge




















The Mathisen Corollary book explores the ramifications of the groundbreaking hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown to the abundant evidence from human archaeology and mythology that mankind's ancient past is very different than we have been taught in school.

Dr. Brown's theory explains earth's geology through a catastrophic flood rather than through the gradual processes that were proposed in the late 1700s and began to gain ground throughout the early 1800s, and which became hardened into dogma following the rapid acceptance of Darwin's theories in the second half of the 1800s.

As we have pointed out in many previous posts, the geological and astronomical evidence supporting the hydroplate theory is overwhelming in its volume and in its diversity -- for links to previous discussions see this post or this post.

One of the aspects of Dr. Brown's theory that is extremely important for any examination of the evidence left by mankind's most ancient civilizations is the fact that his theory argues that the earth experienced a slow but massive roll in the aftermath of the violent events surrounding the catastrophic flood of antiquity.

He proposes that the continents of today slid to their current positions after the initial rupture of the earth's crust that caused the flood and that is still evidenced by the mid-Atlantic ridge which can be seen as a light-colored scar that snakes down the center of the Atlantic in the image above, echoing the contours of Europe and Africa to the east and North and South America to the west. When these continental plates ground violently to a halt, great mountain ridges were formed (just as ridges would be formed in the hood of a truck if you drove it into a brick wall).

The largest and thickest of these ridges contains the Himalayas, and the weight of this massive new clump on the side of the earth would have actually unbalanced the earth. The principles of physics would dictate that the Himalayas would have wanted to migrate towards the equator, due to the principle of centrifugal force (just as a rock spun on a string over your head will want to pull straight outwards, so too the Himalayas wanted to spin around the equator rather than around a point on the northern hemisphere well above the equator).

The force pulling the Himalayas towards the equator initiated the roll of the earth. Evidence that such a roll took place is manifest in several geological features around the world, the most dramatic of which include fossil evidence in Antarctica which reveals that the southern continent was not always at the latitudes of the south pole. We discussed this evidence and the reasons that the hydroplate theory explains it much more satisfactorily than the current plate tectonic explanations in this previous post. Similarly, the "big roll" initiated by the Himalayas pulled lands that were further south to latitudes that were much further north, including the islands now known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, as we discuss in this previous post.

However, there was a countervailing force which prevented the Himalayas from rolling all the way to the equator, and which moderated the roll so that it did not go as far as it otherwise would have, and that countervailing force was the equatorial bulge, as Dr. Brown explains on this page of his online version of his book (particularly in the discussion accompanying Figure 78, about 3/4ths of the way down the page).

He explains that the more the Himalayas pulled towards the equator, the more the equatorial bulge was displaced from the new line of the equator, creating a new centrifugal force vector on the bulge that wanted to pull it back towards the new equatorial region (because of the same "rock on a string pulls directly outwards" principle that we explained before as acting on the Himalayas). The spinning of the earth pulled the particles at the new equator outwards, in effect "shifting" the equatorial bulge upwards towards the new equator where it belongs.

Dr. Brown explains that each incremental shift of the bulge reduced the force vector countervailing the Himalayas, allowing them to shift towards the equator again, which then shifted the equatorial bulge out of stasis again, causing it to shift back towards the equator as well, and this process went on until stasis was reached. Geological evidence indicates that the total roll was 35°–45° of latitude.

Dr. Brown points to an important piece of additional geological evidence which supports this explanation of events, which is a long straight ridge at the bottom of the Indian Ocean known as 90° East Ridge, because of its location on the 90° East line of longitude. This ridge was formed because, as the equatorial bulge shifted incrementally back towards the equator, it actually ripped the crust, causing it to split apart as it "inched" its way along, like a pair of jeans that are too tight! Dr. Brown explains, "Magma quickly flowed up into this rip, which eventually grew 3,000 miles long and is today called Ninety East Ridge."

Because the Himalayas were further north than they are today, the equatorial bulge directly below them was shifted southward when the Himalayas tried to roll towards the point of "straight out" centrifugal force (the equator). Thus, the equatorial bulge south of the equator was trying to move back northwards (on the other side of the globe, the roll of initiated by the Himalayas would have caused the equatorial bulge to be north of the new equator and the "hoop" of this equatorial bulge on that side of the earth would have been trying to get back southwards).

Notably, Ninety East Ridge runs north-and-south and points towards the Himalayas -- powerful confirmation for this explanation of its origin. It thus would have been a rip that started at the southernmost point and moved northwards, as the equatorial bulge below the Himalayas was displaced to the south by the roll and then worked its way back northwards.

Conventional explanations for this long straight ridge (which begins at latitude 40° South and goes all the way to latitude 14° north) include a stationary "hot spot" of magma which spurted out a line of molten rock as a plate moved over it, leaving the long straight ridge we see today. Another explanation proposes that it is a remnant of a line of volcanoes marking a breakup of tectonic plates at some point in the distant past, perhaps in the Mesozoic. However, both of these theories are very dubious in light of the fact that there are numerous parallel ridges on either side of 90° East Ridge, which are explained far better by the "ripping crust" theory proposed by Dr. Brown due to the distortion created by the shifting equatorial bulge than by any explanations the tectonic adherents have put forward.

90° East Ridge can be seen in the diagram above, marked by a white arrow at its southern point. For a more detailed depiction, you can visit this beautiful 1967 National Geographic map of the Indian Ocean Floor, which allows you to hover your cursor over the map itself for a zoomed-in close-up of the artist's depiction of the geophysical bathymetry.

Dr. Brown writes that "Earth’s slow roll after the flood would have changed the paths of the Sun and stars across the sky. Attempts to measure those irregularities may have led to the construction of ancient observatories such as Stonehenge."

I agree completely with that observation, and believe that the big roll of the earth is one of the most important aspects of the hydroplate theory for its implications on the evidence left to us by the extremely advanced ancient civilization (or civilizations) that influenced other ancient cultures around the world. The evidence for such an event is extensive. The subtle clue contained in 90° East Ridge at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, pointed directly at the Himalayas, should not be overlooked.

The Ka Mate haka



It's time for the Rugby World Cup championship match, which will take place on Sunday, October 23, at 9 pm in New Zealand (1 am California time) between the All-Blacks of New Zealand and the national team of France, sometimes referred to as les bleus. The World Cup is only held every four years, and this year's matchup finds the same two nations competing as those that met in the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987.

The All-Blacks will of course perform their famous haka immediately before the match. The haka is a traditional Maori ritual dance with chanting, conveying the ultimate resolve in the face of a challenger or enemy. It features ferocious facial expressions including opening the eyes wide and sticking out the tongue, as well as deep stances, the slapping of the thighs and chest, and stamping the feet.

This website cites a quotation from Alan Armstrong's 1964 book Maori Games and Hakas: Instructions, Words and Actions describing the haka in this way:
The Haka is a composition played by many instruments. Hands, feet, legs, body, voice, tongue, and eyes all play their part in blending together to convey in their fullness the challenge, welcome, exultation, defiance or contempt of the words. It is disciplined, yet emotional.
In an article on his website Ancient Celtic New Zealand, Martin Doutré makes some extremely interesting observations about the similarities between the stylized facial expressions and deep stances of the haka and the Egyptian god Bes, a lion-headed god who was a protector of gateways, doorways, and especially of mothers, women and children. Surviving statuary indicates that Bes was short, bow-legged, and often depicted with wide bulging eyes and a protruding tongue.

Mr. Doutré explains the similarities:
The dancer, to this day, assumes a squat or bow-legged position and stomps the ground with all the force he can muster, slapping the thighs, rolling bulged out eyes, chanting ferociously while grimacing and poking-out the tongue. The fearsome display is designed to let any challenger know that there will be no quarter given and that unwarranted incursion will be met with ferocity unto death. This was the role of Bes, the unflinching, uncompromising protector of women and children. The male hakas of yesteryear, within living memory, were commenced low, at ground level, on one knee to accentuate the diminutive size of the dwarf god or to imitate his portrayed design on the Hei-Tiki pendant. In recent years the haka form that New Zealanders and the rest of the world have become most acquainted with is the one performed by the All Blacks football team.
Now, the fact that it is a little lion-headed god who was considered the guardian of portals and gates and of women and children is quite interesting as well. It is a historical fact that sculptured lions are found guarding gateways and doorways from very ancient times -- and not only in the Old World but even it seems in the Americas, where lions with manes were supposedly unknown!

In Sacred Science: the King of Pharaonic Theocracy, the profound R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887 - 1961) theorizes as to the reason that lions have been gate-guardians since ancient times:
Examining the various essential themes, we note that during the entire historical period of Egypt, the sun was situated in Leo for the heliacal rising of Sirius. This is why the ancients, as early as the Fifth Dynasty, fashioned the temple gargoyles in the form of a lion head, a fact that seems to confirm their knowledge of the zodiac. 92.
(For an explanation of the concept of the "heliacal rising of Sirius" see this previous post). Now, this observation of de Lubicz is extremely interesting in light of the actual words expressed in the haka, which can be seen subtitles provided in the video above. In the haka performed in the video (from the All Blacks prior to a match in 2004) the chanted words are given in the video as follows:
Listen up with your ears!
Prepare yourself!
Hands on hips, bend the knees!
Slap the hands against the thighs!
Stamp the feet as hard as you can!
As hard as you can.
I die! I die! I live! I live!
This is the hairy man
Who fetched the Sun
And caused it to shine again.
One upward step!
Another upward step!
An upward step, another . . . the Sun shines!
Rise / Dawn.
These words certainly seem to indicate that this particular haka, often referred to as the Ka Mate ("I die") has celestial meaning under the surface. The website linked above which discusses the origins of the Ka Mate explains it as the memorialization of an actual Maori event involving a chieftain in the early 1800s escaping from his enemies by hiding in a kumara pit (here's the link again).

While that explanation is certainly possible, it doesn't really explain the elements of the chant that clearly refer to the rising sun. The sun is very prominent in the haka, which ends dramatically with the sun's rising or dawning. The fact that Schwaller de Lubicz believed that the sun's rising in Leo on the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius is connected with the concept of lions (or lion-headed gargoyles, which certainly describes Bes) guarding gates, and the fact that Martin Doutré believes that the protective activity of Bes is connected with the motions and expressions of the haka, would appear to indicate that these solar references in the Ka Mate chant may well have something to do with celestial symbolism.

There is also the striking line in the haka which says, "This is the hairy man / Who fetched the Sun / And caused it to shine again." The story that this refers to the Maori chieftain's rescuer, who helped save the chieftain's life by hiding him in a kumara pit, seems a little strained as an explanation for a hairy man who fetches the sun and causes it to shine again.

It seems especially unsatisfactory in light of the fact that there are very powerful mythological traditions of a "hairy man" or a "hairy twin" found throughout the world and stretching back to very ancient times. For some discussion of these, see the previous post entitled "Gemini, Canis Minor and the Hairy Twin." That discussion notes that the "hairy man" appears in the epic of Gilgamesh (Enkidu is the hairy man), in the book of Genesis (Esau), and in the mythology of Japan and of the Cherokee people of North America.

Note that the hairy man is associated with the constellation Gemini (the Twins) as discussed in that post, and that this constellation is very close to the constellation of Leo the Lion that we have seen may somehow be connected to the haka. They will actually be higher in the sky above the head of the Lion when the sun is rising in Leo, which could be the explanation for this concept of the Hairy Man fetching the sun.

Arguing against this explanation is the fact that Cancer the Crab is actually directly next to the Lion and precedes it in the sky, but it is much fainter than the Twins. However, as we have seen from the painting known as "The Panel of the Wounded Man" in the Cave of Lascoux, if that panel is actually a celestial diagram (and I believe it is very likely that it is), it depicts the stars of Leo (in the tail of the Rhino), then the leaning man (the "Wounded Man") drawn using two parallel lines who depicts the constellation Gemini, then the charging Bull who represents Taurus. Cancer is not present. There is a significant bird on a pole in that diagram-- this could perhaps be connected with the star Procyon, but it is not in the correct location to be Cancer.

Therefore, it would seem that we can use this painting as supporting evidence for our theory that the Hairy Man who "fetches the sun and makes it rise" is connected with the Hairy Twin who is associated with the constellation Gemini, especially if the haka really has a connection to the sun rising in the constellation Leo.

Even if you do not buy this possible explanation, it is pretty clear that there is a lot in the haka that is worth careful study and consideration. It certainly appears to contain ancient knowledge and celestial references that were known by the Maori of previous centuries. Whether it also contains evidence that this knowledge is connected to the ancient knowledge of the Egyptians (knowledge which might also have been preserved by the Cherokee, the Japanese, and other cultures around the world) is a matter for debate. We should probably not be too quick to dismiss the possibility.

The Orionid meteor shower





















The earth has reached a special point on its orbit, a point it passes through every year at about this time, when the Orionid meteor shower is visible.

The Orionids are not as spectacular as the Perseids in August, numbering around 30 per hour in contrast with the almost one hundred-per-hour that the Perseids can muster, but they are remarkable for three reasons.

First, they can be seen to radiate from a point near the constellation Orion, one of the most recognizable and dramatic constellations in the night sky, and one which plays a very important role in ancient mythology (see this previous post for more detail).

Second, the Orionid meteor streaks themselves are dramatic, often having long tails and exhibiting distinctive colors before they burn up.

Finally, the space debris that causes the Orionid showers (burning up in the earth's atmosphere as our globe plows through the debris field) is left by one of the most famous denizens of the solar system: Halley's Comet.

To understand why we encounter this particular debris at this particular point in our orbit each year, and why it is associated with the constellation Orion, visit this previous post entitled "Meteor shower tonight, and why they have calendar-dates and constellation names."

The diagram above (admittedly a rather rough sketch) may help in conceptualizing the Orionids. As earth makes its annual circuit around the sun, different constellations are seen in the night sky by observers when the daily rotation on the axis turns them away from the sun (although those constellations that are "on the ceiling" in the direction of the north pole for those in the northern hemisphere, or "on the floor" in the direction of the south pole for those in the southern hemisphere, are visible at night year-round).

As earth began approaching the point where Orion would become seen again, he was first visible rising in the east just prior to the sun rise: look at the diagram above, note the direction the earth is turning around its axis, and envision Orion being revealed just above the eastern horizon right before the turning revealed the sun. However, as earth progressed, he rose above the eastern horizon a bit earlier each 24-hour period, and he is now making his way pretty far across the sky before the turning of the earth brings the sun back up to drown out the night stars.

As earth progresses around its path, it runs into various clouds of debris left by comets and other phenomena, and each October it reaches the trail of particles left by the famous comet Halley (for more on the importance of comets as clues to the geology of the earth, see the discussion in this post, and the other posts referenced in that one). Because of the angle that the earth plows into this field, the stars in the background for an observer gazing into the heavens looking for meteors happen to be the stars of Orion, as shown in the drawing (of course, Orion's stars would be very far "into" the surface of the drawing; he looks too close in this drawing because to make his stars easy to see I had to draw them big -- he would look farther away if his stars were drawn as tiny dots but then you might not notice them very easily).

The path of Halley's Comet and the debris that it leaves is shown by a cloudy trail of dots in the above diagram. Note that the earth crosses through this track of debris again in late April / early May, when Halley's dust is again responsible for a meteor shower, this one seen with Aquarius in the background, giving rise to that meteor shower's name, the Eta Aquariid shower. The Eta Aquariids also have tails with colorful streaks just as the Orionids do.

One thing to note that doesn't come out perfectly clearly in the rough sketch is the fact that Halley's comet has a path which is not on the same plane that the earth and the other planets follow (it is not on the ecliptic plane). Its plane comes "up" from the south pole side of earth, goes around the sun, and then exits back "down" towards the direction that the south pole is pointing, not at a 90° angle to our ecliptic plane but at a shallower angle of attack, as shown in this helpful diagram.

Here are a couple of articles that explain how to view the Orionids this weekend:

Some implications of recent studies on the plasticity of the brain

























Today, several news outlets -- from NPR to the Wall Street Journal -- published discussions about new scientific studies showing that IQ test scores can change radically throughout one's lifetime, possibly in response to activities and choices that one makes.

Rarely mentioned in these discussions is the possibility that this research demonstrates what an wrong-headed concept the entire IQ test really is, and how it is really one of the centerpieces of the Darwinian revolution that took over England and the United States during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. It should be fairly obvious that IQ tests, which flatten the varied and unique gifts that individuals are given by their Creator to a one-dimensional measurement of "intelligence quotient" is Darwinian in its very nature, and encourages reducing people to numbers and stratifying them according to their potential.

One of the pioneers of the idea of quantifying human potential in terms of intelligence tests was Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton, whom we have met before. Galton was a major figure in the eugenics movement and it is a fact of history that the IQ test was a primary tool of the eugenics movement and was used as the basis for the forcible sterilization of women in the United States.

If the distasteful history of the IQ test (rarely mentioned by the media) does not completely discredit it, these new findings should cast further doubt on its value. The fact that "intelligence quotient" can increase (or decrease) can, of course, be viewed as hopeful information, spurring us to take steps to keep our brains moving in the right direction, but really the entire idea that you can put a number on intelligence is questionable at best. At least this new study should prevent the test from being used to permanently categorize someone's potential, the way it regrettably has in the past.

A more interesting study revealing the distinct possibility that our habits and practices can have positive effects on our minds is the ongoing work by some neuroscientists scanning the brainwave activity of those who have spent tens of thousands of hours in meditation, specifically Buddhist monks.

For years, Professor Richard Davidson and other neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (and elsewhere) have been testing the possibility that disciplines such as meditation can actually change the brain. This article from 2004, entitled "Scans of Monks' Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Functioning," says that when the brain activity of novices with little experience meditating and the brain activity of monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation were measured during an exercise in meditation, the monks "showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves."

This article on the same subject from Wired magazine implies that emotions such as empathy, compassion and love can actually be trained and strengthened on purpose, with real results. It says:
The monks produced gamma waves that were 30 times as strong as the students'. In addition, larger areas of the meditators' brains were active, particularly in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions.

Davidson realized that the results had important implications for ongoing research into the ability to change brain function through training. In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the onset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician's fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand -- even in musicians who start playing as adults. Davidson's work suggested this potential might extend to emotional centers.

But Davidson saw something more. The monks had responded to the request to meditate on compassion by generating remarkable brain waves. Perhaps these signals indicated that the meditators had attained an intensely compassionate state of mind. If so, then maybe compassion could be exercised like a muscle; with the right training, people could bulk up their empathy.
Notably, the same article later quotes a speech given by the current (14th) Dalai Lama to a group of neuroscientists in Washington DC, saying that in the speech he expressed the importance of compassion in our everyday lives. The article's author says:
He's especially concerned that researchers are not paying enough attention to the development of "warmheartedness." Like charity, this quality begins at home. "Come home and be with your wife, your husband, or your children," he beseeches the assembled neuroscientists, "and feel happy!"
This appears to imply that the Dalai Lama perceives the practice of "warmheartedness" to be a discipline that benefits from daily practice!

While there is no Darwinian standardized test for measuring "warmheartedness quotient," it would seem that these statements (and the results of Professor Davidson's research) imply that this capacity can be increased throughout our lives as well (or, more disturbingly, that it can be decreased too).

This is a finding that is at least as important as the finding that IQ (if there really is such a thing as IQ) can change through life, and one that we can put to practical daily use much more easily. Of course, Dr. Davidson's research also implies that meditation might be a discipline that -- while forgotten and neglected much of the modern world -- is vitally important.

Is it only coincidence that the wisdom of the Hopi elders passed down through the centuries indicates that chanting (which forms a central part of many forms of Tibetan meditation -- see for example this video clip) was seen as a vital daily activity and that failure to practice it was symptomatic of falling into evil deeds and hatred of others? As we saw in this earlier discussion, Hopi legend relates that the Creator told the people "sing in harmony from the tops of the hills. When I do not hear you singing praises to your Creator I will know you have gone back to evil again."

While there is nothing inherently wrong with trying to improve one's ability to learn, is it not possible that our modern obsession with "intelligence quotient" and all that it implies, and our pursuit of anything that can help us "get an edge" over others in a "dog-eat-dog world" (in other words, the fruits of the modern religion of Darwinism) have eclipsed a focus on other aspects of our humanity that we should be exercising as well?


Special thanks to Mrs. MDS for sharing these articles about the monks with me during our West Point reunion a few weeks back.

Go have a look at the Pleiades!

























If you make a habit of going out for a walk to look at the stars at about the same time each evening, you will begin to notice over the course of a few months how the sky changes slowly through the seasons as a result of the earth's ongoing progress in its orbit around the sun (explained here using the metaphor of the walls of your dining room at home).

Currently, the stars rising in the east in the evening before midnight include some distinctive and easily-recognized constellations, and best of all the beautiful Pleiades, one of the most famous and most important star clusters in the sky (important because of their prominent role in ancient mythology and astronomy).

You can easily locate the Pleiades in the evening hours, rising in the east and clearly visible well above the horizon by 9 pm (currently rising above the horizon just before 7 pm in latitude 35o north). To find them, it is advisable to first locate Cassiopeia, which is the "W-shaped" constellation that circles the north star opposite the Big Dipper and which should be fairly easy to find in the east (between the hours of 8 pm and midnight in the northern hemisphere, it will be oriented as shown below in the drawing).

























Once you have located Cassiopeia, then proceed to the constellation Perseus, which will be oriented as shown in the diagram above for viewers in the northern hemisphere (remember, he is rising in the east and thus looks horizontal as he rises, straightens up as he crosses the zenith, and then becomes more horizontal as he sets -- Orion does the same thing). You may not be able to recognize all the stars show above in the Perseus diagram, but you should be able to make out the main trapezoidal stars of his body and probably his arms and maybe his legs as well (on a clear night). For more discussion of the constellation Perseus, see this previous post.

Once you have located Perseus rising, you are ready to find the Pleiades. They are very close to his lower foot, and when he is horizontal like this they are on his same level (once he straightens up he will be above them and above the constellation of Taurus the Bull, which is important for the analysis of the ancient Mysteries of Mithras offered by Professor David Ulansey and discussed here; for more detail check out his excellent book Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World).

The Pleiades are a beautiful silvery cloud when viewed with the naked eye (depending on your vision, you may be able to make out several of the individual stars of the Pleiades). However, they are even more breathtaking when viewed through binoculars. The diagram at the very top of this post shows about what you can see with an ordinary set of binos, except that it will be far more beautiful. The names of each Pleiad are identified in the illustration, as are the locations of their parents, Atlas and Pleione.

Now is a fantastic time of year to go find the Pleiades. The moon is rising later and later each night and currently does not come onto the scene until just after midnight at latitude 35o north, so late evening after 8 pm gives you several hours to observe the dazzling array of stars in the eastern night sky.

Currently, the brilliant planet Jupiter is rising in the east at roughly the same time as the Pleiades, and is shown in the diagram above. Also, much higher in the sky and indicated in the diagram, look for the Great Square of Pegasus, discussed in this previous post.

You absolutely owe it to yourself to go out and spend some time enjoying the beautiful Pleiades this week. They are spectacular.

Bring along a pair of binoculars (some tips for using binoculars to observe celestial objects can be found here).

Peter Tosh, 1944 - 1987



October 19 is the birthdate of Peter Tosh, born on this date in 1944, and murdered on September 11, 1987.

For some reason, he is not as well known as Bob Marley, although he was equally important in the formation of the Wailers and in the development of the musical genre of reggae. Peter Tosh played guitar for the Wailing Wailers (later renamed the Wailers) and with their important albums Catch a Fire and Burnin' in 1973. His unmistakable vocals can be heard as the lead in the well-known Wailers songs "400 Years" and "Stop That Train," as well as in certain parts of "Get Up, Stand Up" and in the background of many others.

He began a successful solo career in 1974, releasing his debut album Legalize It in 1976, which is his most well-known compilation, but it was followed by six more solid albums filled with track after track of inspired songwriting.

He was killed during an invasion of his home in 1987 under suspicious circumstances: he was often the target of government harassment in his home country of Jamaica for his vocal assaults on corruption, thuggery, oppression, inflation, and restriction of freedom.

The themes which are never far from the surface of reggae music and Rastafari include the oppression and enslavement of one group (in this case Africans) based on race and prejudice, which provides an intersection with the topics discussed in this blog in that the elevation of one tribe, race, or ethnicity over another may historically be the most potent destroyer of civilization and harmony, and may well have played a part in the loss of the advanced knowledge of the ancients, much of which has never been recovered. On the other hand, there is evidence that harmony between peoples of all the so-called races may have prevailed in the ancient periods of greatest achievement (see here for some evidence of that, as well as this post for a discussion of the fact that the entire concept of "races" of man is fallacious).

Below are a few samples from the outstanding body of musical art produced by this gifted singer and songwriter. You owe it to yourself to become familiar with all of his albums, as well as the compilations which contain songs that were not included in his seven main albums.

When Peter Tosh was brutally killed, the world lost a creative genius. But his voice and message live on.

Respect.