Piercing the fog of deception that hides the contours of history

image: Wikimedia commons

I believe that we are living at a crucial juncture in human history, but that in order to see why, it helps to have an accurate "map" of history, and of the contours and terrain which led up to this particular point in time.

Unfortunately, I also believe that the control of history has proven to be a powerful tool for those who want to control the thinking of others, and to condition their acceptance of certain actions and depredations and violations of human liberty and of natural universal law.  False historical narratives can be used to lend a "veil of legitimacy" to actions which are anything but legitimate.  These have acted like a blanket of fog to cloak the true outlines of history under a cloud of deception.

False historical narratives can act like a well-crafted movie, into which audiences immerse themselves and -- through the "suspension of disbelief" -- which huge numbers of people come to see as real, imbuing them with a kind of reality that is a function of their desire to believe that the narrative is true (the Star Wars movies might be a good example of fictional "fantasy" which large numbers of people imbue with enough reality that they actually take on a sort of life of their own, and are treated as if they are real events with real people inhabiting real places, even though they are clearly a work of fiction created in movie studios using cameras and special effects).

There is a huge amount of evidence which suggests that the conventional historical narratives which have been institutionalized in many "western" countries over the course of the past few centuries -- beginning during the "Enlightenment" and refined and reinforced and strengthened in each succeeding century -- are severely flawed, particularly with regards to ancient history but also regarding the history of "the west" since the so-called "fall" of the Roman Empire.  

Using such an intentionally false historical "map" to try to determine where we are in history will almost certainly lead to wildly incorrect conclusions.  This is why the control of the historical narrative is often a very central component of mind control and the control of populations not primarily through the threat of physical force but rather through propaganda, misinformation, and the creation of "fantasy worlds" which they buy into and imbue with a sort of artificial life.

The Undying Stars presents abundant evidence which suggests that the real narrative of history is far different -- and far more bizarre -- than the conventional fantasy narrative which is force-fed to the population (primarily through the school system from kindergarten through college, but also through various media outlets and historical programs).  Many aspects of this evidence have been discussed to some degree on the pages of this blog over the course of the past four years; below is a simplified list of some of the assertions explored in The Undying Stars, along with links to blog posts from the past which touch on the various assertions in the list.  The evidence examined strongly supports the following conclusions:

• The scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments are founded upon celestial allegories, ingeniously incorporating allegories relating to the human body at the same time, likely designed to impart profound esoteric teachings regarding the nature of the universe and the nature of human existence.
• The esoteric teachings and the system of celestial and human-body allegories indicate that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are in fact close kin to other ancient sacred traditions found the world over, designed to impart the same ancient wisdom to humanity (contrary to the conventional view that they somehow stand apart and are of a completely different character and convey a completely different message than that found in the "pagan" mythologies).
• These ancient traditions seem to have included an understanding of the universe that is what we today might call "holographic," and that it included the knowledge of the possibility and even of the necessity of various forms of shamanic travel or ecstasy, including contact with or travel to the "spirit realm," also described as the "hidden realm" or (in modern terms) the "implicate realm."  
• This ancient understanding of the universe may also have included advanced technologies very different from today's technology, and may help explain some of the amazing accomplishments of whatever civilization or civilizations preceded the known civilizations of history, accomplishments that the conventional historical paradigm absolutely cannot explain, and which include the construction of what appears to be a "world-wide grid" which demonstrates an understanding of our planet which appears to go beyond the full grasp of even our most modern science.
• While the full glory of this extremely ancient knowledge appears to have vanished before the arrival of the first historically-known ancient civilizations, some strong remnants of the ancient knowledge clearly survived into ancient historical times.  The end of the ancient understanding in "the west" -- and its attendant "shamanic-holographic" rituals and techniques, appears to closely coincide with the advent of the literalist-historicist interpretation of the ancient scriptures, especially those which we call today the Old and New Testaments.  
• The rise of literalism corresponded with a deliberate and sometimes violent suppression of the esoteric and the gnostic interpretation, and of those who were teachers of such an interpretation.  Evidence of the suppression of texts that were difficult or impossible to paper-over with a literalist interpretation include the texts that were found buried at Nag Hammadi.  However, the scriptures that did survive into the Old and New Testaments, while given a literalist spin, still testify clearly to their original esoteric origin and intent.
• On the European continent, the new literalist religion (wedded to the power of the Roman Empire) waged long and bloody but ultimately successful campaigns to absorb the Germanic and Celtic cultures and others in the broader region, and replace their original sacred traditions with the literalist religion.
• The suppression of those who understood the shamanic-holographic vision and who opposed the literalist revolution may have led to the escape of at least some of the non-literalist contingent westward across the oceans -- to the lands we call the "New World" (which had been known to the ancients for many centuries, even prior to the literalist revolution we are discussing here).  There is evidence that they interacted with the native American people and cultures they encountered there.
• Later, when the literalists gained enough power and the technology to do so, they also crossed the ocean, and treated the people they found there with ferocious violence and barbarity -- possibly because they were still incensed at the escape of many non-literalists to that continent, centuries before.  They also deliberately destroyed as much of their literature as they could get their hands on, perhaps as part of the cover-up for the literalist revolution they had perpetrated and the legitimacy of which they still wished to maintain.
• The suppression of the shamanic-holographic and of the esoteric appears to continue to this day.  With it, of course, comes a suppression (and oppression) of men and women, a suppression of freedom, and a suppression of the pursuit of consciousness.

I hope that you will take the time to examine the evidence and lines of argument presented in The Undying Stars.  I believe that if replacing the truth about the history of mankind with a fabricated cover-story can act as a component of mind control, then seeing through this cover-story and beginning to perceive the outlines of the real contours of human history can be an important step on the pathway to freedom, consciousness, and the escape from mind control.

Like a finger, pointing a way to the moon . . .

In the above segment showing an exchange from the film Enter the Dragon (1973), Bruce Lee famously explains to his young student:

"It is like a finger, pointing a way to the moon . . .

Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory!"

In doing so, the groundbreaking film brought into the popular awareness an ancient principle which was recorded in writing at least as early as the inscription of the text of the Shurangama Sutra, which according to tradition was translated into Chinese in AD 705 from an ancient Indian sutra or scripture (sutras are writings, as opposed to other sacred teachings which were not written down but memorized and passed verbally from generation to generation).

As discussed in this essay by Professor Ron Epstein, published in 1976, there is some controversy over whether or not the Shurangama Sutra is actually a translation of an older sutra or whether it was actually created by the minister Fang Yung, who lived during the period that it was supposedly translated into Chinese.  In any event, because records regarding the authenticity of the Shurangama Sutra exist from as early as AD 754, we know that it was in existence by at least that year, and probably before.  Further, whether it was originally penned by Fang Yung or was in fact a translation or at least an adaptation of earlier scriptures, its principles resonate with teachings that are much older, and it became a very influential text in Ch'an Buddhism in China (which is philosophically related to Zen Buddhism in Japan -- both the Chinese word Ch'an and the Japanese word Zen are probably linguistically related to the Sanskrit word dhyana).

You can read a translation of the Shurangama Sutra for yourself at various places on the web, including here (online pdf).  The metaphor of the finger pointing to the moon is found on page 60 of that particular translation and file.  There we read:

This is like a man pointing a finger at the moon to show it to others who should follow the direction of the finger to look at the moon.  If they look at the finger and mistake it for the moon, they lose both the moon and the finger.  Why?  Because the bright moon is actually pointed at; they lose sight of the finger and fail to distinguish between brightness and darkness.  Why?  Because they mistake the finger for the bright moon and are not clear about brightness and darkness.

Whatever other deep matters this passage is illuminating, the analogy of the finger pointing to the moon provides another powerful illustration of the concept of the esoteric (the inner or the hidden) and the exoteric (the external or the literal), and the danger of losing sight of the esoteric truth by a mistaken focus on the literal or exoteric.  This concept was discussed in a previous post using an example from the 1984 film Karate Kid (for a variety of reasons, some aspects of the martial arts have traditionally been taught using esoteric methodologies, as that post mentions).

The finger in this illustration is only an aid, pointing to a higher truth (represented by the moon).  To lose sight of the higher truth because one mistakes the finger or the "teaching aid" for the truth itself would be analogous to losing sight of the martial art that the waxing of cars was intended to teach, and to focus exclusively on waxing cars.

Shockingly, there is abundant evidence that this is exactly what has happened through the literalist interpretation of the stories found in the ancient scriptures which became the Old and New Testaments of the Bible -- the literalists have fallen into the exact mistake warned against in the Shurangama Sutra: "they look at the finger and mistake it for the moon" (and in doing so, they lose both the moon and the finger).

For example, in this previous post entitled "No hell below us . . ." I argue that the scriptures describing hell which are found in the Bible were intended to be read metaphorically, and to refer to that portion of the year in which the sun's daily path (the ecliptic) is below the celestial equator -- and particularly to the winter months at the very "bottom" of the annual cycle, that part of the year on either side of the winter equinox, which is metaphorically speaking the very Pit of hell.  In other words, these scriptures are intended to convey an esoteric message, but literalists have interpreted them as describing a literal place called hell where souls are consigned for eternal torment -- a mistake of the same magnitude as mistaking the finger for the moon.

Another example would be mistaking the twelve disciples for literal historical figures, when they are almost certainly representative of the twelve signs of the zodiac and the characteristics associated with each.  Angrily insisting that they must be studied first and foremost as literal men living in the Roman Empire is akin to reversing Bruce Lee's dictum in the above film clip to say, "

Don't focus on the moon -- you must only focus on the finger, such as the disciples in the stories, and must never consider the possibility that they are only a guide to point you towards something else!"

Further evidence that the ancient scriptures of the Bible (and of many other sacred traditions found around the globe) are primarily esoteric in nature rather than literal can be found in my new book, The Undying Stars, which also examines some of the history behind the replacement of esoteric truths with a mistaken literalist hermeneutic.

The Undying Stars also discusses the profound truths that these esoteric ancient scriptures may have been intended to convey.  In other words, it examines the question which one may be thinking upon reading the above discussion, which might be expressed something like this: "OK, if you are saying that the twelve disciples represent zodiac signs, or that the passages about hell represent the lower half of the annual zodiac wheel, then why would anyone write sacred scriptures about that and make such a big deal about those scriptures for so long?  What's the point of making a bunch of stories about the stars?"

One important thing to notice in both the segment from Enter the Dragon and from the Shurangama Sutra is the fact that in both cases, the moon itself is also being used as a metaphor for something else!  In other words, the teachings are not just talking about "the moon," meaning the massive rocky body orbiting our planet at an average distance of 238,857 miles.   They are using the moon in a metaphorical sense, just as they are using the overall metaphor of a finger pointing to the moon in a metaphorical sense.  The moon in both examples is meant to stand for a higher-mind that is beyond the intellect, a thinking that is beyond or above our ordinary form of thinking (in fact, it is meant to convey a truth which is difficult to express in a sentence, which is why it is best grasped through a metaphor and through the esoteric).

In just such a way, the stars and the motions of the heavens to which the ancient scriptural texts (including those which found their way into the Bible) are themselves an analogy for something else. The ancient scriptures are not just "a bunch of stories about the stars" -- they are esoteric stories related to the motions of the heavens and the heavenly bodies, but they are much more than that.  They use the motions of the heavens and the heavenly bodies to express profound truths about the human condition and our purpose in this life, as well as to imply a sophisticated cosmology that appears to anticipate modern quantum physics by many thousands of years.

The sophistication of this ancient cosmology suggests that extremely ancient civilizations may somehow have been possessed of extremely advanced science and even what we can only call advanced technology, and may help to explain some of the ancient accomplishments which are extremely difficult to explain using the conventional historical paradigm.  This fact may also help to explain why someone would want to subvert the ancient scriptures which teach it, and to get everyone focused on the finger (and only the finger) . . . and to miss all that heavenly glory!

No hell below us . . .

The threat of eternal punishment in hell has been used for centuries as a powerful form of mind control, employed as a sanction to exercise a "terrible tyranny in the mental domain," in the words of the brilliant analyst of ancient history and spiritual matters Gerald Massey (1828 - 1907).

It has been used by religious authorities -- primarily those representing the literalist versions of Christianity -- to stifle dissent, to command obedience to authority figures in both the church and in government, to suppress behaviors which are seen as a threat to those authorities, to oppress groups of people within society, and to motivate the conversion and conquest of peoples and cultures around the globe.  

While the use of the threat of eternal damnation and hellfire for the above purposes may seem to have waned in recent decades, with fewer people in "the west" (even within literalist church bodies) accepting the doctrine of hell, in fact this doctrine still exercises a powerful influence over very large numbers of people who have been exposed to it, and it is still employed in missionary efforts as a form of mental coercion to influence people in remote areas to give up their traditional beliefs and convert to literalist Christianity.  

And, there are probably many people who have ostensibly rejected this doctrine but who still harbor some gnawing doubts which make them uneasy at the bottom of their hearts, when they wonder if perhaps their actions are putting them in danger of eternal perdition.  Perhaps they were exposed to descriptions of hell as a child, or even explicitly threatened with the possibility that they would end up there for all eternity in the afterlife if they continued a certain behavior or course of action.  

The most well-known example of the literalist doctrine of hellfire, of course, is the sermon by Jonathan Edwards delivered on July 8th, 1741, in Enfield, Connecticut, entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."  This sermon is often assigned reading in the public schools (at least in the US) and is used as an example of Calvinist theological doctrine and the historical and cultural setting of the American colonial period, but it would be incorrect to assume that the doctrines in the sermon are unique to that period and place.

On the contrary, the sermon is backed up throughout by references to scriptural verses from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and they are not taken out of context at all by Edwards, who was an extremely accomplished theologian and very much in line with historical orthodoxy stretching back to the time of Augustine (AD 354 - AD 430).  In this online version of Edwards' sermon from the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, every scriptural reference within the text itself has a link, so that hovering your cursor over the verse will cause that verse to appear in a small temporary pop-up box on your screen.

The fact that the doctrine of hell as understood by Edwards is in no way out of step with the doctrine of hell as it is still understood and preached by some literalist churches is evident from the fact that Edwards' sermon has been updated into modern language for use in modern sermons by various authors even today (for example here).  It is also an undeniable fact that some pageants, dramas, and "Halloween houses" put on by churches to this day feature depictions of a literal hell and use it as an explicit threat, and that the threat of at least the possibility of the existence of hell continues to be used in some literature written by those pushing a literal understanding of the scriptures found in the Old and New Testaments (here is just one example from the internet, although one could easily find many others).

On the other hand, there is also a large contingent of churches in the modern era which take a literal approach to understanding the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (they believe in a literal Jesus and twelve disciples, for example) but no longer accept the understanding of hell as a place of eternal damnation as described by Jonathan Edwards in his sermon.  The reasons given for their rejection of an understanding of a literal hell while still maintaining a literal understanding of other passages may vary, but many of them center around the proposition that a loving God "would not choose to punish" souls eternally as some have taught (including Edwards and most of literalist ecclesiastical Christianity for the past seventeen centuries).

The problem with this approach to the question is that there are many passages in the books which were included in the New Testament which, if read literally, would seem to make it quite clear that the "would not choose to punish" approach is mistaken.  Edwards, in fact, quotes many of them in his sermon: among those he cites are John 3:18 and 1 Thessalonians 5:18.  There is also the well known parable of "The rich man and Lazarus" (sometimes also called "Dives and Lazarus," with the name "Dives" being the label given to the rich man in the Vulgate or ancient translation of the New Testament into Latin), found in Luke chapter 16 and verses 15 through 31.  These passages make it difficult to argue that a literal interpretation of the New Testament does not include the possibility of eternal damnation.

Those who accept the doctrine of hell will also sometimes raise the subject of punishment for extremely heinous individuals, saying that if there were no doctrine of hell there would be no certainty of punishment for those who committed genocide on an extremely grand scale (such as Adolf Hitler).  We will set aside for the time being the question of whether literalist Christianity has not been behind much of the genocide that has taken place in history, which is a subject that is touched upon in The Undying Stars.  

So, based upon the fact that verses in the ancient scriptures that were selected for inclusion in the Old and New Testaments (especially the New Testament) appear if read literally to explicitly teach a doctrine of eternal punishment in hell for at least some souls, and based upon the argument about "punishment for individuals who have committed extremely heinous crimes," how can one argue that those who support the literalist doctrine of hell or some variant of that doctrine do not have at least some arguments to back up their position, if not a lot of arguments to back up their views?

The answer lies in the fact that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were never intended to be interpreted in the literal sense that they have been understood for the past seventeen centuries.  This concept is explained fully in The Undying Stars (and in other works that have been written on this topic over the centuries), and is covered in some detail in the three sample chapters available for reading online here.  In the third of those three sample chapters (on page 34 of the book pagination), the text lays out some aspects of the esoteric system underlying the ancient scriptures of the world (including the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments but also the sacred traditions of many other cultures, including those of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and countless others).  There, we read:

That half of the year when the Sun is on his upward path, climbing towards the summer solstice, is represented in the Old Testament as the Promised Land, a hill whose summit is the Heavenly City of Jerusalem, while that half of the year in which the Sun arcs downward to the winter solstice is the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.  More broadly, the upper half of the year represents Heaven, and the lower half of the year represents Hell.  In the Homeric accounts of the Trojan War, the upper half of the year represents the Achaeans or Danaans (the Greeks), while the lower half represents Ilium and the Trojans.  In ancient Egypt, the upper half of the year was Upper Egypt, and the lower half represented Lower Egypt.  The same pattern will be repeated over and over, in many different guises, throughout the sacred traditions the world over, but once we know the pattern, it will become more and more familiar and more and more recognizable.  34.

The diagram above illustrates this concept.  The cycle of the year is depicted as a circle, with the summer solstice point at the top (for those in the northern hemisphere), and the winter solstice point at the bottom.  The horizontal line through the middle of the circle represents the line of the celestial equator, which the sun's path (called the ecliptic path) crosses twice per year, at the equinoxes (represented by two red letter "X"s on the diagram above).  The sun crosses this line once on the way up to the summer solstice (at the spring equinox), and once on the way back down to the winter solstice (at the fall equinox).  During the months "above the line," days are longer than nights, and during the months "below the line," nights are longer than days.

As the passage above explains, there is abundant evidence in the scriptural texts that the allegorical stories of the ancient mythologies represented the months above the line as Heaven, and the months below the line as Hell (with the winter solstice point being the very Pit of Hell).  Many further arguments to back up this interpretation are offered in The Undying Stars.  You can also hear arguments and evidence for this approach in the many excellent teaching videos of Santos Bonacci, and from other sources he discusses in his presentations.

This is a completely different approach to the question of the existence of a literal hell than those typically offered by those who are still approaching the scriptures from a generally literal understanding (rather than by an esoteric understanding -- the concept of the esoteric is explained more fully in this post, using the example of Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-San, from the 1984 movie Karate Kid).  It is also fully consistent with the scriptures, and in fact can be shown to be far more consistent with the scriptures than the literalist approach, which has some real difficulties (primarily because the scriptures are esoteric in nature, and not literal).

It should be very liberating to realize that the Bible does not actually teach a literal hell to which souls are eternally condemned.  Even those who have themselves come to accept the view of a literal hell (from which they believe they have been saved) might harbor tremendous remorse and sorrow at the thought of relatives or ancestors who have gone before them and who (according to literalist teachings) they believe to be condemned to hell (this can especially be a problem for those from traditional cultures that were not previously exposed to literalist Christianity but who now, through the efforts of literalist missionaries, have come to accept literalist teachings about hell and damnation).

Of course, some might argue that giving up the doctrine of a literalist hell comes at the price of giving up other literalist teachings as well, some of which might give great comfort.  However, one might ask, "if that comfort is derived from an incorrect interpretation of the texts, would you want to hold onto it if you knew it was derived from an erroneous approach?"  One might also point out that if such comfort also came along with a doctrine of hell for other people then it must be somewhat "cold comfort" indeed.  Happily, it turns out that the esoteric understanding of the scriptures also holds tremendous positive benefits and comforts for the soul, in addition to the fact that it flatly disproves the traditional literalist teaching of eternal damnation and a literal hell.

As for the question of punishment for heinous actors (such as the perpetrators of genocide), it turns out that the esoteric understanding of the ancient scriptures shows that they teach successive return for as many cycles of incarnation as is necessary for the soul to learn the lessons that can be learned from incarnation alone.  This concept is discussed in some previous posts dealing with (among other ancient texts) the Egyptian Book of the Dead, such as this one, this one, and this one.

Whether or not one agrees with this teaching, a careful reading of the ancient scriptures (including those gathered into what we call today the New Testament) makes it very difficult to argue that the scriptures were not intended to teach this doctrine. On the contrary, evidence presented in The Undying Stars shows that it is almost impossible to argue that the scriptures were intended to be understood literally, or that they were intended to teach the existence of a literal hell. [later note: here is a link to an index of blog posts which trace out the celestial foundations of over fifty other "star myths" from around the world].

For this reason, those who do not wish to even consider the possibility that the scriptures are primarily esoteric in nature should probably not read The Undying Stars.  However, for those who are troubled by the teaching of a literal hell and eternal damnation, or who are at least troubled by the possibility that the scriptures teach such a doctrine, the understanding of the esoteric approach may be a real comfort.  Also, if in fact the literalist doctrine of hell is an aspect of "mind control" used to control men and women, then seeing it in that light can help advance the cause of human freedom and consciousness.

And, as the book goes on to explain, an understanding of the esoteric approach opens up the possibility that the authors of the scriptures possessed an incredibly sophisticated cosmology that anticipated modern quantum physics by thousands of years, and that may help to explain some of the incredible accomplishments of the ancient civilizations (accomplishments which the modern, conventional academic approach to history has a very difficult time explaining).

John Lennon -- Imagine

Preview the Preface and first three chapters of The Undying Stars

The following link will take you to a preview of the Preface and first three chapters of The Undying Stars (pdf file): 

Preface and first three chapters.

Wax on, wax off

Above is the famous scene from the first Karate Kid movie (1984), in which Mr. Miyagi reveals to his student (whom he always refers to as "Daniel-San") the hidden meaning behind all of the hours of chores Mr. Miyagi has been assigning to him. 

This is perhaps one of the clearest and most-accessable examples of the concept known as "the esoteric" that can be found in popular culture.  Just about everyone has heard of "wax on, wax off," for the simple reason that it is a profoundly memorable and even moving scene, even thirty years after it was filmed.  In this case, waxing the car and all the other tasks (which Mr. Miyagi insisted must be done in a very strict and precise manner) was a way to teach something else: the "hidden" or "esoteric" meaning that lies behind the apparently mundane action of "wax on, wax off."

Although the esoteric is often defined as a "hidden meaning," note that Mr. Miyagi did not select his powerful teaching method in order to deceive Danny, or even in order to conceal something from Danny.  Mr. Miyagi taught his student that way because he knew that it was the best way to reach Daniel-San, and to convey something on a deep level to Danny's mind -- something that might have been difficult or even impossible to convey in any other way.  

Note carefully in the above scene that even when Mr. Miyagi finally reveals the esoteric meaning behind the mundane tasks, he does not do so by explaining them to Daniel-San: he forces Daniel-San to actually experience how it works, so that Danny knows what it feels like when it works.  This is a very different approach than trying to appeal to the rational, intellectual, "left brain" part of our thinking.  

If Mr. Miyagi, instead of having Danny spend days waxing the cars, sanding the floor, painting the fence, and painting the house, had tried to explain to his student what to do in order to stop a punch or a kick, then Danny would have had lots of questions as his "intellectual mind" tried to make sense of what Mr. Miyagi was telling him -- and Danny might (or might not) have believed that what Mr. Miyagi was telling him would work.  This is a very different approach, and for some very important things it is not at all the best approach (not even a good approach).  

Believing something with your mind is very different from knowing it because you experience it for yourself, the way Danny did when Mr. Miyagi started to throw punches and kicks at him while yelling fiercely!

As it turns out, there are certain concepts which are best conveyed to our mind esoterically -- and that, in fact, are difficult to properly grasp through any other method besides the esoteric.  The martial arts, in fact, are almost always taught esoterically (usually through forms which contain hidden applications that can be appreciated only after their motions are internalized).  For a variety of reasons, the sages responsible for the ancient sacred scriptures and mythology systems of the world also chose to convey the ancient wisdom of mankind esoterically, through allegorical stories which could enable the mind to grasp truths which the "intellectual mind" would choke on.  

The ancient myth systems of the world were not designed to create belief, any more than Mr. Miyagi wasted any thought asking Daniel-San in the above video clip whether or not he believed in the blocks and hand motions and whether they would be effective.  They were designed to create the experience of knowing -- which in the ancient Greek was called gnosis.

My new book, The Undying Stars, demonstrates that the ancient scriptures of the world operate in exactly the same way -- esoterically.  They are all a form of "wax on, wax off" which contain an amazing esoteric message that is "hidden" inside.  This includes the stories of the gods of ancient Greece, of ancient Egypt, of ancient India, of the Norse, of the Hawaiians and the Maori and the Maya and the Inca and the Native American tribes and nations, and of almost every other culture around the world -- and it also includes the stories found in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  

The masters who created these stories were not trying to deceive us, any more than Mr. Miyagi was trying to deceive Daniel-San by showing him how to wax the car or paint the fence -- and they were not trying to keep these truths "hidden" so that nobody could ever learn them.  Quite the contrary: the ancient scriptures and sacred traditions of the world were intended to lead men and women to consciousness, and to awareness of the truth about the human condition -- in fact, to gnosis.

But something most unfortunate for the human race happened along the way: for reasons of their own, a powerful group of families decided to suppress the ancient understanding and teach that they were not intended to be understood esoterically.  They argued that the ancient scriptures were intended to be understood literally first and foremost: that we were to understand the ancient stories as describing the adventures of literal and historical personages or beings, and not as metaphorical carriers of profound esoteric truths applicable to every single man and woman.  This approach can be thought of as the equivalent of telling Danny that his efforts of waxing the car or painting the fence have absolutely nothing to do with learning a martial art -- that there is no connection to learning a martial art, and that he should just focus on waxing the car and painting the fence, because that is all that there is to know about the subject.  

To be more direct, they taught people to accept the existence of a literal, historical individual called Christ rather than (as Paul says) "Christ in you" (an esoteric truth conveyed by the allegorical stories).  The original gnostic teaching of the stories of the New Testament (and the Old Testament as well) were all designed for the purpose of conveying esoteric truth so that men and women could achieve consciousness, overcome illusion and mind control, and experience gnosis.  The evidence suggests that those who wanted to suppress the esoteric truths constructed a literalist religion (built primarily upon belief rather than upon gnosis) and they married it to the military and economic might of the Roman Empire, creating an extremely powerful system of mental tyranny: using belief and illusion and propaganda and mind control, backed up by the violence.

The Undying Stars examines the evidence that these enemies of human consciousness and gnosis began a campaign to ensure that those teachers and texts imparting an esoteric and gnostic approach and opposing the literalist subversion were marginalized, burned, buried, or otherwise silenced.  Then, they expanded that campaign over the next seventeen centuries into the rest of the world, to eradicate the esoteric and shamanic teachings that had survived outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

Many readers of this blog, especially those with deep attachment to the Biblical scriptures or to the teachings of those who say that these scriptures are first and foremost to be understood literally, will no doubt be profoundly dismayed or even angered at such an assertion, and may decide they want nothing to do with any books that examine the evidence supporting such a view.  To them, I would say that I do not wish to insult or offend anyone's sensibilities -- I am not an "authority" and I am only offering the results and insights that I have experienced in my own personal walk.  There is a "note of caution to literalist readers" at the front of the book, explaining that the book itself examines evidence and arrives at conclusions which may be extremely damaging to the foundations of literalist belief, and some readers may prefer not to examine that evidence rather than threaten a paradigm in which they have significant personal and psychic investment.  

Some readers, however, may decide that if the books arguments and analyses are in error, they can be safely read and then rejected, but if they are correct then it might be preferable to know it.  The good news for literalist readers is that they likely are very familiar with the ancient scriptures, and this actually gives them a wonderful advantage: they have been "waxing the car" for years and years, even if no one has ever shown them how it relates to actually doing martial arts!

The fact is that the descendants of those enemies of human consciousness, who conspired to steal the esoteric teaching from humanity and get everyone focused on "waxing the car," were most likely careful to keep the ability to "do karate" for themselves!  If so, then those enemies of mankind could very well still be "doing karate" today against the rest of us, and getting away with it, because most of the world only knows how to "wax the car," without understanding the meaning behind the motions. 

Introducing The Undying Stars

It gives me great pleasure to announce the arrival of my latest book, The Undying Stars: The truth that unites the world's ancient wisdom and the conspiracy to keep it from you.

I sincerely hope readers of The Mathisen Corollary and The Mathisen Corollary blog will find it intriguing and engaging!

I welcome your honest feedback on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on Amazon.

Over the next several days, I will be introducing more of the subjects discussed in The Undying Stars.  For starters, check out the new biography on my author description page over at Amazon, which gives a broad overview to the direction of the new book.

Clear evidence of ancient trans-oceanic contact on every US map

The previous post ("The Smithsonian cover-up") discussed the "Powell doctrine" of John Wesley Powell (1834 - 1902), first director of the US Bureau of Ethnology, which declared illegitimate all attempts to connect any artifacts found in the New World  with any of the ancient peoples in "other portions of the world."  

This flatly "isolationist" policy placed all "diffusionist" lines of analysis strictly "outside the pale" of accepted academic discourse, and it remains firmly in effect to this day (diffusionist theories entertain the possibility of ancient cultural contact across the oceans and the "diffusion" of cultures and ideas between the continents prior to the time of Columbus).  

If you don't believe the Powell doctrine is still in effect, just try walking into any history department of any college or university in the United States and inquiring about a professorship, while expressing your enthusiastic support for the study of ancient trans-oceanic contact with the New World and the clear possibility of cultural diffusion between (for instance) the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the peoples living in the Americas stretching back to the centuries "B.C.", and see how far that gets you.  

That post also examined circumstantial evidence, in the form of Powell's dedicatory letter found in his first report (dated 1880, and covering his bureau's activities from its inception by act of Congress in 1879), that this strictly isolationist policy did not simply originate from Powell's own predilections and opinions, but that it was imparted to him by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, and that the Secretary himself received his marching orders from some other unnamed persons, presumably persons of some power and influence.  

Powell describes his bureau's research to the Secretary in that letter in these words: "the general direction of which was confided to you" -- as in, somebody communicated the general direction of the research that the Bureau of Ethnology would pursue to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, and the Secretary of the Smithsonian passed on those instructions to John Wesley Powell.  The words "was confided" lend a somewhat mysterious air to the reference, and the passive voice of the construction allow Powell to avoid specifying the subject of the phrase (that is, allowing him to avoid naming the person or parties doing the confiding).

We can also infer that this strictly isolationist policy (and the anathema it imposed upon any diffusionist analysis) was not simply due to Powell's own preferences by the fact that this dogma has continued to guide the policy of the Smithsonian Institute, and to be enforced by the conventional academic world at large, long after the departure from this world of John Wesley Powell, his superior the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, and all the rest of his generation.

In the intervening 135 years (that is to say, an entire century plus another three-and-a-half decades) since 1879, any artifacts discovered in the New World containing inscriptions using a writing system that clearly belongs to the cultures of the Old World have either been studiously ignored (in hopes that they will go away if few enough people ever hear about them) or immediately declared to be transparent hoaxes (this method is generally employed whenever artifacts with ancient writing on them gain enough popular attention that the "ignore and hope they go away" method simply won't work).  

In some special cases, such as the case of the writing system used by the Mi'kmaq nation of First Nations native peoples, neither of the above two methods would suffice.  Their writing system, which is attested to by documents stretching back into the 1700s, so clearly resembles the ancient hieroglyphs of the Egyptians that it can neither be denied nor ignored, and it certainly cannot be declared a fraud or a hoax, and so the conventional explanation is that Christian missionaries must have created the writing system for the tribes, and they chose to create a writing system based upon Egyptian hieroglyphs.  

Why Christian missionaries in the 1700s chose to use ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs when creating a system of writing for the Mi'kmaq is hard to fathom (especially since the Rosetta Stone had yet to be re-discovered or deciphered), and how this ridiculous explanation is somehow less insulting to the Native Americans than the possibility that ancient cultures were capable of occasional (or even sustained) contact across the oceans in the time of ancient Egypt remains difficult to comprehend, but apparently the supporters of the Powell doctrine think that such a convoluted hypothesis is preferable to the alternative.

Unfortunately for those who have managed to keep this equivalent of the "flat earth theory" the only permissible worldview taught in schools (from pre-school through post-graduate school), there is simply so much evidence staring people right in the face that eventually the illusion is bound to break down.  

One of the glaring pieces of evidence can be found on any map of the United States, and it is shown on the map above -- the name of the state of Iowa.  The name of this state comes from the Native American people related to the Sioux, the Iowa or Ioway people.  Regardless of the explanations for the origin of this name found on Wikipedia, it is undeniable that the name "Iowa" has clear linguistic parallels to the sacred name used in ancient Mediterranean cultures, including the sacred name of the Hebrews which is rendered by the "tetragrammaton" or four letters and which has been sometimes expanded with vowels to be rendered as "Jehovah" and "Yahweh."  

This name was and is considered so sacred by some cultures that it cannot be pronounced or written, and it is often written in ways which distinguish it as sacred.  For example, in many ancient Hebrew documents which use the "square" Hebrew lettering, it would be written using the older, "rounder" lettering known as Paleo-Hebrew (these four letters in Paleo-Hebrew are depicted on the map above, and are written from right to left).

And, while some might argue that the Iowa tribe's name derived from some other source and has nothing to do with the ancient sacred name of the Hebrews -- that this is just a linguistic coincidence, in other words -- it is a fact that other Native American peoples used the same name or something very similar to it in ways that make coincidence less and less likely.  

For instance, in an essay discussing the "Michigan cuneiform tablets" (which are discussed tangentially in previous posts here and here and which are examined more thoroughly in a book by Henriette Mertz entitled The Mystic Symbol: Mark of the Michigan Mound-Builders), analyst and author David Allen Deal notes that: "James Adair reported that the Cherokees, among whom he lived, chanted the sacred letters: 'YO (you), He, Wa (waw),' =YHW as they danced around their sacred fire, and observed a fall harvest feast as did the Israelites" (in "The Mystic Symbol Demystified," by David Allen Deal, which is included in the above-linked book by Henriette Mertz; this quotation is found on page 170).

Also, in the record made by Frank Waters based on the oral accounts of Hopi elders which he tape recorded in the 1950s (and which those elders examined for accuracy prior to his publication of the sacred traditions in book form as The Book of the Hopi in 1963), the name of the Creator is Taiowa (see for instance pages 5 - 20).  The fact that the Cherokee and the Hopi also use the sacred name or variants of the sacred name of the Hebrew scriptures is a strong argument for some ancient contact across the oceans.  This previous post discusses evidence that inscriptions in New Mexico attest to ancient contact with Hebrew-speaking peoples in pre-Columbian times -- that post is also dependent upon the excellent analysis of David Allen Deal.

David Allen Deal also notes that the Native American name given to the "Mound Builder" cultures (whom so many among the general public during the nineteenth century wanted to believe had connections to ancient Israel, an idea which John Wesley Powell and the Smithsonian Institute wanted to suppress) was "Tallegewi" (also rendered "Allegewi" and ultimately "Allegheny," a name which is also found on modern American maps).  In an essay entitled "Michigan Solar Eclipse Tablet and Mound Builder City," which is also contained in the Mystic Symbol book linked above, David Allen Deal notes that the name "Tallegewi" for the Mound Builders was recorded among the Leni Lenape or Delaware nation by John Heckewelder (1743 - 1823), and "that name is certainly Hebrew."  

He writes: 

In Hebrew Tel means "hill or mound" (tel-y is plural) and gew-y means "my nation" or "nations" (plural again).  So Tely-gewy in Hebrew means "mound nations."  And that is what they were.  194

We can see examples of the word "Tel" in modern "Tel Aviv" and the word "gew" (for "nations") in the familiar term goyim.

These linguistic connections make it very unlikely that the word "IOWA" is simply a coincidental connection to the ancient Hebrew sacred name.

Note also that this sacred name is not found solely among the Hebrews.  The name of the supreme Olympian diety, Jove, is liguistically identical to the word "IOWA" as well.   This name is related to Zeus and to Jupiter (Ju-pater, or "Jove the Father" in Latin).  Alvin Boyd Kuhn expounds at some length on this theme in Lost Light, saying: 

For many thousands of years before Christ, the prototype of all coming saviors was the Egyptian Iusa.  The name is from Iu (Ia, Ie, Io or Ja, Je, Jo, Ju), the original name of biune divinity, combined with the Egyptian suffix sa (or se, si, su, or saf, sef, sif, suf), meaning, with the grammatical masculine "f," the male heir, son, successor, or prince.  Iusa then means the son of the divine father Iu (Ju-piter, "father god"), or the son of Ihuh (Jehovah).  He was Iu, coming as the su, or son.  His mother in the Atum cult was Iusaas.  He was God the son, the prince, the heir.  He was the original of all Jesus figures, of whom there are some twenty or more by the name of Jesus (Joshua, Jesse, Joses, Hosea, Isaiah, Isaac, Esau, Josiah, Joash, Jehoaz, Jehoahaz, Job, Jonah, Joel and others) both in the Old Testament and outside of it.  544.

There are many other ancient connections to this sacred name which is found occupying a prominent position in both the cultures of the Old World and the cultures of the "New World" in the Americas.  

The evidence for cultural "diffusion" (and against the isolationist dictums of John Wesley Powell, the Smithsonian Institute, and conventional academia) is impossible to deny, and it is staring us right in the face (every time we look at a map of the US).  It cannot be "explained away" using their usual tactics of "ignoring it and hoping it goes away," or "transparent nineteenth-century fraud or hoax," or even the special excuse of "the missionaries brought it."

There must be a very big reason why the powers-that-be find it so important to deny the clear evidence of ancient trans-oceanic contact.

link to original 1848 map in Wikimedia commons.