The undying stars: what does it mean?

Once it can be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the ancient scriptures and sacred traditions around the world consist of celestial allegory, with each story describing the motions of the sun, moon, stars or planets, the next question which naturally arises is: Why?  Why would the cultures of the world ascribe such importance to the circling heavens, so much so that they encoded those motions at the very heart of their most sacred art, literature, and cultural rituals?  (For some discussions of the evidence supporting the conclusion that the ancient sacred traditions are all founded upon celestial allegory, see previous posts such as this one, this one, and this one, as well as much more evidence discussed in The Undying Stars, the first three chapters of which can be read online here).

One possibility, much in vogue since the nineteenth century, would be that primitive humans were so over-awed by the glory of the heavens that they worshiped the sun and moon and stars and planets as deities, and that the sacred traditions and ancient scriptures of the world are simply the more-civilized versions of those early religious impulses from the days of the hominids.  This theory argues that, beneath the accretions added by later civilizations, one can still detect the outlines of the earliest and most primitive sun-and-star worship, and this fact (in their view) reinforces the storyline of mankind's long and generally linear progress from "early humans" to "primitive hunter-gatherers" to "pastoral herdsmen" to "neolithic farmers" and ultimately to the building of the first true civilizations (and further progress from there).

This explanation, however, either overlooks or deliberately obscures the evidence for the existence of a very sophisticated ancient civilization (or civilizations), with capabilities we still do not fully understand -- capabilities such as the construction of megalithic structures using huge stones, quarried from great distances, set at precise angles, and aligned with great precision to subtle astronomical phenomena.  The combination of these subtle alignments and the massive stones transported from great distances implies that the designers of these sites knew exactly what size stones they needed to obtain before they quarried them.  Further, these sites often incorporate dimensional measurements and ratios indicating that their designers understood the subtle celestial mechanics of precession, and even the size and shape of planet earth!  The existence of such monuments, many of them from great antiquity (predating the earliest known civilizations) tends to upend the conventional storyline (briefly outlined in the previous paragraph) of mankind's progression from primitive humans subsisting as hunter-gatherers and pastoral herdsmen prior to the earliest civilizations.

Further, these incredible ancient monuments (whose construction is still in many cases unexplainable by conventional academics and either un-duplicate-able or extremely difficult to duplicate using today's technologies) are not simply amazing on their own: their relationship to one another forms what can only be described as a "world-wide grid" which indicates that their designers were far more advanced than the conventional timeline can possibly account for.   

The profundity of the wisdom preserved in the ancient scriptures and traditions of mankind likewise argues against the theory that they are simply the glorified remnants of the awestruck deification of the sun, moon, stars and planets by "primitive humans."  Of these manifestations of ancient wisdom, already evident in some of the earliest writings known to history (such as the Pyramid Texts), Alvin Boyd Kuhn declares: "They were the products, not of early man's groping tentatives to understand life, but of evolved men's sagacious knowledge and matured experience.  On no other ground can their perennial durability and universal power be accounted for" (Lost Light, 30).

To conclude that just because the ancient myths and sacred traditions (including the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments) are full of allegorical descriptions of the motions of the circling heavens they must ultimately be about the circling heavens themselves is to commit a colossal error.  Many traditions of Buddhism contain the metaphor of the "finger pointing to the moon" and advise the listener not to concentrate on the finger or risk missing the heavenly glory of the moon to which the finger is pointing; however, it would be a ridiculous mistake to use this fact to conclude that Buddhism is all about the rocky sphere which orbits our planet! 

Likewise, just because it can be conclusively demonstrated that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament describe celestial metaphors, this by no means necessitates the conclusion that those scriptures are all about the heavenly bodies.  In fact, just like the moon in the Buddhist saying about the finger and the moon, the motions of the starry heavens are themselves a metaphor for higher truths regarding the human condition and the nature of existence in this material realm.  

One aspect of this metaphor, discussed in some detail in this previous post, entitled "A Hymn to the Setting Sun, and the ultimate mystery of life," teaches that each human soul is immaterial and undying, incarnating in successive material bodies and then successively returning to the spirit realm.  That post explained:

One of the metaphors which the ancients used in order to convey this vision of human existence as a cycle of incarnation in matter followed by re-ascent into the spiritual realm was the cycle of the heavenly bodies, including that of the sun, which plunges nightly beneath the horizon (matter) only to rise again each morning clothed in fire into the upper realm of the heavens.

This same illustration of the successive incarnation and re-ascent is also provided by the motion of the individual stars, which plunge into the western horizon to become "enfleshed" in earth and water (the lower elements), only to appear again on the eastern horizon to rise again into the heavens -- the realm of fire and air (the higher elements).  In doing so, they perfectly allegorize the incarnation of the soul in a body of earth and water (often described as a body of "clay" in the ancient scriptures) and its subsequent re-ascent into the freedom of air and fire, followed by another descent into matter. 

This (apparent) daily turning of the stars across the (apparent) crystal dome is depicted below, showing the course of the stars for an observer located at about 30 degrees north latitude:

(This diagram has been published in an earlier blog post from August of 2011, entitled "Listening to the greatest navigators our globe has ever seen").  In the diagram, because the observer is located at about 30 degrees north latitude, the pole star about which the heavens appear to turn is located at about 30 degrees elevation above the horizon (the horizon in the above diagram is depicted as the dotted line around the edges of a flat grey disc, out of which the heavenly bodies such as the sun, moon, planets and stars will appear to rise in the east and into which the same heavenly bodies will appear to sink in the west).  

Please note that stars which are close enough to the pole star will never actually sink below the horizon (although they will be blotted out by the brilliance of the sun each day when the day-star is above the horizon itself).  Those stars which are closer to the pole star in the above diagram (that is, any star located between the smallest circle in the diagram and the pole star itself) will not plunge below the horizon.  These stars the ancients (particularly the ancient Egyptians) called the "imperishable stars," or the "undying stars."  For an observer at 30 degrees north latitude, these would be the stars which are within about thirty degrees of arc from the north celestial pole.  

The diagram below from an old US Air Force manual depicts the stars near the north celestial pole in the modern epoch, with the north celestial pole marked by a small cross and the letters "NCP" in the center of the wheel.  Very close to the true north celestial pole is the star Polaris, at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor).  Pointing to the pole star Polaris are the "pointers" in the bowl of the Big Dipper (an arrow is drawn from the two "pointers" towards Polaris, to help illustrate the concept).  Very helpful rings are drawn on the chart, each ten degrees greater from the central point of the north celestial pole (NCP).  These are marked with degrees of elevation above the celestial equator: the NCP is at 90 degrees, the first circle from the NCP is marked as 80 degrees, the next circle is marked as 70 degrees, and so on.  For an observer at 30 degrees north latitude, all the stars within the first three circles would be considered "the undying stars," and would never dip below the horizon (of course, mountains and trees along the horizon would cause some stars on the edges of the outer circle to dip below the horizon at times).

In his 1940 book Lost Light (which can be read online using links found in this previous post), Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains that one interpretation of the metaphor of the imperishable or undying stars in ancient mythology would be spirits which never have descended into mortal incarnation, but another would be spirits who have, through successive incarnations, surpassed the cycle of reincarnation.  He writes:

Among the ancients the stars that dipped beneath the horizon were emblematic of souls in physical incarnation, in contradistinction to those that never set [. . .] The redeemed souls rejoiced in the Egyptian Ritual (Ch. 44) at being lifted up "among the stars that never set."  115.

Later in the same text, Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains that in ancient Egypt, 

The souls having attained the resurrected state in shining raiment were called the Khus or the glorified. [. . .] the Egyptian Khemi, or Akhemu, the dwellers in the northern heaven, as never-setting stars or spirits of the glorified, the Khus or Khuti.  587.

This is not to say, as textbooks often authoritatively declare to schoolchildren, that the ancient Egyptians literally believed that they would go dwell in the physical starry heavens at some point, or that when they said "the dwellers in the northern heaven" they believed that this was the physical location of the spirits of those who had surpassed the cycle of incarnation.  Such an assertion falls into the trap of literalism: of believing that the texts must be read literally and that the authors of those texts intended for them to be read only this way.  

These teachings were using metaphor and esotericism to teach profound truths regarding the nature of human existence -- not literal directions to the location of disincarnate souls.  

As The Undying Stars discusses further, these celestial metaphors may also have been preserving and conveying a sophisticated understanding of the nature of our physical universe, one which anticipates modern quantum physics by many thousands of years and which teaches (as does modern quantum physics) that human consciousness actually impacts and in some way causes to manifest the apparently physical world we inhabit in this incarnation.

Ultimately, these ancient scriptures can also be said to teach that all stars are really "undying stars" or "imperishable stars," in that they do not cease to exist, even after many successive cycles of incarnation, and in that they represent undying souls who will one day overcome the cycle of incarnation and join the Akhemu, "the dwellers in the northern heaven, as never-setting stars or spirits of the glorified."

Weaponization

The above Red Ice Radio interview with Darrell Hamamoto, published on May 02, 2014, explores some extremely important subjects.

Professor Hamamoto is a full professor at the University of California at Davis (aka "UC Davis"), in the Department of Asian American Studies, and the author of the recently-published book, Servitors of Empire, which relates to the material discussed in the above interview and examines a host of thought-provoking and timely topics.  

One of the most interesting aspects of the interview, and one which could be seen as the thread which runs through the numerous different subjects that Professor Hamamoto and host Henrik Palmgren examine during the course of the discussion, is the concept of "weaponization," which Professor Hamamoto first introduces in the context of his own department.

He notes that, while there are undoubtedly injustices which have been perpetrated in the past against men and women because of their ethnicity and origin (in the case of his particular field of focus, the history of Asian Americans in the United States, who have been discriminated against, exploited, and even physically incarcerated by the state during World War II) aspects of which continue to this day, he draws a clear distinction between the legitimate study of such injustices, study which is intended to prevent injustice and enhance human freedom, and (on the other hand) the weaponization of "ethnic studies" departments in academia, which are not actually intended to prevent injustice but which instead are intended to drive wedges between people, beat down or silence opposition to some particular agenda, and in fact to agitate for the restriction of human freedom instead of for the expansion of human freedom.

This is an incredibly important distinction, and one that Professor Hamamoto then expands upon throughout the rest of his talk.  In outlining this distinction, he says during the first hour of the interview (beginning at approximately 28:20 in the above video):

So I would have to say that I am partly complicit, since I'm in Asian American Studies, in advancing these notions, which are good in and of themselves: they're innocuous, they're harmless -- it's great to be proud to be Swedish, or Japanese, or Canadian, that's fine.  But, as I said, getting back to an earlier insight that I had, the social engineers and the mind managers -- very smart PhD-type people at the high levels of planning -- they figured out how to weaponize this sort of ethnic and national pride.  And they are able to exploit it and use it, against the . . . not just the American people but the people of the world.  

How can we further clarify this concept of "weaponization"?  Clearly, from the above discussion, it has  to do with the exploitation of something that is originally intended for good, concepts or intentions which are good in and of themselves: something intended to increase human freedom, identify and prevent injustice, and generally promote what I would call natural, universal law, which is discussed in numerous previous posts such as this one and this one.  In short, "good" in this sense means "expanding individual freedom, dignity, and enjoyment of the individual's natural-law rights."

Under the cover provided by these commendable ideals, weaponization actually aims to diminish human freedom, dignity, and the enjoyment of natural-law rights.  It takes something good, and twists it into something that is the opposite.

Again, definition of terms is important to examining this topic, and so we can say that by "good" is here meant: "designed to help others be more universally recognized as fully human, and more capable of exercising  their inherent, natural rights as a man or woman."  Discrimination on the basis of national origin or ethnicity obviously opposes the goal of helping others become more universally recognized as fully human, and seeks to inhibit their ability to exercise their inherent, natural rights as men or women -- so opposition to such discrimination is "good," as used here.

Weaponization, on the other hand, takes something that could and should be used for "good" and turns it against individuals, and in doing so tries to make them less fully human, less conscious, and less capable of exercising their rights as free men and women.  When someone seeks to use violence (including the force of artificial law) to prohibit another's ability to speak an opinion in a nonviolent way, that is an opposition to human freedom and the inherent natural rights of others.  To the extent that "gender studies" programs promote the shutting down of someone else's right to express their opinion in a nonviolent manner, they can be described as having been weaponized.

Further, to the extent that such programs promote the objectification of people by their race or national origin (lumping them together on the basis of some categorization or another) and in doing so treat them as an object and not as fully human men or women, then they can be described as having been weaponized.

This concept is very closely related to the vitally important essay by Simone Weil, written during the Second World War and published in 1940, entitled "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force," discussed in this previous post.  In that essay, she argues that the use of violence (describing most specifically the use of physical violence, but which we could expand to encompass all violation of another's natural-law rights) can best be described as "that x that turns anybody that is subjected to it into a thing."  She then goes on to demonstrate, using the poetry of Homer in The Iliad, that the very act of trying to turn someone else into "a thing" (to treat him or her as less than human, and to deny his or her natural, universal, inherent rights as a man or woman) turns the perpetrator of that violence into a thing as well, making the perpetrator less than human at the same time.

Her essay is clearly very pertinent to the discussion of weaponization in general, to the extent that we  can define weaponization as the subversion of something that is originally intended to affirm the humanity of another man or woman, and using it to deny their humanity instead ("turning them into a thing").

Professor Hamamoto provides examples from his own experience, and from his own subject-matter expertise as a professor in the Asian American Studies department of the University of California at Davis, that this weaponization is taking place in ethnic studies departments across the country (and probably in other countries as well).

But the discussion does not stop there, because he then applies the concept of weaponization to other extremely important areas that he has personally observed.  He demonstrates that in some ways, one could describe the entire university experience as having been "weaponized" -- and to the extent that education is clearly intended to be something "good" as defined earlier (intended to help people more fully recognize their own humanity and that of others, and to exercise their own freedom and that of others), if it is being used to diminish the recognition of one's own humanity and that of others, or of one's own rights under natural universal law and those of others, then it is indeed being weaponized.

Professor Hamamoto discusses the ways in which the agricultural science research at UC Davis (California's primary agricultural sciences university) is used to promote the development of genetically-modified crops -- the potential dangers of which are discussed in numerous previous posts on this blog, including this one, this one, this one and this one.  This research can obviously be described as the weaponization of food.

Professor Hamamoto discusses the ways in which the literature and humanities departments have adopted Marxist theory and applied it to the study of great works of literature, often to the exclusion of any other perspectives on those works of art.  To the extent that this practice silences opposition, and subverts the affirming, freeing messages of those works of art, and instead "turns those subjected to it into a thing," this is a weaponization of literature.

Professor Hamamoto discusses the proliferation of psychiatric counseling on campuses, which are overly-eager to prescribe psychotropic drugs to students -- to the extent that an overwhelming majority of his students admit to having been prescribed such medications at some point during their college career.  Again, while such medication may in appropriate situations be beneficial to those who need it, the over-eager prescription of mind-altering drugs to young men and women can be described as the weaponization of medicine.

Professor Hamamoto discusses the technological advances of the information technology revolution, which obviously can have tremendously positive effects when put to peaceful uses, and which can enhance people's lives.  However, to the extent that these technological advances are used to control men and women, rather than to liberate them -- as detailed in this and this and this previous post, for example -- this can only be described as a weaponization of technology.

Professor Hamamoto's definition of the concept of weaponization is obviously incredibly important, and incredibly pertinent to the changes we see taking place around us, and which threaten the exercise of natural-law rights by free men and women.  

And there is another area of human experience which is threatened by what can clearly be seen as the "weaponization" of something that was originally intended for human good, and that is the area that we can call the "weaponization of consciousness."  My most recent book, The Undying Stars, examines extensive evidence that the ancient scriptures of the human race, stretching from ancient Egypt to the Americas, and across the Pacific from Rapa Nui and Hawaii to Aotearoa and Australia, and from ancient China to ancient India, and even to the scriptures that found their way into the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, were all intended to point the way to increased human consciousness and the greater exercise of all the things defined as "good" in the preceding discussion -- especially the awareness of the beauty and dignity of all men and women.

But somewhere along the way -- and the evidence points to a very specific event in the first century which continued to develop over the next three hundred years, in the lands controlled by the Roman Empire -- the ancient scriptures were deliberately subverted, and in fact weaponized.  They have since been used to excuse the suppression of human freedom, and even the wholesale extermination of certain peoples and their way of life.  This weaponization can be shown to continue to this day.

We all owe Professor Hamamoto a debt of gratitude for his courage in exposing the weaponization of the university that he sees taking place, the impact of which is not confined to the university campus.  His decision to speak and write about this subject must certainly expose him to some significant pressure, criticism, and perhaps even professional consequences in his line of work.  His clear articulation of the important concept of weaponization is incredibly helpful, and can help us to identify such weaponization where it is taking place, and to more effectively speak against it (knowing that it often seeks to hide under the cover of a concept which is originally "good").

I will certainly be purchasing his most recent book and reading it with great interest, and encourage others to do so.

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.