Shem, Ham and Japheth

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In The Undying Stars, I explain that I employ a very broad understanding of the terms "literalist" or "literalism" in categorizing approaches to ancient scriptures. 

On page ii of the preface, for instance, I write that: 

For the purposes of the discussions in this book, all those teachings which assert that these scriptures are primarily intended to be understood as describing literal historical figures are grouped under the term 'literalist," while recognizing that there still exists a wide range within literalism regarding hermeneutics and doctrine.

In other words, in this very broad application of the term, interpreters using a "literalist" hermeneutic may also acknowledge many deep layers of additional metaphorical, typological, and even esoteric meaning in addition to the literal interpretation of what is being described. But if those interpreters are of the opinion that one cannot jettison the literal and historical event while holding on to the additional metaphorical layers (and this position characterizes most of what has been considered "orthodox" doctrine in the west for the past seventeen centuries), then that is what I call a literalist hermeneutic.

Saying an interpretation is broadly "literalist" is not intended to imply that those using that interpretation are unaware or resistant to additional layers of meaning -- but it does imply that they would be most uncomfortable, or even vehemently opposed, to the suggestion that a passage is entirely metaphorical and that it did not also take place in literal history largely as described. 

As I further explain in a recent interview on Gnostic Warrior Radio, I also believe that everyone is entitled to examine the evidence and reach his or her own conclusion regarding the degree to which the ancient sacred mythologies of humanity should be taken literally. 

However, I qualified that statement by saying that when a literalist hermeneutic is used to support systematic violation of the inherent human rights of other men and women, then it should be clear that some kind of serious mistake has been made, and the connection between the literalist understanding and the violation of natural universal law should be closely examined and the points being used to falsely condone such violations should be exposed and argued against (while at the same time, of course, the criminal behavior that they are being used to support should be stopped and restitution made as appropriate to those whose rights have been violated).

Unfortunately, it can be clearly demonstrated that there have been many historical examples of the use of literalist interpretations of the scriptures to support massive, institutionalized, systemic violations of natural universal law, including atrocities which can be seen to fit the modern definitions of genocide, including the forced conversions to Christianity at the point of a sword by the armies of Charlemagne in northern Europe and the brutal destruction of previous forms of worship and culture, the horrific atrocities visited upon the Native American peoples of Central, South, and North America and the deliberate and systematic destruction of their way of life, and the longstanding system of racist intergenerational slavery instituted with the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Americas following their "discovery" by Columbus and his companions. 

If all of the examples of literalist interpretation of ancient scriptures in the previous paragraph happen to involve the literal interpretation of the Biblical scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, I believe that is because the virulent literalist version of Christianity which was successively instituted in the western Roman Empire during the decades stretching from the reign of the emperor Commodus through to the emperor Constantine and finally to the emperor Theodosius was created to impose literalism in place of the esoteric, shamanic, and (using the term broadly) gnostic understanding of sacred myth which had been present before and which the literalists set out to suppress and even destroy.

As the previous post entitled "The sacred celestial metaphors refute racism and sexism" argues, literalist approaches to the scripture, which must by definition assert that the stories describe literal historical events enacted by literal historical human beings (and sometimes divine or semi-divine beings) on earth, often end up teaching the exact opposite of the message that would be reached through a metaphorical, allegorical, or esoteric approach to the text.

For example, in that previous post, it was alleged that the literal understanding of the Genesis 9 episode involving Shem, Ham (or Ham's son Canaan) and Japheth and the inebriated Noah (their father) has been used to divide humanity in the past, because the literal approach sees Shem, Ham (and Canaan) and Japheth as literal, historical individuals (or at least literal, historical nations of people), and then tries to trace the lineage of descent to various groups living today.

If, however, Shem, Ham (and Canaan) and Japheth -- along with their father Noah -- are all seen to be metaphorical representation of events depicted in the stars and constellations, then a very different conclusion can be reached . . . because it is much more unlikely that lineages and genealogies of living groups of men and women will be traced back to constellations, since constellations are not normally thought of as being capable of procreating and bearing children. 

The metaphorical understanding can actually lead to a message that unites humanity, rather than dividing humanity the way the literalist interpretations can often tend to do. This is because the assertion that we are "descended" in some way from the celestial figures of Shem, Ham and Japheth can only be seen metaphorically, and thus it is teaching us something about the human condition -- something that applies to all mankind (after all, we all share the same stars over our heads: the stars are global in scope and do not belong to one specific group of people living in one specific point on the planet).

All that being said, the previous post did not actually trace out the celestial origins of Shem, Ham and Japheth, but merely noted that Noah can be shown to be closely connected to the zodiac constellation of Aquarius (this is detailed in The Undying Stars, pages 47 - 50), and that if their father is a constellation, then Shem, Ham and Japheth cannot be literal human beings but must be metaphorical as well.

But, can we find any celestial connections for Shem, Ham and Japheth, based on the clues which are provided in the ancient Hebrew scriptures?

Indeed, I believe we can! And, as far as I know, these connections that I am about to articulate have not been argued previously. This is my interpretation of the text, and its relationship to the stars, based on my understanding of the celestial system of metaphor which can be seen to be operating in the sacred myths and traditions of cultures around the globe and across the millennia.

I believe that the critical clues regarding the identity of Shem, Ham and Japheth can be found in the events related in Genesis 9:20-27 (the same verses which have been used in the past to argue that "Hamitic" people or those deemed to be descended from Ham have been "cursed" and can be made to serve those claiming to be the descendants of Ham's two brothers).

There, we read:

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

This incident can be seen depicted in art, above in an image from 1493, and also in the image below from around 1360 -- in the second image, the action of Shem and Japheth to suspend a sheet between the two of them and walk backwards to cover up their inebriated father's nakedness without seeing it (as they would if they walked the sheet forward) is perhaps more clearly illustrated:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In both pictures, Ham is labeled (on the far left in the image just above, and in the center of the two brothers in the image at the top of this post, where he is labeled as Cham, since an /h/ can be a "pharyngeal fricative" in non-English languages, particularly Hebrew, which means that Ham is very probably related to Khem, which is the ancient name of the land of Egypt).

Now, if our identification of Noah with Aquarius is accurate, we must ask ourselves if there are any constellations nearby which might resemble a "sheet," and in particular a sheet which is "held up in between" two other figures, so to speak.

Below is a screenshot of the region of the night sky surrounding the constellation Aquarius, taken from the helpful and user-friendly Neave Planetarium online browser-based application. The constellations are not outlined with the user-friendly outlines suggested by H. A. Rey (whose system I wholly endorse for visualizing the constellations). Those outlines will be supplied in the chart which will follow, but the screenshot below is provided so that you can see what the region looks like without all the labels, and so that you can see that there is indeed a great square "sheet" which is suspended in between two other celestial figures: it is the Great Square of Pegasus (labeled in the next diagram) and it is suspended between the two fish of Pisces (who are tied together by a long, V-shaped "band"): 

I believe that Shem and Japheth are the two "fishes" of Pisces, and the "sheet" which they lay upon their shoulders and carry backwards in order to cover their inebriated father's nakedness (he being the constellation Aquarius) is in fact the Great Square of Pegasus.

If the two "good brothers" are the two carrying the sheet (that is, carrying the Great Square), then who is playing the role of the third brother, Ham? Who is the one who angers Noah by seeing his nakedness, and who is subsequently "cursed"?

Look again at the diagram above (and the chart below in which I have outlined all the pertinent constellation-actors in the story, with labels), and you will see that Ham is almost certainly the zodiac constellation Capricorn, who can be seen to be "staring" almost straight at the "nakedness" of the drunken Aquarius (that is to say, at the part of Aquarius which could be interpreted as referring to a specific and distinctive part of the male anatomy, which feature of the constellation Aquarius gave rise to the story's reference to the "nakedness" of Noah in the first place):

In the above diagram, all the players upon the celestial stage are labeled. We have Noah, who has become inebriated and passed out (spilling his wine out of his wine-jug). We have Ham, in the figure of Capricorn, seeing his father's nakedness (Genesis 9:22). And we have the "sheet," in the figure of the Great Square of Pegasus, being born upon the shoulders of Shem and Japheth, who in this instance are the two fishes of the zodiac constellation of Pisces. 

Note additionally that Ham (the son who receives the "curse" in Genesis 9) is associated with one of the two signs that are found at the very bottom of the zodiac wheel (Capricorn the Goat, who shares the position at the very Pit of the year alongside Sagittarius). This position is consistent with Capricorn's association with the "cloven-hoofed" devil figure, and also with the concept of the "scape-goat" (who receives the curse -- exactly as Ham is seen to do, in this passage).

Note also that this identification of Ham with Capricorn at the bottom of the lower half of the zodiac wheel is consistent with the arguments presented in the post entitled "No hell below us . . . " that stories in the Old Testament about going "down to Egypt" or being imprisoned in Egypt refer to the lower half of the zodiac wheel. Remember that the name Ham when pronounced with a "hard 'h'" or "fricative h" can be seen to be closely related to the name Khem, or Egypt. Because the Old Testament system of allegory uses "the Promised Land" for their "upper half of the wheel," they use Egypt as the lower half of the wheel, whereas in the Iliad of ancient Greece, Troy and the Trojans play the role of the lower half of the wheel, and Achaea and the Achaeans or Danaans play the role of the upper half.

These details should help cement the argument being presented for the identity of Ham and his father and brothers in the constellations, and to help us see that none of this is literal: we don't have to be sad for a literal Ham who received this curse from a literal Noah, and we can immediately see that any racist ideologies which try to support their ideas with the story of Shem, Ham and Japheth are gravely mistaken.

The color-coding used in the star-chart above (with Shem in red, Japheth in green and Ham in blue) is consistent with that used in some of the many maps which have been prepared throughout the centuries to identify actual groups of people who are supposedly descended from these scriptural characters (based on a literalist interpretation, of course, since it would be difficult to argue that any actual people-groups on earth are physically descended from a group of stars). 

In the map below from 1839 by Charles Monin, for instance, people deemed to be descendants of Shem are underlined in red (as is the broad label across the middle of the map designating the extended family of Shem), people deemed to be descendants of Japheth are underlined in green, and people deemed to be descendants of Ham are underlined in blue. The three brothers can even be seen to be wearing those colors (red for Shem, green for Japheth in his headband, and blue for Ham) in the 1493 artwork depicting the scene at the top of this post.

You can go to the actual map at its address on Wikimedia commons here, and click on the map and enlarge it, and then click on it again to enlarge still further in order to read the many labels on this fascinating map (based as it is upon what I believe to be a misguided literalist hermeneutic). 

Much more could be said about the significance of the fact that Shem, Ham and Japheth are actually celestial figures and not literal historical human beings who walked the earth, but some of the most important points perhaps are those that have been made many times previously, one of which is that if the scriptures are saying that we are all descended from the stars, then this teaching implies that we are connected to the stars ("as above, so below") and by extension that we are connected to all the universe and to all of nature as well. 

This also means that every human being you ever meet is a "little universe," containing the entire universe and thus a wondrous creation worthy of respect and dignity, which can be expressed in the greeting or the mudra for "Namaste" as well as the ancient word and hand-gesture for "Amen."

It also means that doing violence against another man or woman is inherently and unequivocally wrong.

Additionally, if the scriptures are telling us that we are all descended from the stars or from the realm of the stars, this can metaphorically be understood as teaching us something about the cosmology of the universe and about human existence itself -- and can be interpreted as teaching the existence of a spirit worldfrom which we and in fact everything in this material world are somehow "projected," and which we and every other person we meet and all of nature around us somehow contain as well (the "divine spark" buried in each incarnate human being, and pulsing below the surface of every rock, leaf, tree, bird, and beast and so forth).

Once again, the metaphorical and celestial understanding of the mythical story can be seen to be a unifying and uplifting message (as well as a shamanic message) -- which is very different from the way this story has often been used to divide and to oppress based upon a literalistic understanding of the passage. Now that you understand its celestial foundations, you can take this unifying and uplifting message into your own life, and -- if appropriate -- share it with others.

The sacred celestial metaphors refute racism and sexism

If the sacred scriptures of humanity are not intended to be understood literally, then trying to read and understand them literally might be expected to lead to some terrible errors, distortions, and even reversals of their actual intended message. 

There is simply mountainous evidence which strongly suggests that the world's sacred traditions and ancient scriptures were actually not intended to be understood literally. This statement includes the scriptures which are included in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

Saying that they were not intended to be understood literally should not be understood to imply that they do not contain profound teachings: on the contrary, the myths of the world (including those in the Bible) do indeed contain profound teachings -- but these teachings can actually be completely reversed if they are taken literally. 

As Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote in Lost Light in 1940, "the sacred scriptures of the world are a thousand times more precious as myths than as alleged history" (24, italics in original).

An example of the way that the actual message can be turned around to mean the opposite by literal misinterpretation can be seen in what has happened to the message, which can be clearly shown to proceed from an allegorical and esoteric understanding of the world's "star myths,"  that each and every man and woman contains a divine spiritual element, which has been plunged into and nearly buried (or drowned) inside our physical, material body (please see discussions here and here). 

This message is still taught in India, for example, and can be seen in the greeting "Namaste" or "Namaskaram," as discussed in the previous post entitled "Namaste and Amen." There, we explored the fairly indisputable teaching that the greeting "Namaste" conveys a meaning which can be expressed as "I bow to the divinity in you" or "the divine in me recognizes the divine in you." 

In that post, we also explored the fascinating evidence which suggests that this concept was anciently present in the Biblical scriptures as well, for instance in the New Testament utterance of "Amen" or "Amen and Amen," a word which is strongly associated with the exact same hand gesture as that associated with "Namaste," and a word which can be demonstrated to relate to the ancient Egyptian concept of the hidden deity (Amun or Amen). We also saw that the ancient Greek author and philosopher Plutarch, who  lived from about AD 45 to AD 120 in the Roman Empire, describes the same word "Amen" or "Amoun" as expressing the desire to make manifest the hidden God, and at the same time as being a common greeting for anyone: both of which concepts together can be seen to imply that greeting someone with "Amen" was at one time understood to mean much the same thing as greeting them with "Namaste" -- and understood as such in "the west."

However, the teaching that we must each search for and reawaken the divine in ourselves, while at the same time desiring to see the hidden divine in others shine forth as well, would be viewed very suspiciously by most representatives of literal Christianity, even to this day. In other words, those who interpret the scriptures literally have arrived at a conclusion which is almost the opposite conclusion as that articulated above and supported by a celestial, esoteric, and allegorical interpretation of the same scriptures: so opposite, in fact, that the teaching of the "hidden divinity within each man and woman" might be strongly condemned or even declared as heretical (even to the point of carrying severe sanctions in previous centuries).

Another example of the terrible misinterpretations which can arise from seeing the stories in the Old and New Testaments as literal history rather than as celestial metaphors designed to convey profound esoteric truths is the way that characters in the stories have been claimed to be the ancestors of historical peoples or groups -- and the way that this literalizing of the stories has been used to create divisions between the different supposed races or tribes or families of mankind. 

There are many clear examples in the history of widespread teaching that some descendants of one or another scriptural character are either specially blessed or terribly cursed, and the use of these literal misinterpretations to support institutionalized racism or wars or enslavement or other criminal oppressions of one sort or another.

Fortunately, most of these overtly racist misinterpretations took place in previous centuries and are much less common today, and are even condemned by contemporary teachers who still believe the scriptures should primarily be understood and interpreted literally. But the fact remains that interpretations which see actual groups of living human beings as being descended from characters who may in fact be completely allegorical -- who may in fact be constellations in the night sky or planets in our solar system -- invite huge errors and conclusions which may in fact be completely the opposite from the intended allegorical message.

For example, even to this day, depictions of Adam and Eve might make some who look at those pictures wonder if Adam and Eve were members of one single "race" -- and in the past, some have taught that Adam and Eve were originally of one racial type but that God then cursed some of their descendants due to transgressions, based on literal readings of the stories of Cain and Abel (in which a curse or a "mark" is put onto Cain, in Genesis 4), or the story of Noah's sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth (in which a curse and a state of servitude is uttered against Ham's son Canaan, who is told he will be a "servant of servants" to Shem and Japheth, in Genesis 9).  

These types of racist doctrines stemming from literalist misinterpretation can be demonstrated to have been used to garner support or suppress opposition to the establishment and continuation of racist forms of slavery and later segregation, for instance. And, while some proponents of literalist interpretations might argue that this type of racist teaching is a thing of the past, the literalist interpretation of the Adam and Eve story is still used to this day in some quarters to support the suppression of women's rights in relation to those of men. 

I have also in my own lifetime heard some Bible teachers argue that Adam and Eve were probably "reddish" in skin tone, based upon the fact that the name Adam indicates the color red, and thus probably indicates that reddish clay was used in Adam's original creation -- and that based upon this, all the variations of skin color seen around the world probably stemmed from that original reddish hue.

But the stories in the sacred scriptures or traditions (whether they are scriptures preserved in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, or any of the other sacred traditions or writings of humanity from around the globe) should never be used to support or to excuse the violation of the inherent and inalienable rights of women versus men, or the inherent and inalienable rights of one group of the human family versus those of another, based upon the actions of some supposed progenitor such as Eve or Cain or Ham or Shem or Japheth or Canaan or Cush or any of the others.

As explained in The Undying Stars and in numerous previous blog posts on this subject, the ancient sacred stories of humanity are almost entirely built upon a common system of celestial metaphor, and they describe the motions of the sun, moon, stars, and visible planets -- not the actions of literal men and women on earth who then had offspring whom we can find on earth today.

As the image above declares, Adam and Eve can be shown to be personifications of the constellations Bootes and Virgo -- and the Serpent who deceives them in the Garden is Hydra, a celestial serpent nearby to Eve (Virgo). I explain the clear celestial connections in more detail in these "amateur videos" here and here which go into the Adam and Eve story (I'm just experimenting with those videos right now, and will work on creating videos of better quality and tempo in the future). I also discuss this particular scripture text in my recent interview on  Gnostic Warrior Radio.

If Adam and Eve (and the Serpent) are actually in the stars, then the ancient texts which declare that we are all somehow "children" of Adam and Eve must be speaking in a metaphorical sense, and not a literal sense. It could be the metaphorical sense that we are all made up of elements which were once part of stars, as some cosmological models teach -- although I do not believe that this interpretation is actually the principle and most profound message that this story was intended to convey. 

The teaching that all men and women are the children of stars who were "cast out" of the realm of Paradise -- just as the constellations Virgo and then Bootes are "cast out" of the starry sky when they sink down into the western horizon due to the rotation of the earth on its axis -- conveys the same message as that described above in the discussion of "Namaste and Amen." It is the message that every single man and woman in some sense came down here from the spirit realm, the realm of fire and air, the realm of the stars -- and is now temporarily plunged into a body of earth and water (the "clay" of which the texts tell us Adam was fashioned). 

This is not a message that divides humanity: it should be a message that unites humanity. It should not be used to elevate any one group at the expense of another, including women or men (since both are equally shown to be -- metaphorically speaking -- stars who have plunged into the earth). In fact, it also includes the teaching that Adam and Eve's "eyes were opened" due to the action of the woman, which can be seen to be a shamanic message in that her action gave them a kind of spiritual sight, an ability to see beyond what can be seen with the natural senses -- an opening of the eyes beyond the physical act of seeing which they already possessed in the story, but which was then augmented by a spiritual "second sight."

However, the specific details of the story can be seen to derive directly from the actual organization of the constellations in the night sky: it is the Serpent who leads the Woman, and the Woman who leads the Man, due to the fact that the Serpent is to the west of (and thus crosses the sky ahead of) the Woman, and the Woman is to the west of the Man and so "leads him" as well due to the earth's rotation towards the east (causing all the celestial objects, including the stars but also the sun, to rise in the east and set in the west).

The Woman is the one who "plucks" the fruit, because she is the one with the outstretched arm (see the diagram above), and she is the one who then offers it to her husband by reason of the same outstretched arm.

No one is literally descended from Adam and Eve, if they are constellations in the sky. Thus, all the racist interpretations of past centuries, which posited that some members of the human family continue to resemble a literal Adam and Eve, while others have been "marked" or "cursed" or somehow made to look different because of sin or divine sanction, can be seen to be completely wrong and without a shred of textual support.

Similarly, it can be shown with abundant evidence that the Old Testament figure of Noah is closely connected with the zodiac figure of Aquarius (see the diagram below). The correspondences have been detailed at length by other researchers, and some of them are outlined in my book. The diagram below shows the stars of Aquarius, as outlined by the ever-helpful methodology of H. A. Rey. 

One can immediately grasp that Noah, the character most closely associated with the Flood, might be related to the zodiac sign of the Water-Bearer. But there is also the idea that the constellation is pouring out water . . . or wine, and Noah is described in the Old Testament scriptures as the first to cultivate the grape for the purpose of making wine (see Genesis 9). If Noah is not a literal person but rather a constellation in the zodiac, then his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth are presumably not intended to be understood as literal either -- and families of mankind cannot be said to descend directly (and literally) from any of them, any more than they can be said to descend directly and literally from Noah, or from Adam and Eve.

The ugly racist doctrines of previous centuries regarding a "Hamitic curse" or the identification of some men and women living on earth as members of the family of Ham (whose son was cursed by Noah and told he would serve Shem and Japheth) can thus be shown to be equally without support. Interpreting the ninth chapter of Genesis in a literal manner opens the door to all kinds of misinterpretations, but if Noah is seen to be Aquarius and the story seen to be a celestial allegory with a profound esoteric message that has nothing to do with a literal interpretation, then this enormous pitfall is avoided altogether.

The story upon which the curse of Ham is based, in Genesis 9 verses 20 through the end, involves Noah becoming drunk upon the wine that came from his cultivation of a vineyard after the Flood, and the somewhat mysterious verses that declare that "Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two bretheren without" (verse 22).

The scripture text itself does not tell us exactly what this might mean, but if we understand that it is celestial and metaphorical, one might look at the diagram below and suddenly perceive what this text is all about.

Once again, if the text is describing the details of the constellation Aquarius, then the entire literalist interpretation of the "curse of Ham" which has tragically been employed in past decades and past centuries to excuse, justify or condone all sorts of violations of human freedom and inherent rights, is shown to be without standing.

Once again, the argument that these scriptures are not intended to be understood literally does not mean that these scriptures were not intended to convey profound spiritual truths. The story that depicts all humanity as descending from figures who are actually in the stars, and who must "pass through" a watery Flood which surrounds them on all sides, contains many esoteric teachings regarding the nature of human existence in our incarnate bodies (which, we are often reminded, are seven-eigths water). The teachings we can extract from these scriptures apply to all incarnate men and women, and should be seen as unifying and ultimately as uplifting. Sadly, because it is based on a major error, the literalist approach has often extracted the exact opposite message from this particular chapter of Genesis: a message that divides the human family, and which has been used to oppress and to enslave, rather than to uplift and to liberate.

If the scriptures left to humanity, and which around the globe can all be shown to be based upon a common system of celestial metaphor, are not intended to be taken literally, then trying to interpret them literally can lead to some very grave mistakes. Some passages are perhaps more prone to yield heinous misinterpretations than others. However, when we see these scriptures for what they truly are, we can see that they often teach exactly the opposite of what they have in some cases been made to teach during previous centuries -- and that these teachings should unite the human family, refute racism and sexism, and point the way to greater consciousness and the recognition of the inner divinity in all men and women.

Namaste _/\_

Essential Listening for Columbus Day

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In addition to the atrocities visited upon the peoples of the Americas in the wake of the "discovery" of the "New World" by Christopher Columbus (ostensibly for the first time on October 12, 1492 as discussed in "Essential Reading for Columbus Day"), the official disclosure in Europe of the existence of the Americas led directly to the massive kidnaping and transportation of men and women from Africa to the Americas to serve as slave labor, in a centuries-long system of intergenerational slavery (in which children of those illegally kidnaped and held as slaves were also considered to be slaves themselves and raised as such).

Huge numbers of these kidnaped men and women were brought through the islands of the Caribbean, including Jamaica, where some of them were forced to remain as slaves and provide slave labor in the oppressively hot and humid conditions found in that part of the globe. Jamaica was originally claimed as a Spanish possession by Christopher Columbus, who landed there in 1494, but was later forcibly taken over by the British.

It should be noted that the systematic kidnaping, brutalization, torture, murder, and destruction of culture (for instance through the forced imposition of new languages and the indoctrination into different religious systems, primarily the literalist forms of Christianity) employed against the men and women of the Americas and the men and women of Africa in both cases clearly fit the definitions of genocide proposed after the Second World War.

It should be obvious that the enslavement of another man or woman and the treating of them (and their children) as property is a heinous violation of what nineteenth-century abolitionist and political philosopher Lysander Spooner called "natural law" (as opposed to "artificial law"); one of Spooner's most important published treatises (from 1850, prior to the abolition of legal slavery in the United States) was an argument that the Fugitive Slave Act signed by President George Washington in its first version and President Millard Fillmore in its second and updated version was actually no law at all and should have been opposed and disobeyed by all men and women.

This raises the uncomfortable question of the degree to which the tacit support or silent non-opposition of the masses of the people in any country or nation are necessary to enable the imposition of illegal, criminal, or even genocidal systems or institutional actions by that country, and the carrying out of those criminal deeds, even if the people themselves do not agree with what is going on. It also raises the even more uncomfortable question of how people who should know better come to actually agree with what is going on, or at least to excuse it and justify it to themselves and others through some belief system which is used to condone such behavior or cast a "veil of legitimacy" over what is actually illegitimate and criminal (this involves the concept of what could be called mind control).

Understandably, the descendants of those forcibly kidnaped from Africa and made to provide slave labor in Jamaica and elsewhere have a different perspective on Christopher Columbus and his "discovery" than the one that has often been taught in the public school system, for example.

Below are three songs which might be offered as "essential listening" on Columbus Day, two of which mention Columbus explicitly and the third of which discusses the ongoing systems of oppression which did not disappear even after formal slavery was abolished in the 1800s. They are "Still rest my heart" by Culture, "Here comes the judge," by Peter Tosh, and "400 years," by Bob Marley & The Wailers (sung by Peter Tosh).

Essential Reading for Columbus Day

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

October 12, 1492 is traditionally understood to be the day that Columbus and his companions first set foot in the "New" World. 

The day is officially remembered as Columbus Day in the United States and as Indigenous Peoples' Day, Discovery Day, Discoverers' Day, Native American Day, Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity, Day of the Americas, and other variations in different states and countries.

The number of different names and perspectives on this day reflected in the short list above (and there are others, including Day of Indigenous Resistance) indicates the complexity of the issues raised by the landing of Columbus and his ships on October 12, 1492 . . . and the deep and abiding anguish remaining to this day due to the destruction and slaughter of the American Indians and the wholesale attack on their various cultures and civilizations that subsequently followed in the wake of that landing.

In order to better understand the significance of Christopher Columbus himself, and some of the issues evoked by this historic day, the following books might be considered essential reading for Columbus Day.

This is information that absolutely concerns everyone living on this planet -- and which deserves careful and serious contemplation:

• Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age: Hermetic Cosmology, Finance, Politics and Culture in the Middle Ages through the Late Renaissance, by Joseph P. Farrell (2014). On a list of books billed as "essential reading" regarding Columbus Day, this one is rated "absolutely essential," especially from the standpoint of Columbus himself and the European side of events leading up to October 12, 1492. The information presented in this most-recent contribution from Joseph P. Farrell will forever change the way you understand Christopher Columbus and his voyages. Dr. Farrell's essential text argues that: "The voyage of Columbus, viewed against the large conceptual canvas and backdrop painted above, thus takes on crucial significance in the huge operational complex that has been unfolding, of the struggle between international papal and ecclesiastical power, and the international financial and 'hermetic' order represented by the militant Orders and the Italian city-states and banking centers of Genoa and Venice" (324). He also presents compelling evidence to suggest that October 12, 1492 may not have been the very first time that Columbus set foot in the "New" World! If that isn't enough to convince you to read this book (and it should be), trust me when I say that there is so much more in this book of tremendous significance that this revolutionary possibility is only one of many such astounding, conventional-history-confounding incendiary devices that Dr. Farrell sets off in this volume (all of them backed up by serious analysis, compelling evidence, and his signature "high-octane speculation" when appropriate).
• Christopher Columbus, the Last Templar, by Ruggero Marino (2005, first US edition 2007). Referred to in Joseph Farrell's Thrice Great Hermetica, and one of the sources contributing to his analysis of the significance of Christopher Columbus, this book explores connections between the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" and the mysterious Knights Templar (who also feature heavily in Dr. Farrell's book). Some of the important symbology employed by the Knights Templar can in fact be shown to contain clear connections to the vitally important institution of Sol Invictus Mithras which features prominently in the "Judaic priestly bloodline" thesis of  Flavio Barbiero which is discussed in depth in The Undying Stars, by which the Roman Empire was taken over and its power used (among other things) to initiate a "War on Consciousness" and the institution of oppressive systems of control which featured a centuries-long suppression of the shamanic worldview wherever it could be found. Regarding the possible connection of Columbus to the Templars, note the depiction of the red crosses on white backgrounds (one of the distinctive dress codes of the Knights Templar) on the sails of Columbus' three ships on the cover of Ruggero Marino's book -- and in the painting above by Albert Bierstadt dated 1893. In discussing another of Ruggero Marino's important insights, Dr. Farrell writes in Thrice Great Hermetica of a block quotation from Marino regarding the famous 13th century Venetian merchant and adventurer Marco Polo: "In other words, Marco Polo, if one is actually attentive to what he says, made it to the New World across the Pacific, most likely during a Chinese voyage" (145). This hypothesis later received a huge boost from news released in September of this year (well after the publication of both Marino's and Farrell's books) that a map had surfaced drawn by Polo himself which -- if authentic -- could go a long ways towards "confirming" such a possibility. Here is Dr. Farrell's own commentary on the significance of this recent "find."
• Maps of the Ancient Sea-Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age, by Charles Hapgood (originally published in 1966). Examines the beautiful and sophisticated "portolan" maps which appear to indicate sophisticated ancient understanding of the geography of our planet, including the Americas and even Antarctica, and presents evidence that Columbus may have had in his possession a portolan map which guided him on his voyages. Previous posts have discussed the important and ground-breaking work of Charles Hapgood, and of the portolan maps such as the Piri Re'is map, including "The sub-glacial fjords in Antarctica," "Copernicus, Proclus, and the Lost Knowledge of the Ancients," "Earth's Big Roll," and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
• Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, by Diego de Landa (first written in the 1560s, and translated by Wm Gates into English in 1937). One of the first accounts of the absolutely brutal and inhuman atrocities perpetrated on the peoples of the Americas in the decades following the 1492 "discovery." It will turn your stomach. The account given by Diego de Landa is discussed in Graham Hancock's landmark Fingerprints of the Gods. The deliberate and genocidal campaigns to wipe out the civilizations of Central and South America are discussed (with references to the Diego de Landa texts) in the previous blog post entitled "450 Years," which I published back on December 15, 2012.
• Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada, Past and Present, by Kevin Annett (2010). Presents horrifying evidence of a sustained and deliberate campaign of oppression, brutalization, severe medical neglect and even murder against Native Americans (or First Nations) peoples, specifically focusing on the institution of mandatory "residential schools" run by the government and religious institutions of Canada right up through the end of the twentieth century. In this book and in the related (and equally essential documentary, Unrepentant), Kevin Annett presents arguments connecting certain doctrines and interpretations found in some aspects of literalist Christianity to the crimes which he finds evidence to believe did indeed take place on a staggering scale and duration. He also presents evidence that the criminal neglect in the residential schools fits into a larger narrative stretching back centuries and including deliberate efforts to transmit smallpox to tribe members by representatives of the colonialist governments.
• The previous blog post entitled "A November 11 meditation, 2013" detailing just some of the long string of broken treaties and deceptive and criminal behavior by the US government in its dealings with the American Indians, as well as some discussion of the lack of outrage at these violations by the people who made that government's actions possible. Further discussion of this history of criminal behavior by the government against the Native peoples can be found in this previous post about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
• The previous blog post entitled "Columba, the Dove," published on January 26 of this year, which describes the constellation of Columba and presents arguments that this constellation was anciently known, and anciently associated with sailing ships (since it is located right next to the constellation Argo Navis). The discussion in that post and the related discussion in The Undying Stars demonstrate that the constellation of Columba features prominently in the ancient myths of Jason and the Argonauts, and Noah and the Ark, among others which also feature a ship and a dove. This fact, combined with some of the astonishing revelations offered by Joseph Farrell in Thrice Great Hermetica, raises the possibility that "Columbus" was not actually Christopher Columbus' birth name, but that he may have either chosen that name or been given that name based upon a preserved stream of esoteric knowledge regarding the connection between the stars and the myths, and the role he was chosen to play as the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Columba can be seen early in the morning from many latitudes right now, in the hours before sunrise, when the "Pre-dawn lineup of the Golden Age" are all currently high in the sky in the hours before daybreak, including Orion and Canis Major; look below Canis Major and Lepus to find Argo Navis and Columba using the instructions contained in the linked post above entitled "Columba, the Dove."

There are, of course, many more . . . but the above list should begin to give a fuller picture of the importance of Christopher Columbus, and of the crucial date of October 12, 1492, and of the complexity of the issues raised, and of the scope of the tragedy which followed the "discovery" of what came to be called "The New World."

"It is above all during trance that he becomes truly himself"

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Among the Eskimo peoples of North America -- including the Yupik, the Inuit and the Inupiat and the other peoples whose traditional lands stretched through the Arctic regions of North America and Greenland -- the shaman is referred to as the angakok or angakut. 

Much can be learned from examining some of the recorded descriptions of the forms and practices of shamanism as practiced among these peoples of the far north.

First, the name itself, angakok or angakut, is striking in its obvious representation of the sacred N-K and N-G pattern which Alvin Boyd Kuhn argues shows up worldwide in connection with the ancient Egyptian Ankh and its evocation of the concept of raising the spiritual aspect buried and hidden within the material world -- within each man and woman and within all nature around us. Other manifestations around the world may include Angkor Wat, King and Queen, Kundalini, Kukulkan, Kon-Tiki, and the River Ganges or Ganga. See for example previous posts "The Name of the Ankh," "The Name of the Ankh, continued: Kundalini around the world" and "Scarab, Ankh and Djed." 

There are many singular aspects of shamanic practice among the Arctic peoples of North America recorded in Mircea Eliade's encyclopedic collection of first-hand observations of shamanic culture, Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy (1951). Many of these are described in Chapter Nine: Shamanism in North and South America, which begins with an extended discussion entitled "Shamanism among the Eskimo." Eliade writes:

The Eskimo shaman's principal prerogatives are healing, the undersea journey to the Mother of the Sea Beasts to ensure a plentiful supply of game, fair weather (through his contacts with Sila), and the help that he provides for sterile women. Illness is presumably caused by violation of taboos, that is, disorder in the sacred, or by the theft of the patient's soul by one of the dead. In the former case the shaman attempts to cleanse the impurity by collective confessions; in the latter he undertakes an ecstatic journey to the sky or the depths of the sea to find the patient's soul and bring it back to his body. It is always by ecstatic journeys that the angakok approaches Takanakapsaluk (Mother of the Sea Beasts) in the depths of the ocean or Sila in the sky. He is, besides, a specialist in magical flight. Some shamans have visited the moon, others have flown around the earth. According to the traditions, shamans fly like birds, spreading their arms as a bird does its wings. The angakut also know the future, make prophecies, predict atmospheric changes, and excel in magical feats. 289 - 290.

Note that throughout the book, Eliade's translator uses the older convention of simply using the masculine impersonal pronoun when speaking generally: there are so many examples in the book of discussions of women shamans that it is clear that Eliade is not restricting his observations to men when this pronoun is used.

An interesting feature of their journeys is the fact that they always fasten ropes to their body, so that they can be sure to return from the spirit realm: 

[. . .] their ecstatic capacities enable them to undertake any journey "in spirit" to any region of the cosmos. They always take the precaution of having themselves bound with ropes, so that they will journey only "in spirit"; otherwise they would be carried into the sky and would vanish for good. 292.

Another distinctive feature is the frequency of journeys to the depths of the ocean -- which seems to be an understandable aspect of shamanic journeying for those whose life depended so much upon the sea. Eliade cites an earlier observer who notes that among the Arctic peoples, "The term most commonly used in referring to a shaman is 'one who drops down to the bottom of the sea'"(293).

But perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Eliade's discussion of the Eskimo shaman is found in passages discussing personal journeys that the shaman undertakes alone, in addition to those performed publicly and for the benefit of the community. These give us an important insight into the seeking of the spirit world for no other reason than "for joy alone." Eliade explains:

But in addition to these seances demanded by collective problems (storms, scarcity of game, weather information, etc.) or by sickness (which, in one way or another, likewise threatens the society's equilibrium), the shaman undertakes ecstatic journeys to the sky, to the land of the dead, "for joy alone." He has himself tied, as is usual when he prepares for an ascent, and flies into the air; there he has long conversations with the dead and, on his return to earth, describes their life in the sky. This fact shows the Eskimo shaman's need of the ecstatic experience for its own sake and also explains his liking for solitude and meditation, his long dialogues with his helping spirits, and his need for quiet. 291.

Later, elaborating on this same theme, Eliade says:

Such exploits, undertaken for no apparent motive, to some extent repeat the initiatory journey with its many dangers and especially the passage through a "straight gate" that remains open only for an instant. The Eskimo shaman feels the need for these ecstatic journeys because it is above all during trance that he becomes truly himself; the mystical experience is necessary to him as a constituent of his true personality. 293.

Later still, Eliade cites evidence that, in shamanic cultures, the shaman never "monopolizes" the ability to make contact with the other realm (297). Although the shaman is distinguished from others in the community by the levels of his or her ability and the intensity of his or her experiences, "every individual seeks to obtain" certain abilities associated with the spirit realm, as well as "certain tutelary or helping 'spirits'" (297). 

This insight is most valuable, because -- as I have argued in previous posts and as The Undying Stars  presents further evidence for concluding -- there is good reason to believe that the shamanic worldview and shamanic journeying is at the core of the world's ancient sacred traditions, which nearly all share a common system of celestial metaphor which can be shown to convey a cosmology that can be characterized as shamanic.

As Gerald Massey (1828 - 1907) has asserted (see this previous post): "The ancient wisdom (unlike the modern) included a knowledge of trance-conditions."

The accounts which indicate that the Eskimo shaman pursues ecstatic journeys "for joy alone," and that "above all" it is "during trance that he becomes truly himself" refute anthropological theories that shamanic journeys are simply "performances," while at the same time confirming Massey's assertion that the knowledge of the crucial importance of making contact with and traveling to the other realm is central to the ancient wisdom that was the shared inheritance of humanity, but from which modernity has been somehow severed.

If so, then perhaps what is being asserted individually and specifically regarding the angakok -- that it is above all during trance that he truly "becomes himself" -- applies in some sense to humanity as a whole.

Why John Lennon matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness

Today is the birthday of John Lennon (October 09, 1940 - December 08, 1980).

The title above, "Why John Lennon matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness" is rather self-evident (it should really be the shortest blog post in the world, since the answer to "Why John Lennon matters" should be obvious), but it is intended to echo the title of the previous post entitled "Why William Tyndale matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness."

Tyndale was also murdered at about the age of forty, for the "crime" (which was not actually a crime -- see this previous post) of  "heresy" (that is, articulating ideas which strongly undermine the existing system of control of inherently free men and women).

I believe the echo is also appropriate in that Tyndale's actions, for which he was criminally executed in a gruesome and public manner, centered on giving "power to the people" -- in this case, the power to read one subset of the ancient scriptures of the human race -- and against the prevailing idea that these scriptures belonged only to an elite few, who were actively employed in using those ancient scriptures to do the exact opposite of what they were intended for: that is, using them to constrict and imprison and oppress other men and women, instead of what they were originally intended for, which was the raising of consciousness and the shamanic message of reality creation.

Tyndale may not have seen the scriptures that way, but I believe it can be demonstrated that this is what the ancient scriptures all convey, and the fact remains that -- whatever Tyndale believed about the right way to understand their message -- he was willing to risk his life to put those scriptures in the hands of the "common" people (as if there is really such thing as a "common" person -- the term itself is a fabrication of those who believe they are "elite" and that everyone else is "common," and as such the term itself is a tool of mind control).

And so, as different as these two men were, and as different as were the times in which they lived, they can both be seen as "champions of consciousness" in the ongoing "War on consciousness" that yet another Englishman, Graham Hancock, spoke about in his infamous "banned TED talk" of the same name (a talk, by the way, in which he utters not one but an entire string of "heresies" against the established system of suppression of consciousness and its wars not just on consciousness but also on human bodies and human freedom).

In the above clip of an interview by Dick Cavett of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, there is a famous exchange which begins at almost exactly 4:00 into the clip, in which a member of the audience asks John and Yoko about "overpopulation," which is worth considering carefully:

Unidentified Woman: I want to know how you as a woman feel about overpopulation in the world and its relation to polluting the environment. 

Yoko Ono: Well I think the problem is not overpopulation as people believe to be, but it's more of the balance of things, what, you know, like food: some part of the world is wastage of food, and some parts, you know, nobody has food. And that kind of a balance, if that is solved, I don't think we'll be worried so much about overpopulation. 

John Lennon: I think it's a bit of a joke the way people have made this overpopulation thing into a kind of a myth -- I don't really believe it, you know. I think whatever happens will balance itself out, and work itself out. It's all right for us all living saying, "Ah, well there's enough of us so we won't have any more, don't let anybody else live." I don't believe in that: I think we've got enough food and money to feed everybody, and I think the natural balance, even though old people will last longer --  I'm sure there's enough room for us, and some of them can go to the moon, anyway. 

Dick Cavett: You mean you think there's enough, if it were distributed -- 

John Lennon: Yeah, I don't believe overpopulation, you know. I think that's just a kind of myth that government have thrown out to keep your mind off Vietnam and Ireland and all the important subjects. 

Dick Cavett: Oh, I think you're wrong about that! 

John Lennon: Oh, I don't care!

In addition to being a delightful exchange at the end, this is also an incredibly revealing discussion about what is really one of the most important subjects in the world (what economists refer to as "the basic economic problem"). Dick Cavett and the woman who asked the question are wondering about how "resources" can possibly be allocated if more and more "people" keep being born. John and Yoko take the position that it will "work itself out" if the imbalances (which have been created by  criminal behavior) are corrected.

Note that the position John and Yoko articulate in this discussion implicitly trusts in the people: it is an "anti-elite" position. It thus relates precisely to the question of whether "the power" should be controlled by a few -- the "elites" -- or whether it should be distributed out to the men and women of this planet. Tyndale was articulating -- and living -- the exact same position.

Also, while they do not come out and say it in these exact words, both John and Yoko are taking a firm stance against the false idea that "people" need to be pitted against "resources" -- the way out of that artificial dilemma is to realize that people themselves are the world's most powerful resources! They are the ones who solve the problems, by creating new realities! For more on reality creation as it relates to this discussion, see "Shakespeare and the creation of reality" and also "John Rappoport's talk on the trickster-god and creating reality."

This conversation also relates to the essay by the ancient philosopher Plutarch, who argued that using "scarce resources" as an excuse to commit crimes against nature or against other human beings dishonors the gods and betrays a lack of trust in Demeter and Dionysus who provide the growing things of the planet for our sustenance.

John's argument towards the end of the exchange echoes Plutarch's quite closely: he argues that governments throw out fearful scenarios "to keep your mind off Vietnam and Ireland and all the important subjects" -- that is, the subject of illegal activity by governments. This is also a crucially important point, and one with powerful resonance today, at this particular juncture in history and the events unfolding around the world right up to this minute.

Finally, note that the above segment begins with a question about the thing for which John Lennon is of course most well known, and the enduring gift which he gave to the world: his music. Music is  reality creation: in fact, as I have said many times in the past, in a very real sense we are made of music, as is the entire universe around us.

And, music is directly related to ecstasy -- the condition or state of breaking through the static, material, physical realm which, after all, is not the only aspect of existence (contrary to the teachings of the "ideology of materialism"), and in fact is not even the most real aspect of existence (see "The real world that is behind this one" and also "Why violence is wrong, even in a holographic universe").

John Lennon truly embodies the individual journey towards consciousness, and the shared mission of waking up others to the reality and importance of this journey. He continues to speak that message to the world today, at a time when the war against consciousness is still very real and very immediate.

Respect.

Why William Tyndale matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

October 6 is the traditional date upon which the execution of William Tyndale is remembered (even though there is some evidence that he may have been executed on a slightly different date).

William Tyndale was responsible for translating the scriptures of the Old Testament into English directly from the Hebrew -- for the first time -- and for translating the scriptures of the New Testament into English directly from the Greek -- and with a level of skill and power that was unsurpassed by anything that had come before, with a style that would be directly incorporated into nearly every English translation that would come afterwards, including the Geneva Bible, the King James Bible, and even more "modern" interpretations.

Translations of the sacred scriptures into English were forbidden at the time, and Tyndale spent much of his life as an outlaw and an exile from England, and was eventually betrayed, imprisoned, and finally publicly degraded and executed in a most violent manner, first garroted (strangled with a rope or chain) and then set on fire, at about the age of forty.

The impact of Tyndale's work, and of the English translation that he gave to the world, would be difficult to overstate. The fact that he was translating the scriptures into English made him an outlaw, but it was the accessibility of his translation that changed history. 

John Wycliffe (1320 - 1384) and his followers ("the Lollards") had made translations into English before Tyndale -- and the possession of these translations carried a death penalty -- but they did not have the deep background in Biblical languages that Tyndale possessed, and they did not have Tyndale's genius for the English language. Here is a comparison of the Wycliffe and Tyndale translations of the famous story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent from the book of Genesis, presented in David Daniell's 2001 biography of Tyndale:

Genesis 3 begins in the Vulgate 'sed et serpens erat callidor cunctis animantibus terrae, quae fecerat Dominus Deus. Qui dixit ad mulierem . . . ' The earlier Lollard versions had variations on 'But and the adder was feller than any lifers of the earth, the which made the Lord God. The which said to the woman . . .' which is the Vulgate put into English by someone, it must be felt, with a shaky hold on even late fourteenth-century English. The second, Wyclif B, version is better, with roughly 'But and the serpent was feller than all the living beasts of the earth, which the Lord God had made. Which serpent said to the woman . . .' Tyndale's 'But the serpent was subtler than all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made, and said unto the woman . . .' speaks even to the late twentieth century. This is not only because with minor changes it is taken into the 1611 Authorised Version, and is even recognisably behind such modern versions as the 1989 Revised English Bible: but because, as before, it both translates the original Hebrew instead of the later Latin, and is in a recognisable English. Scholars of the Hebrew text can see the Hebrew forms still present [. . .]. 285.

Of Tyndale, David Daniell writes:

That Book was made by Tyndale in the language people spoke, not as the scholars wrote. At a time when English was struggling to find a form that was neither Latin nor French, Tyndale gave the nation a Bible language that was English in words, word-order and lilt. He invented some words (for example, 'scapegoat') and the great Oxford English Dictionary has mis-attributed, and thus also mis-dated, a number of his first uses. But more importantly, he made phrases which have gone deep into English-speaking consciousness. 3. 

In a 2012 biography, David Teems explains:

The following expressions made their first appearance through Tyndale. And while old and well rehearsed to you and me, to the English believer in 1526 they were astonishingly new.

Behold the lamb of God

I am the way, the truth, and the life

In my father's house are many mansions

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory

Seek, and ye shall find

With God all things are possible

In him we live, move, and have our being

Be not weary in well doing

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith

Behold, I stand at the door and knock

Let not your hearts be troubled

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light

Fight the good fight

xx

And that is just a list of the phrases Teems selected as good examples -- literally hundreds of others could be cited (including "the powers that be") which remain part of the culture and in common use to this day. David Teems also cites the saying that "Without Tyndale, no Shakespeare" (xxi).

Why was the translation of the scriptures into the common language such a forbidden act that doing so -- or even having a translation in one's possession -- was punishable by death? 

The answer is complicated, and a full answer would involve a study of the cultural and political and religious currents that had been swirling and shaping events for many centuries leading up to the execution of William Tyndale, but the short answer most certainly involves control, and specifically the control of minds, a business at which both the religious and the political forces had been hard at work for quite some time. 

The standard narrative of the struggle between Tyndale and the powers that finally arrested and executed him usually involves the specific practices of the church at the time, some of which involved the control of the populace using claims and proclamations which were not backed up by actual scriptural texts. This certainly played an important role in the story, and also opened the door to the larger question of whether or not the religious authorities derived authority from the scriptures themselves or if they were an authority in and of themselves. 

Tyndale's answer to this debate is what got him condemned for heresy -- and some apologists for his execution have actually argued that he was not in fact executed for translating the scriptures, but rather for heresy, as if executing a man or woman for so-called "heresy" is not as heinous a violation of natural universal law as is executing a man or woman for translating a text!

But, the traditional narrative regarding the execution of Tyndale usually frames it as part of the intense struggle taking place within literalist Christianity in western Europe at that time and in the following centuries -- and while the sudden availability of an excellent translation of the scriptures did indeed have a profound impact on that struggle, I would argue that to the extent that the followers of Tyndale's position in the ensuing centuries only embraced an even more virulent form of literalism based on their access to the texts themselves, the real genie that Tyndale had let out of the bottle remains unappreciated!

This is because the real danger in giving access to the texts themselves may in fact lie in the possibility that careful examination of the actual ancient stories in the Old and New Testaments will reveal the fact that they are not literal at all -- and that they in fact are built upon celestial metaphor almost from first to last!

[Note to literalist readers: at this point in the discussion, evidence will be introduced which may be disruptive to the belief that the scriptures are primarily intended to be read literally. Those not prepared to encounter such arguments and evidence may wish to stop here rather than proceeding further.]

For example, in the passage involving Adam and Eve and the Serpent cited above in the Wycliffe and the vastly superior Tyndale translations, careful consideration of this text coupled with familiarity with the constellations Hydra, Virgo, and Bootes in the night sky -- and their motion from east to west in that order -- could trigger the astounding realization that the entire story of the stealing of the fruit, the casting out from the Garden of Eden, and the positioning of cherubim with a flaming sword at the "east of Eden" are all clearly celestial in nature, and directly describe the motions of celestial figures in the northern hemisphere! 

To see more explanation of this celestial connection, see part 2 of my series of short videos entitled "Star Myths and the Shamanic Worldview," and for some examination of the incredible message that these stories built upon the stars may have been intended to convey, see some of the following videos (there are currently five in the series, with more to follow).

The point to be made is that, without access to the actual texts, it would be much more difficult to perceive the celestial foundation of these Biblical myths -- a celestial foundation they share with other myths and sacred traditions from around the world (a fact which in and of itself has revolutionary implications).

Is it possible that at least some of those who worked so hard for centuries to keep the texts largely secret and out of the hands of the masses of the people, forbidding their translation out of languages which were only understood by a very few, understood this aspect of the ancient scriptures?

Is it possible that they understood that the profound message conveyed by these ancient texts is a shamanic message, and that they understood that shamanic knowledge and shamanic practice can actually effect changes in our material world -- and they wanted to deny that knowledge and the accompanying shamanic techniques to all but a very select few? 

It is a fact that -- just like translations of the ancient scriptures into the common language of the people -- shamanic drums have often been strictly forbidden to the people, perhaps for the very same reason (the scriptures are actually shamanic -- so they, like drums, are to be kept out of the hands of the people, according to those who have declared a centuries-long war on shamanic knowledge and by extension on human consciousness).

For other posts which present evidence to support this conclusion, see also "The Cobra Kai sucker-punch (and why we keep falling for it, over and over and over)" and "Graham Hancock identifies war on consciousness: TED confirms that he's right."

I believe that the achievement of William Tyndale may well be understood fully only in this light (even though Tyndale himself would no doubt have rejected this interpretation, being by all accounts and by his own published writings a strong literalist Christian who would not agree that the stories are celestial and convey a message which can at its core be described as deeply shamanic) -- and that the threat which he clearly posed can perhaps best be perceived only when this dimension is understood.

Finally, I believe it bears repeating that, even though the centuries-long excesses of some literalists, and the deeply misguided and sometimes extremely violent and tyrannical and oppressive actions undertaken by some in the literalist camp (and condoned or passively supported by many others in the same camp) have done tremendous harm, and in fact continue to do so, and despite the fact that some literalists attempt to excuse or condone these violent and tyrannical and oppressive actions by referring to the scriptures, these literalist excesses do not mean that the ancient scriptures themselves are flawed. 

On the contrary, I believe that all the sacred scriptures and sacred traditions of humanity are precious, and that when properly understood they are, in the words of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, "an ancient torch that was lighted for our guidance."

The gruesome murder of William Tyndale was a violation of natural universal law. But the accomplishment of William Tyndale's life can be seen as a tremendous victory in the struggle against the forces of suppressing human consciousness.

He was truly a champion of the idea that the ancient scriptures are an inheritance belonging to all of humanity, and not to some chosen few, however they may be defined.