John the Baptist, revisited

image: Wikimedia commons (link); original image reversed (right to left), and then superimposed with unaltered screenshot of the stars of Aquarius from the planetarium app Stellarium (outlines of Aquarius as suggested by the system of H. A. Rey drawn between the stars without any alteration of star locations).

I am continuing to add features and new material to my new website at "Star Myth World (dot com)."  

It's a work in progress, so please continue to check back frequently!

As I've been working my way through, adding links to discussions of representative Star Myths from around the globe in the section entitled "The Myths," I am in some cases adding new diagrams and additional discussion, based on new perspectives that I have now which I may not have fully appreciated the first time I explored them in the pages of this blog.

This happens to be the case in the discussion of the very important figure of John the Baptist in the gospel accounts of the New Testament.

John the Baptist is found in all four of the canonical gospel texts. He is described as the one who comes before the Christ, to make the way straight (as prophesied in the text of Isaiah chapter 40). 

But John's role is to leave the stage as the one who John says "cometh after me" who is "mightier than I" arrives (see Matthew 3: 11, and also Luke 3: 17). Indeed, in Mark chapter 6 and also Matthew chapter 14, we learn that John is arrested and then beheaded in an arbitrary execution.

As discussed in a previous post exploring the significance of John the Baptist, this execution is almost certainly celestial in nature, and is an "embodiment" in myth of the motion of the heavenly cycles of the stars -- specifically in this case the motion of the constellation Aquarius, the Water-bearer, who almost certainly plays the role of the Baptist (appropriately enough, as one who "pours water" in the heavenly realms).

The episode in the New Testament describing the beheading of John the Baptist, as with all the other elements of the John the Baptist story in the ancient texts, can be seen to come directly from the position and orientation of the constellations themselves.

As Aquarius goes across the sky from east to west, the outline of his human shape will eventually sink beneath the western horizon. However, because Aquarius actually "faces towards the east" and goes across the sky "backwards" (feet first), the head of the constellation will disappear beneath the horizon last.

Before the head sinks completely below the horizon, it will in fact be seen to sit upon the western horizon: the head of John the Baptist on a platter!

Other details from the texts themselves are also understandable when we look at the orientation of Aquarius in relation to other important constellations which "come after" Aquarius in the heavenly procession.

As we can see very clearly in the diagram below, the head of Aquarius looks directly towards the zodiac constellation of Aries the Ram -- which is why John in the scripture is described as seeing Jesus coming towards him, prompting John to declare, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world!" (John 1:29).

Similarly, the texts in the accounts as recorded in Matthew and Luke have John the Baptist declaring that "he that cometh after me is mightier than I" and that this one who "cometh after" is also one "whose fan is in his hand" -- descriptions which can be seen to fit the constellation Orion, who does indeed come after Aquarius and does indeed bear aloft a "winnowing fan" in his hand.

Finally, in John 3: 30 is the famous verse in which John the Baptist announces very bluntly: "He must increase, but I [must] decrease."

This verse obviously has spiritual connotations, but it is also an accurate declaration regarding the relative positions of the constellations Aquarius and Orion as shown in the above star chart.

John the Baptist, corresponding to Aquarius above, is decreasing (he is going down in the sky) -- even as Orion is rising. You can see in the star chart above that even as Aquarius is sinking below the horizon, Orion is still ascending towards the zenith or transit-line that I've drawn arcing upwards from due south on the horizon (and back over our heads to pass through the north celestial pole). This line is the highest point on the arc that the stars make as they circle up from the eastern horizon and then back down towards the western horizon, just as this line is the highest point on the sun's daily arc through the sky as well.

Now, if we were reading the scriptures in a primarily literalistic approach (as historical records of the words and actions of terrestrial, literal personages from long ago), we might see some spiritual angles to what John is saying, but still read it primarily as a statement by a literal John the Baptist that he intends to leave the stage now that Jesus has arrived on the scene.

But, based on previous discussions of esoteric interpretations we've explored of some of the Gnostic texts uncovered in the Nag Hammadi library -- such as the previous discussions of the relationship between Thomas and his divine twin, Jesus (here and here) -- I believe it is very possible that the relationship between John the Baptist and his divine cousin may be conveying the very same (or close to the same) esoteric message.

It may be that the motion of the two figures in the heavens (Aquarius sinking down, Orion rising up) and the actions of the two characters in the story (John leaving the stage, Jesus ascending as his divine origin is revealed) is actually describing something that each of us is supposed to be working towards in our own lives -- by diminishing the "doubting voice" of the "Thomas Self" as we become more and more attuned to the Higher Self.

Indeed, many daily disciplines and practices which appear to have been developed in ancient times, or perhaps handed down to humanity by some now-unknown source, may have as one of their primary goals this very same result which is being allegorized or esoterically conveyed in the words of John the Baptist -- disciplines such as meditation, chanting, Yoga, rhythmic drumming, certain martial arts, forms of what is today usually referred to as chi gung, and many others. 

Interestingly enough, the very same metaphor of the "winnowing fan" plays a significant role in the ancient Greek epic of the Odyssey -- a poem I explore in detail in my latest book, Star Myths of the World, Volume Two (which is all about the myths of ancient Greece).

It should be very clear by now that the myths and scriptures of humanity, from around the globe, can be shown to be built upon celestial foundations.

It should also be becoming clear that as we begin to understand the metaphorical language used by these ancient texts and sacred stories, this understanding can help us to hear (in a completely different way) the messages that they are speaking to us across the centuries and across the millennia.

Eleventh Labor of Hercules, revisited: The apples of the Hesperides

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I've just posted some new discussion of the Eleventh Labor of Heracles (Hercules), in which the hero must retrieve the apples of the Hesperides, and (because it is not safe for him to pick the apples himself), he must negotiate with the Titan Atlas to pluck the apples for him.

I've visited this important myth previously on this blog, back in 2014, but this discussion introduces some new perspectives on both the celestial correspondences and the possible spiritual significances of the Eleventh Labor.

The discussion is now up at the Message Board area on Graham Hancock's website, and I've divided it into two different "posts" or "threads" or "topic-headings" -- 

• the first one (labeled "Part One") to describe the details of the myth itself (with a few clues regarding the direction you might want to look, if you choose to analyze the myth yourself and draw connections to its celestial foundations), and . . .

• the second one (labeled "Part Two") to discuss my interpretation of some of the myth's celestial underpinnings, as well as discuss some of the spiritual truths which I believe this myth may be trying to convey to us. 

This format generally follows the structure of the volumes in the series Star Myths of the World (see here for Volume One and here for Volume Two), in which the first half of the book discusses the events which take place in the myth ("the storyline" of the myth or text), and then the second half contains the discussion of the celestial correspondences, and some discussion (when appropriate) of its possible spiritual import and message.

The idea is to read the first half of each chapter, consider any "hints" or pointers offered in the summary at the end of that "first half," and then (when you are ready, but not before), turn to the second half of the same discussion, found in the second half of the book -- where you'll find star charts and diagrams and discussion of the likely celestial connections in the story.

If you want, you can use the two links above in just the same way -- read the first link, and then take as much time as you want to think about the myth and its possible celestial metaphors, before moving on the next link.

And, of course, you can also join in the discussion if you wish!

Introducing new Star Myths World website

In an effort to create a place where those interested can access as much Star Myth information as I can point them towards at this time with the resources available to me, I am creating a new website called star myth world dot com (starmythworld.com).

It is still under construction -- and I intend to continue to improve it over time.

There you will find (so far):

• Analysis of selected Star Myths of the World.

• Sample content from published books in one convenient location.

• A "comment wall" where you can write messages (uses an embedded app from muut).

• This blog and all its back content, fully searchable; I will also continue to post at this location, so you are free to continue to find the blog here, or you may prefer to follow it over there so that "everything is in one place." The blog in this location has a "translation" button for those who wish to use it, so I will continue running it for those who require that, but otherwise just about everything available here will be available there.

• A helpful Resources page, where you will find a list of available online texts to related content. Note that the link to this section is found at the bottom footer on each page, but not at the top.

It's still in progress, so please check back often!

Introducing Star Myths of the World, Volume Two: the Myths of ancient Greece

I am very excited to announce the release of Volume Two of the multi-volume series Star Myths of the World and how to interpret them.

This volume focuses entirely on the mythology of ancient Greece. 

To my knowledge, it is the first extensive application of the principles of what is sometimes referred to as "Astrotheology" to the body of Greek mythology.

I was amazed at the richness of the insights that can arise when we view the Greek myths through this perspective.

Although I have loved the myths of ancient Greece since I was a child, and although I have taught Homer's Odyssey at the college level, when I began to listen to them in the "language" that I now understand the myths to be speaking -- that is to say, the language of the celestial realms -- it was like hearing them for the first time, all over again.

This is not an attempt to take away at all from the other rich and wonderful aspects of the Greek myths which men and women and children all over the world know and love and have enjoyed about them for centuries, but rather to say that an understanding of their celestial and esoteric foundation suddenly opens up entirely new depths of meaning in these ancient treasures of humanity -- "dizzying depths," I feel it is safe to say (perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that the depths these ancient myths can offer to us are literally endless or bottomless in their profundity).

As just a taste of what the understanding of their celestial nature opens up to the reader, I might offer that this book explores:

• New insight into the role of Artemis as the guardian of childbirth and protector of women and children,
• New insight into the association of the act of Kronos and "left-handedness," as well as into the adjective "wily" which is applied by the ancient poets to both Kronos and Odysseus (and the possible celestial reasons for that modifier),
• New insight into the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus,
• The celestial background for the myth-pattern of the "unsuccessful retrieval from the realm of the dead," found in numerous places in Greek myths (such as in the story of Persephone and the pomegranate, or the story of Eurydice and Orpheus), but which is also found around the world including in the sacred traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and in the Kojiki of ancient Japan, as well as elsewhere,
• The celestial background for the myth-pattern of the "incomplete baptism" which could have made the baptized child immortal but which instead leaves the baptized child vulnerable to mortality (seen in the story of Achilles, for instance, but also found in the Maui cycle of the Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean, and also in the Isis and Osiris cycle of ancient Egypt),
• The strong parallels between certain events in the Odyssey and in the New Testament, and the celestial patterns which almost certainly account for those parallels,
• The celestial "map" or "chart" of the long journey home described in the Odyssey, and its profound spiritual meaning for each of us,
• The amazing celestial foundation for the famous encounter with the Cyclops,
• And the probable celestial solution for the much-debated "trial of the bow" near the climax of the Odyssey, which has given so many commentators difficulty over the years, when trying to explain it as a literal, "terrestrial" feat (and note that the "bow-trial" is an extremely pervasive mythological pattern, which is also found in the Heracles [Hercules] cycle of myths, but also in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana of ancient India, for example).

Once we understand how to begin to hear the myths in the celestial language that they are speaking, I believe it opens up a path for us to pursue them for our own personal growth and positive transformation, if desired -- for a lifetime (or perhaps for many lifetimes!).

I truly hope that you will be blessed by the incredible ancient wisdom of the myths as you begin to see them in a new light -- I know that I have been and continue to be.

----------------

Here is a link to a brief preview which includes the book's Table of Contents.
 

Please join me at Graham Hancock's Author of the Month forum for March 2016

image: Wikimedia commons (link).
 

I'm very excited to announce that I will be engaging in "conversations" in the august forum of Graham Hancock's official website and message boards as Graham's Author of the Month for March, 2016.

As the part of the earth containing the Greenwich meridian has already rotated eastwards underneath the "line of midnight" (facing directly away from the sun, on the other side of the planet), it is already February 29th over there -- which means that I'll be popping up with some topics for discussion in fewer than twenty-four hours! 

I had the opportunity to participate as Author of the Month some years ago, in January of 2012, and as I wrote afterwards, it was an experience I'll never forget.

I hope that everyone who is interested in asking questions or otherwise interacting will head over and do so during the month. 

I'm always happy to respond to questions and comments that readers send via Facebook or twitter, but the advantage of the message boards is that (unlike one-to-one conversations), there is an engaged community sending thoughts back and forth and all engaging with the ideas together. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to each form of conversation, but one advantage of discussing topics in a forum is that ideas can sometimes arise which are "more than the sum of their parts" -- ideas which no one participant might have articulated by themselves, but which seem to take shape out of the mix of participants, kind of like the entity known as Kvasir in the Norse myths, who took shape out of a vat filled with the juices of certain berries which the Aesir and Vanir gods spit out of their mouths when sealing a sacred pact.

I'm looking forward to the Author of the Month role for March, and grateful to Graham Hancock for providing this forum for the exchange of ideas, as well as for all the research and analysis he has done and continues to do in pursuit of answers regarding the critical questions of humanity's ancient past.

Gobekli Tepe, Rapa Nui, and the mythological evidence for reexamining the narrative of ancient history

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The preceding post discussed George Orwell's powerful depiction of the fact that control over the narrative of history is an extremely important weapon in the arsenal of those who seek to exercise a form of tyrannical mind control over others.

This can be demonstrated to be taking place regarding certain important events in the recent past -- evidenced quite plainly in the reprehensible termination of the teaching career of tenured Professor James Tracy at Florida Atlantic University for his efforts to examine and discuss evidence that undermines the official narrative of certain traumatic events portrayed in the news media in the United States.

However, as that previous post mentions, a parallel can also be drawn to the control over the narrative of humanity's ancient past. Those who have had the temerity over the past hundred or hundred or so years to have discussed the abundant evidence which seems to call into question the conventional outline of the ancient past can attest to the often withering scorn and other forms of social and professional approbation that is unfailingly leveled at any dissenting voices who call into question the official narrative.

And yet, just as in Orwell's masterful 1984, there are many who (like Winston in the novel) have personally seen evidence which completely upends the conventional narrative, and who realize that something is seriously amiss with the official storyline.

The volume of evidence has continued to mount over the past few decades, to the point that it is threatening to collapse the entire edifice upon which the conventional outline of human history has been built.

For instance, as discussed in Graham Hancock's latest work, Magicians of the Gods (which ties together many facets spanning the arc of his many previous explorations and books up to this point), the ancient site often referred to by its Turkish name of Gobekli Tepe has been dated to around 11,600 years before present, based on readings of the material used to fill in around the massive and precisely-planed stone pillars (over two hundred of which appear to have been buried at the massive site, many of them in the range of twenty tons of rock), which means that the pillars themselves are at least that old but may in fact be even older (20). 

Many of these massive and precisely-worked megaliths feature beautiful and graceful artistic relief renderings of stylized animals, many or all of which may represent astronomical constellations (a point Graham Hancock makes in his book). Furthermore, archaeologists studying the site (which has only been under excavation since the late 1990s) admit that, based on their analysis, the finest stonework and artistic work appears to be found on the oldest of the stones, a puzzling piece of information according to the conventional theories of ancient human history.

In fact, conventional views of history are tremendously undermined by the discoveries at Gobekli Tepe. The development of such high and sophisticated skill at stone working, at such a remote period, threatens to completely upend the official narrative which continues to be so confidently taught in schools beginning at the very earliest grades and going through undergraduate and graduate college and university courses (and reinforced by numerous additional "history channel"-style videos and shows for the benefit of those who are no longer exposed to history classes in classroom environments). 

It is simply not easy to accumulate the extremely advanced technological, artistic, and engineering skill sets required to erect twenty-ton stone pillars on such a massive scale, and the undeniable evidence showing such abilities at a date that is as far back (or, indeed, much further back) in time from ancient Egypt than ancient Egypt is far back in time from us in the year 2016 is simply a devastating shock to the conventional timeline that proposes very "primitive" subsistence-style wandering in the millennia prior to the first-known civilizations (which themselves appear to have simply "materialized out of nowhere," already possessing incredible engineering and artistic skills, as John Anthony West documents in his essential Serpent in the Sky).

Further, as Graham Hancock also points out in this latest book in his corpus of research and analysis, many of the massive pillars at Gobekli Tepe feature human arms along their sides, with long-fingered hands folded in such a way that the fingertips almost touch -- in a manner which is irrefutably reminiscent of the exact same artistic details on many of the enormous moai of Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

You can see the arms (but not the hands -- those are hidden by the "cow tail" grass near the ground-level, and by the soil itself) along the side of one megalith from Gobekli Tepe in the Wikimedia image here (there are better photographs in Graham Hancock's book). You can see the same stylized arms with nearly-touching fingers in many images of moai available on the web, such as the two shown below (there are even better ones in the book Easter Island: the Mystery Solved by Thor Heyerdahl -- an excellent book and well worth owning, although much as I admire Thor Heyerdahl I must argue that the "mystery" of Rapa Nui is by no means completely "solved" at this point).

image above: Wikimedia commons (link).

image below: Wikimedia commons (link).

The long-fingered hands, depicted at exactly the same angle and position on the body as the stylized arms on some of the megaliths at Gobekli Tepe, can be seen at the left side of the image above -- and in even better detail in some of the images in the latest Graham Hancock book and in the Thor Heyerdahl book linked above.

The best images from the Thor Heyerdahl book showing the long-fingered hands are of moai statues which for centuries were buried up to their necks (as indeed many of the great moai remain to this day, buried to their necks). The fact that Gobekli Tepe was deliberately buried, and that a great number of the moai of Easter Island appear to have been buried, is itself extremely singular and striking. And, just think how much effort and time it would have taken people to completely and deliberately bury all the huge stone pillars of Gobekli Tepe -- and how they could have done that if they were living on subsistence hunter-gathering methods (which they obviously were not, based on the extremely high sophistication of their stone working and monument-building technologies).

Then, ask yourself how the conventional paradigm of human history can explain the incredible similarities found between the great T-stones of Gobekli Tepe, and the mysterious silent moai of Easter Island.

The answer is that the conventional paradigm cannot account for this similarity at all, whatsoever. It can only either ignore the similarities, or argue that they "just happened" to pop up independently, without any common influence, in complete isolation from one another. The conventional theory argues the same thing for the amazing mathematical similarities between some of the pyramids found in Central America and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, for example -- and the list could go on and on.

But, as compelling as all the above archaeological evidence must be acknowledged to be, I believe there is a completely additional category of extremely compelling, verifiable, objective data which also provides undeniable and conclusive evidence: the ancient myths and stories of humanity, found around the world and amply documented (some of it with documentation stretching back for centuries, if not millennia).

When we begin to understand the system of celestial metaphor which I (and others before me, stretching back at least to Plato, even though he said it in a "veiled" way) argue can be shown to be operating at the foundation of the myths, it provides us with another extremely powerful set of evidence which completely undermines the "isolationist" theories of human history which are continually and without any room for disagreement or debate drilled into the heads of students -- and (through a more-subtle program of "history" shows and basic assumptions underlying "news" broadcasts) the heads of adults who have finished formal academic instruction.

When we can find evidence in myths of a celestial metaphor with details on a level of specificity that are as unique and unlikely to be mere "coincidence" as the "long, extended, nearly-touching fingers" found on the Gobekli Tepe stones and the Rapa Nui moai, and we find it operating in the myths of the Pacific Islands as well as in the myths of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, then we can say that such evidence forms yet another parallel field of data which, alongside the data arising from continued archaeological discoveries, argues for a complete reassessment of the "official narrative" of humanity's ancient past.

And, I can assure you, there is abundant evidence of just this level of specificity to be found in the myths of the different cultures of our incredible planet, including the "incomplete baptism" myth (based on the exact-same constellations and some rather "obscure" metaphorical interpretations of those constellations) which is found in the myths of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the myths of Polynesia, for example. And that is just one example -- there are nearly unlimited other examples which are equally compelling (I'll discuss the "incomplete baptism" analysis in a later post).

The picture that begins to emerge of the very distant past is one that is very different from the picture we have been shown by the purveyors of the conventional narrative (most of whom, it must be said, undoubtedly believe the official story which they are propagating).

And yet, as George Orwell argued so powerfully (and so rightly), the control of the past is absolutely a weapon of control over the present, and the future, and a weapon which is coveted by those wishing to exert illegitimate control over the thoughts and actions of others, sometimes for violent ends. 

It may be that no such nefarious motives are behind the erroneous narrative of ancient human history that has been pushed so consistently and stubbornly by those in control of academia and the media for the past several decades (or centuries) -- but whether or not such motives are present, it is absolutely in our best interest to try to learn the real story about humanity's ancient history. It is not at all simply an "academic" debate, any more than the question of what really happened during significant events in recent history is merely an "academic" debate. 

Happily for us, we live during a time when extremely exciting new evidence seems to be surfacing almost every day, and during which large numbers of people are waking up to the problems in the official story.

I believe that the study of the world-wide system of celestial allegory which forms the foundation for the world's myths constitutes an extremely important field of evidence, alongside the archaeological and other evidence that continues to point towards a different view of humanity's ancient past.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

If all records told the same tale

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible. 

The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be good for the back muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.

The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

      -- George Orwell, 1984 (pages 31-32 in the Signet reprint of the 1949 hardcover). 

If all records are made to tell the same (lying) tale, then the memory of the past can be altered for the purposes of exercising control over others. Drawing a veil over the memory of the past, and imposing a false picture of the past in its place, is a tremendously powerful weapon -- as George Orwell dramatizes in 1984. 

In order to do it, the above passage clearly implies, dissenting views of history must be removed from the record -- so that all records tell the same tale.

Until January of this year (2016), that is to say until last month, Professor James Tracy was a tenured professor of media studies at Florida Atlantic University, studying the exact subject which Orwell so powerfully explores in 1984 -- namely, the ways in which the narrative of the past is shaped by those who seek to "control the past," through the organs of the media.

When he found evidence that, in certain circumstances, "all the records" seemed to be lining up in ways that excluded the possibility of any dissenting voices -- and even excluded credible evidence which seemed to suggest a very different perspective than the official narrative -- he acted upon his belief that such situations should be examined more closely and the conflicting evidence considered carefully, because the "control of history" (as Orwell so clearly warned us) is an extremely coveted weapon by those who wish to annihilate opposition, more terrifying even than "mere torture and death."

In fact, Professor Tracy selected a name for his blog which reflected the importance of the truth that George Orwell articulated regarding the desire to eliminate all records that do not tell the same tale, by those who seek to control the minds of others. Evoking a concept described in 1984 just a few pages after the section quoted above, Professor Tracy calls his blog (which I believe he started in 2012) the Memory Hole Blog -- perhaps because the evidence he and others discuss there is the same evidence that those who want all records to tell the same tale are trying to "send down the memory hole," so to speak.

Here is Orwell's first introduction of the famous "memory holes" (which he depicted as though they literally exist in the walls of buildings, in order to in a sense "make visual" to our imaginations a very real activity which is taking place somewhat "invisibly" all around us, though often without our notice or conscious awareness that it is going on):

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers, and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. 

     -- 1984, (pages 34 - 35 in the Signet reprint of the 1949 hardcover). 

The immense amounts of energy which those wishing to "control the past," to control the narrative and the record of history, are willing to expend in order to do so -- and the intolerance that must be shown to any "scrap of an alternative narrative lying about," so to speak -- is brilliantly captured in Orwell's metaphorical depiction (or perhaps not so metaphorical, as 1984's "cubicles" are most certainly an all-too-common reality, and as most physical newspapers and even books made out of paper seem to have already been wafted away on the currents of warm air into a digital hall of records, where of course we can all access them freely via the web, although an imagination similar to Orwell's might wonder whether that will always be the case).  

In any event, it seems that Professor Tracy's activities to expose evidence that seemed to conflict with the accepted narrative of certain important historical events -- evidence which was supposed to have been safely shunted down the "memory hole," in order to ensure that "all records told the same tale" -- was not always welcome as a valuable contribution to the examination of the ways in which narratives are shaped in order to "control the past and the future." 

Even though he was a professor in a department offering classes on media, journalism, and the way that those institutions impact our understanding of history and narratives, where such subjects should be free to be openly discussed, Professor Tracy's employment was terminated by his university in January of this year. He had been a tenured professor since 2008 -- the very concept of "tenure" having been instituted in academia (ostensibly) to enable professors to have the freedom to pursue the truth without fear of being fired for pursuing unpopular evidence or explanations.

He was also verbally attacked and ridiculed in the media.

Both of these circumstances -- the vicious media attacks and the firing of a tenured professor for having the courage to examine and discuss evidence which does not fit with the "official narrative" -- seem to be very strong evidence in and of themselves pointing to deliberate efforts to make "all records tell the same tale." 

In other words, these actions appear to confirm the reality of the very "memory holes" that Orwell warned us about, and that Professor Tracy is talking about in the present day.

The denial of the evidence of history, by drawing a veil containing a new and fabricated historical narrative over the actual events, is an incredibly important subject, and one which should deeply concern every single adult man or woman on the planet. 

It is an incredibly important subject for the recent past (including events such as the September 11 attacks in 2001 which launched wars which have continued nonstop since that date, in which literally hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives), as well as for events of previous decades around which a single "acceptable narrative" has been permitted to be told and conflicting evidence ignored, marginalized, or even "sent down the memory hole."

It is also an incredibly important subject for humanity's ancient past, where abundant evidence from multiple fields of study -- including archaeology, geology, and (based upon the evidence that I discuss showing that the myths of virtually every culture on earth use a common system of celestial metaphor) mythology -- appears to call into question the conventional narrative of human history. 

I am not suggesting that Professor Tracy endorses my particular views of ancient history or mythology (although he was gracious enough to interview me on his podcast and radio program in 2014, and he has posted a few blog posts I have written over the years about the vital importance of the narrative of history, including "Paging Dr. Zaius" and "Analysis: against mind control, for human consciousness").   

Nor am I suggesting that everyone must share Professor Tracy's every conclusion in order to find his firing reprehensible and a grave confirmation that much of what are (or were once) thought to be the bastions of free speech and honest examination of the evidence in the pursuit of truth in the United States -- namely the media (both print and video) and the halls of academia -- are in fact actively complicit in the suppression of any dissenters who do not comply with the directive that "all records must tell the same tale."

And, it should be pointed out, that this is by no means a merely "academic" debate. To return again to my own focus on much more ancient history, please revisit this post from early December of 2015 in which I cited the powerful observation of Peter Kingsley that the prophet in ancient times was not necessarily one who was consulted regarding the future, but rather regarding the past -- and in particular, was called upon in order to find out what overlooked error or crime or offense in the past was now bringing about calamity in the present.

For example, in the Iliad, when the Achaeans perceive that the god Apollo is sending invisible arrows of death to smite all their warriors, and that he will undoubtedly continue to do so until all of them are dead unless they figure out how they have offended the god, the leaders consult a prophet. 

Elsewhere in the Iliad, Agamemnon recounts a different example that follows the same pattern, describing the time the assembled ships were ready to sail to Troy, but the weather turned violently against them and remained that way, until they consulted a prophet to find out which god they had offended (in that case, it was Agamemnon who had offended the goddess Artemis).

In other words, the prophet was needed in order to correct their faulty memory of the past -- to show them the crimes or transgressions they had committed against the divine order of the universe, but which for whatever reason had been improperly understood or appreciated and which had not been dealt with and corrected.

Until such past imbalances are seen and confronted, they will keep haunting us until we deal with them -- and the ancient myths teach us that until we deal with the problem, no one is safe.

So, burying our head in the sand is not an option.

The ancients knew this -- that's why they would immediately seek out a prophet or a seer who could tell them what was wrong in the invisible world, once they realized that the gods were trying to tell them something.

And that is probably why the writings of George Orwell seem so "prophetic" today (in the more conventional or colloquial usage of the word prophet to describe someone who is foretelling the future): Orwell was describing a problem that was not dealt with, and so the consequences of that un-confronted issue were going to keep cropping up again and again -- and it appears that may be exactly what is happening to this day, which makes it seem as though he was predicting the future (and in that sense, he certainly was).

In this sense, although he probably would not accept my labeling his work using such language, James Tracy is acting in a prophetic role as well, by pointing to unexamined issues in the past, and saying that they must be examined instead of being ignored or papered-over or even "tossed down the memory hole."

Please take some time to look into the eyes of George Orwell in the picture above, and ask yourself if you think he would advise us to ignore the subjects that James Tracy is bravely calling to our attention, or if he would diagnose these events as repeated manifestations of something to which he himself was trying to call our attention as well.