The goddess Seshat

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

The goddess Seshat of ancient Egypt is a divinity of tremendous importance.

In a volume entitled The Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven, Earth and Time in Ancient Societies, edited by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew and published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press, one of the chapters in this collection by various scholars, "Establishing direction in early Egyptian burials and monumental architecture: Measurement and the spatial link with the 'other,'" by Kate Spence, contains this discussion of the vital role of the goddess Seshat:

The link between the measurement of space and the measurement of time is also clear from early periods in the activities of the goddess Seshat, the goddess associated with the foundation ceremony, during which the orientation of buildings was established.

Seshat was a divinity of some importance at the beginning of the historical era in Egypt, as is clear from a record of a First Dynasty ceremony involving one of her priests inscribed on the Palermo Stone (a set of annals for Egypt's earliest kings) as well as the creation of a statue of the goddess during the same reign (Wilkinson 2000, 111-112, 118; see also Wainwright 1940, 32). After the Old Kingdom there is no evidence that a cult was maintained although Seshat herself appears in royal images and inscriptions with a limited set of roles. Foremost of these roles is that of recording the king's reign length: "her chief mission was to mark the king's life-period on the palm-stick. To cut notches, or to make marks, on a stick is the earliest of all forms of keeping a count or tally, and of itself would suggest an origin in the time before writing proper had been invented" (Wainwright 1940, 32); she is frequently depicted with a notched central rib of a palm frond. [. . .] During the Fifth Dynasty her symbol is found in images of the royal jubilee, she is described as "Before the House of the Books of the Royal Offspring" and she records booty brought from abroad (Wainwright 1940, 32).

Seshat's second important role was associated with the foundation ceremony for buildings (see Weinstein 1973 for discussion of the ceremony with references): she is repeatedly depicted performing the 'stretching of the cord' ritual in the company of the king. The first reference to this ritual is found on the Palermo stone, where it is said to have been conducted by a priest of Seshat (Wilkinson 2000, 111-112). [. . .] Seshat's role in the measurement of space and time is therefore clear. The Pyramid Texts describe Seshat as 'Lady of Builders' (Faulkner 1969, 119).

The act of aligning a building must also have been part of the foundation ceremony (see Weinstein 1973). Ptolemaic texts are explicitly in linking the 'stretching of the cord' ceremony with the stars (specifically with Ursa Major) and with the measurement of time. 176 - 177.

The recording of measure and of time, and the aligning of temples and monuments is clearly a role of tremendous importance, associated with proper alignment with the heavenly realm and thus (if the heavenly realm is, as can be established with great confidence, a visible manifestation of the Invisible World) with the realm of the gods. 

Her role can thus be very clearly seen as assisting society in establishing a proper relationship with the divine realm, bringing it into harmony with the order of the universe. Her role in actively assisting the king in the "stretching of the cord" ritual when establishing the foundation of important buildings clearly dramatizes the fact that the pattern for human society comes from, and must be aligned in appropriate harmony with, the realm of spirit: the Invisible Realm, the realm of the gods.

The previous two posts dealt with the Greek myth of King Midas, who dramatizes the disastrous consequences of inverting the proper order: pursuing the material object of gold or physical wealth without proper respect for the divine spark of life (and thus becoming unable to sustain his own life through eating or drinking, as well as destroying his own daughter by turning her -- temporarily -- into a lifeless statue of solid gold), and judging the music of the satyr Marsyas or of the god Pan as more accomplished than the music made by Apollo himself, who is in fact the god of music and thus the divine source of it (another example of Midas' failure to appreciate the supremacy of the divine realm or to "give the divine source" its due).

The second of the two posts discussing Midas examined this failure of Midas even further, noting the economic folly of (like King Midas) pursuing wealth without giving the gods their due. Midas, as king, should have been trying to put his society in harmony with the divine pattern (as are the kings of Egypt who are shown following the lead of the goddess Seshat in establishing the measure and alignment of the foundations of their society) -- but instead he focused only on the physical trappings of wealth, ignoring the divine source of all blessing, failing to acknowledge the divine source and "give the gods their due," so to speak.

Note that the description of the roles of Seshat cited above points out that she is described in some ancient texts as counting out the wealth brought from abroad -- and some have suggested that implicit in this role was the admonition to the nation to be sure to give the gods their due part of all the increase, in recognition that the divine realm is the first source from which all increase flows. 

For example, Geraldine Pinch in her Handbook of Egyptian Mythology (2002) writes:

As goddess of writing, Seshat was the keeper of royal annals and genealogies. She was shown recording the booty gained by kings in battle, perhaps as a reminder that a share was due to the gods. Seshat was even said to descend into the underworld to record everything in the realm of the dead. 190.

It stands to reason that a society which fails to acknowledge the realm of the gods, in which those in power try to seize the blessings from the gods for themselves alone, is dishonoring the goddess Seshat, and embarking upon the disastrous path of Midas instead.

Seshat exhorts us to acknowledge the realm of the gods and to give the Invisible Realm its proper due, and to align ourselves with that Invisible Realm, to establish harmonious integration between the material and spiritual aspects of our own nature and of the dual material-spiritual universe in which we find ourselves in this incarnate life.

Note that her role as keeper of the measure of both time and space, and her specific association with the "stretching of the cord" ritual, also imply a connection to the harmonious waves and frequencies that become sound and light at different wavelengths and frequencies (wavelength relating to distance, and frequency relating to time). A stretched cord, vibrated, will produce a certain frequency and a specific wavelength: if the length of that cord is changed (as by a finger pressing down on a guitar fret or a violin string), then the frequency and the wavelength will change.

As the brilliant John Anthony West observes in Spirit in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, the name and symbology of the goddess directly implies her connection to wavelength and to harmonious music. He writes:

Seshat, also called Sefhet, which means seven, is the female counterpart of Thoth, therefore mistress of measure, and always attends the foundation ceremonies of the temples. Her emblem is the seven-petaled flower. Seshat is found on the earliest inscriptions. Thus it is clear that the correspondence between seven (harmony) and measure was known to Egypt from the onset. [. . .]

Phenomena tend to completion in seven stages, or are complete within their specific stage. There are seven tones in the harmonic scale. It is the harmonic scale, and the human function of hearing, that give us direct access into the process of growth, of creativity manifesting itself. It is for this reason -- not chance or superstition -- that led the Pythagoreans explicitly, and the Egyptians implicitly, to employ the harmonic scale as the perfect instrument for teaching and demonstrating the workings of the cosmos.

Consider a string of a given length as unity. Set it vibrating; it produces a sound. Stop the string at its midpoint and set it vibrating. It produces a sound one octave higher. Division in two results in an analogue of the original unity. [ . . .]

Between the original note and its octave there are seven intervals, seven unequal stages which, despite their inequality, the ear interprets as 'harmonious.' 60 - 61.

The goddess Seshat, as the goddess of measure, celestial alignment, and harmony between the realm of the material and the divine, thus is represented with a distinctive plant of seven leaves above her head, even in the very earliest First Dynasty portrayals of the goddess.

This symbology can be observed in the image at top, from a throne of a seated statue of Rameses II.

In that image, we see the goddess -- who is characteristically depicted as tall and slender and very beautiful -- wearing the leopard-skin that denotes priestly function (and which is also associated with the symbology of Dionysus and of the sadhus of India, as discussed in this previous post); the two flaring lines at the bottom of her dress are probably stylized representations of the two legs of the leopard-skin, and this iconography is characteristic of depictions of the goddess Seshat.

In the imagery above, we see Seshat holding two linear implements, which are both indicative of her role as divine goddess of measure and record, and also (as we shall see) clues to her probable celestial identity -- a celestial identity which has gone unremarked-upon in any of the literature which I have examined, but which will become fairly obvious in a moment. 

She is carrying a tall notched staff, usually identified as the stripped central rib of a palm frond, notched with sixty-four notches (and with a sacred shen symbol beneath it, which is pointed-out and discussed on pages 38 - 39 of Ancient Egypt: the Primal Age of Divine Revelation, Volume I, by Mostafa Elshamy, in images which you can see online here). She is also in the act of writing, apparently upon the notched palm-rib, with a reed.

As noted in some of the passages cited above, Seshat is the counterpart and in some sense the consort of the god Thoth or Djehuty (Dhwty), the god of records and of scribes and also a god associated with the Moon and with wisdom and with imparting hermetic wisdom to mankind. Both Seshat and Thoth are characteristically depicted with the writing-reed, in the act of writing or recording.

Seshat in particular is also associated with the holy Tree of Life of ancient Egypt, the Ishedtree, sometimes identified with the persea tree although not all scholars agree on this identification. She is often depicted or described inscribing upon the leaves of this sacred tree, particularly in her role as the determiner of the lifespan of the kings of Egypt, but to record other divine records upon the holy tree as well.

All of the above information helps us to identify the celestial figure with which Seshat is (I believe) almost certainly associated. The most important clues to her celestial identity include:

• the fact that she is tall, slender and beautiful
• the fact that she carries not one but two long, narrow implements simultaneously 
• the fact that she is a consort of Thoth, god of writing and records
• the fact that she writes upon a heavenly Tree
• the fact that she is involved in the "stretching of the cord" ceremony
• the fact that she is also associated with the foundation of temples
• the fact that she is described as being "Before the House of the Books of the Royal Offering" and in other texts is described as building the mansions of the gods in the divine realm 

A visual clue which will help those who are very familiar with the common system of celestial metaphor which forms the foundation for the ancient myths and sacred stories of virtually every culture around the world may be seen in a depiction of Seshat together with Thoth on the walls of the Ramesseum of Rameses II, in Upper Egypt:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the above image, the most visible three figures from left to right are Rameses II (seated, facing towards the right), Seshat (facing towards the king and in fact writing upon a leaf of the holy Ished tree which can be seen behind both her and the seated form of the king), and finally Thoth on the far right, also writing upon a leaf of the Holy Tree and in this case also holding a notched palm-rib just as Seshat does.

The illustration below of the above relief does not do it full artistic justice (in the illustrator's defense, the level of artistic quality in these ancient Egyptian depictions of the gods is extraordinary and almost impossible to ever duplicate), but it does serve to help us to observe some important details -- specifically, I would call attention to the location of the reed stylus held by Thoth in his upraised right hand (see how close it gets to the shoulder of the goddess). This reed is barely visible in the photograph above (although it is visible), but it is much easier to see in the drawing below -- and the fact that the writing implement of the god is located where it is above the shoulder of the goddess may be a clue to the celestial identities of both Thoth and Seshat:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I believe that the multiple clues cited above regarding the celestial identity of Seshat (and Thoth) , as well as similar celestial patterns which I have observed in other Star Myths from around the world, strongly support the following interpretation:

Note that, at the outset of this explanation, it is very important to point out that I do not believe that the constellations are the gods and goddesses themselves -- I believe the stars were used in the system of ancient wisdom found around the world as a way of conveying to us actual truths about the Invisible Realm itself. 

The god Thoth and the goddess Seshat inhabit the Invisible Realm, the Divine Realm, the Spirit World, the realm of the gods. The esoteric Star Myths of ancient Egypt convey to us truths about the Invisible Realm, including all the assertions about harmony, measure, and aligning with the pattern of the divine realm in our dealings "here below" -- including the importance of acknowledging that this material realm actually has its source in the realm of the gods, and therefore we must always remember that "a share is due to the gods."

In the diagram above, I argue that Thoth the god of writing is associated with the figure of the constellation Hercules in the heavens. Hercules actually appears to be reaching down to write -- I have outlined the portion of his "downward-reaching" arm in red, to indicate what I believe represents the reed stylus always carried by the god Thoth.

Note that Thoth's name in ancient Egyptian writing was actually conveyed by symbols specifying the sounds Dhwty or Djehuty (Wallis Budge spells it TEHUTY in a footnote on this page of his Legends of the Gods, from 1912). As has been argued elsewhere, this formulation actually relates to the name DAVID or DAOUD. This fact is actually very strong confirmatory evidence for the argument that Thoth is associated with the constellation Hercules, for as I establish beyond (I believe) reasonable doubt in Star Myths of the Bible, the figure of David in the Old Testament is absolutely associated with the figure of the constellation Hercules as well, in almost every episode of the David-cycle of sacred stories.

Close by the celestial figure of Thoth is the constellation Ophiucus, who actually plays the role of a goddess in other Star Myths as well (including in many of the myths of ancient Greece). Ophiucus is in fact a very tall and narrow constellation when viewed in the night sky. Furthermore, Ophiucus carries the two "halves" of a line of stars usually envisioned as a serpent (hence the constellation's name, Ophiucus or "Serpent-holder"). In some myths, this long linear figure that Ophicus is holding can be envisioned as two spears -- and in the iconography of the goddess Seshat, I would argue that the two sides of the serpent give rise to her two implements of recording: the notched palm-rib and the reed stylus. 

Note that I have outlined in red the part of the constellation which probably corresponds to the reed stylus held by Seshat, just as I have with the reed belonging to Thoth. Look back up at the drawing of the scene from the walls of the Ramesseum to see how well the position of the reed held by the goddess in the artwork aligns with the position of the reed held by Ophiucus in the sky.

Nearby to Ophiucus rises the glorious column of the Milky Way galaxy, which I believe is almost certainly the figure of the holy Tree of Life, upon which Seshat is seen to be writing. You can see that Ophiucus (and the red stylus as outlined) appears to be writing on the Milky Way "tree" as well -- and that in fact the outline of Ophiucus protrudes into the shining column of the galaxy in the sky.

Once again, look back and forth between the star-chart shown above, with its outlines and labels, and the drawing of the scene from the wall of the Ramesseum, in order to truly appreciate the correspondence.

Note also that the constellations Hercules and Ophiucus are very close together in the sky -- as befits the god and goddess of writing, who are heavenly companions. And note also that the stylus of Hercules as depicted reaches down towards the shoulder of Ophiucus, just as the stylus of Thoth in the scene from the Ramesseum also appears to be pointing towards the shoulder of the goddess!

Again, I believe that when we look into the heavens at night, we are actually looking out into Infinity -- and that the ancients saw the specific figures they saw in the infinite celestial realm above their heads to as giving them a way of conveying to our understanding very realtruths about very real goings-on in the divine realm, which we cannot see with our eyes (under ordinary circumstances).

The goddess Seshat demonstrates to us that we are to align ourselves (and indeed, align the society we build) with the divine pattern -- a pattern that is intended to bless and uplift us, because it is the very harmony which informs everything else in the material realm, and the very foundation upon which everything in the universe is in fact built.

The fact that she assists the king in the "stretching of the cord" ceremony dramatizes this truth, and the necessity of harmonizing and aligning everything we do with the true measures given to us by the powers of the Invisible Realm (in this case, given to the king by Seshat).

We can even envision Seshat assisting the king in the "stretching of the cord" ritual, when we look up to the heavens: if the constellation Hercules also plays the role of the pharaoh or king of Egypt (as indeed this constellation can be shown to do in many episodes in the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures), then we can see the "western side" of the serpent held by Ophiucus as the "cord being stretched" by the king, assisted by the goddess.

Everything about Seshat symbolizes the vital task of integrating and harmonizing and "tying together" the divine realm and the material realm.

And the seven-petaled or seven-leafed plant depicted over the head of the goddess is no exception to this. As John Anthony West points out in his discussion of the Pythagorean symbolism in the sacred number Seven, this number joins together Three and Four: Three is symbolic of the divine realm, while Four is symbolic of the material and earthy realm (see page 62 in Serpent in the Sky, as well as the discussions of Three and Four which precede the discussion of Seven).

Of course, it cannot be ignored that the distinctive symbol above the head of the goddess Seshat appears to be strongly suggestive of the outline of a cannabis leaf.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Is it possible that the cannabis plant was also seen as symbolic of uniting the infinite realm (Three) with the mortal realm (Four)?

The possibility cannot be simply dismissed out of hand. 

For one thing, as Alvin Boyd Kuhn has convincingly argued, the very sound "K - N" appears to have anciently symbolized "linking" or "connecting" (and note the presence of the "K - N" phoneme in both of those words, linking and connecting). Kuhn argues that this sound-pattern also forms the basis for the Egyptian word ANKH, the symbol of life which also can be seen as linking or connecting the infinite realm with the material realm. Much discussion on this topic can be found, along with numerous examples, at my previous posts entitled "The Name of the Ankh" and "The Name of the Ankh, continued."

It hardly needs pointing out that the name cannabis also contains this same sound, as does the word Ganja, which is also used to refer to this plant. 

And, as Mircea Eliade documents at length in his encyclopedic examination of the techniques used in shamanic cultures around the world to achieve states of ecstasy, cannabis is sometimes used in shamanic practice -- thereby explicitly linking the infinite realm and the ordinary realm yet again. Some aspects of this discussion can be found in "How many ways are there to contact the hidden realm?"

Furthermore, and even more difficult to dismiss, the very mummy of Rameses II himself contains traces of cannabis (as well as traces of tobacco and coca). See the previous discussion in this post from all the way back in 2011.

In other words, the very king whose Ramesseum and whose statue together feature the images of the goddess Seshat shown in the images above actually still has cannabis on his person! This fact also supports the strong possibility that the seven-part leaf depicted above the goddess may be suggestive of sacred Ganja.

And, it may not be remiss to point out that there is in fact a connection between the tradition of Rastafari in the Caribbean islands and the sadhus of India, which may explain the use of the term Ganja among Rastafari for this sacred plant (a name which connects to the sacred river Ganga in India).

The larger point is that the goddess Seshat is profoundly and powerfully associated with the integration of heaven and earth, material and spiritual.  Her vital role must not be overlooked, ignored, or forgotten.

In fact, our civilization in many ways can be seen to have grievously ignored the powerful message of this ancient goddess, and the importance of her role to our own harmony and well-being and integration.

And yet, ancient records going all the way back to the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt continue to patiently proclaim her timeless message, and patiently invite us to rediscover the wisdom that was imparted to humanity, which we can still hear today -- if we will listen.

More lessons from King Midas, who discovered he could not eat gold

image: Ancient statue of the goddess Demeter, juxtaposed with field of barley. Wikimedia commons (link and link).

The previous post explored some aspects of the extraordinarily bad (but all-too-human) judgment displayed by the famous King Midas of Phrygia, from ancient myth.

One of the signature aspects of the king's poor judgment involves his failure to recognize the primacy of the realm of spirit -- the realm of the gods -- over the realm of matter, and over all things material.

This failure to acknowledge the primacy of the realm of the gods is most evident in the story of the Judgment of Midas, in which the king fails to recognize the supremacy of the musical skill of the god Apollo -- the very god of music and thus the source of all musical talent, and the mythical leader of the Muses themselves. 

For this failure, Midas is awarded the ears of an ass or donkey, a consummate symbol of his preference for the lower, the animal, the bestial and all that is proper to the material or bestial or lower realm, rather than what should be his proper recognition of things higher, things divine, and things spiritual.

The same pattern of failure to strive for what is higher, to recognize and pursue that which could elevate himself and help others, is also clearly evident in the more famous episode in the Midas story -- his calamitous request when granted one wish by the god Dionysus to have the ability to turn whatever he touches into gold. 

In this case, the king is granted one boon from the divine realm, the very realm of the gods -- and he squanders that opportunity by making a wish that, far from elevating or enlivening himself and those around him, will instead turn everything he touches into a lifeless lump of metal. The horrifying consequences of this bad judgment soon become evident, when Midas realizes he has with his wish cut himself off from the very source of life itself, when even his food and drink turns to gold between his teeth or in his throat -- and then, in some versions of the story, the ultimate illustration of his disastrous wish become manifest when he turns his own daughter from a living, breathing, loving young woman into a lifeless golden statue.

As we saw, the gods were benevolent enough to undo the rash request of Midas, as well as all the horrifying transformations it had wrought, when Midas threw himself upon their mercy, and followed the command to immerse himself in the river Pactolus, at its source.

The failure to acknowledge the realm of spirit -- from which all life in this material realm flows, and indeed within which (the ancient wisdom tells us) all things in the material realm actually find their fount and source -- ultimately debases and objectifies and turns that which should be a blessing into a curse.

Although this lesson may seem to be so obvious, and the folly of Midas may seem to be so self-evident that none could ever be foolish enough to make the mistakes that he makes, in reality we find that our society even in our supposedly enlightened modern age has in fact rejected many of the profound lessons illustrated in the Midas myth, and suffers from the very same horrendous consequences depicted in the ancient story of the king who failed to honor and recognize the primacy of the realm of the gods, focusing only on the gold.

One example of this pattern is seen in the refusal to acknowledge the gifts of the gods which provide blessing and the very source of life to all men and women (which we could also call the "gifts of nature"), such as the abundance of the soil or the abundance of mineral wealth beneath the soil, by some who would argue that these gifts of nature or the gods "belong" to some and not to others, and can and should be "privatized" so that their abundance redounds only to a few and not to society at large.

In an article published in April of 1891, Simon Patten -- the very first economics professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (the very first business school in any of the united states of America) -- addressed this exact problem. 

The article was entitled "Another View of the Ethics of Land Tenure," and it was published in the International Journal of Ethics (pages 354 - 370). Note the word ethics in both the title of Simon Patten's article and in the title of the journal in which the article was published: Patten alleged that the failure he illustrates in this article, the failure to recognize and acknowledge and account for the gifts of nature (which the ancients might have also called the gifts of the gods) is an ethical failure. We might note that it is an ethical failure in exactly the same way that the failures Midas illustrates in the Midas myth are also ethical failures -- and the consequences can be equally disastrous.

In his article, Patten provides the example of fields under cultivation to provide food crops. He explicitly states that this example is only one of many others that could be used, but that it is a fairly easy way to illustrate the point he is trying to make, which also applies in other parts of the economy.

He asks the reader to consider the fact that different soils will naturally yield different harvests, depending on a variety of factors including the quality of the land, the amount of rain received at different times during the growing season, and so forth. He then notes that as society grows in number, more land will have to be brought under cultivation in order to provide more food, with the best land usually being brought under cultivation first, and later as the needs of society increase, land with poorer prospects may have to be planted with crops, even though at first that land was not deemed to be as worthy of the effort.

At the same time, however, he notes that the market for wages paid to the workers on the various plots of land will tend to fall towards the price that makes economic sense for the least-productive plots of land. A farmer hiring laborers for a low-yielding piece of land will not be able to afford to pay those laborers prices that are higher than what the relatively low output of the field can support. This will tend to benefit the farmers hiring laborers for their higher-yielding pieces of land, because they can then pay wages that are about as low, or just as low, as that paid to the workers hired on the lower-yielding land.

If this seems confusing, just imagine the situation at an empty parking lot, where large numbers of migrant workers are sitting around in the early morning in their sweatshirts and work boots, blowing on their hands in order to try to keep their fingertips warm, and hoping that farmers will drive up and hire some of them for the day. When various farmers show up to hire laborers, the farmer owning a field that can produce 400 bushels per acre per year will not offer a wage that is higher than the wage that is offered by the farmer owning a field that can only produce 325 bushels per acre per year. If the farmer from the less-productive field can afford to offer X dollars per hour, then the farmer from the more-productive field can also offer X dollars per hour. 

The workers waiting in the parking lot do not ask, "How productive is your field?" when they are offered a job, and they have no way of knowing whether they are being taken to a more-productive or less-productive field when they agree to work for the day and drive off to the respective locations.

Note that this means that everyone with more productive fields will then be getting labor at a cost that gives them a greater margin of profit, basically as a benefit from the extra yield that comes not from better labor but rather from nature (or, as we might say, from the blessings bestowed by the gods -- in the case of crops, from the goddess Demeter and from the blessings of the sun and the rain and in fact the blessing of more men and women having babies in the society). 

This extra bounty from nature (or from the realm of the gods) will go directly to the land owner, and not to the laborers or to society at large (even though it was the growth of society that necessitated bringing more marginal land under cultivation, creating the lower wages that the owner of the better land can then bank as an extra profit margin). The benefit will remain private, even though it was obtained not by work but as a blessing from the divine realm.  

As Professor Patten, that first economics professor in the first business school in the united states of America, explained in his article in the journal of ethics:

If all wealth was produced by labor alone, then the value of a workman to society would be a just measure of the claim that each workman has upon the wealth that society has to distribute. But nature helps in the production of wealth as well as man, and at the end of each productive period society has to distribute the wealth produced by man, plus the wealth produced by nature. To illustrate, in the case of gland, the poorest land means the land where nature does the least to aid man to produce food. The measure of the differences in soil is the difference win the aid of nature in production. If on the poorest land a man can raise 325 bushels of wheat, while on the best he can raise 400 bushels, the aid of nature on the best land is greater than that given to the poorest land by the equivalent of 75 bushels. [. . .] The difference between the better coal and iron mines, water-powers, and other natural resources, and the poorest of these in use, is due to nature [. . .].

With every increase of the number of workmen, some of them work under conditions where they get less aid from nature, and if the value of each man is fixed by what society would lose if he ceased to work, then the value of all laborers is equal to what they could produce, if all of them worked on as poor land or with as poor instruments of production as the few laborers use that are at the margin of cultivation [that is to say, they will be getting paid a wage that is equal to the X dollars per hour mentioned above, a price that is set by the affordability of labor on the lowest-producing land that is being forced into production by the needs of society]. All the increase of wealth due to fertile fields or productive mines would be taken gradually from workmen with the growth of population, and given to more favored persons whose shares are not reduced by the use of poorer land. These privileged classes would then enjoy all the advantages due to better natural resources or to more productive instruments of other kinds. When it is said that the workingman under these conditions gets all he is worth to society, the term "society," if analyzed, means only the more favored classes who are contrasted with the workmen. They pay each laborer only the utility of the last laborer to them, and get the whole produce of the nation minus this amount. 365 - 366.

This is the very pattern, if we think about it for a bit, that characterized the folly of Midas, the king who failed to acknowledge and recognize and honor the very god of music when judging a contest of musical skill. The problem that Simon Patten was explaining -- a problem he explicitly identifies as an ethical problem -- is the structuring of society in such a way as to privatize the gifts of nature, distributing them more and more to the owners of the fields and mines at the expense of those working in the fields and the mines. 

Patten actually argues that the profit should indeed go to the owners of the land, but that a claim should be assessed on such profits (in the form of taxes) in order to return part of that value to the laborer (the implication being that the tax burden should be upon passive income and in particular land tenancy of cropland or mining land which receive the benefits of nature, rather than placing the tax burden upon labor).  He writes:

If a laborer loses twenty dollars a year by a social change [such those just illustrated in his example], he is restored to his former condition, if the state pays twenty dollars of his school bills, or if it improves his sanitary condition so that he pays less doctor bills to that amount. He would also be put on his former footing, if the streets were improved so that he could live in places with lower rent, or if the cost of transportation was reduced so that he could get his food and fuel more cheaply. 367.

An astute reader who disagrees with Patten might argue that the owner of the better land, who is benefiting from the cheaper labor, probably had to pay more per acre for that better land than did the owner of the poorer-quality land, and this will often be the case. But, the fact that in this country the mortgage debt used to purchase such real estate can be deducted from taxes enables borrowing greater amounts than would otherwise be borrowed to make such purchases, and means that the additional productivity provided over and above the labor (by the gifts of nature, or the gifts of the gods, depending on your choice of terminology) will again be captured by the land owner, as well as the bank to which the interest on the loan is paid, rather than to society, leaving the laborer out of the equation and thus privatizing what is actually a gift from nature, or the gods.

This argument from Simon Patten is included as part of the larger argument made by Professor Michael Hudson, in his 2015 book Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy (see, for example, pages 83 - 86). 

In that book, Professor Hudson provides a plethora of counter-arguments to objections such as the one just mentioned, and many others as well. He explains that many classical economists sought to place the tax burden on areas where natural monopolies enable the collection of economic rents, beginning for example with the French Physiocrats in the 1750s, who proposed taxing land rent (and only land rent) in order to, as Dr. Hudson puts it, "collect what nature provided freely (sunlight and land) and hence what should belong to the public sector as the tax base" (48). 

As it stands today, however, the bounty that ancient society would have seen as flowing from the realm of the gods (the sun and rain and soil and waterways, and the treasures of gems and minerals and chemicals deep beneath the surface, each of which is presided over by multiple gods and goddesses, nymphs and naiads and other beings proper to the spirit realm) is often seen or described as wasted or squandered if it resides in the public sphere, by those who believe all these gifts should be privatized for the benefit of individual owners and corporations rather than to society at large.  

Even more hideously, countries or leaders who have resisted the demands that the wealth of that country should also be privatized (usually by people and corporations from the outside) have found themselves threatened with regime change, or have had their countries invaded and in many cases the leaders of those countries met with a violent death. 

This pattern has played out in Iran in the 1950s, in Afghanistan during the 1970s and 1980s, in Libya in 2011, and in numerous countries in Central and South America over the past several decades (to name just a few of many other examples of this very same pattern). The option of seeing the riches of minerals or oil under the surface as a gift from nature (or from the gods of mining and metallurgy and underground riches, such as Hephaestus or Plouton) to benefit the public as a whole was not allowed: such riches could only be privatized, and wars would be  (and continue to be) started in order to enforce privatization of nature's bounty to a given country as the only allowable option.

But it is not the only option -- it is not even the most life-affirming option. As Midas found out when he was offered one wish from the gods, and then focused only upon gaining more wealth, the refusal to observe the proper order, and the refusal to acknowledge the gifts that flow from the gods, only ends up  making us bestial, as well as objectifying and deadening everything around us, and ourselves as well.

Professor Hudson in his book even compares the situation to the myth of Midas, saying: 

Ancient mythology asked how King Midas could survive with nothing to eat but his gold. This threatens to be a metaphor for today's finance capitalism -- a dream that one can live purely off money, without means of production and living labor. To avoid this fate, the remedy must add financial reform to the 19th century's unfinished revolution to sweep away the surviving inequities of post-feudal land grabbing, seizure of the Commons and creation of monopoly privileges. Tese are the vestiges of the past appropriations and insider dealing that underlie rent seeking and endowed a financial system that remains grounded in neofeudal practice instead of investing in industry and human well being. 398.

Even when his folly had reached its peak, and threatened to destroy everything he loved (and his own life as well), Midas did not find himself beyond mercy or beyond remedy for all he had done. He was permitted to go find the source of the stream, and dunk his head in it three times. 

I believe that stream was a celestial stream, and that it thus represents a spiritual solution -- because the problem at hand is in fact a spiritual problem, and a moral and ethical one.

In his 1891 essay, Professor Patten of the Wharton School asks, "What ethical principals should we accept to bring our actions into harmony with the moral law?" 363.

This is actually an extremely well-framed question. By "the moral law," I would argue that Professor Patten means the same thing that the ancients would have recognized as the law of the gods -- the very powers inhabiting the very realm from which flows all that we have here in the material plane, including sun, rain, food, crops, babies, and life itself.

As Midas discovered, failing to answer that question properly can have disastrous consequences. 

But as the ancient myth also teaches us, the consequences can be repaired, if we turn back towards the source, and immerse ourselves in it.

The bad judgment of King Midas, and what it teaches us

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

King Midas is a well-known figure from ancient Greek mythology famed for his bad judgment.

He is most remembered for his request, when granted one wish by the god Dionysus, that everything he touched would turn to gold -- a request which, when granted, made him so giddy with happiness that he could hardly believe what he thought to be his good fortune. As everyone knows, however, he soon came to regret that awful request.

There is another episode from ancient myth in which Midas again displays his bad judgment, this time when he was asked to judge a competition of musical skill between Apollo -- the very god of music who isreferred to in some ancient texts as Apollo Musagetes, a title which signifies "leader of the Muses" (see for instance Diodorus Siculus Book I and chapter 18, fifth sentence, which you can read online here) -- and a satyr (in some accounts a satyr named Marsyas, and in others the god Pan himself). 

Apollo of course played upon a lyre, and the satyr upon the pan-pipes, and in some accounts Midas, the King of Phrygia, was appointed to be the judge of the contest, while in other accounts it was the mountain of Timolus itself (or the god of that mountain) which was to be the judge. In those accounts, Timolus wisely judged that Apollo was the winner, but Midas loudly disagreed with him and indicated that the satyr was the more skilled, while in the accounts in which Midas alone was the judge, he also unwisely selected the satyr as the winner of the contest -- and as a punishment, Apollo gave Midas the ears of an ass, saying that the dull judgement of Midas and his lack of discernment in hearing should from then onwards be visible for all to see. 

Both of these episodes have clear celestial foundations, and add to the overwhelming body of evidence which supports the conclusion that virtually all the world's ancient myths, scriptures, and sacred stories are built upon a system of celestial metaphor, in order to impart deep knowledge about the simultaneously "material-spiritual" universe in which we find ourselves, as well as our own inherently dual material-spiritual nature as men and women. 

In fact, not only do I believe that overwhelming evidence points to the fact that virtually all the world's ancient myths are built upon celestial metaphor involving the constellations and heavenly cycles, but I also believe the evidence indicates that they are all built upon the same system of celestial metaphor -- a common, worldwide system which appears to indicate that they all somehow share the same common source. 

This common system unites the ancient myths and sacred stories of all the varied cultures from around the world and across the millennia -- and should in fact be seen as uniting us all as men and women sharing an incredible common inheritance of tremendous value.

In fact, in both of the above episodes involving King Midas and his terrible judgment, we can see very clear echoes to two other well known "judgment myths" or sacred stories involving very much the same theme: the famous "Judgment of Paris," which ultimately leads to the Trojan War, and the equally-famous "Judgment of Solomon," in which -- unlike both Midas and Paris -- King Solomon displays right judgment when presented with a very similar choice.

In the Judgment of Solomon episode, the most famous aspect of the story involves two mothers and two babies, one of them alive and one of them dead, and Solomon's wisdom in solving the dilemma with which he is faced, in which each of the mothers claim that the living child belongs to her. However, as this previous post discusses in more detail, the famous scene with the two mothers as told in the text of I Kings chapter 3 actually follows immediately from a previous episode in the same chapter, found immediately preceding the two mothers scene, in which Solomon in a dream is visited by the Most High, who asks Solomon what he would like to be given.

This offer very much parallels the offer made to Midas in the myths of ancient Greece, in which Dionysus also offers to grant one request to Midas. Midas unwisely asks for unlimited riches -- specifically, the power to turn everything he touches into pure gold. In contrast, Solomon asks for a wise and understanding heart, so that he can be a better ruler on behalf of the people -- and the text tells us that this request pleases the Lord, who says:

Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life [literally: "many days"]; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
Behold, I have done according to thy words [. . .]
And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honor: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. (I Kings 3: 11 - 13).

Note that Solomon's request for wisdom and discerning judgment is contrasted with other possible choices, including riches, honor, long life, or power over his enemies. Clearly, this story has points of resonance with with the story of Midas, who unwisely asked the divine Dionysus for the equivalent of riches -- with disastrous results.

In similar manner, in the episode from Greek myth known as the Judgment of Paris, the youth of the same name (Paris, a prince of Troy) is presented with a contest of beauty among three goddesses, each of whom offers him a reward if he will select her. The rewards offered to Paris by the three goddesses include rulership and power (offered by Hera), heroism and fame (offered by Athena), and the most beautiful woman in the world to be his bride (offered by Aphrodite). 

As we know, Paris selected Aphrodite and in doing so launched the Trojan War, because the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, was already married to a king of the Achaeans, and all the other Achaean kings and heroes had previously promised to defend whichever among them would be so fortunate as to have won the right to marry Helen.

This disastrous decision by Paris again has clear echoes with the judgment offered to Solomon -- who decided not to request riches or honor, but rather asked for wisdom, and who was told that because of this choice, he would also be given those things for which he did not ask, such as riches and honor.

The episode in the Midas story which perhaps resembles the Judgment of Paris even more closely is the  episode in which Midas must judge the musical contest between Apollo and either the satyr Marsyas or the god Pan -- because in both of those myths, there is an actual contest involved. Midas, clearly an exemplar of bad judgment, fails to recognize the god Apollo as the winner -- the very deity from whom all skill and talent in music proceeds in the first place. Thus, Midas inverts the proper order of things, disrespecting the divine source, and is punished by being given the ears of an animal (in this case, the long hairy ears of an ass or donkey).

Interestingly enough, this punishment brings to mind a masterpiece of esoteric fiction written by the later Roman author Apuleius (who appears to have been an initiate into the Mysteries of Isis, as well as perhaps other mystery schools). That story was originally called the Metamorphoses (not to be confused with the more famous work of the same title by Ovid), but the Metamorphoses of Apuleius is more commonly known as The Golden Tale of the Ass, or simply The Golden Ass. In that story, the narrator (Lucius) is himself transformed into an ass, and undergoes a series of outrageous adventures before he is restored to his original form by the goddess Isis herself.

Not only is the condition of Lucius when transformed into an ass reminiscent of the fate of Midas who is given long ass-ears for his lack of judgment, but the restoration of Lucius comes not long after a climactic episode in which Lucius witnesses a re-enactment in a Roman arena of the mythical episode of the Judgment of Paris itself! Thus, it would appear that the theme of "judging or discerning rightly or wrongly" is very much central to the tale of Lucius in The Golden Ass -- and that Apuleius himself understood the important thematic connection between the Judgment of Midas (in which King Midas ends up receiving donkey-ears, just as Lucius in the story is turned into a donkey) and the Judgment of Paris (the very episode Lucius sees enacted just before his own restoration, and an episode in which Paris brought "damnation upon mankind" by his desire to possess another man's wife, in the words of Apuleius -- an interesting way of viewing the story of the Judgment of Paris).

The fact that Paris in that beauty contest selects the winner by giving her an apple is extremely interesting -- especially because the mystery initiate Apuleius says that the disastrous choice of Paris brought "damnation upon mankind." We can all probably think of another ancient episode involving an apple (or other unspecified fruit) which was said to have brought damnation upon mankind as well. 

I believe that all these ancient mythological episodes can be shown to be built upon celestial metaphor -- and therefore to be esoteric in nature, designed to impart knowledge to us about our own inner connection to the infinite realm: our own spiritual nature, even encased as we are in a material (animal) body of flesh during this life. 

The story of King Midas can be shown to relate to very specific constellations in our night sky (and constellations which are in fact visible at this very time of year, during the end of the month of October).

In the story of the disastrous request for the gift of the golden touch, several ancient sources tell us that Midas was at first overjoyed at the granting of his request, but soon realized to his horror that he could neither eat nor drink anything without it also turning to gold (a situation which would soon end in his own death as well).

In some versions of the story, the king's own daughter runs up to embrace her father and is herself transformed into solid gold. This particular aspect of the story does not seem to be present in many of the most ancient accounts, but it is perhaps the most well-known part of the King Midas story today.

In almost every ancient version of the myth, Midas prays to heaven (in some versions to Dionysus, who had originally granted Midas one request, and in other versions to Apollo) to have the curse of the golden touch taken away from him, and is told to go immerse himself at the source of the river Pactolus (which is found at the aforementioned Mount Timolus). In some versions of the story, Midas is to immerse his head three times in the river at its source. Thereupon, all the things which had been turned to gold by Midas after his terrible choice were restored to their original condition -- and the river Pactolus from then on had golden sands which often yielded up gold flakes or gold nuggets.

For a variety of reasons, I believe it is almost certain that this story of King Midas is founded upon the constellation Perseus, who is presently rising above the eastern horizon in the hours after midnight. Perseus is a constellation who is located near the very "top" of the Milky Way band as it arches across the sky, on the far side of the galactic trail from the brightest and widest part found between Sagittarius and Scorpio (the galactic core). Thus, it can be envisioned as the "upper reaches" of the galactic river -- allegorized in the myth as the upper source of the river Pactolus. 

There, Perseus can be clearly seen to be immersing himself in the river -- or even dunking his head in it! Here is a star chart with the constellation Perseus outlined in yellow, presented first unlabeled and then below it labeled:

Can you see the brilliant arc of the Milky Way band? In real life, if you go outside into the night sky, you will see this arc going over your head, beginning at the western horizon (on the right side of the image above) and crossing the center of the sky towards the east where you will see Perseus (on the left side of the image above). This image is from the perspective of a viewer in the northern hemisphere, looking towards the south.

Below is the exact same image, but this time the figure of Perseus (playing the role of King Midas) is outlined and labeled, rising out of the east. Now we can see why the myth tells us that he went to the source of the river Pactolus, and there he immersed his head (or his entire body, depending on the ancient account):

The most dramatic part of the episode of Midas and his golden touch, of course, comes when his daughter runs to him and is herself turned to gold, to the king's horror. This aspect of the myth is almost certainly inspired by the outstretched arm of Perseus on the western side of the constellation (the right side as we face the image above). That part of the constellation reaches out towards and almost touches the constellation Andromeda, representing a beautiful maiden in many myths:

Can you see how the story of Midas touching his daughter can be clearly seen in the above constellations? We can be very thankful that the god allowed Midas to change his mind and restore all that he had previously turned to gold, by immersing himself in the river!

I believe that the very same constellations that form the basis for the disastrous golden touch episode also play the main parts in the episode of the Judgment of Midas between the music of the god Apollo and either the satyr Marsyas or the god Pan.

Now, instead of playing the beautiful daughter of the king, the constellation Andromeda actually plays the role of the satyr, with arching tail and pan-pipes. Can you look at the image above and see which parts of the constellation play the role of the tail of the satyr, and the pan-pipes?

My interpretation of the story is seen in the star-chart below:

It is notable that the contest takes place in the vicinity of Mount Timolus (or Tmolus), which is also the source of the river Pactolus -- indicating that we are still in the same place in the sky (because Midas went to Pactolus' source at Timolus to dunk his head in the stream).

Look at some of the classical paintings from later centuries shown below, where we can see that the posture and attitude of Midas is very reminiscent of the constellation Perseus with its outstretched arm (sometimes envisioned as a sword or a wand):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the above image, Midas can be easily identified by his pointed ass-ears. He is reaching towards Pan with his wand to indicate that he believes Pan to be the winner of the contest rather than the god Apollo. Apollo can be seen playing a viola instead of his usual ancient Lyre in this painting (from the early 1600s).

Below is another example, from the late 1800s:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Note in the above image that the pan-pipes are held aloft, in a manner very reminiscent of the way the constellation Andromeda holds up the part of the constellation that I believe can be identified as the pan-pipes in the constellation (when playing the role of the satyr Marsyas or the god Pan). Note also that Apollo in this painting exhibits the characteristic of "walking away while looking back" -- a very distinctive feature of the constellation Sagittarius found in countless ancient myths from around the world. I believe for a great number of reasons that Sagittarius frequently plays the role of the god Apollo -- and I discuss these reasons in detail in Star Myths of the World, Volume Two (which focuses almost entirely on the myths of ancient Greece).

For those still not fully convinced that the constellation Andromeda, usually envisioned in myth as a beautiful maiden, can also play the role of a satyr (as the constellation does in this episode of the Judgment of Midas), please observe the characteristic "arching tail" of the satyr in the ancient Greek artwork below, which corresponds very well to the "upper leg" of the constellation Andromeda (which is labeled as "tail" in the star-chart above):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Recall also that in the story of King Midas, after his poor judgment in the music contest involving the god of music himself, the hapless king receives ass's ears as a punishment and a sign of his brutish lack of discernment. In almost every ancient version of the story, the detail is included that the king usually tried to hide his deformity beneath a tall cap -- known specifically as a "Phrygian cap" (King Midas, after all, was the King of Phrygia).

Note that the constellation of Perseus, as outlined in the star-charts above and as labeled in the chart below, does indeed feature a tall, peaked cap! This is only evident if you follow the inspired outlines suggested by H. A. Rey and discussed in this previous post (among other posts and also my published books as well).

This celestial detail should pretty much cement the identification of Midas King of Phrygia with the constellation Perseus in these mythical episodes.

Below is an image of a classic Phrygian cap, for those not familiar with them. Note that in many cases, the cap has "ear flaps" which can perhaps be envisioned in the constellation outline as seen above.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Significantly, the above figure from an ancient temple is thought to represent Paris -- the very character responsible for the disastrous judgment that led to the Trojan War! The ear-flaps on his Phrygian cap appear to be "tied up" so that they will not hang down, in this particular case.

And, if all of the above discussion does not thoroughly establish that Midas in these myths is associated with Perseus the constellation, there is also the fact that Perseus is almost directly above the constellation Taurus in the sky -- and that the long horns of the constellation Taurus could sometimes in ancient myth be envisioned as the long ears of an ass instead of the long ears of a bull. For this reason Perseus-characters in many myths are described as riding upon an ass or donkey -- as Balaam is described as doing in another Old Testament story, this time from the book of Judges (see extended discussion here, containing star-charts showing the horns of Taurus immediately below Perseus). 

This connection adds still more weight to the mountain of evidence we have already discovered linking Midas to Perseus, and linking the Midas episodes described above to the region of the sky surrounding Perseus.

This discussion should help to firmly establish the argument that the world's myths are all in fact closely related, and built upon a common system of celestial metaphor. The purpose of this ancient system is, I am convinced, to impart to our deep understanding the true nature of the simultaneously material and spiritual universe in which we find ourselves, and the simultaneously material and spiritual nature of the human condition. 

In the Midas story, we see powerful illustrations of the teaching that we are not advised to contact the invisible realm for the purpose of acquiring wealth or riches. Midas is given a wish by the god Dionysus, and can ask for anything he chooses -- and Midas chooses unwisely.

In contrast, Solomon is approached by the Lord in a dream and similarly offered anything Solomon wishes to request -- and Solomon does not ask for riches, or for harm to his enemies, or long life. I believe that one way to interpret this story is that we are strongly advised not to use our contact with the invisible or the divine realm in order to try to obtain riches for ourselves, or power over others.

Instead, Solomon asks for wisdom in order to help others: this request is in fact a proper request to make of the divine and the infinite.

Midas with his animal ears is a picture of our own condition in this world, entangled with an "animal nature" and prone to becoming seduced by that which is material and that which is lower -- instead of seeking that which is spiritual, which is in fact the true source and fount of everything which we see manifested in the material realm. The mistaken judgment of Midas in the contest with Apollo is a dramatic example of this failure to acknowledge the true divine source from which everything flows and has its fount (in this case, Apollo is the divine source of music, but Midas fails to acknowledge this truth).

Failing to acknowledge and properly value the infinite realm, the spirit world, the divine -- or trying to use it for personal gain or destruction of one's opponents --  leads to objectification of oneself and others, turning us and them into objects, as Midas ends up doing to his own daughter after his disastrous wish for gold.

The ancient myths provide us with powerful teaching to help us to overcome the "Midas condition" and elevate our spiritual awareness, and to put us in touch with the true divine source which we should acknowledge and recognize and revere and uplift.

I am convinced that our ability to hear their powerful message is greatly enhanced when we begin to understand the celestial language that they are speaking.

Evidence in the World's Myths for a Lost Ancient Civilization

Here is a new video I just published entitled "Evidence in the World's Myths for a Lost Ancient Civilization," posted on October 13, 2016.

It discusses the indisputable evidence in archaeology for an advanced ancient civilization existing over 12,000 years ago -- even though the guardians of the conventional historical paradigm continue to have difficulty admitting it (or changing their dating for ancient colossal monuments such as the Great Sphinx at Giza).

The video also discusses the evidence arguing for an advanced ancient civilization, prior to ancient Egypt and Sumer, which is found in the Star Myths of the world -- and the common system of celestial metaphor to which both ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia can be shown to have been heirs, along with virtually all the other known cultures on our planet.

For some additional posts on this and related topics, please see:

• "Paging Dr. Zaius"

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

• "The predictive power of the Star Myth system"

• "H. A. Rey outlines the ancient wisdom"

• "What I describe in Star Myths of the Bible has already been proclaimed in art for centuries -- even millennia!"

Geology, mythology, cataclysms, and the world's ancient wisdom

Photo from 1859 showing Sphinx buried in the sand, with only the head protruding, Wikimedia commons (link).

In the late 1970s, the pioneering researcher, author, lecturer, guide and "rogue Egyptologist" John Anthony West published Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt. There, he set forth a revolutionary proclamation: overwhelming evidence points to the conclusion that "Egypt did not 'develop' her civilization, but inherited it."

In the final chapter of that book, he set forth evidence that the weathering on the Sphinx indicates a date of original construction far older than the conventional dating for its construction or conception between 2500 BC and 2600 BC (conventional history dates the construction of the Sphinx to the reign of Khafra aka Chepren, c. 2570 BC). 

John Anthony West attributes the germ of this revolutionary idea to a comment included in a book published in the early 1960s in France (and not yet published in English when Serpent in the Sky was first written) by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, entitled Sacred Science: the King of Pharaonic Theocracy (published in France in 1961 as Le Roi de la theocratie Pharaonique, first published in English in 1982). 

There, on page 96, Schwaller writes:

A great civilization must have preceded the vast movements of water that passed over Egypt, which leads us to assume that the Sphinx already existed, sculptured in the rock of the west cliff at Gizeh, that Sphinx whose leonine body, except for the head, shows indisputable signs of aquatic erosion.

At this point, Schwaller includes a footnote, where he continues:

It is maintained that this erosion was wrought by desert sands, but the entire body of the Sphinx is protected from all desert winds coming from the West, the only winds that could effect erosion. Only the head protrudes from this hollow, and it shows no signs of erosion. [footnote 28 on page 96].

Schwaller then goes on to cite some ancient sources saying that the Sphinx was actually buried in the sand even in ancient times, and that pharaohs (specifically Thothmes IV, an 18th dynasty king who reigned until his death which may have been in 1391 BC, and who is thought to have been the father of Amenhotep III, the father of Akhenaten, thus making Thothmes or Thutmose IV the grandfather of Akhenaten) were visited in dreams and advised to clear away this sand buildup, a task that Schwaller suggests probably took place more than once over the centuries during dynastic Egypt.

All of this, John West perceived, meant that the Sphinx must be much older than 2500 or 2600 BC (to have sustained such weathering, despite spending long centuries buried up to the neck in sand -- and, what is more, to have sustained weathering that strongly suggests watererosion rather than wind erosion). 

John Anthony West's realization of the significance of this remark by Schwaller de Lubicz was absolutely essential to the research which was to follow, regarding the evidence pointing to the existence of advanced ancient civilizations centuries or even millennia before dynastic Egypt.

Equally significant was the move that John West made next, after publishing the first edition of Serpent in the Sky: he contacted a friend who was an English professor at Boston University, to see if that professor knew any geology professors who might be interested in looking at the evidence in order to help corroborate this revolutionary hypothesis. 

Fortunately for those who value the quest to uncover the true story of our planet's past and humanity's ancient history, that English professor decided put geologist Dr. Robert Schoch in touch with John Anthony West -- a Yale-trained professor who was open-minded enough to travel to Egypt to see the Sphinx for himself in 1990 . . . and the rest is history.

Dr. Schoch confirmed that the body of the Sphinx as well as the walls of the Sphinx "enclosure" showed unmistakable signs of water erosion -- and not just a little water erosion, but what may have been many centuries of water erosion. Because the available evidence and the accepted climate models  posit that the Giza plateau has been extremely dry and arid since at least 5,000 BC, this undeniable evidence of massive water erosion on the Sphinx suggests that it was originally conceived and created no later than 5,000 BC, and by the extent of the weathering probably several centuries or even millennia earlier than that.

Along with his lifelong curiosity about ancient history and his extensive training and expertise in the field of geology, Dr. Schoch has the ability to see important connections between different sites and different evidence which relates to this critical subject, and in the decades since that first trip to Egypt he has published many books detailing this evidence, and its revolutionary implications for our view of humanity's ancient past, including Voices of the Rocks (1999) and Forgotten Civilization (2012), and he will be releasing a new book written with co-author Robert Bauval and detailing additional developments which support the overall thesis in March of 2017, entitled Origins of the Sphinx: Celestial Guardian of Pre-Pharaonic Civilization.

When Dr. Schoch first lent his expertise in geology to the observations of John Anthony West (who caught the idea from Schwaller de Lubicz's 1961 articulation of the idea) beginning in 1990, the idea that a culture capable of creating the Sphinx could have existed prior to 5,000 BC was so revolutionary that it was attacked mercilessly by conventional Egyptologists as well as conventional historians, archaeologists, and defenders of the prevailing paradigm that argues humans were primitive hunter-gatherers or nomadic shepherds and herders prior to the first agricultural civilizations in the third or fourth millennia BC. As the pioneering geologist supporting that idea, Dr. Schoch's work and professional reputation were also viciously attacked by the same defenders of the conventional paradigm.

However, the evidence for the existence of extremely sophisticated civilizations prior to 5,000 BC received incredible confirmation in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the excavation of the complex at the site known today as Gobekli Tepi, which dates to at least 10,000 BC, and which was deliberately buried for reasons unknown by massive amounts of transported dirt, rubble and debris not later than about 8,000 BC. 

This fact of the burial of the site means that whatever civilization conceived of and executed the breathtaking artwork and massive but exquisitely engineered stones in the Gobekli Tepi complex must have done so well before 8,000 BC.

This discovery vindicates the arguments of Robert Schoch and John Anthony West (and Schwaller de Lubicz) about the evident antiquity of the Sphinx, and the undeniable evidence pointing to the existence of an incredibly sophisticated ancient culture long before conventional historical timelines will admit to such a possibility.

I had the opportunity to listen to both Robert Schoch and John Anthony West deliver terrific presentations at the 2016 Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge about two weeks ago, and it is no exaggeration to say that the magnitude of the importance of the paradigm shift which they and subsequent researchers have ushered in since the first publication of Serpent in the Sky in 1979 is difficult to quantify.

All those who realize the importance of better understanding the true story of the ancient history of our planet and of humanity should be extremely grateful for the insight -- and the courage -- that both of them have displayed in tackling this vital question, and the graciousness with which they both continue to share their knowledge with the world. The discovery at Gobekli Tepi was not even dreamed about when their study of the Sphinx began -- but fortunately their earlier work (and earlier "trial by fire" of defending their observations and insights) enabled them to immediately grasp its significance and see how it (and other evidence around the world) may fit into the big picture, and their work also set the stage for subsequent researchers and enabled new insights from others who have brought other new evidence to light.

It should at this point be widely accepted that some sort of very advanced and very sophisticated civilization existed on this planet thousands of years prior to the time that the conventional paradigm has been telling us that human civilization first appeared.

In addition to the overwhelming geological evidence and overwhelming archaeologicalevidence which points to such a conclusion, I would like to suggest that there is also undeniable mythological evidence which supports the very same conclusion of an advanced but now forgotten ancient civilization.

As I have detailed with several hundred examples in this blog and in my multi-volume series Star Myths of the World, and how to interpret them (Volumes One, Two and Three so far, totaling 1,966 pages) as well as The Undying Stars (444 more pages of evidence), the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories found in virtually every culture on our planet, on every inhabited continent and island, can be shown to share a common foundation which employs a very specific way of looking at the constellations and celestial cycles, and a very specific way of encoding those constellations and cycles into myth.

This system can be shown to be operating in myths and sacred stories from Africa, Australia, ancient China, ancient India, ancient Japan, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, northern Europe, other parts of Asia, the Americas, and across the length and breadth of the Pacific.

Elements of myth-systems founded upon this metaphorical methodology can be seen in the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt, dated to the period between 2300 BC and 2400 BC -- and it is fairly evident that the system was already extremely mature and well understood at that point in time (it was not being introduced for the first time in the Pyramid Texts: of that we can be fairly certain). 

Clear examples of this same worldwide system can be seen to be in full operation throughout the Gilgamesh series of myths found in the cuneiform tablets of ancient Sumer and Babylon, some of them thought to have been etched in the same third millennium BC that saw the inscription of the Pyramid Texts in Egypt.

Star Myths of the World, Volume One, gives some examples and explication of the celestial system as it is seen in these ancient texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia.

But Volume One also provides conclusive evidence that this very same system of celestial metaphor can be seen to be at work in the sacred stories of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia -- thought to be one of the oldest continuous cultures to be found anywhere on the planet, with some scholars attributing their arrival in Australia to dates of unbelievable antiquity, perhaps 45,000 years ago or even earlier according to some theories. It is thought that their culture may easily go back 10,000 years in fairly unbroken succession, making the Aboriginal people of Australia contenders for the title of very oldest continuous and surviving culture to be found anywhere on Earth. 

If they somehow possess this same system, then this seems to be strong evidence arguing for an origin in extreme antiquity, perhaps among the now-forgotten civilizations or cultures responsible for the Sphinx and for the ruins at what we know today as Gobekli Tepi. It is possible to argue that the Aborigines of Australia or their predecessors originated the system, and somehow spread it to all the other cultures of the world in the subsequent millennia, but given the general consensus regarding the relative isolation of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia from ongoing contact with peoples on other continents, this hypothesis seems to be less likely at this time.

It seems to be much more likely that some very sophisticated ancient culture (both technologically sophisticated -- judging by the incredible workmanship at Gobekli Tepi and Giza, as well as their apparent understanding of phenomena such as precession and other advanced astronomical and mathematical concepts -- and also  spiritually sophisticated, judging by the beauty and power and subtlety of the worldwide esoteric system of myth and celestial metaphor) was nearly wiped out by some sort of massive catastrophe that may have operated on a global scale, at some time in the distant past (probably earlier than 9000 BC).

Robert Schoch puts forth reasoned arguments backed up by ice-core data and scientific papers published in academic journals which indicate the possibility of a Coronal Mass Ejection from our Sun at a point in time he believes would correspond to 9700 BC. For details of his argument, please see his book Forgotten Civilization, and also his online article here. 

Other researchers have proposed comet strikes or other catastrophes. Longtime readers of this blog and of my first book will know that I myself also believe there is overwhelming evidence on our planet which points to one or more cataclysms of almost unimaginable violence in Earth's distant past.

Intriguingly enough, the sacred site known as Painted Rock (located in the same county in California where I live and make my domicile), appears to provide important additional evidence supporting the revolutionary paradigm of ancient human history described above. I have written two extensive blog posts about this incredibly significant ancient sacred site -- most recently this post published earlier this week, as well as this post published about a year ago.

Even conventional archaeologists agree that Painted Rock, located in a long narrow valley known today as the Carrizo Plain, and the surrounding country was a site of extensive human occupation and activity stretching back to at least 10,000 years before the present (to at least 8,000 BC). 

That date in itself is obviously significant in regards to the paradigm of ancient human history -- but even more so because the Painted Rock formation itself is home to a class of unusual and distinctive rock art which (even in its tragically damaged and vandalized condition) bears the unmistakeable evidence of the very same system of constellational outlining that informs the myths, scriptures and sacred stories found everywhere else in the world, from Australia to Africa to ancient China to ancient India, ancient Japan, ancient Greece, ancient Mesopotamia, across the Pacific Islands, and even in just about every story in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible!

Even in its now criminally-defaced condition, the sacred enclosure can be seen (to this very day) to display outlines that  I am convinced correspond directly to the constellations Scorpio, Ophiucus, and Aquarius (some recent photographs of these are shown in the previously linked posts). Additionally, photographs taken prior to the deliberate destruction of some of the artwork appear to indicate undeniable correspondences to the constellations Pisces, Aquila, and Gemini (and probably to others as well).

Although some scholars believe that the rock art itself may not date all the way back to 8,000 BC, that is not firmly established, and because there are datable markers of human habitation that may go back all the way to 8,000 BC, the presence of sacred rock art with clear use of recognizable constellational (and indeed zodiacal) outlines in the most distinctive rock formation in the landscape of the Carrizo Plain appears to be a strong argument for the use of these constellations in a sacred capacity in North America at dates approaching or even surpassing the antiquity of the earliest surviving Pyramid Texts of Egypt or cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia.

Perhaps equally important and intriguing is the fact that this ancient sacred stone enclosure, which preserves the rock art described above, is itself evidence of potentially catastrophic or cataclysmic geological processes in Earth's distant past.

The massive stone ring known today as Painted Rock is a sandstone extrusion located towards one edge of an elongated basin or canyon, which even now contains an alkali dry lakebed consisting of a layer of mineral salts, similar to the salt flats of Utah.

Below is a screenshot from Google Maps showing the location of Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain:

image: Google maps.

Note in the above image the white patch in the center of the plain which is the satellite image of Soda Lake, a dry lakebed composed of alkali salts in powdery form. On either side of this dry lakebed we can see ranges of mountains extending in a kind of "V-shaped" pattern that comes together in the southeast (bottom right of the screen). The upper chain of uplifted ridges or mountains is the Monte Diablo range, and it follows and is undoubtedly a product of the long, straight line of the San Andreas fault, which can be seen running alongside the southern edge of the ridgeline.

Below is the same image, with the above terrain features labeled for your convenience:

image: Google maps.

In the image, I have labeled Soda Lake and pointed towards it with a yellow arrow. I have labeled the Monte Diablo Range in a cream or tan color. And I have labeled the San Andreas Fault in bright green, with a series of small green arrows pointing to the fault line itself.

Painted Rock itself is located due south from the southernmost point of Soda Lake. 

Here is a closer view, zoomed in to the horseshoe-shaped natural stone enclosure of Painted Rock:

image: Google maps.

And here is an aerial photograph of Painted Rock, showing the same outline. Note that in the above image, we can clearly see that the opening of Painted Rock is to the north (even though Painted Rock itself looks very small in the satellite photo above). The image below, from Wikipedia, is taken from an angle that positions the opening to the lower-right corner of the screen (that way is generally north in the photo below):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Note that the upper arm of the formation as we face the image shown above is smooth and contains countless parallel striations over its surface. Most geological descriptions of this formation describe it as sandstone. 

I believe that Painted Rock shows clear signs of being a liquefaction mound, as defined and described by hydroplate theory originator Dr. Walt Brown, in a chapter of his book devoted entirely to the important geological phenomenon of liquefaction.

Liquefaction is a geological phenomenon that can be described as generally "catastrophic" in nature, or as a phenomenon that is primarily found in conjunction with catastrophic processes -- specifically earthquakes and flooding. It is a phenomenon in which the water already present in soil is forced upwards by the sinking and settling motion of the soil particles (usually caused by the vibration of earthquake forces, or by the compressing action of waves moving above the soil, if there is a body of water or an ocean above the soil in question). This upward-moving water can cause the soil particles to suddenly lose their cohesion and solidity and turn into a liquid slurry.

Here is the Wikipedia article describing liquefaction.

Here is a page in Walt Brown's online book describing liquefaction, its causes and results (in much more detail than the Wikipedia article).

And here is a blog post I published almost five years ago, discussing the evidence that the mighty terrain feature known as Uluru in Australia (also known as Ayers Rock) is a liquefaction mound, based on the discussion of this geological phenomenon presented by Dr. Brown. 

As that post (and the above-linked page from Dr. Brown's book) explain, a liquefaction mound is created when the upwelling slurry in liquefacted soil erupts out of the ground and spills out in a kind of slumped-bowl shape. You can see examples of such eruptions in photographs and videos from recent major earthquakes of the past five years, such as in Christchurch, New Zealand or Tokyo, Japan. Here is a photo of some such eruptions from Christchurch:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

As Dr. Brown explains (in a quotation I cited in my discussion of Ayers Rock / Uluru), these slushy "volcanoes" will usually wash away -- but if they happen to erupt into a basin of warm water that remains relatively still for hundreds of years and cools, the sandy mound can harden into sandstone -- and then it may survive, even after the water in the natural basin eventually breaches and drains away, or evaporates over hundreds or thousands of years. 

In fact, as I point out in that article discussing Uluru, liquefaction mounds (and their cousins, liquefaction plumes) are often found in ancient basins that once contained trapped inland lakes or seas. 

And this description matches exactly what we find in the formation of Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain (even though I was completely unaware of the existence of Painted Rock and the Carrizo Plain back in 2011 when I wrote that post about Uluru in Australia).

Clearly, Painted Rock is situated in an ancient basin -- the Carrizo Plain. 

Equally clearly, that ancient basin once held a trapped inland sea -- the dry lakebed known today as Soda Lake is unmistakable evidence of this fact (and the fact that the water in the basin probably had no outlet, leading eventually to the formation of a salt flat once the shallow inland sea dried up).

Additionally, the Carrizo Plain is traversed along its long axis by the line of the San Andreas fault -- which indicates the possibility of earthquakes in the distant past. Earthquakes are often associated with the eruption of liquefacted soil, or the creation of liquefaction mounds.

Below are some recent photographs I took of the awe-inspiring terrain feature of Painted Rock, showing that it possesses all of the attributes described by Dr. Brown in his discussion of liquefaction mounds:

The above image is looking towards the southeast, and approaching from the northwest. The opening is to the left of the photo as we face it (the leftmost portion of the formation is pointing almost due north -- our left). You can see the first-quarter waxing moon of October 08, 2016 directly above the highest portion of the liquefaction mound that forms Painted Rock. The moon in this photo is moving across the sky from the east but has yet to reach its zenith. 

Deep striation can be seen along the back of the mound's shoulder, as we face the formation, towards the right side as we view it.

It may not be easy to view from this distance, but the distinctive "undercut edge" which is seen in many liquefaction mounds (including some on the page from Dr. Brown's book, linked above) can be observed on the far right lower edge of the formation of Painted Rock. This undercut edge will be more visible in subsequent photos.

Below we see another aspect which is very characteristic of liquefaction mounds: "water vents" along the sides of the feature. These vent-holes are caused by water escaping the liquefacted soil when the mound is still erupting. They are not caused by later weathering -- and thus are not found along the top surfaces of liquefaction mounds, as we might expect if they were caused by rainfall over the centuries, for example.

The vent-holes in the side of Painted Rock as we approach it from the northwest resemble a face giving a fierce warning to all who approach (certainly appropriate, given the disrespectful vandalism that took place to the sacred site's artwork during the first part of the twentieth century):

Once again, we can clearly see the smooth striation which curves over the "shoulder" of this ancient liquefaction mound. Similar striation can be observed on Uluru / Ayers Rock in Australia.

Below is another view of the smooth striation of Painted Rock:

The very existence of this terrain feature argues that the entire Carrizo Plain was once under water, and for a long enough period of time that the erupted sand from below the surface was able to harden to the point that it would not be swept away when the water in the basin either drained out or evaporated.

Note also that the presence of massive salt deposits in the Soda Lake formation argues that the water that was trapped in the Carrizo Plain geographic feature was not "freshwater," if the mineral salt remaining in the dry lakebed was once in the water that later evaporated away and left the salts behind. Below is an image looking east towards Soda Lake (visible as a thin white stripe), with the line of the Monte Diablo range in the background:

I personally am not prepared to make an definitive pronouncements regarding the time period in which this flooding and liquefaction may have taken place. The event (or events) that produced Ayers Rock and Painted Rock and the other liquefaction features around the globe (and especially in the American southwest) may have happened long before the catastrophes that researchers such as Dr. Schoch are proposing for the event that may have disrupted the cultures that created the Sphinx or Gobekli Tepi.

However, the fact that Ayers Rock (which is far larger than Painted Rock) also appears to have been formed by similar processes (but in a basin of water that must have been much deeper and more extensive) does appear to argue for the possibility of a massive flood at some point in our planet's distant past. 

If these features in California and Australia were formed under the water remaining from the same flood, that would argue for a massive flood indeed (and note that the entire American southwest is home to numerous liquefaction features and other evidence of massive trapped ancient bodies of water).

What I am prepared to say is that the above discussion should demonstrate very clearly that the subjects of geology and of the possible ancient catastrophes which may have wracked our planet is vitally connected to the question of a now-forgotten ancient civilization. The evidence on our planet for both (for both an advanced ancient culture, and for some sort of cataclysm or cataclysms which may explain the disappearance of that culture) appears to be virtually undeniable.

Finally, it is very noteworthy (I believe) to observe that both Ayers Rock and Painted Rock are sacred sites to the indigenous cultures of the continents on which these two ancient terrain features are found. We have evidence that these places were (or are) places of contact with the Spirit Realm, and possibly with beings from the Other World.

Is it possible that there are aspects in their formation which cause these natural formations to have certain qualities that are conducive to such contact? The above discussion touched on some of the aspects of the conditions under which liquefaction mounds tend to form, usually involving the deep wave action of earthquakes or of powerful ocean waves, setting up a settling motion in the soil particles and an upwelling motion in the saturating water molecules, creating a lifting motion and sometimes an eruption of soil that has temporarily turned to liquid.

Is it possible that the liquefaction mounds themselves retain some of the structural alignments caused by these ancient low-frequency vibrations (from the earthquake or ocean wave-pounding that set them off in the first place, so long ago)? Perhaps in some way, they function as physical conductors of wave energy, even to this day.

Note also that the sacred natural rock temple of Painted Rock is located in a long, very linear valley, with the distinctive line of the San Andreas Fault itself clearly visible for many miles: a possible natural line conducting Earth energy (see this previous post on "dragon lines" and related subjects).

Clearly, ancient traditional cultures understood that these specific places on our Earth's surface could be used for making contact with or even traveling to the Invisible Realm.

Perhaps, in the year 8,000 BC (when we know men and women were conducting activity in and around Painted Rock on the Carrizo Plain), these generations who were not so far removed from the cataclysm that may have struck around the year we call 9,700 BC (or BCE) still retained much of the sophisticated understanding that informed the now-forgotten culture or cultures responsible for giving us some of the mysterious monuments we still see at significant geological locations around the globe -- and responsible as well, perhaps, for the incredible worldwide system of celestial metaphor which informs the myths of all the cultures on earth.

The other pressing question we might ask ourselves would be -- how is it that so many today have forgotten it, and how was this ancient understanding lost (or even deliberately stamped out) in so many parts of the human family at some point?

The ancient wisdom of Painted Rock

The introduction of large numbers of European settlers and colonists to the Americas had a catastrophic impact on those whose ancestors had lived here for thousands of years. Their population was decimated and their culture deliberately targeted for destruction. 

Native American cultures with a powerful and pervading understanding of the spirit world and its very real presence in all of nature and the cosmos were invaded and overrun by a culture which had lost that understanding and sense of connection, with tragic results. The devastation inflicted upon the populations and cultures of North, Central and South America fits the definition of the word genocide (a word invented in the twentieth century, after the destruction inflicted upon the Native American populations and cultures was largely completed). 

There can be no argument that literalistic interpretations of the ancient scriptures of the Bible played a role in this tragic outcome. Literalistic interpretation of scriptures that were not intended to be understood literally tends towards inversion of their esoteric message, because taking them as literal history by definition externalizes the stories, making them about literal and historical figures who lived a long time ago -- when in fact they are esoteric allegory, describing the spirit world and our relationship to that invisible realm which permeates all things and to which we always have access at all times.

Cut off from the awareness of the spirit world and the inner connection to the infinite, literalist cultures teach that the divine is external, and its blessing must be chased after or bestowed from without, instead of being present and available and attainable at all times by all persons. Literalist teaching divides humanity into those who accept a particular literal understanding of a certain group of stories or scriptures and those who do not, because the literalist approach fails to perceive that all the world's myths, scriptures and sacred stories are in fact built upon the very same system of metaphor (taking them literally, of course, requires the denial or rejection of their metaphorical and non-historical nature). 

For these reasons, literalistic religion has historically been used to secure popular support for the idea of eliminating the sacred traditions of other people and converting them to the "true" or "correct" (literalistic) tradition. Literalistic interpretations of ancient scriptures can be seen providing false "justification" for unjust and even murderous behavior, and this undoubtedly took place within the  within the settler populations as a way of providing false justification for the genocide inflicted over the course of centuries upon the Native cultures of North, Central, and South America. 

First, the literalistic interpretation of ancient scriptures which actually teach the importanceof the spirit realm severed the awareness of the connection to the spirit realm and led to a culture that was deprived of that connection. Then, literalist teachers within the culture that had been deprived of that connection taught that the forcible conversion and elimination of those who had a different understanding was somehow justifiable.

The ancient rock paintings at a great natural stone temple known as Painted Rock in California provide an incredible example of the callous destruction of the sacred traditions of other cultures by descendants of the literalist cultures that came to the Americas from Europe -- as well as an eloquent testimony to the fact that the literalistic assumption is completely mistaken and that in fact the very same system of celestial metaphor upon which the stories of the Old and New Testament can be shown to be built is also present in the ancient sacred traditions of the cultures of the Americas.

They are thus doubly important for us to understand -- both as a horrible example of cultural desecration, and as a clear example of the celestial nature of all ancient esoteric wisdom.

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The ancient sacred site commonly referred to as Painted Rock, located in what is today designated as the Carizzo Plain National Monument in California, contains the remnants of rock art paintings which may have been the work of an artist or artists living 4,000 years before the present day, according to some archaeologists -- several centuries before Tutankhamun or Akhenaten in ancient Egypt, for example. 

Some archaeological remains in the immediate vicinity suggest measurable human activity in the area stretching back to 10,000 years before the present day, according to researchers. See for instance page 4 in this strangely redacted government document, which describes "a remarkable concentration of villages, camps and other sites dating from 10,000 to 200 BP (8050 BCE to 1750 CE)."

These rock paintings and others in the same general area traditionally belonging to the Chumash and Yokuts people are distinctive for their vivid coloration, using primarily red, black, and white pigments, and often dramatic design.

The rock formation known today as Painted Rock (and in previous centuries often referred to by its Spanish name, La Piedra Pintada), were photographed as early as 1875 by R. A. Holmes -- and may thus be the very first rock art ever photographed.

That photograph -- as well as later drawings of the Painted Rock figures which were done in subsequent decades -- reveal that the artwork which researchers believe may date back an incredible 4,000 years was still intact into the first decades of the 1900s. 

Below is a reproduction of the photographs by R. A. Holmes taken in 1876, and published in 1911 on page 52 of a book  about Painted Rock written by Myron Angel. The photographs were published upside-down for some reason (perhaps the publisher had not seen the rock paintings in person), but I have rotated the entire page in the image below:

The entire book containing the above photographs can be found online here. 

Tragically, sometime during the first half of the twentieth century -- perhaps as late as the 1930s, these priceless ancient paintings were deliberately desecrated, both by chipping off large portions of the artwork and by discharging firearms at the images.

Today, only a fraction of the paintings survive. 

What a tragic and criminal mutilation of a precious ancient treasure, an act of desecration which should be condemned by all people, and which must be especially repellant to the Native Americans of that region, who still hold the site in tremendous reverence and visit it for specific ceremonial and spiritual purposes at certain times during the year. 

And yet, in spite of their terribly damaged condition, the rock paintings -- silent messengers from another age -- continue to give their testimony, which can still be perceived in some of the least-damaged sections of the panels shown in the photographs above. 

They are clearly speaking in a celestial language -- the very same celestial language which I believe can be shown to be used by virtually all the world's myths, scriptures and sacred stories from every single inhabited continent on our planet (and all the islands as well). Further, I am convinced based on my study of the celestial patterns in the myths that the ancient wisdom uses the starry heavens as a means of pointing us towards the Invisible World which we cannot physically see with our ordinary vision. This would suggest that Painted Rock may well have been seen (and continue to be seen) as a point of connection and communication with the Invisible Realm or Spirit World as well.

Below, I have assembled the images from some of the photographs of R. A. Holmes into a montage which shows an important section of paintings within the great enclosure of the stone:

It can be clearly seen in the above composite that the damage to the rock art was minimal or nonexistent in 1876. However, as I describe in a previous blog post discussing Painted Rock, by the 1930s, firearms had been used to deliberately blast away some of the ancient art, and some writers describe tourists chipping off sections of the painted panels as souvenirs.

In 1959, artist Campbell Graham -- a Disney artist who had worked on Fantasia (1940), Snow White  (1937), and Pinocchio (1940), and voiced the character Angus MacBadger from the Wind in the Willows in the Disney adaptation The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) -- first saw the rock art of the Chumash and Yokuts region of California, and at some point in the next few years set about doing the research to depict the full panel from Painted Rock that had already suffered so much damage by that point in time.

He conducted extensive on-site examination of the artwork, as well as consulting photographs and interviewing locals about the images. His recreation of the scene is shown below, juxtaposed with the photo-montage composed of the panels of photographs from 1876:

As I have explained in a previous post about Painted Rock, which I wrote following my own first visit to the site in August of 2015, these images are almost certainly celestial in nature. 

The first very solid clue -- to me -- is found in the double row of black triangles surrounded by red outlines, which can be seen directly above the "1876" in the above comparison: this immediately struck me as very reminiscent of the Milky Way galaxy as it rises between Scorpio and Sagittarius. 

Significantly, there is a long black "tail" or "hand-shaped" design reaching across the base of this "double track" feature -- very suggestive of the constellation Scorpio in the sky, which is located at the same part of the Milky Way as seen by viewers at the latitude of Painted Rock in the northern hemisphere (at about 35 degrees north latitude). 

Furthermore, just to the right of this Milky Way track is an oblong figure very reminiscent of the constellation Ophiucus, complete with an "upraised hand" on the same side of the figure as the "head of the serpent" in the Ophiucus constellation (the west-side of the serpent held by Ophiucus). All of this, as well as other constellations in the artwork depicted above, is described in that previous blog post, with labels and outlined illustrations.

Tragically, much of the above rock art is no longer visible, due to the deliberate desecration inflicted upon this precious sacred site. However, the "Ophiucus section" is still quite recognizable, and is shown below in a photograph from October 08, 2016:

Below is another view of the same section of the artwork, this time juxtaposed with a photograph published in 1917 of the same portion of the panel (this photograph reveals a bit more detail than the 1876  photograph by R. A. Holmes):

That photograph, which may have been taken in 1916 or 1917, can be found on a plate between pages 24 and 25 of The History of San Luis Obispo County and Environs (1917).

Other surviving figures which can be seen today and matched up to the 1876 photograph and the Campbell Grant recreation include what I believe may be an "Aquarius figure" (a figure in the rock art with a distinctive "pitched forward" posture reminiscent of the constellation Aquarius, as well as some wavy lines descending from his hand region in the same way that the Aquarius constellation can be seen to be pouring out water -- and in the same way that Aquarius figures in ancient art from other cultures were also shown with similar wavy lines, such as Hapi from ancient Egypt):

Note that the figure which I suggest may be an Aquarius figure is depicted running towards a "Great Square" figure just to the right of the yellow outlined box shown in the image above (formed by the "crossed legs" of the tall lizard-like figure who looks like he is wearing a black "top hat" in the Campbell Grant artwork. This would be consistent with the positioning of Aquarius in the heavens. The top of that "Pisces and Great Square" figure is still visible today, although the lower part (containing the Square itself) is severely damaged.

Other figures from the panel shown in earlier photographs and in the recreation by Campbell Grant clearly indicate the Twins of Gemini, who can be seen at the far right of Grant's depiction (see the first images above containing the recreation by Grant). And there are others as well, including the "bullseye" style turtle-figure in the Milky Way track just above the long tail of what I take to be the Scorpion -- this bullseye turtle is almost certainly a depiction of the constellation we know as Aquila the Eagle: the ancient rock art even has three dots to indicate the three stars in the head of Aquila (Altair being the center star of those three in Aquila).

As I have explained in many of the previous discussions of the world's Star Myths, I am convinced by the preponderance of evidence that the world's ancient wisdom uses the infinite heavens as a  visible representation of the Invisible Realm. The ancient artist or artists who painted the above panel in the awe-inducing enclosure of the great Painted Rock are almost certainly pointing not only to the stars which can be seen crossing the sky but also to the Spirit World which cannot be seen with our ordinary vision -- but which generations of men and women may well have visited from within the towering walls of that ancient natural temple.

The literature available about Painted Rock online and in early publications often describes the natural enclosure as "opening towards the east" (see for instance here and here). Personally, I am really not sure why so many accounts (including those from the California Journal of Mines and Geology) would say that it opens towards the east. The opening is clearly towards the north, as can be seen in the screenshot from the satellite imagery on Google Maps, below:

In the image above, north is up. The dirt road leading to the parking area is seen snaking in from the top of the image, light brown or tan against the surrounding plain, and looking like a serpent eating an egg (the parking lot has a kind of "turnabout"). From there, a thinner trace-line shows the footpath that leads to the rock itself, which is the grey stone feature near the lower edge of the screen, to the right of the center of the lower edge. The trail approaches the rock from the north and west.

There is no way that the opening can be mistaken as being from the east. It is surprising that a journal of geology would publish such an error.

Perhaps early writers assumed that a temple should have its opening towards the east -- the direction of the rising sun. Certainly, many churches and other religious structures are designed so that their opening is towards the east. However, the Painted Rock enclosure has towering walls on all three sides and an opening towards the north (just slightly east of north). Its walls increase in height towards the back of the enclosure, with the southern wall being the highest.

As I sat on the ground in meditation next to the panel of celestial figures reproduced above (which is on the inner portion of the eastern wall), I realized that the sun, moon, planets and zodiac constellations would trace an arc across the sky above the curve of the southern wall. In fact, as I was sitting there inside the enclosure in the afternoon, the sun was making its way towards the west along the top of the southern wall:

In the above image, we are looking towards the south. East is to the left, and west is to the right. The sun is tracking along the top of the south-west wall, on its way towards the western horizon beyond. It is very clear that a man or woman seated within the enclosure and looking towards the southern sky would have dramatic views of the march of the zodiac constellations, as well as the motions of the planets and of our own moon, traveling as they do along the ecliptic path.

In fact, at the southern edge of the enclosure (at the top of the upward-sloping ground which rises up towards the back of the enclosure) there are some shallow caves, one of which contains rock-art resembling a "solar boat" from the artwork of ancient Egypt -- complete with a sun-like object above it from which rays can be seen to descend, just like the solar imagery found in many other cultures:

The reader may even agree that one would not go too far in suggesting that the figure with the rays descending from it resembles an eye -- even an Eye of Horus (note the "eyebrow" shape arching over the eye).

Personally, I believe that the somewhat "boat-shaped" design we see above may well represent the back wall of the Painted Rock temple itself -- the southern wall, that is -- and the sun traveling above represents the sun in the sky that is indeed seen tracking across the sky above the southern wall (viewers in the northern hemisphere will always see the sun travel through the sky above the southern horizon, if they are located above the tropics).

In other words, the above rock art is located at the southern wall of the temple, and probably depicts the sun traveling above the wall (here depicted by the ancient artists on the more eastward part of its daily journey, as it travels from east to west or left to right as we face to the south). The "solar boat" seems to have a large square "notch" in its upper lines, because the Painted Rock enclosure itself actually has a deep notch in it as well, which can be seen in the photograph immediately above this one.

Below is another image showing the opening into the Painted Rock temple, looking towards the south. This time, arrows are provided to show the relative locations of the "solar boat" image (at the back of the enclosure, at the base of the south wall) and the "celestial panel" rock art (along the inside of the east wall of the enclosure, to the left as we look south):

I believe that it is very likely that the "celestial panel" of zodiac constellations, with the Milky Way band depicted rising in the center of the panel, flanked by Ophiucus above Scorpio, marks a location where the motions of the sun, moon, stars and planets could very easily be observed, wheeling in the sky above the enclosure of the temple, with the zodiac band tracing an arc above the sweep of the south wall.

From there, the presence of the Spirit World -- the Infinite Realm -- would be very palpably felt.

In fact, on my most recent visit, the entire plain was so silent that I could most definitely feel the presence of that invisible world.

The likelihood that this ancient temple was used for contact with the Other World is indicated not only by the celestial nature of the rock art, but also by the presence of at least two staring figures to the left of what I believe to be the Milky Way band in the celestial panel of artwork, who are shown below:

Can you see them, just to the left of the shallow cup-like indentation that can be seen near the center of the photograph above? They have large staring eyes and a mouth full of very tall, skull-like teeth.

Here is a closer view of the same figures:

To see them, look to the left of the darker-brown circular cup-shaped hole or indentation in the photo. 

I am not certain that these correspond to any constellations. In fact, the large black circle to the left of them in the Campbell Grant depiction (the one with two triangular "horns" on its top edge and two more along its bottom edge) may not be a constellation either. An astute participant on Graham Hancock's message boards suggested to me that this feature may represent the Painted Rock enclosure itself -- tying the feature on the terrestrial landscape to the stellar figures who move across the celestial landscape above.

If so, then the two figures to the right of the circle, shown in the image above, may either be shamanic travelers going into or arising to the heavens from the Painted Rock enclosure, or else they may represent spirit beings manifesting to Painted Rock participants from another realm or dimension.

In any case, I believe it is absolutely beyond doubt that the rock art of Painted Rock connects the ancient temple to the heavens -- and thus to the Invisible Realm.

The fact that it uses imagery which can be clearly identified as following the same outlines used for constellations as outlined by H. A. Rey and as used in the ancient myths of virtually all cultures, outlines which can be detected informing the figures found gracing the pottery of ancient Greece or the artwork of ancient Egypt shows that all of the world's sacred traditions are somehow very closely related -- perhaps descended from some common source of extreme antiquity.

This same worldwide system of celestial metaphor can also be positively shown to operate as the foundation for all the stories in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible as well, which makes it tragically ironic that literalist devotees of the Biblical texts would feel justified in defaming the sacred traditions of other cultures and trying to convince men and women around the world that they need to reject their own traditions and adopt a literalistic view of the Biblical texts.

Painted Rock thus stands as a symbol of the destruction that has been wrought due to the loss of connection with the celestial and spiritual message of the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories -- as well as powerful evidence that the stars are at the heart of the ancient wisdom, and that the starry realm points us to the Invisible Realm, the realm of spirit and the realm of the gods.

In this way, it also stands as a double condemnation of the impulse to divide, despoil, and destroy -- and as a powerful testimony to the ongoing importance of the spiritual realm, and of our connection to it: a connection that should unite us instead of dividing us.

Announcing "Stars over Wine Country" October 29 - 30

Announcing the first-ever Stars over Wine Country event, to be held on the evening of Saturday, October 29 in the region of Paso Robles, California. 

I will lead a "guided tour" of some of the constellations visible in our night sky, using a laser-pointer to indicate specific stars and outlines (weather permitting). You won't have to walk anywhere to go on this "tour," since it will take place in the stars overhead. Warm clothes and portable folding chairs or blankets are recommended, to enable you to look up at the sky from a comfortable position.

The next morning, those able to attend are invited to visit a sacred ancient Petroglyph site of tremendous significance, which is located about an hour's drive away (directions will be provided upon RSVP).

The plan is to meet at 6pm on Saturday night, and conclude later that evening (optional meet for dinner afterwards at a restaurant that stays open late). The sacred Petroglyph visit the next day should conclude by noon: the plan is to make it easy for those who may need time to travel. 

I will have copies of my several books available for purchase for those interested, and will be happy to inscribe them for you (alternately, feel free to bring copies you already own if you'd like them signed).

If you're not able to attend this particular gathering, I will also be setting up a web-based option to purchase books directly from me if you'd like them inscribed, and that should be ready in plenty of time for those wanting books to give as gifts during any of the major solstice-related holidays from the world's various ancient sacred traditions. However, that web-based option will require you to pay shipping costs, which you won't have to pay if you purchase books in person.

There is no charge for this special event. Of course, you have to handle your own travel, lodging and food expenses. We'll ask for separate tabs at dinner to keep everything as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

The weather for star-gazing has the potential to be outstanding, but there is always the possibility of fog rolling in from the Pacific ocean, so there are no guarantees that we'll be able to see any stars or planets.  If the sky is blocked out by fog or clouds, we'll just set up a projector and a screen and discuss a few constellations and myths that way, instead.

We'll do our best to see some constellations, however, and the hope is that you might identify a constellation that you might never have "positively identified" previously!

If you are interested in participating in this special Stars over Wine Country event, please RSVP at the Star Myth World website's "contact form" page which can be found here, and indicate names and how many will be in your party. Please specify "RSVP" in the subject line of that form. 

The area has a number of lodging options, including hotels, bed & breakfasts, and "AirBnB" and "VRBO" locations. There are also some camping options in the area: if camping interests you, take a look at some of the sites listed here, as well as the campsites located in the Cerro Alto area of the Los Padres National Forest.

The Paso Robles area is home to some of the best grape-growing terrain and soil in the world, as well as literally hundreds of wineries. Folds and gaps in the hills create numerous microclimates and the cold air coming in from the ocean at night can create temperature swings of over fifty degrees in a single twenty-four hour period.

This online brochure lists many of the wineries and their locations and websites, if you're interested in checking out wine-tasting during your visit. Most have tasting rooms on site which are open from 10am to 5pm or 5:30pm daily (check individual sites for details), where you can sample their wines, purchase bottles to take with you, join their wine clubs, or have bottles shipped.

Below is a map showing the layout of the region, indicating wineries by name (original here). Someone (not myself) subjectively decided which wineries should be indicated as "recommended wineries" on this map:

This website contains more information, including links to lodging and other recommended attractions in the area.  Here is one additional website with some further details on the specific grapes and varietals most commonly encountered in the Paso Robles AVA.

In addition to wineries, there are also some well-known breweries in the area, including Firestone-Walker and Barrelhouse.

You may also want to check out the beaches and coastline, day hike opportunities, downtown shopping and boutiques, and other area attractions while visiting the Paso Robles and surrounding region.

I realize that not everyone who may want to attend will be able to make it to this particular event. Hopefully it will be the first of many, to be held in different locations with good dark views of the night sky, during different times of year. This one will be fairly modest in scope, so unless this part of California is within driving distance for you, it may not make sense to go too far out of the way, unless you are already looking for a vacation in this particular area (or wanting to visit the sacred Petroglyph site).

Obviously, the days leading up to Halloween are a busy time for many people, but the following months will only become even more busy, and this particular weekend will have a New Moon, which often enables some of the best nights for stargazing.

Also, the Halloween period is one of the most important time periods on the entire ancient calendar, according to Alvin Boyd Kuhn (and others). See previous posts here, here and here, for example.

This is also the wine-harvesting time in many vineyards in the northern hemisphere. In the myth-system of ancient Greece, the god of wine is of course Dionysus, who is shown in the amphora below holding a wine-vessel and standing beside a long-horned goat. We may have occasion to see the constellations which are almost certainly associated with this scene, presently crossing the center of the night sky during the "prime time" star-viewing hours after sunset and before midnight.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I hope to see you at this special Stars over Wine Country event, if you're interested in attending and able to come to Paso Robles, California at the end of October!