Freedom from the prison of the mind

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In his excellent Afterword to his translation of Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, based on the Ma-Wang-Tui manuscripts, Professor Victor H. Mair discusses the concept of wu-wei. He writes:

If Tao and te are the most significant static or nounal concepts in the Tao Te Ching, wu-wei is certainly the most important dynamic or verbal notion set forth in the classic. Of all the Old Master's ideas, it is also the most difficult to grasp. Wu-wei does not imply absence of action. Rather, it indicates spontaneity and noninterference; that is, letting things follow their own natural course. For the ruler, this implies reliance on capable officials and the avoidance of an authoritarian posture. For the individual, it means accomplishing what is necessary without ulterior motive. Some commentators have explained wu-wei as connoting "non purposive" or "nonassertive" action. 138.

Later, in the same Afterword, Professor Mair links this concept of wu-wei to one of the central messages of the Bhagavad Gita, in which just prior to the Battle of Kurukshetra, Arjuna becomes filled with doubt regarding the proper course of action, and the Lord Krishna, who is acting as Arjuna's divine charioteer, gives counsel to the semi-divine hero. Professor Mair explains:

The chief lesson Krishna has to offer Arjuna is that altruistic or disinterested action (niskama karma) leads to realization of Brahma. That is to say, one should act without regard or desire for the fruits (phala) of one's action. This idea is repeated over and over again in countless different formulations. These passages are of great importance for understanding the enigmatic concept of "nonaction" that is so prominent in the Tao Te Ching. "The person of superior integrity takes no action," says the Old Master, "nor has he a purpose for acting." We are told straightaway to "act through nonaction" and that "through nonaction, no action is left undone." In spite of the fact that this idea appears a dozen times and is obviously central to the Old Master's teachings, we can only vaguely surmise from the Tao Te Ching the specific implications of wu-wei (nonaction). 

However, when we read the Bhagavad Gita, we discover an exceedingly elaborate analysis of the nature and purpose of nonaction. The ideal of action without attachment is conveyed in many guises throughout the Bhagavad Gita, for example, akrta (nonaction), akarma (inaction), naiskarmya (freedom from action or actionlessness), karmanam anarambhan (noncommencement of action), and so forth. Krishna refers to himself as the "eternal nondoer" and states that the Yogin should think, "I do not do anything." He declares that he "sits indifferently unattached by these actions." Elsewhere he  condemns sitting and remembering. All of this reminds us of the "sitting and forgetting" advocated by the Taoists that later developed into a type of meditative practice. 141 - 142.

This concept can be seen to have to do with overcoming the traps and stumbling-blocks created for us by the thoughts and desires of our "doubting mind," which Arjuna is exhibiting at the start of the Gita, and which come directly from Arjuna's simultaneous clinging to the past and his trepidation regarding the future. The advice of the Lord Krishna, embodied in the verses of the Bhagavad Gita, point Arjuna towards the concept of taking action as if not taking action, which entails remaining focused upon the present without attachment to the actions, to the past, or to the future.

Only by achieving this state of "I do not do anything" -- which Professor Mair insightfully perceives to be that same concept which the Tao Te Ching calls wu-wei -- can Arjuna escape the trap of his mind's entanglement with past and future (leading to his debilitating doubt, which prevents him from being able to function at all).

The parallels between the Bhagavad Gita of ancient India and the Tao Te Ching of ancient China are remarkable, and Professor Mair develops them still further in the Afterword and Appendix to his translation of the Ma-Wang-Tui texts, while noting that prevailing conventional historical frameworks claim "that China and India did not have any significant cultural intercourse until after the first century A.D." -- well after the existence of texts containing the Tao Te Ching and the Gita, both of which themselves are believed to have been transmitted in oral form for some centuries before being committed to writing (see page 147 for this quotation and discussion in the Afterword of Professor Mair). 

He also notes the possibility that, given the likelihood that the Bhagavad Gita and other ancient scriptures of India seem to predate the Tao Te Ching, "if Indian Yoga did not exert a shaping force on Chinese Taoism, the only other logical explanation is that both were molded by a third source" (146). I actually believe that this explanation is likely the correct one, due to the fact that these ancient traditions (like virtually all the other ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories from around the globe) appear to be using a common system of celestial metaphor to convey their profound teachings -- and this system appears to predate the earliest texts of ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia, and thus to be inherited from some far earlier culture, now unknown to our conventional paradigm of human history.

Given the obvious centrality of the concept of wu-wei identified by Professor Mair in the Tao Te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita, we might suspect that we will find this concept being taught in some of the other ancient myths from other cultures which can also be shown to be using the same system of celestial metaphor. Or, put another way, having identified this teaching that attachment to thoughts about the past and the future clouds our ability to act effectively, and having perceived that both the Tao Te Ching and the Gita advise us to overcome these entanglements by learning to "act through nonaction," then we might examine other myths and scriptures to see if this same message might help us to interpret the events they describe.

And indeed that is exactly what we do find.

For example, in the story of "Doubting Thomas," we find a clear parallel to the story of "doubting Arjuna" in the Bhagavad Gita. Thomas is restored by Christ in much the same way that Arjuna is freed by Krishna, and I would argue that the truth being revealed is very much the same. There are several previous posts which discuss some of the celestial and esoteric aspects of the story of Doubting Thomas, such as this one, this one, and this one. The episode is also explored in depth in my 2016 book Star Myths of the Bible.

The pattern of a hero withdrawing before a critical battle in which he is needed before being in some way "restored" or "renewed" is also seen in the behavior of Achilles during the Trojan War as described in the Iliad. I discuss the celestial aspects of the story of Achilles, and some of the possible esoteric truths it conveys to us, in my book Star Myths of the World, Volume Two (Greek Mythology), also published in 2016.

We can see another example of this teaching, regarding the overcoming of entangling doubts and the knots into which our mind can tie us (to our great peril) in the episode in the Odyssey when the poem describes the hero Odysseus catching sight of an island after days in the open sea, during his escape from Ogygia (after Poseidon smashes his raft to smithereens). The poem tells us the jagged rocks make landing impossible, and Odysseus almost goes into a panic. The text describes his thoughts, running away with him into all kinds of bitter regrets about the past and fears about the future -- until the goddess Athena helps still his mind so he can focus his attention on the flow of the water around him, and perceive that there is a river not far away which creates a place where he can safely swim to shore. 

The ways in which the Odyssey seem to teach this lesson (which has important parallels to the central message of wu-wei described above) has been discussed in previous posts such as this one and this one. There are also numerous other parallels between the Odyssey and the New Testament gospels (both of which, as can be shown with hundreds of examples, employ the ancient system of celestial metaphor to convey their profound truths to us), some of which are discussed here.

The debilitating entanglements of doubt and false assumptions (as opposed to the wu-wei detachment in which we can "act through nonaction") are also conveyed to our understanding through the brilliant and highly entertaining story of Thor's trip to the realm of Utgarda-Loki, one of my favorite Norse myths. The celestial aspects of this memorable episode, as well as some of its possible esoteric teachings, are discussed in my most-recent book, Star Myths of the World, Volume Four: Norse Mythology. 

Once we understand the centrality of the concept of wu-wei in this ancient worldwide myth system, then we can see how that concept applies to the story of Thor's visit to Utgarda-Loki, which we might otherwise fail to perceive. In that story, Thor and his friends are defeated by their own mental preconceptions (which are fed to them by the cunning giant Utgarda-Loki, a master of deception and illusion). Recall Professor Mair's discussion above, regarding Lord Krishna's condemnation of "sitting and remembering" (the trap of the past, keeping us from giving full attention to the present). 

This idea of "acting as though not-acting," and remaining "without attachment" to the expected results (good or bad) may seem at first like a vague and impractical concept, appropriate perhaps for the contemplative life of an ascetic or a monk, but not of much interest to those living in "the real world" -- but nothing could be further from the truth. 

We can perhaps best grasp what is being taught by thinking about examples from sports or martial arts. Think about an athlete preparing to take a shot at the basket in the final seconds of a basketball game, in which the outcome hinges on whether that shot is a bucket or a miss. 

Would it be advantageous for that athlete to have a mind filled with thoughts about what has happened during the previous quarters? 

Would it be advantageous to be obsessed with thoughts about how making the shot could lead to victory and being seen as the hero of the game, or defeat and being seen as the scapegoat, and to be concentrating more on those possibilities than on the present moment? 

Would it be advantageous to be guessing about the direction that the defender on the opposite team might take, and predicting in one's mind what that opponent's next move might be, rather than having an open and aware mind, uncluttered by preconceived ideas and remaining in the flow of the moment?

The answers should be obvious. 

Or, consider a surfer preparing to take the drop onto a powerful ocean wave that has just started to catch the surfboard and pick it up: would it be advantageous for that surfer to become entangled with  all the possible scenarios, good or bad, that might take place over the next few seconds, and to obsess over the possible outcome of a wipe-out, or would such thoughts tend to guarantee a negative outcome? Would it not be better to "act through nonaction," remaining detached and aware of the flow of the present -- just as the ancient myths, and the Tao Te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita can be seen to be teaching.

The same "noninterference" and flow, obviously, can be carried into other areas of our lives -- and the centrality of this teaching of wu-wei to the message of profound ancient texts such as the Tao and the Gita implies that it has application in every moment of our lives, and not just when we are facing an opponent in sport or combat, or when we are skiing, surfing or skydiving.

The ancient myths are here to offer us freedom: freedom from the prison of the doubts and entanglements of the interfering mind, freedom to act through nonaction -- wu-wei.

"The divine spark descends to the mortal realm"

Above is a new video which I published this morning entitled "The Divine Spark descends to the Mortal Realm."

This video examines two recent events: the discovery of a long-buried fresco on the wall of a villa in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, and the presumed death of a young man from the state of Washington at the hands of the Indigenous inhabitants of the remote and protected North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar island group, located at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea at the north part of the Indian Ocean.

The fresco discovered in Pompeii depicts the mythical episode of Leda and the Swan.

The young man, John Allen Chau, was ostensibly trying to make contact with the Indigenous people of North Sentinel Island in order to attempt to convert them to literalist Christianity.

Both the discovery and the presumed death of the young man took place around the same time during the month of November, 2018 -- about two weeks ago.

The video examines the celestial foundations of the mythical episode of Leda and the Swan, as well as other myths involving the amorous adventures of the god Zeus (known as Jove or Jupiter among the Latins and the Roman civilization), as well as related myths from other cultures involving the same constellations in the night sky -- and their possible esoteric significance.

As always, please feel free to share these videos, and to subscribe using the "subscribe" button immediately below the video itself (in order to receive notification when new videos are posted).

Vincent J. Salandria on the Murder of John F. Kennedy: "that historical day when the republic expired"

Here is a link to an important article published yesterday by Professor Graeme MacQueen on the 55th anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy, entitled "JFK 55 years on: Casting Light on 9/11 & Other 21st Century Crimes."

It should be read and considered very carefully, as should everything else that Graeme MacQueen writes.

The article points to the pioneering and decades-long work of Vincent Salandria (born 1926), whose insights regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be known to everyone -- but who (revealingly) does not even have a Wikipedia entry about his life and work in spite of his tremendous stature and importance as the first citizen to analyze the Warren Report and publish an article exposing its egregious contradictions, in The Legal Intelligencer (the oldest law publication in the nation), and to continue to set an example of courageous willingness to confront the truth of what took place on November 22, 1963 in the months, years, and decades since -- right up to the present day. 

Specifically, Professor MacQueen points to one specific and particularly incisive aspect of Vincent Salandria's analysis of the assassination of President Kennedy: asking how "an innocent government" would be expected to have dealt with the varying types of evidenceavailable following the murder itself, and contrasting that with the way evidence was deliberately destroyed, eyewitness testimony was ignored, and a single explanation was advanced within hours of the event and all other possible hypotheses summarily rejected, dismissed, ridiculed, or otherwise bulldozed in favor of the one officially-sanctioned explanation.

Professor MacQueen calls this line of examination "the Salandria Approach" -- rather than getting bogged down in endless analysis of bullets, trajectories, and grassy knolls, looking instead at the way the official inquiry completely brushes aside any evidence but that which supports its predetermined narrative, and asking if this is the way anyone who really wanted to get to the truth (rather than someone who wanted to cover up the truth) would behave.

Professor MacQueen's article makes the case that the very same pattern can again be seen to have taken place in the response to the mass-murders of September 11, 2001 in which once again evidence was deliberately destroyed, eyewitness testimony was ignored, and a single explanation was advanced within hours of the event and all other hypotheses summarily rejected, dismissed, ridiculed, or otherwise bulldozed in favor of the one officially-sanctioned explanation.

As Graeme MacQueen points out, this approach is paradigm-shifting in cutting through the interminable analyses and getting right to the very heart of the matter: the obvious and undeniable fact that the government response has been the opposite of what one would expect if an honest effort were being made to discover the truth of what actually took place in these world-shaking events, and to find out who was really behind these murders.

The significance of Vincent Salandria's analysis goes far beyond this insight, however. Readers can and should see that for themselves, by visiting the 2017 version of False Mystery: Essays on the JFK Assassination, available online in its entirety (the table of contents is found here, with links to every chapter and essay in the collection).

There, in the foreword to the book, Vincent Salandria plainly states that the supposed "mystery" of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 is no mystery at all: "the truth was there for all of us to see."  He then places his finger directly on the real issue:

For most of the people the truth was too painful and placed upon us too much responsibility. We did not wish to re-examine, condemn, and confront the violence in the extra-constitutional power structure that finally ascended to hegemony over our citizenry and over much of the world.

Clearly (as Graeme MacQueen makes reference in his article published just yesterday) this is not an issue that belongs to a bygone era, as far away as 1963 may seem to us here at the end of 2018. Our ongoing refusal to take responsibility and to re-examine, condemn, and confront the power structure that ascended following the murder of the president on that day continues to impact everything that has happened in the years since then, and will continue to do so until it is confronted.

In another article by Vincent Salandria published in 1971 -- in 1971! -- and included in that online volume, entitled "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: A Model of Explanation," the author refers to November 22, 1963 as "that historical day when the republic expired." 

If you read that article very carefully and all the way to the end, you will see why Vincent Salandria arrived at such a conclusion about the events of that historical day, and why he perceived that the events of that day have led directly to the deterioration of "the standard of living of our workers and the middle class" along with a deterioration in "the quality of their lives" -- and why he believed there was an ongoing campaign of deliberate destabilization and even the introduction of chaos (both words are used in the original article) in order to prevent a healthy and united people who could isolate and eliminate the usurping elements from their political life.

Indeed, he even warned at that early date -- in 1971 -- of the likelihood that those behind the murder would seek to deliberately "promote the polarization of our society," primarily along ethnic lines (in another article, he described it as "a systematic program of polarization").

At the end of the foreword to his book, Vincent Salandria declares that his primary commitment is to his responsibility to bear witness to the truth. In doing so, he has been fulfilling for these past 55 years, the role of a prophet -- for, as the scholar of ancient truths Peter Kingsley has explained: 

Prophecy is not about the future. Prophets don't talk about the future. What they do is: they talk about the past -- which has been hidden. Things which have happened -- that have been covered over, and no longer clear. That is what the real prophets do: they speak of the past, but the past that has been forgotten.

In the ancient texts such as the Iliad, as Peter Kingsley points out, the prophet explains to the people why they cannot move forward until they address a great wrong that has taken place in the past and that the people have refused to confront.

And this is what Vincent Salandria is doing. In his 1972 article entitled "The Promotion of Domestic Discord," also included in that same online text of False Mystery, he advises that we should not think that we can "drop out" of society in order to escape the need to confront the ramifications of November 1963, because: "There is no place to hide from the power that can gun down a President."

Instead of dropping out, he offers a clear alternative:

No, let us not turn away from the horror of the killing of John F. Kennedy. Let us join together, black and white, rich and poor, Jew, gentile, conservative and radical, to tell the truth about the killing of Kennedy. Through this refusal to live a great lie we will come together to understand and love ourselves and our society better. Let us not delay in this union of truth. If we do not join together in the search for truth, then guns backed by cover-story lies will pick us off one by one and ultimately join us together -- in death.

Ancient Wisdom Hidden in the Stars: Internal Access to the Infinite Realm

I've just created a new video, entitled "Ancient Wisdom Hidden in the Stars: Internal Access to the Infinite Realm" in which I show the full-screen version of the presentation that I prepared for my recent conversation with Derek Lambert and Dr. Luther G. Williams of the WaterBoyZ podcast. 

The video of the conversation with Derek and Luther can be found here, and I recommend watching the interview because a conversation can bring out aspects of and perspectives upon a subject that don't always arise in a monologue video. 

However, for those wanting to see the visuals that I was presenting and discussing during that interview, in a full-screen format that is easier to see than the presentation in the above interview, please follow the above link and watch the new video, which covers much of that same material (while presenting a few insights which even regular visitors might not have heard previously).

I am convinced that one of the truths which the ancient wisdom of the myths and scriptures from cultures around the world are designed to convey is the awareness that we ourselves already have access to the Infinite Realm, which means that everything we need — far from being external to us — is available to us at all times.

I hope the message in the video will be a blessing to you.

Forty years after Jonestown, the people still refuse to wake up

November 17 and 18 of this year (2018) bring us to the 40th anniversary of the mass-murder of 918 men, women, boys and girls at Jonestown in Guyana.

The details of what that mass-murder represented have been lied about for forty years, and to this day the massacre continues to be described as a "mass suicide." 

For example, here is a piece which aired on NPR's "Fresh Air" this year, purporting to examine the Jonestown massacre. It begins by declaring:

This Sunday marks the fortieth anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, where cult leader Jim Jones convinced over 900 followers to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch.

However, as the above video makes abundantly clear, the story that continues to be pushed by controlled media outlets is demonstrably false, and the abundant evidence that it is false has been amply documented for decades. 

To continue to push the blatant lie that the 918 men, women, boys and girls killed at Jonestown "committed mass suicide" constitutes an insult and an injustice to those who lost their lives in that massacre, as well as to the memory of Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his delegation (including two members of the press) who were killed when Congressman Ryan, who represented a congressional district from which many members of the "Peoples Temple" cult had been recruited (and who was also a former mayor of San Francisco, where the Peoples Temple had been headquartered before it moved to Guyana) visited Jonestown to investigate the allegations of abuse and enslavement that had come to his attention.

In addition, to continue to refer to Jim Jones as an "itinerant preacher" (as the above-linked NPR piece does in its second sentence, immediately following the first sentence which is quoted above) is to ignore the undeniable connections between Jones and very powerful patrons, many of them mentioned in the video documentary. Such a description is absurd.

In order to disabuse yourself of the lies and ongoing cover-up regarding the events of that fateful day, I would recommend carefully watching the above video in its entirety, perhaps several times. It is a segment of a 2006 documentary entitled Evidence of Revision: The Assassination of America. 

You can also listen to a somewhat condensed, audio-only version of the same material by visiting the archive of Bonnie Faulkner's long-running show, Guns and Butter. You can scroll down to episode #188, which aired on November 18, 2009, and which you can listen to online (or download to a mobile device) by following this link.

If you pay close attention, you will understand why the truth regarding the Jonestown massacre continues to be deliberately obfuscated to this day. 

And, if you think about it, you will also perceive that the Jonestown massacre was not perpetrated by "the government." 

Congressman Leo Ryan of the House of Representatives was a representative of "the government" -- which is to say, a representative of the lawful power of the people (in a democratic republic). The fact that he was murdered demonstrates a desire by those responsible for the things that were going on at Jonestown to prevent the details of what they were doing from becoming known to the government. The massacre followed his murder and the murder of some of those with him.

This point is extremely important to contemplate carefully. I am convinced that the best hope for the prevention of injustice, oppression, and everything associated with organized crime lies in the power of the people expressed through democratic government and its lawful organs of power. 

The murder of Leo Ryan demonstrates that, despite their great power and obvious control over many who are in the government, the forces behind what was taking place at Jonestown in Guyana understand the potential threat posed by the representatives and institutions of a democratic government. 

The continued repetition of egregiously, demonstrably false explanations of the Jonestown massacre as "mass suicide" demonstrates very much the same thing regarding the potential threat posed by the people themselves, should they ever wake up to what is going on.

Indeed, it is the power of the people themselves (should they ever become aware in large numbers to what is going on) which poses the greatest threat, because (as we have seen in the forty years since the perpetration of the massacre of more than 900 American men, women, boys and girls in Guyana), the representatives will not on their own do much of anything to confront the problem if the people themselves do not wake up and demand it.

On a personal note, Congresswoman Jackie Speier of the House of Representatives, who is seen in the video linked above and who was part of the delegation led by Congressman Leo Ryan to visit Jonestown forty years ago, is the currently-serving representative for the congressional district containing my hometown and the place where I was born. 

She was a legal aide to Congressman Ryan at the time. She was elected to this office in a special election following the death of the late Congressman Tom Lantos in 2008. Tom Lantos is the Congressman who appointed me to West Point back in 1987.

Below is a screenshot from the video documentary, showing Congressman Leo Ryan in Jonestown, on the night of November 17, 1978, the day before he was murdered. You can see this image at about the 0:49:49 mark in the video. 

As the camera pans out, we see in the background a hand-painted sign, affixed to the wall of the building within the Peoples Temple compound where Congressman Ryan was speaking that day. It speaks to the danger we all face if we continue to refuse to wake up.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Welcome to new visitors from The WaterBoyZ with Derek Lambert and Dr. Luther G. Williams

Special thank-you to Dr. Luther G. Williams and Mr. Derek Lambert for inviting me over for a very enjoyable discussion of the celestial foundations of the world's ancient wisdom, contained in the myths, scriptures and sacred stories of cultures around the globe.

Derek and Luther named their program the WaterBoyz -- inspired, they explained, by the well-known interview with the great Bruce Lee, in which he says: "Be water, my friend."

Above is the video of our conversation, which was recorded on November 13, 2018.

Welcome to any new visitors who heard about this blog or website through this video!

Below are some links to previous blog posts which explore some of the topics which surfaced during the interview with Derek and Luther:

• "Fragments of a lost whole"

• "Wax on, wax off"

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

• "Montessori and thinging"

• "The trinomial cube and humanity's ancient myths"

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

• "Star myths: 1,000 times more precious . . . "

• "The peace of utter stillness . . . "

• "To keep the connection alive between this world . . . and reality"

• "Winter solstice 2014: the Stable and the Manger"

• "Artemis and Actaeon on the name-vase of the Pan Painter"

• "Samson and the seven locks of his head"

• "Samson at the Great Turning-Point"

• "Balaam and the Ass"

• "Some lessons for us, from the dream of King Solomon"

• "The judgment of Solomon"

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

• "Earth Day 2017: the choices of Midas and Solomon"

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

• "Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: Paul the Gnostic opponent of Literalism"

If this is your first time visiting this blog or website after hearing about this research on the show, I hope that you will find this discussion of the ancient wisdom, given to virtually every culture on our planet as a precious treasure, to be helpful in some way -- and hope you will visit again soon!

If you enjoyed the interview, please give some feedback to Derek and Luther at their YouTube channel, their websites, or below the video itself.

I certainly wish Derek and Luther great success with their own research and with their podcasting, and hope to cross paths with them again soon! 

On a personal note, it happens that Derek conducted the interview from Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he lives with his family -- and where I spent some very formative years while I was in one of the line battalions of the the 82nd Airborne Division, at Fort Bragg, during the early 1990s. 

After the interview was over, I ran across an old mug from my days at Fort Bragg (an ancient artifact), which I would have used during the interview had I come upon it earlier. Here's a photo of me unwinding by enjoying a nice cup of organic apple cider vinegar from the old mug (I don't drink coffee these days), immediately following the completion of the interview:

(as with many ancient pieces of pottery, the mug has a different design on the other side).

One year after the revelation of the Pylos Combat Agate: an astonishing ancient artifact with undeniable celestial correspondences

One year ago this week, articles in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals around the world began to appear, showing images of the amazing ancient artifact that has come to be called the Pylos Combat Agate, shown above.

This hard gemstone was unearthed in a tomb discovered near the city of Pylos, on the west coast of the Peloponnese in Greece -- an ancient city, mentioned in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The tomb, a "shaft grave," was found in an olive grove outside the ancient ruin known as the "Palace of Nestor," and had apparently not been disturbed since being sealed, fully 3,500 years before. The tomb contained a complete skeleton of a male warrior, with armor and swords and over 3,000 artifacts -- including more than fifty "sealstones."

One of these, the stone shown above, was initially encrusted with mineral deposits and had to be carefully cleaned in a process that took some months, but which revealed a scene of incredible artistic sophistication and detail. The artwork is even more astonishing because the entire stone on which the scene is engraved is only 37 millimeters in length!

Some of the articles which describe the significance of this find are listed below. Note that the grave has been dubbed "the tomb of the Griffin Warrior" based on artwork discovered in the tomb on a different artifact:

• "Pylos Combat Agate is a 3500-year-old masterpiece of ancient art, technology" November 09, 2017.

• "Researchers Discover and Ancient Stone Carving So Detailed It Could Alter the Course of Art History" November 08, 2017.

• "This 3500-year-old Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization" January 2017 (published before the Pylos Combat Agate had been cleaned off and thus "discovered").

A friend on Twitter alerted me to the articles describing this incredible discovery when these articles were first appearing, in early November, 2017.

I immediately recognized that this scene, which had lain under the earth for 3,500 years (and which was executed with a level of detail and precision that astonished scholars and historians) was also remarkable for another reason.

The scene on the stone can be shown to be based on specific constellations, using a system of celestial metaphor that informs other artwork from other cultures and other centuries -- indeed, even from other millennia!

Part of the reason that the constellational connections in the scene were so obvious to me was that I had previously published discussions of the celestial connections in other scenes patterned upon the same constellations -- in books discussing the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories that can be shown to be based on celestial metaphor (such as Star Myths of the World, Volume Two: Myths of Ancient Greece, and Star Myths of the World, Volume Three: Star Myths of the Bible, both of which were published in 2016, before the existence of the Pylos Combat Agate became known to anyone living in  modern times).

Believing that this connection would be of interest to scholars, I wrote an article describing the patterns in the artwork which match the characters in the scene to the constellations Hercules, Ophiuchus, Scorpio and Sagittarius in the night sky (as well as to the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra the Lyre). I sent this article to one scholarly publication after another, including those focused on art history, as well as those focused on ancient Greece and Rome. 

After receiving polite rejections from all of them, I published my analysis on my own blog and in online sites interested in the research of ancient history and the evidence that the conventional paradigm of ancient history is in need of revision. You can find links to blog posts discussing the celestial connections below. These blog posts also contain links to articles on the celestial connections in the Pylos Agate which were published on Ancient Origins and on Graham Hancock's website, as well as links to one version of the articles that I submitted unsuccessfully to various scholarly publications:

• "The Pylos Combat Agate should radically alter our understanding of humanity's ancient past"

• "Celestial correspondences in the Pylos Combat Agate connect it to myths and art from other cultures around the globe"

• "New article on the Pylos Combat Agate available on Graham Hancock's website"

I also created a video illustrating the celestial connections in this ancient artifact, which I titled "The Pylos Combat Agate among the Infinite Realms" and which I embedded below. That video contains some footage showing the "sandy beaches of Pylos" mentioned in the Odyssey, as well as of the ruins of the grand edifice dubbed the Palace of Nestor, which is nearby to the grave site of the Griffin Warrior.

You will see that specific details in the artwork on this ancient stone point to an undeniable celestial connection -- including the "extended leg" and body posture of the triumphant swordsman, the "overhead weapon" of that swordsman (matching the outline of the constellation Hercules in the night sky, who carries a weapon brandished overhead as well), and the grasping by that same swordsman of the crescent-shaped crest of the spearman's helmet with his other arm (matching the many myths in which a figure associated with Hercules grasps another figure associated with the crescent-shaped constellation of Corona Borealis, which is just beyond the downward-reaching "other arm" of the constellation Hercules in the heavens).

Below is one example of ancient artwork in which the hero Heracles is depicted grasping such a helmet-crest, while standing in a posture reminiscent of the outline of the constellation Hercules in the night sky:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Below is another, in which Heracles is even more clearly depicted in the posture suggested by the outline of the stars in the constellation Hercules -- and in which one hand brandishes a sword overhead while the other reaches out towards a crescent-shaped helmet crest (although the artist does not have Heracles actually grasp this crest, in this particular scene):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Here is another depiction of a very similar scene, but on a different ancient vase (you can see that it is a different piece of artwork if you look closely, particularly if you look at the shields carried by the Amazons whom Heracles is battling in the scene). Obviously, this particular mythological encounter, which can be shown to be based upon specific constellations in the night sky, was very popular among ancient artists:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Finally, here is yet another piece of ancient artwork, this one dated to about 450 BC, which shows the hero Heracles in a similar posture (based on the outline of the constellation Hercules in the sky), once again brandishing his weapon over his head, but this time reaching out with his other hand towards a different crescent-shaped object: the massive curving horn atop the head of a figure who is usually identified as the god Achelous (a very important figure in ancient mythology, discussed in my 2014 book The Undying Stars):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In all of these scenes, the figure of Heracles is associated with and depicted in the same general posture as the outline of the constellation Hercules in the heavens -- and is reaching out with his lower arm (the arm not brandishing a weapon) towards a crescent-shaped object, which is usually a helmet crest but can also be envisioned as the great curved horn of Achelous, and which clearly corresponds to the beautiful crescent-shaped arc of stars known as Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown.

The same posture, and constellational connections, can be seen in the artwork depicted on the newly-discovered Pylos Combat Agate, albeit on an artifact that was made over a thousand years earlier. And there are many other details in the artwork which point to an undeniable celestial connection, such as the location of the enlarged "sphere" or "globular" tip of the scabbard of the swordsman, which corresponds to the location of the bright star Vega in the heavens, in the constellation Lyra which is also adjacent to the constellation Hercules (see star-chart below, with comparison to the figures in the Pylos Combat Agate):

And those are just a few of the correspondences (mostly those associated with the figure of the swordsman in the Combat Agate) -- many more can also be discussed, and these also have parallels to other artistic depictions of mythological scenes and figures from other centuries and other cultures.

I would have thought that, given the importance of this archaeological find, and the radical revision of the conventional understanding of history that this artifact should engender, that the undeniable parallels between the scene on the Pylos Combat Agate and the constellations of the night sky (as well as undeniable connections to other artwork from other cultures, depicting other figures based on those same constellations, including David slaying Goliath as described in 1 Samuel and as depicted on artwork from many different centuries, and Hercules or Heracles slaying a variety of opponents as depicted in literally hundreds of pieces of ancient Greek pottery) would be of interest to scholars and art historians, as well as to some of the same publications that were interested in the discovery of the Combat Agate in the first place.

Thus far that does not seem to be the case. There seems to be a widespread reluctance on the part of academia to investigate certain lines of inquiry, despite overwhelming evidence which points in those directions.

I remain confident, however, that the truth will not remain suppressed forever.