Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps

When I was about 10 years old or not much older, my father started taking me on amazing backpacking trips to Yosemite, Mokelumne Wilderness, Tuolumne Meadows, Mount Conness and the Conness Glacier, and many other awe-inspiring destinations in the Sierras.

We would pack very light on these trips, and usually stop by the iconic Redwood Trading Post to stock up on essential supplies that were difficult to find anywhere else. Those visits to the Redwood Trading Post are themselves worthy of several paragraphs of description, with their amazing rack of backpacking and survival books by the door and their rows and rows of military knives and unit patches behind the counter.

One essential item we would always take on a backpacking trip was a tiny bottle of Dr. Bronner's 18-in-1 soap, in a bottle that looked exactly like the 32 ounce (one-quart) bottle pictured above, but about ten times smaller (about the size of your thumb or a little larger and containing perhaps four to six fluid ounces).

Peppermint was perhaps the only option back then (in fact, on those old labels, it apparently used to declare that: "Peppermint is nature's own unsurpassed fragrant Deodorant!"). In any event, it was the flavor we always took, and it came with the same fascinating and famous labels that are still on the bottles today, complete with instructions for the proper dilution to use for washing your camp dishes, washing your hair, washing your clothes, brushing your teeth, or even cleaning the fruit spray off of your fruits and vegetables!

I was of course fascinated by the densely-packed Moral ABC's printed on every bottle, and my Dad and I would laugh together at the quirky syntax that Dr. Bronner made famous on his tiny blue labels.

But there is no doubt Dr. Bronner believed very strongly what he was conveying in the labels on his versatile soaps. Here's one example: "Free Speech is man's only weapon against half-truth, that denies free speech to smear - slay - slander - tax - enslave. Full-truth, our only God, unites all mankind brave, if 10 men guard free-speech, brave!"

The timeline of Dr. Bronner's story posted on the Dr. Bronner's website today notes that Dr. Bronner began printing the messages and attaching them to the soap bottles early in the 1950s when he was urgently lecturing in Pershing Square in Los Angeles, convinced that the world needed to unite before it destroyed itself, but frustrated that people were buying the soap that he sold at the lectures and leaving without hearing his talk.

Dr. Bronner's message was -- and is -- that humanity needed to recognize how vanishingly trivial are their differences in the face of the stunning celestial majesty of Creation, according to the website (and any reading of his messages on the labels of his soaps).

For Emil Bronner, who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1929, these were no mere intellectual conceits -- they were urgent and personal. His parents were both murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps during the Holocaust. In the 1940s, before he even began his soap business in 1948, he was lecturing on the need for unity "across ethnic and faith traditions, and about the dangers of Communism alongside Fascism," according to the Dr. Bronner's website.

For his efforts, Emil Bronner was actually arrested in 1947 for speaking without a permit at the University of Chicago, and committed to an insane asylum at Elgin, Illinois. He was involuntarily exposed to shock treatments and forced labor but escaped (on his third attempt) without a lobotomy. For a moving description of that part of his life given by his son Ralph Bronner, see the video below.



Dr. Bronner made his way to Los Angeles to avoid being recaptured in Illinois, and started his soap business after an initial foray into the nascent world of health-food (he made Dr. Bronner's Mineral Salt and Dr. Bronner's Mineral Bouillon before salt). He started his soap business in 1948, only a few years before the Redwood Trading Post (another family business) started much farther to the north in 1952.

Dr. Bronner's soap became a huge counterculture success among people who were suspicious of the chemicals in other products during the 1960s and 1970s. These concerns are still valid today -- we all know that our skin is the largest organ in the body, and that we shouldn't put on our skin anything we wouldn't be willing to ingest through our mouth. In fact, chemicals rubbed on the skin may be more dangerous than those swallowed through our mouths because the skin enables direct absorption into the bloodstream, while our digestive tract has systems for filtering out poisons and toxins and other harmful substances.

Many skincare, shaving products, lotions and hair products sold to unsuspecting consumers today contain chemicals and substances such as methylisothiozolinone (MIT) and numerous forms of parabens (such as methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben), as well as petroleum bases. All of these substances have been alleged to be harmful in various ways to human health, and some studies appear to back up these fears (MIT, for instance, appears to be lethal to human neurons, according to more than one study).

With all the attention that we pay to what we put in our diet, we might want to consider looking into what we rub on our skin every day as well.

While the following is a bit of a tangent, it is worth pointing out that Dr. Bronner's soap is not only useful for washing your mess kit when you go backpacking, but it is also a fantastic soap for use back home in the confines of civilization. Not only that, but chips of bar soap from your Dr. Bronner's bar version soap make great shave soaps to toss into your shave mug when they start to become too thin to use with a washcloth.

When I was in the 82nd Airborne, there was a wily old Sergeant First Class named SFC Williams, who used to take a shave mug in his rucksack even out to the field. It was actually an unbreakable plastic coffee mug, with the "Strike Hold!" crest of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment on it, and he would use a moistened shave brush to create a lather and shave with it out in the field, while everyone else was trying to splash water on their faces with their hands out of a canteen cup and then apply some kind of foamy shaving cream out of a spray can.

Intrigued, I asked him the story behind this novel and old-fashioned method of shaving, and was told that once when he and his wife were going through very tough financial times (the pay we give the NCOs who devote their lives to protecting our freedoms is and was quite shameful, in my personal opinion) he examined every aspect of his budget to see where he could possibly save money. He determined that shaving with soap from a mug was far more economical than spending money on cans of shaving cream every couple of weeks, and so he switched to using a shave mug. He said he also considered switching to a straight razor, which would have been cheaper than using disposable razors, but decided that the risk involved was not worth the potential savings.

Soon enough, I had my own shaving mug (including a plastic coffee mug for taking to the field with a disc of shave soap) and was discovering all the benefits of this forgotten method of applying shaving cream. In addition to saving money (which it certainly did -- a disc of shave soap back then could cost under a dollar, when even the cheapest brands of cans of shaving cream were a couple bucks), it enabled you to heat the shaving water much hotter than you could heat it if you had to apply the water to your face using your fingers. The brush didn't mind if you heated the water to a boil in your canteen cup (or at home with your microwave oven), and by the time you had swirled it around in the shave mug it was cool enough to apply to your own mug but still hot enough to be quite nice. Additionally, the action of the brush helped invigorate your face, make the stubble stand up better, and even gave you a bit of a facewash (which was nice when you were out in the woods for weeks on end, and smearing green grease all over every inch of exposed skin every few hours).

Later, when I was no longer in the Army, I returned to using Dr. Bronner's soaps and stopped buying special discs of shave soap, since Dr. Bronner's works wonderfully for shaving (this is in fact the very first of the uses listed in line 1. of Dr. Bronner's original usage instructions!) Dr. Bronner's soap is well-known for its amazing lathering quality.

Later still, I discovered that SFC Williams could have saved money on razors without risking his jugular by using a straight-razor. As you can see in the video below, it is actually possible to "strop" a safety razor using an old pair of bluejeans.



The method shown in the video above actually works quite well, in spite of the naysayers in the "comments" below the video. Before I discovered this method, I changed out my disposable razor blade every week religiously. With this method, you can easily use the same blade for a year or more (you should splash it with rubbing alcohol after stropping it, which you only have to do every few days).

Critics may point out that I am not the most reliable source for shaving advice, since I now have a beard, but the answer to this is that I was in the US Army Infantry for 11 years of active duty, plus four more years at West Point, so I know a thing or two about having to ensure a good shave every single day.

Others may ask why anyone would go to such trouble. Certainly, if you feel like donating your money to disposable razor manufacturers, go right ahead. But keep in mind that their business model is actually such a well-known way of separating you from your money that it has spawned imitations across a broad swath of other industries, where it is known as the "razor-and-blade model" and is used to describe any business that sells you the supposed main product for next to nothing, in order to get you to buy the consumable accessories on a regular, ongoing basis for the rest of your life (computer printers might be another good example from a different industry).

This description of the wonderful shaving benefits of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps may be a bit of a tangent from the original direction of the post (which is about my warm memories of Dr. Bronner's from my childhood, and its ongoing place in my everyday life, as well as why everyone should carefully consider the ingredients in the products they rub on their skin), but it isn't really too much of a tangent.

The fact is that Dr. Bronner was urgently and personally aware of the danger of descent into barbarism in even the most apparently civilized cultures, and the need to prevent that horrible and very real possibility. He also put his finger on what he felt to be the catalyst for such barbarity: losing sight of the fact that we are all one family -- as he put it, "Whatever unites mankind is better than whatever divides us!"

This is a crucial insight, and one that we have examined together on this blog before, such as here and here, where we saw the horrible results of believing that differences in faith, skin color, or even length of earlobe can (and has) led some to decide that others deserve to lose their property, their freedom, and even their lives. Dr. Bronner experienced the loss of freedom himself over differences in belief (he later blamed the involuntary electrotherapy that he received for his failing eyesight, so he had not only his freedom violated but his body and his possibly his eyesight as well).

He spent his life trying to counteract that hideous tendency which is always lurking beneath the veneer of civilization, ready to bring it down. He understood that the security we enjoy is more fragile than we have been led to believe. He believed this message so urgently that it is still carved into every bar of soap produced by the company he founded: "ALL ONE!"

If only washing away this lingering dark side of the human condition were as easy as working up a good lather with Dr. Bronner's wonderfully therapeutic soap!

How does barbarism win?

The cause of the most recent London riots will be debated vehemently for years to come, with conclusions that will differ widely between those of different political persuasions and philosophies. Some even debate whether they should be called "riots" at all, since that word implies a spontaneous eruption of violence, while the vandalism and looting that took place on successive nights in London and surrounding areas last week may fit a different description.

What is beyond debate is that large numbers of people caused massive and deliberate destruction of property, and that some of the participants deliberately employed physical violence against other people and ended up killing them: in one case, two men drove a car at high speed into a crowd of people who were opposing the vandalism, killing three of them, and in another case a 68-year-old man who was trying to put out a fire that vandals had deliberately started was beaten unconscious by young members of the mob. He later died of his injuries.

Whatever your opinion of the ultimate cause of such behavior, it is clear that the wanton and deliberate destruction of property and the deliberate taking of human life is atrocious and barbaric. To excuse or even partially excuse the burning of shops, driving of cars into crowds, or beating of defenseless men over the head on the basis of economic inequality, high rates of unemployment, or perceived "racial" grievances is craven.

It is quite possible that stupid and oppressive policies stretching back for many decades are largely responsible for the conditions that led to the erosion of humanity underlying these despicable actions, but this possibility does not make that behavior any less inhuman. (Included in the category of possibly culpable policies are the longstanding social welfare schemes of Britain, which tend to degrade and debase men and women over time and eventually lead to infantile behavior and gnawing resentment, just as they do in the United States and everywhere else that they are enacted).

The connection to the discussion of a lost ancient civilization may not be immediately clear.

Consider, however, the fact that extensive evidence points to the conclusion that in the very ancient past, a civilization or civilization existed that (among other things) knew the size and shape of the earth, understood sophisticated mathematical concepts such as pi and phi, understood sophisticated astronomical phenomena including precession, understood subtle electromagnetic phenomena such as telluric currents, perceived the importance of harmonic sound waves and music and rhythm, could build monuments using blocks that even today we would have trouble moving, and could and did cross the oceans regularly.

At some point prior to the rise of most of the civilizations known to historians, almost all of the above knowledge was lost (or destroyed, or stamped out), although some of it survived in partial form or hidden form for centuries, and in fact some of it is still preserved in various forms to this day. While regression and loss of knowledge has taken place many times within known history, this particular loss is extraordinary in the contrast of what was known before and what was subsequently forgotten.

Somehow, we don't know how, barbarism won.

The implications of this fact of history are quite important. Since most people are not even aware that such levels of understanding were once possessed by the human race and then were lost, most people are not even aware that at some point in the past, barbarism and darkness won on a scale that is staggering to consider. The way history is taught today, most people believe that civilization and progress "won," although it experienced minor setbacks along the way. Those who teach this vision of history may be gravely mistaken.

Because we are generally completely unaware of such a catastrophic loss in the past, we are ill-equipped to even begin to ask how it happened. Judging from what we know in our own experience in modern times, however, we can guess that some of the ingredients of "modern barbarity" played a role. One of the main ingredients that appears again and again is the incitement of hatred against members of another group, whether they differ because of appearance, faith, culture, or other characteristic or characteristics. See this previous post on the violent history of Rapa Nui / Easter Island for an earlier discussion of this subject.

While the theory that the fall of that ancient civilization may have involved violence over grievances or differences of this sort is admittedly quite speculative at this point, there is some evidence that lends credence to this line of examination. The Olmecs are a mysterious and little-understood civilization that lived for a time in Central America and left behind sculptures featuring faces depicting very different ethnic characteristics, some of which are shown in this previous blog post. It is entirely possible that during the time such art was being produced, men of very different outward appearance were working together in relative harmony, perhaps based on advanced maritime trade and cultural contact.

Is it not possible that the descent into darkness was related to the collapse of this kind of cooperation and recognition of mutual humanity? Is it possible that the same sort of collapse could take place again?

While it is likely that there have always been those who would prefer to hate, fight, or even eat those who look different than one's own group (even if the difference is as minor as the length of earlobes described in the Easter Island essay linked above), the so-called "racial" or ethnic differences between people of different broad families of mankind are actually extremely superficial and have assumed an outsized role in our collective thinking since the nineteenth century due to mistaken Darwinian theories.

Wade Davis, the author of Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (also mentioned in this previous post) argues that the entire concept of "race"is a flawed relic of nineteenth-century English anthropology*. The first of the lectures in his book deals at length with laying to rest the myth of the human "races," and deserves to be read in its entirety. It is important, however, to understand how a flawed application of a flawed theory can lead to enormous, disastrous, and long-lasting consequences, as can be seen from the following excerpts that outline Mr. Davis' explanation:

Evolution suggested change through time, and this, together with the Victorian cult of improvement, implied a progression in the affairs of human beings, a ladder to success that rose from the primitive to the civilized, from the tribal village of Africa to London and the splendour of the Strand. The cultures of the world came to be seen as a living museum in which individual societies represented evolutionary moments captured and mired in time, each one a stage in the imagined ascent to civilization. [. . .]. 11.

Having established the primacy of race, and the inherent superiority of Victorian England, anthropologists set out to prove their case. The scientific mismeasure of man began as phrenologists with calipers and rulers detected and recorded minute differences in skull morphology, which were presumed to reflect innate differences in intelligence. [. . .]. 12.

But when the science in fact suggests an end to race, when it reveals beyond any reasonable doubt that race is a fiction, it behooves us to listen. We should at least hope that for once the scientists have it right.

And they do. They have revealed beyond any doubt that the genetic endowment of humanity is a single continuum. From Ireland to Japan, from the Amazon to Siberia, there are no sharp genetic differences among populations. There are only geographical gradients. [. . .]

What all of this means is that biologists and population geneticists have at last proved to be true something that philosophers have always dreamed: We are all literally brothers and sisters. We are all cut from the same genetic cloth. 17-18.

In the book in which he lays out the evidence for his hydroplate theory, Dr. Walt Brown makes the same assertion that "race" is a fiction. Unlike Mr. Davis, Dr. Brown believes that there was a catastrophic global flood some time within the past ten thousand years, and that the human survivors of that event are of necessity the common ancestors of everyone living today. Such a theory is in agreement with the findings of modern geneticists that all humanity is closely related and that superficial physical differences are the result of the "turning on" or "turning off" of very minor genetic switches, largely in response to environment. In this section of his book, Dr. Brown writes:

In this context, there is only one race, the human race. Today, the word "race" has come to mean a group of people with distinguishing physical characteristics such as skin color, shape of eyes, and type of hair. This new meaning arose with the growing acceptance of evolutionism in the late 1800s. [. . .] Race is a social idea, not a scientific concept.

It must, of course, be pointed out that inhuman treatment of other human beings based on appearance did not begin with Darwin, but has no doubt been present for millennia (Shakespeare, for one, featured this theme in several of his plays, all of them published long before Darwin was born). The point is that justification of inhuman behavior against other groups is the road to barbarism and darkness. The mistaken theories of Darwin have in aggregate exacerbated the problem.

There are plenty of people today who wish to incite grievances between "races." Many of these grievances have their basis in oppressive treatment that was itself predicated on the same flawed theories and racial conceits. It is quite possible that such issues played a role in collapses into barbarism and inhumanity in mankind's ancient past as well.



* Note that just because Mr. Davis recognizes the race-obsessed theories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for the poisonous fiction that they are does not mean that he endorses the other conclusions of this blog such as the rejection of the theories of Darwin and his successors, or the belief in a cataclysmic global flood or sophisticated ancient civilizations.

Some thoughts on the Hokule'a

The above video contains an interview with master navigator and President of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Nainoa Thompson, discussing the ocean-going double-hulled waʻa kaulua, Hokule'a.

In the video, he describes some of the traditional navigation techniques he uses to guide the vessel, as well as the importance of the Hokule'a in helping to restore a spirit that had been all but lost due to oppression. He also describes this voyaging canoe's role in refuting the demeaning theories of scholars who over the centuries had argued that the Polynesians drifted through the oceans unintentionally and only accidentally discovered the islands of the vast Pacific.

The amazing voyages of the Hokule'a are undertaken without modern navigational equipment such as GPS devices, and even without compasses: ancient traditional navigation techniques are employed instead. In a remarkable book entitled The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, author and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis describes in compelling prose the techniques used on these journeys:

Enshrouded by the night, the canoe itself became the needle of a compass that was the sky. Behind us sat the navigator, a young woman named Ka'iulani, Nainoa's protege. She would remain awake for twenty-two hours a day for the entire voyage, sleeping only for fleeting moments when the mind demanded a rest.

Ka'iulani, like Nainoa and all of the experienced crew, could name and follow some 220 stars in the night sky. She knew and could track all the constellations, Scorpio and the Southern Cross, Orion, the Pleiades and the North Star, Polaris. But for her the most important stars were those low in the sky, the ones taht had just risen or were about to set. Nainoa explained: As the Earth rotates, every star comes up over the eastern horizon, describes an arc through the sky, and then sets on a westerly bearing. These two points on the horizon, where a specific star rises in the east and sets in the west, remain the same throughout the year, though the time at which a star emerges changes by four minutes every night. Thus, as long as one is able to commit to memory all the stars and their unique positions, the time at which each is to appear on a particular night, and their bearings as they break the horizon or slip beneath it, one can envision a 360-degree compass, which the Hawaiians divide conceptually into thirty-two star houses, each a segment on the horizon named for a celestial body. Any one star is only dependable for a time, for as it arcs through the sky its bearings change. But by then there will be another star breaking over the horizon, again on a bearing known by the navigator. [. . .]

[. . .] The navigator by day conceptually divides the horizon ahead and behind, each into sixteen parts, taking as cardinal points the rising and setting of the sun. Thus by day he or she replicates the star compass of the night. The metaphor is that the Hokule'a never moves. It simply waits, the axis mundi of the world, as the islands rise out of the sea to greet her. 57-58.

It is remarkable that the stars were so vitally important and so well known by the ancient civilizations whom condescending scholars also have long said could not possibly have navigated the oceans. Just as Nainoa Thompson in the video above is saddened and angered at the racism of those who once said that the Polynesians "didn't have the intelligence" to navigate more than 100 miles, we should be saddened and angered by any scholars whose conclusions are based upon racist suppositions.

I argued in my previous post that there appears to be clear evidence (or at least evidence that should be discussed more thoroughly and not dismissed out of hand) that ancient voyagers from many of the families of mankind came to the Americas from Europe, Africa, and Asia. That men of different ethnicity and physical characteristics may have dwelt together in peaceful coexistence at some point during that time is one possible conclusion suggested by the many different sculptures found in sites belonging to the mysterious ancient Olmecs. And yet to suggest today that such ancient voyages took place is dismissed as racism and ethnocentricity. This is unfortunate.

In a previous post I have argued that to assert that the ancient timeline of mankind may have been different from what we are taught today should not automatically be considered some form of racism or ethnocentricity, unless someone moves from saying "X may have happened thousands of years ago" to saying "because X happened thousands of years ago, group Y or Z is better / worse / more valuable / less respectable than group A or B." It is true that some people do say or think or suggest such conclusions, but that does not mean that everyone who suggests an alternative theory from the consensus intends to take away or detract from one group or another.

Wayfinders author Wade Davis argues that Thor Heyerdahl's theories are objectionable in this very manner, because he interprets Heyerdahl's theories as denying the culture of Polynesia its greatest achievement, which is "the ultimate insult" (47). We have examined the theories of Thor Heyerdahl in several previous posts (see here and here) and it is hard to see why arguing that the Polynesians may have come from the east to the west (as many of their own legends state and as Heyerdahl believed took place) rather than from the west to the east (as most historians today assert) means that one wants to deny them their achievements.

Thor Heyerdahl clearly believed that the Polynesians were incredible mariners who were capable of deliberate voyages from Hawaii to Aotearoa and all points in between. He himself relates the oral traditions of Polynesia describing voyages from Hawaii to Tahiti and back and says he believes they took place, and he notes the accuracy of the directions given for sailing from Aotearoa back to Hawaii, and states that he thinks such oral traditions demonstrate the ability to make such voyages deliberately and not by accident.

The fact is that nobody knows for certain what took place in mankind's distant past. We are very much in the position of detectives examining clues and piecing together theories, some of which appear more plausible than others. To declare that a culture or a people could or could not do something based on presuppositions of any sort is very unwise. This blog has already discussed numerous items of solid evidence for the likelihood that ancient cultures could and did know and do things that scholars and historians dismiss as impossible (there is evidence that the builders of the Giza pyramids and of Stonehenge knew the size and shape of the earth, for instance, and that the builders of Avebury Henge knew about earth's naturally-occurring telluric energy, and additional evidence that Avebury may have functioned as a training complex for open-ocean navigation). These are possibilities that scholars adamantly deny, and yet the evidence is at least worth further consideration, as is the evidence that ancient cultures from multiple continents visited the Americas.

Such possibilities are not brought up in an attempt to take anything away from any family of mankind. In fact, it is quite clear that the true story of mankind's ancient past, if it ever could be known, would show that the wisdom and accomplishments of our distant ancestors surpass anything we attribute to them today. The parts of that wisdom which have somehow been preserved, or revived, such as the ancient knowledge that enables the magnificent voyages of the Hawaiian navigators (and the techniques handed down through the generations to the late master wayfinder Mau Piailug) should humble the proud attitudes of those who believe that "modern technology" makes those who possess it superior to everyone else, and competent to judge what other cultures could or couldn't do.

There appears to have been an extremely sophisticated understanding of the stars and their importance that was shared across a very wide variety of cultures, and which was preserved in certain parts of the world long after it had been stamped out and forgotten in Europe (if indeed it was ever shared there beyond a limited circle). It is highly possible that this knowledge was connected with open-ocean navigation.

The intrepid men and women who pilot the Hokule'a today have proven beyond a doubt that very ancient techniques, based upon deep understanding of the stars and other signs present in the sea and sky, can enable deliberate and successful voyages across vast distances to very small targets.

Whether these capabilities are somehow connected to the little-understood capabilities and astronomical knowledge of other ancient civilizations and cultures is not certain, but where we find evidence of similar extreme awareness and understanding of the stars and the sun, we might be wise to remain open to possibilities that the consensus rejects as impossible.

More evidence of ancient transcontinental contact in Central American sculpture

In the previous post, we examined the newly-discovered guardian lion from the citadel at Tell Ta'yinat which shows that as many as 3,000 years ago in Asia Minor, lions were considered guardians of gates and doorways, and noted that this tradition is clearly present in classical China and in the ruins of Central America as well. In fact, we noted that archaeologists have found evidence of maned lions serving in a similar "gate-guardian" function in ancient Maya art and that maned lions (or at least "bearded jaguars") were depicted by ancient Olmecs in pre-Columbian Central America as well.

In that previous post, we argued that the use of maned lions as gate guardians may well have arrived in ancient Central America from another continent, since maned lions did not exist in the Americas. We said that those who deny the possibility of ancient contact across the bluewater oceans must allege that:

those ancient artists just happened to stumble upon a made-up creature that looks startlingly like an animal that they had never seen, but which lives on other continents and just happens to have been commonly depicted guarding gates and doorways on those continents as well. What lucky guessers those ancient pre-Columbian artists were: in addition to somehow dreaming up and carving lions that they had never seen, they also depicted men with features typical of men that they had never seen either, including Europeans, Asians and Africans.

While many readers are familiar with the existence of numerous ancient pre-Columbian sculptures in Central America that appear to accurately depict the distinctive characteristics of Europeans, Asians and Africans, here are a few that illustrate the point.

Above is an image of one of the famous figurines of Jaina Island, a pre-Columbian Maya site containing extensive burial sites and a high number of exquisite ceramic figurines. These figurines exhibit incredible artistic talent and a high degree of individuality, including differences in age, social rank, and even -- apparently -- ethnicity. Some of the figurines appear to depict features common to Native Americans of the area, while others -- such as the one shown above -- have beards and mustaches.

The figure above depicts distinctive facial tattooing or scarification, typical of that found among some tribes of North Africa and among the Maori of New Zealand. The Jaina Island figurine in this image exhibits even more distinctive characteristics not commonly associated with the Indians of the Americas including not only beard and mustaches but also facial structure and appearance. However, their clothing, headgear and jewelry clearly indicate that these are not images depicting Europeans after the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.

Below: the location of Jaina Island on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.














As noted in the previous blog, not only must historians who deny the possibility of ancient trans-oceanic contact assert that Central American artists just happened to guess what Old World lions looked like (and just happened to use lion sculptures to guard gates and doorways in the same way that they were used in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China), and that they just happened to create sculptures that looked like Europeans (although they never actually saw a European), but they must also maintain that the ancient artists of Central America created sculptures that accidentally depicted features common to Africans and Asians as well, without ever seeing men from those continents.

Below is one of the famous Olmec heads, which some observers believe exhibit features more indicative of African warriors than of the Native American Indians of the region.

























Other observers believe that these sculptures look more like Polynesian warriors than like African warriors. If so, this may provide additional support for the theory of Thor Heyerdahl that the Polynesians originated in the Americas rather than in Malaysia or Southeast Asia.

Also of interest is the fact that the Olmecs created exquisite artifacts of serpentine greenstone and jade, such as the one shown below.

























The similarity to the greenstone carvings of the Maori, discussed in this previous post, is striking, and provides further data in support of the theories of Thor Heyerdahl which suggest that the Polynesians originated in the Americas. Of course, the theory that the voyagers to Polynesia originated in the Americas does not preclude the possibility of previous contact by voyagers from Africa, Asia and Europe with the civilizations of Central America.

Below is another Olmec jade artifact which appears to depict Asian facial features.

























The above mask (of jade, which has long been prized by artists in Asia as well as in the Americas and in ancient New Zealand) is featured on a Wikipedia page entitled "Olmec alternative origin speculations," as if the suggestion of contact with Europe, Asia or Africa based on the above archaeological artifacts is "speculative" rather than based upon solid evidence. The discussion on that page states that such suggestions "contradict generally accepted scholarly consensus" and are "not considered credible by the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers."

The Wikipedia article states that the suggestion of ancient contact with other continents is not only speculative but actually vicious. It declares that "The great majority of scholars" actually "regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans." In other words, it is not racist to argue that ancient Asians or Africans lacked the ability to have visited Central America and been the sculptors or at least the subjects of the artifacts depicted above. Or, to put it another way, it is fine to take away from the possible ancient achievements of some races but not of others, according to the arguments of these misguided modern academics (although we do actually not accept the premise that allowing for ancient trans-oceanic contact "takes away" from the accomplishment of anyone).

So, according to the "scholarly consensus," the clear evidence of the above-depicted artifacts (which are not isolated artifacts but are representative of many others like them) must be ignored, and instead we must swallow the theory that the artists who crafted them simply dreamed up facial features that would suggest men from other regions of the world that they had never actually seen. Not only is this position ludicrous, but the reader can judge for himself whether or not it is more demeaning of the artistic abilities of the "indigenous Americans" to assert that they were accurately depicting Africans, Asians and Europeans in their art, or to assert that they were so incompetent that their attempts to depict Native Americans ended up looking like men of other continents whom they never actually met.

While it is (barely) possible to assert that ancient art does not actually indicate ancient contact across the oceans long before Columbus, it is more difficult to make the same arguments about human remains. Mayan and Olmec sculptors could, theoretically, construct sculptures that look like maned lions, or men from other continents whom they had never seen, but it is much more difficult to argue that mummies found in the Americas with distinctly European features did not actually come from Europe. In light of the fact that hundreds of such pre-Columbian mummies have been found, it is astonishing that "the great majority of scholars" apparently regard the possibility of ancient trans-oceanic contact as "unfounded theories" based upon "ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans."

The sculptures discussed in this post are extremely convincing evidence of ancient trans-oceanic contact between the continents, but they are by no means the only such evidence. It is high time that open-minded investigators of this evidence ask themselves why the "vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers" refuse to follow the clear implications of this evidence, and what ideologies are coloring their conclusions, even as they label as "ethnocentric" and "racist" anyone who disagrees with their pronouncements.

A brief examination of the importance of chakras and singing praises

In the 1950s, Frank Waters (1902 - 1995) and Oswald White Bear Fredericks (1905 - 1990s) spent three years tape recording the sacred traditions of the Hopi people as told to them by twenty-seven Hopi elders, who had consented to preserving their wisdom in a form other than oral tradition for the very first time.

From the recordings, Mr. Waters and Mr. Fredericks created a manuscript, which the elders reviewed and approved (an important point, as there are some who allege that Mr. Waters treated the Hopi tradition in a freewheeling fashion and changed what he was told into what he wanted it to be, which is a baseless allegation). This text became the Book of the Hopi, published in 1963.

One of the most striking features of the Hopi creation story, as related to Mr. Waters, is the belief that we are currently living in the Fourth World, the previous three having been destroyed by fire, ice, and water, respectively. As is now widely known, the Maya also believed that we are living in the fourth age of the world, which they called the Fourth Sun, the previous Suns having been destroyed, as this one will inevitably be as well. It is quite fascinating to examine the reason given by the Hopi elders for the destruction of the previous three worlds.

In the Book of the Hopi, we learn that the Creator gave the people two clear commands at the beginning of each new age: "First, respect me and one another. And second, sing in harmony from the tops of the hills. When I do not hear you singing praises to your Creator I will know you have gone back to evil again" (16).

Clearly, singing to the Hopi was a matter of very great importance. Further, the elders revealed their understanding that when men and women were first created, they began to multiply and spread throughout the earth, but that "This did not matter, for they were so close together in spirit they could see and talk to each other from the center on top of the head. Because this door was still open, they felt close to Sóktunang and they sang joyful praises to the Creator, Taiowa" (15).

This "center" or "door" on top of the head is very significant. As related by the Hopi elders, it was the uppermost of the vibratory centers inside every human, which corresponded to the vibratory centers in the earth itself:

The living body of man and the living body of the earth were constructed in the same way. Through each ran an axis, man's axis being the backbone, the vertebral column, which controlled the equilibrium of his movements and his functions. Along this axis were several vibratory centers which echoed the primordial sound of life throughout the universe or sounded a warning if anything went wrong.

The first of these in man lay at the top of the head. Here, when he was born, was the soft spot, kópavi, the "open door" through which he received his life and communicated with his Creator. For with every breath the soft spot moved up and down with a gentle vibration that was communicated to the Creator. 9 - 10.

Other vibratory centers included those at the brain, the throat, the heart, and the navel. The Hopi tradition makes clear that the successive destruction of the first three worlds took place after the majority of men began to cease their singing of praise to the Creator and stopped communicating with him through their first center.

What is most remarkable is that these vibratory centers described by the Hopi elders correspond quite closely to the chakras described in ancient Hindu texts and persisting in Tibetan, Hindu and Buddhist beliefs to this day, a similarity which Frank Waters points out in a footnote to his manuscript (pages 10 and 11). While most eastern traditions hold that the chakras are seven in number (and ten in number in some Tibetan traditions), the corresponding location of the crown of the head, the forehead (or brain), the throat, the heart, and the navel in both the eastern and the Hopi traditions is quite fascinating.

























It is also fascinating that the Hopi described these important "doors" as vibratory, in light of the subjects touched upon in this previous discussion of the importance of wavelengths and energy as they relate to human beings through music and (as John Anthony West has described in his books on ancient Egypt) the proportions of architecture and art. We discussed the importance of this concept further in another more recent blog post here.

Finally, it is quite interesting that the Christian faith also places great importance on singing (as well as chanting, in some traditions, and singing without accompanying instruments in some traditions as well).

Even more intriguing is the command found in 1 Corinthians 11:4 which says:
"Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head."

The reasons for this strict admonition are worthwhile to contemplate.

Shaun Tomson: The Light Shines Ahead

Here is a link to a video of a very moving talk by Shaun Tomson, a superlative surfer and a very encouraging and giving human being, in which he shares a deeply personal part of his family's story with the world.

If you haven't listened to it yet, you should stop reading now and do so.

Yesterday's post discussed Mr. Tomson's film Bustin' Down the Door, and a few of the many layers of issues regarding the shared human experience which that film engages and enables its viewers to consider. The talk above, which Mr. Tomson gave on December 22, 2010, provides a much more intimate perspective on the words shown on the screen at the end of the movie, which were written by Mr. Tomson's son, Mathew.

It is an unforgettable talk.

At the end, he encourages each of his listeners to imagine what would happen if they would take just thirty minutes each week to sit inside a "sacred story circle" to share their story and their light with someone else. The reference is to a poignant memory he shares with us about a time he shared with his son inside just such a circle.

It is worth noting that there is very ancient precedent for the circle that his son created and shared with his dad, and which his dad then shared with the world.

We noted in this previous post the resemblance that many historians have pointed out between the activities of the ancient Celts and Druids (prolific builders of stone circles) and those of the ancient Hebrews.

The poet, historian and playwright Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), considered the National Bard of Ireland, wrote a four-volume History of Ireland (published between 1835 and 1846), in which he discussed the ancient precedent of the sacred stone circle, as well as the connection between those of the ancient Hebrews and those of the ancient Druids, saying:

No less ancient and general, among the Celtic nations, was the circle of upright stones, with either an altar or tall pillar in the centre, and, like its prototype at Gilgal, serving sometimes as a temple of worship, sometimes as a place of national council or inauguration. That the custom of holding judicial meetings in this manner was very ancient appears from a group which we find represented upon the shield of Achilles, of a Council of Elders, seated round on a circle of polished stones. The rough, unhewn stone, however, used in their circular temples by the Druids, was the true, orthodox observance of the divine command delivered to Noah, "If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not make it of hewn stone" [. . .]. Volume 1, pages 37-38.

Thus the sacredness of such stone circles is very ancient indeed.

The "prototype at Gilgal" to which Thomas Moore refers above can be found in Joshua 4:20-22 (and note that the verses contain a strict command for the sharing of sacred stories between fathers and children).

Mr. Tomson is one of my personal heroes, not only for his surfing but also for his stature as a human being, in much the same way that he describes the great Duke Kahanamoku as his personal hero growing up. Mr. Tomson's surfing can be used to understand an important principle about the earth's orbit around the sun, through the video attached to this previous blog post. We should all be grateful for his willingness to share his story.

Summer movie watching: Bustin' Down the Door

Bustin' Down the Door ranks among the best surf movies ever made. It chronicles the journey of the surfers who changed the sport in the 1970s and created professional surfing.

The movie also details the backlash that took place from the local Hawaiians at the regrettable suggestion, published in an article in Surfer magazine, from one of the new generation, that "we seem to be able to push ourselves harder than the Hawaiians do. Our surfing, as a group, has improved outrageously; whereas theirs, as a group, has stagnated." This, and other episodes, led to an explosive situation which included escalating violence, which was finally defused by a traditional Hawaiian tribunal or ho'oponopono led by Hawaii's Aikau family.

The situation brings out some very important aspects of the "zero sum" fallacy, a mentality which extends far beyond surfing. Zero-sum thinking is often explained using the metaphor of a "fixed pie" view of the world: there is only so much wealth out there, and the more people there are competing for any given portion of it, the less there is for everyone else to squabble over.

Those who have a fixed-pie or zero-sum view of the world naturally see others as potential competitors for resources, and even support measures to reduce the addition of other people whom they view as making everyone's pie even smaller. There are plenty of examples of this erroneous view even at the highest levels of human government, including at the United Nations, which has a branch called the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which promotes the idea of a "link between population and poverty" and supports goals of "lower fertility, smaller families, and slower population growth, thus reducing the burden on the environment."

This view is erroneous, because every single individual actually represents not only a potential consumer but also a potential producer -- every single human being can actually add to the size of the pie, and make the world better for others.

It is easy to see how a zero-sum mentality leads to resentment or active enmity between different peoples, tribes, nations, or groups, because the zero-sum view encourages people to see any wealth or achievement gained by someone else as taking away from the "fixed pie" available to everyone else. On the other hand, the opposite view that every individual and every culture is a contributor who can actually make the world a "bigger" place can lead to cooperation and progress.

In the surfing microcosm explored in the movie Bustin' Down the Door, it is clear that the achievements of the Hawaiians were essential to the achievements reached by newer surfers from other parts of the world, and that the contributions of surfers from other parts of the world in turn advanced the sport in new directions that could then benefit everyone else as well. This idea was actually present in Rabbit Bartholomew's notorious article of the same title, also published in Surfer magazine in 1977, in which he was generally respectful of the great Hawaiian surfers of his and the previous generation, but which was interpreted as being belligerent and disrespectful due to the photographs accompanying the article and those in other surf magazines, one of which featured him wearing an Everlast boxing robe. The text of the original article is reproduced here.

The reconciliation of the situation by the members of the Aikau family, who had the stature to bring about a peaceable solution to the conflict, can be seen as a triumph of the right of human beings to demand that their human dignity, worth and contribution to the human family receive their due respect, and a reversal of the escalating negative effects of zero-sum conflict between peoples or groups or tribes.

The movie even brings out some of the history of the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. In short, it touches on many levels of very deep issues, and thus intersects with the mysteries of mankind's ancient past, in that the Hawaiians may well be the proud descendents of the first Polynesians to venture into the mighty Pacific, and the residents of the traditional Polynesian homeland referred to as Hawaiki by legends found throughout the rest of Oceania.

It is also connected to the questions of mankind's ancient past because there is some evidence that the incredible achievements of ancient civilizations actually featured cooperation between very different families of man, and that those ancient civilizations collapsed into barbarism by the devolution of that cooperation into resentment and violence, as we have discussed here.

Bustin' Down the Door should definitely be featured on your list of movies to watch this summer (even if you've seen it a hundred times already)!