The Nabta Playa circle demolishes conventional theories

The ancient monument at Nabta Playa, in the desolate Sahara desert of southwestern Egypt, has been called one of the earliest aligned structures of mankind's ancient past.  Consensus opinion currently indicates that usage of the site may have begun around 4500 BC (based on carbon dating analysis described in this 2007 article), although some analysts have provided arguments which suggest that the site may have been designed even earlier than that.

Nabta Playa is an extremely arid basin just south of the Tropic of Cancer (see map below).  In 1973, a team of archaeologists led by Fred Wendorf discovered pottery fragments in the remote region and began excavation of what they learned was a site of incredible antiquity.  In 1990, they discovered a stone circle monument, publishing an article about this site for the first time in 1998.  Thus, the site is still somewhat recently revealed to the wider public, and discussion and analysis of its implications are ongoing.

Some of the most intriguing analysis of the site has come from physicist and archaeoastronomer Dr. Thomas G. Brophy, who in 2002 published The Origin Map: Discovery of a Prehistoric, Megalithic, Astrophysical Map and Sculpture of the Universe.  In the video segment above, he discusses his analysis of the site, analysis which if correct has stunning implications which completely upend the conventional timeline of mankind's ancient past.

Dr. Brophy begins by noting that the structure consists of an outer ring which contains clear "gate" features forming two pathways or alignments through the circle, one along a line running northeast to southwest and indicating the summer solstice sunrise, and one running north-south through the circle (the "meridian sightline").  Inside the circle are six stones, which Dr. Brophy believes should be seen as two sets of three.  On pages 9 and 10 of his 2002 book, Dr. Brophy explains his insight into the northern set of three of these inner stones in the Nabta Playa Calendar Circle:

A user of the calendar circle diagram, standing at the north end of the meridian sightline window, would look down on the stone diagram and see a representation of the stars of Orion's Belt just as they appear on the meridian in the sky when the user looked up.

More than just matching the appearance of the stars of Orion's Belt at that time, the ground stones indicate the sky stars at the special time of summer solstice as identified by the solstice sightline window in the calendar circle.

As Dr. Brophy explains in the book, and in the video above, the motion of precession not only "delays the sky" through the ages such that a different zodiac sign is in the position above the rising sun before sunrise on the March equinox (creating the different precessional ages such as the Age of Pisces or the Age of Aquarius), but it also changes the angle that the constellations such as Orion will appear to a viewer at the same location on our planet throughout the different ages.

The angle of the stones representing the belt stars appears to be correct for the period between 6400 BC and 4900 BC -- an archaeoastronomical dating of incredible antiquity.  This was the period of least tilt of the constellation Orion with respect to the meridian (when the constellation is most vertical and the belt stars are the most horizontal).

Dr. Brophy then goes on to an even more significant hypothesis, which is that the southern three stones represent the head and shoulders of Orion, but that they are at an angle when Orion is at his greatest tilt from the motion of precession.  The implications of this proposal, however, are revolutionary.  Due to the very slow motion of precession, the time period indicated by the stones representing the head and shoulders of the constellation would center around 16,500 BC!

Even if these stones were not erected at such an unbelievably early date, it is not inconceivable that they were erected around the first set of dates (those indicated by the tilt of the belt-star stones), and indeed conventional archaeologists currently date the site to a time quite close to Dr. Brophy's astronomically-derived date.

If so, and if Dr. Brophy is also correct about the southern set of stones indicating the head and shoulders of Orion at the period of greatest tilt of the constellation (caused by precession), then this would mean that the ancient designers of the Nabta Playa circle were aware of precession (something conventional historians believe was unknown until about 125 BC), and further that they understood precession to an astonishing level of sophistication, such that they could calculate and diagram the maximum tilt that precession would cause to the familiar stars of Orion!

Either that, or the designers of Nabta Playa were in touch with someone who could (or that the information was handed down from someone who knew these things, pushing the antiquity of this sophisticated understanding even further back in time).  

This proposition clearly has enormous implications.  The evidence that the ancients understood precession to a degree far more precise than that achieved by Hipparchus or Ptolemy (the first astronomers that conventional scholars say were able to detect and understand the phenomenon) is quite extensive, and fills a good portion of the discussion in Hamlet's Mill, by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (as John Anthony West points out in the video above).

The entire Maya Long Count / 2012 phenomenon is based upon clear evidence that the Maya had sophisticated understanding of the effects of precession and could predict with a high degree of accuracy its effect upon the angle and rising times of celestial bodies -- in their case, a special part of the Milky Way galaxy, as discussed in several previous posts, such as this one.  The extreme antiquity of the dating of the  Nabta Playa site, however, pulls back the curtain on a whole new corridor of time stretching into a distant past during which mankind apparently knew far more than modern academics will acknowledge.

However, this revelation is only the beginning of the incredible aspects of the Nabta Playa site which physicist Dr. Brophy finds evidence for.  The circle discussed above is actually part of a three-dimensional structure that continues below the level of the surface of the earth, and includes bedrock many feet below which has apparently been worked by tools into some sort of art form -- but where conventional archaeologists see a "cow" that might have been a stand-in to represent the sacrifice of an actual cow, Dr. Brophy sees a representation of the Galactic Center encoding more precise knowledge that ancient people simply should not have possessed, according to the conventional timeline of history.  Dr. Joseph Farrell explores these aspects of Dr. Brophy's analysis of Nabta Playa in his book Grid of the Gods, a text discussed in this previous post.

Further, the Calendar Circle site is also located within a larger context of other stone monuments in the Nabta Playa basin, and Dr. Brophy believes that the distance and direction relationships among these sites also encodes extremely precise astronomical information (see the continuation of the above-linked video here).

As Dr. Robert Schoch explains on pages xxii - xxiii of his foreword to Dr. Brophy's book:

The megaliths are arranged at various distances from a central point, known as "Complex Structure A."  As you can read in detail below, Brophy interprets these distances from the central point as recording a) the actual distances of the stars in question from our solar system, and b) the speeds that the stars are moving away from us.  The information and interpretations that Brophy extracts from the Nabta megaliths correspond to a high degree with modern knowledge of these parameters for these specific stars.  Further, analyzing smaller companion stones associated with the primary "star" megaliths, Brophy suggests that the builders of the Nabta site may have had information about planetary systems or companion stars associated with the six stars in question -- information that we do not have today!  And then there is the "Cosmological cow stone."  Does this stone encode information about the origin of the universe, the age of the solar system or universe, the structure of the galaxy and universe, and / or the fundamental constants of nature?  Read Brophy's analysis and see what you think.

These possibilities are even more staggering, clearly, than the possibility that the designers of Nabta Playa knew about precession to a degree far beyond that attained by Hipparchus or Ptolemy thousands of years later.  We are accustomed to thinking of Planck's constant, for example, as a discovery of quantum physicists working in AD 1900 and after -- not 1900 BC and certainly not 4900 BC!  And yet this constant is one of those "fundamental constants of nature" that Dr. Schoch refers to above that Dr. Brophy sees in evidence among the dimensions of the monuments in Nabta Playa in Egypt.

Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, it would be prudent to examine Dr. Brophy's discussion and analysis of the evidence and to keep an open mind while doing so.

Moving back a bit from possibilities such as awareness of quantum physics, it is fairly clear that the designers of the Nabta Playa circle created a summer solstice alignment, as well as a meridian alignment which may well line up with the belt stars of Orion (which Dr. Brophy's analysis shows were along that meridian around the summer solstice during that epoch).  Setting aside even the evidence that these ancients might have understood precession, one huge question still remains for proponents of the conventional theories, and that is: how are archaeologists and archaeoastronomers even able to make calculations about the location of Orion in reference to this site, if the site is over 6000 years old and if continental drift has been going on for all these years the way proponents of plate tectonics believe?

At the very least, Nabta Playa should blow the theory of plate tectonics wide open.  Unless, of course, we want to argue that Nabta Playa is a big hoax, and that the stones were actually set out there in the 1970s by clever archaeologists and physicists who threw in references to the Planck constant and precession just to fool people (but who forgot about the motion of plate tectonics, or didn't take it into account, since plate tectonics was still something of a novel theory even in the 1970s).

There are many other sites whose ongoing alignments also argue strongly against plate tectonics, among them the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Sphinx, and the ancient megalithic temples on the islands of Malta.  No one can argue that those sites were secretly constructed in the 1970s. However, the extreme antiquity of Nabta Playa (if it is an authentic ancient site, that is) should set a new record in sites unaffected by tectonic motion.  (Of course, it is quite possible that the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid are much older than conventional academics think that they are -- perhaps even older than Nabta Playa).

Add to that the possibility that Nabta Playa encodes the knowledge that Dr. Brophy demonstrates that it does, and the site completely demolishes most of the foundations of the history departments and the geology departments of most modern universities.  None of this should be surprising to readers of this blog or those who are familiar with the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown.

Precession in the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Philip

(mobile readers please scroll down to read the post)

Previous posts have discussed the vitally important discovery of the "Nag Hammadi library," a group of ancient codices which were probably buried shortly after the the Festal Letter of Athanasius was published in AD 367, condemning "heretical texts" that were not included in the list of "canonical texts."

One of those long-lost texts, rediscovered in 1946 (and taking a rather circuitous route to the awareness of the academic and scholarly community, who took decades to get around to really studying them in earnest) was the Gospel of Philip. 

Marvin Meyer, in his 2005 book The Gnostic Discoveries: The Impact of the Nag Hammadi Library argues that the Gospel of Philip is a Valentinian text, displaying characteristics of the system of understanding developed by Valentinus, who was born in Egypt around the year AD100 and lived to the age of about 75.  Meyer tells us:

The Gospel of Philip is a Valentinian anthology of meditations on a variety of gnostic themes.  Philip is referred to by name once in the text, and that may be the reason the text is attributed to him.  The arrangement of meditations in the Gospel of Philip seems to be more or less random, though it is possible that sometimes they may be connected to one another by catchwords or the sequence of similar themes.  We do not know where these meditations originated, but presumably they come from different sources.  Layton guesses, "It is possible that some of the excerpts are from Valentinus himself."  [. . .]  Still, through the juxtaposition of ideas and the repetition of themes, this anthology of meditations is able to communicate a Valentinian message of mystical oneness and sacramental joy.  128.

In one of the sayings, the text declares:

God is a dyer. As the good dyes, which are called "true", dissolve with the things dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has dyed. Since his dyes are immortal, they become immortal by means of his colors. Now God dips what he dips in water. 

[. . .]

The Lord went into the dye works of Levi. He took seventy-two different colors and threw them into the vat. He took them out all white. And he said, "Even so has the Son of Man come as a dyer."
translation by Wesley W. Isenberg, available here.

The prominent mention of the number seventy-two here appears to be very significant.  As discussed in previous posts, and in greater detail in the Mathisen Corollary book, the number seventy-two is a close approximation of the precessional constant, the number of years that it takes the background of stars to slip by one degree (see for example the illustrations and discussion in this previous post).  The actual rate is one degree of precession every 71.6 years, but for ease of transmission through ancient myth and sacred tradition, that number was usually rounded to 72 years (it is not too easy to tell a story about 71.6 evil murderers, or 71.6 different colors).

What is remarkable about this appearance of 72 is the fact that detecting and then calculating the precessional constant is extremely difficult -- so difficult that even Ptolemy in his Almagest could only guess at the exact rate of precession and state that it was some number less than 100.  He was not able to pin it down to the actual rate of 71.6 years, or even to the nearest whole number of 72 years.  But many other ancient scriptures and traditions, some long before Ptolemy, use the number 72 in myths that clearly contain strong precessional themes (such as the Osiris tradition), as do many ancient monuments of extreme antiquity (the Great Pyramid is full of precessional numbers).  Clearly, the Gospel of Philip in the Nag Hammadi collection falls into this category of ancient writings.

What is also striking about this passage from the Gospel of Philip is the clear connection between this precessional number and a profound teaching about the human condition.  We are told that "God is a dyer" and that the process of dying makes "those whom God has dyed" immortal.  The image of a "dye works" has something to do with the immortality of the human soul.

We are then told that "The Lord went into the dye works of Levi.  He took seventy-two different colors and threw them into the vat. He took them out all white."  What this teaching is trying to tell us can certainly be vigorously debated.  It is possible that the "dye works of Levi" (who is described in other sacred traditions as a "tax collector") refer to our solar system, where human psyches come to labor under a kind of "taxing" system, but one that apparently causes them to come out a dazzling pure white.  But other interpretations are of course possible.  It may well also have something to do with the concept of "differentiation" and a return to "undifferentiated one-ness" or "unity."

What is so significant about this text, I think, is the fact that the process of purification is linked to a celestial number associated with a celestial or astronomical function (precession).  This clearly illustrates that to the keepers of the ancient wisdom traditions, the knowledge of the subtle astronomical mechanism of precession was far more than simply an amazing piece of scientific understanding (although it was certainly that as well).  The motions of the heavens were perceived as having an intimate connection to a process that was essential to the human soul, purification, and immortality 

 

This passage all by itself establishes beyond a doubt that the authors of the Nag Hammadi texts possessed subtle and sophisticated scientific astronomical knowledge.  It also appears to establish the fact that they possessed a subtle and sophisticated spiritual understanding as well.

The staggering implications of the Maya Long Count

12  . 19   . 19  . 17 . 19

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The past few posts, of course, have been counting down to the end of the current Maya Long Count, and here in California (as in most of the world) the last setting of the "current Sun" has now taken place, although the first sunrise of the "new Sun" has not yet taken place here.  

The December 21 sun has of course risen in many other parts of the world that are adjudged to be "ahead" of California in relation to the international date line, although it is debatable as to whether the ancient Maya would have conceded that they have the new Sun already -- perhaps we should consider it a new Maya Long Count only when the new Sun begins to shine on the traditional land of the ancient Maya.

Two posts back we looked at the mechanism of the Long Count itself, as well as the terrible slaughter of the Maya during the 1500s and the deliberate destruction of almost every book or scroll upon which they had preserved their ancient wisdom, science, and traditions.

One post back we looked at the Galactic Alignment theory of John Major Jenkins, which asserts that the Maya Long Count indicated an understanding of the process of precession, and that it was counting down to the day when the Winter Solstice Sunrise (already a symbol of rebirth) would take place against the backdrop of the pregnant bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy (and the Dark Rift in the galactic path which the Maya saw as a celestial birth canal).  Thus, their count was anticipating a renewal of truly galactic proportions, we might say, with profound spiritual implications.

Mr. Jenkins finds many different lines of evidence to support his argument that the Long Count pointed to an ancient Maya understanding of precession -- the understanding that the action of precession would eventually "delay" the band of the Milky Way until it formed the backdrop for the rising Winter Solstice sun.  Among the evidence he points to are celestial aspects of the Maya Creation story in the Popol Vuh and other surviving ancient sacred traditions, stone depictions of the birth event at the Izapa Group F site, and the imagery of the Maya Ball Court, which is aligned with the Winter Solstice sunrise location at Izapa and which featured a ball being put through a ring -- symbolic of the sun passing through the birth canal and the "rebirth" of the sun (see the article by John Major Jenkins linked in the previous post for his broad overview of the Galactic Alignment theory and some of the powerful evidence supporting this interpretation).

I've created some "rough sketches" to help the reader envision the precessional forces at work in this theory.  They are generally adapted from the sketch provided in the article linked above (the sketch showing the Milky Way galaxy slowly being lower and lower in the sky on the morning of the Winter Solstice, until it finally aligns with the sunrise on that day of annual renewal).  

At the top of this post, you can see a rough sketch of the eastern horizon, as we wait for the sun to rise.  The Milky Way galaxy stretches up from the horizon and arcs right across the heavens, flanked on either side by the stars of Sagittarius ("left" of the galaxy and closer to the horizon) and Scorpio ("right" of the galaxy and on its way across the southern portion of the sky).

The large curved arrow indicates the direction that the Milky Way and the constellations appear to turn during the night (this is because the earth is turning in the opposite direction).  They will make their way up and then towards the west.  This means that the Milky Way will start from a more horizontal position and slowly arc towards "the right" of this rough sketch above, sort of like a door swinging on a hinge (in this case, a hinge that is located a bit below the horizon).  The Milky Way and the two important flanking constellations shown above, in other words, will arc across the sketch in the direction of the arrow as indicated, and then sink down in the west.

The image below shows the Winter Solstice sunrise on an imagined day in the far-distant past, when the Winter Solstice sun was rising in the space "below" the constellation Sagittarius.  

In other words, this is the situation on the morning of a Winter Solstice around the end of the Age of Aries and the beginning of the present Age of Pisces (see previous post which has two diagrams at the bottom showing what this means).  The "Age of Pisces" takes its name from the sign in which the Spring Equinox sun appears to rise, so that means that the Winter Solstice sun would rise in Capricorn (the sign behind Sagittarius).  

However, as we have discussed in previous posts and as I've also explained in a video using a helpful "analogy of a dining room," the action of precession delays the background constellations and stars over the ages.  This means that over time, Sagittarius (and the Milky Way and Scorpio ahead of Sagittarius) will not be "as far" on their path when the sun comes up.  Sagittarius will be "delayed" and be lower and lower in the sky, until the sun is actually rising "in" Sagittarius instead of in the space prior to Sagittarius as depicted above.  The diagram below illustrates the "delayed" Sagittarius and the sun rising in that zodiac constellation:

Please note that, because of the "arcing" motion of their path (described above as a door swinging on its hinges), the Milky Way will "lay down" more horizontally as it is lower in the sky (closer to the horizon).  Thus, in the diagram above, it is laying slightly more horizontally than in the previous image.  This is because it has not "gotten as far" up into the sky before the sun rises on the morning of the Winter Solstice.

The above image depicts the situation during the Age of Pisces, when the sun rises in Pisces on the Spring Equinox and in Sagittarius on the Winter Solstice.  As the Age of Pisces progresses, the Winter Solstice sunrise will be ever "further along" in Sagittarius, creeping closer and closer to the Milky Way (or, seen another way, the Milky Way and the zodiac constellations will be delayed bit by bit, and will not get as far into the sky when viewed on successive Winter Solstice mornings over a period of two thousand years).

Somewhere towards the end of the Age of Pisces and near the start of the Age of Aquarius (that age in which the Spring Equinox sun rises in Aquarius and the Winter Solstice sun rises in Scorpio), the Winter Solstice sun will align with the brilliant band of the Milky Way galaxy, which rises dramatically between Sagittarius and Scorpio.  As described in the previous post and as pointed out by John Major Jenkins in his theory, this galactic band has a prominent "bulge" (the Galactic Center or Galactic Nucleus), which the Maya described as symbolizing the cosmic mother, as well as a prominent "Dark Rift" which the Maya associated with a birth canal (they called this dark path the xibalba be, or "Road to the Underworld").

The motion of precession would eventually bring the Winter Solstice sunrise in line with this cosmic symbol of birth -- a powerful conjoining of "rebirth" symbology (the Winter Solstice sunrise already symbolizing annual rebirth as the sun stops its southward journey and the days cease to grow shorter and begin again to grow longer).  This is what John Major Jenkins believes the Long Count was pointing towards.  It is depicted in the image below:

Note that this theory assumes a rather startling piece of information: the ancient Maya understood the subtle astronomical mechanics of precession.  This assertion is actually quite revolutionary when we consider that detecting precession is really not easy at all.  The motion of precession only delays a star by a single degree in about 71.6 years -- and that single degree is only between its location on any given day a full year apart, as in, one degree of difference from one Winter Solstice to another Winter Solstice 72 years later!

Thus, to detect precession requires the ability to measure a star's location very precisely, and then to record that location somehow so that it can be compared on successive nights over the course of many years, and even after 72 such successive years the difference would be very slight. It would really take hundreds of years in all likelihood to detect the change, meaning records kept for generations, passed on, continued, and studied carefully.  

Even then, when the change is perceived, there is no guarantee that those who perceive it will be able to determine the rate with any great accuracy.  Conventional academia attributes the first awareness of precession in the ancient classical world to Hipparchus (c. 190 BC - c. 120 BC), although (as many have pointed out before me, and as I discuss extensively in my own book as well as in previous posts) there is irrefutable evidence that the ancient Egyptians and other cultures previous to Hipparchus understood precession thousands of years earlier.  But, conventional historians still assert that Hipparchus was first, and it can be demonstrated that neither he nor his successor Ptolemy (AD 90 - AD 168) knew that precession delayed the sky by one degree every 71.6 years -- they only knew that it was "faster" than one degree every 100 years (giving themselves some margin for error).

The ancient Maya clearly possessed a much more sophisticated understanding of precession, then, than did either Hipparchus or Ptolemy!  Look at the precision of their Long Count calendar, and marvel at their superior astronomical science.

Also, note that the earliest Long Count date known at present (as discussed in this previous post) was inscribed in the year 67 BC by the Maya, at Chiapas.  That means that (if the Long Count anticipates a Galactic Alignment as John Major Jenkins demonstrates that it does) the ancient Mesoamericans understood precession to this astonishingly sophisticated degree no later than 67 BC.  Since Hipparchus lived from 190 BC to 120 BC, this 67 BC date for an early Long Count inscription does not automatically prove that the Maya knew about precession before Hipparchus did.  

However, think again about what it takes to even notice precession.  It takes many decades (and more likely centuries) of very accurate observation, position measurement, position recording, and then record comparison before one can even notice that it is going on.  It would then probably take many more years to come up with a theory for what is going on, as well as to make the measurements necessary to determine the rate of the precessional delay with any degree of accuracy.  The accuracy that the Maya seem to have possessed was extremely precise, indicating that their investigation of this phenomenon had been going on for centuries.  It is almost certain that their knowledge of precession predated Hipparchus, and yet conventional historians insist on attributing the first awareness of precession to him.

It is also probable that the Maya understood precession for some time (perhaps for hundreds of years) before inscribing the first text we have of a Long Count date.  It is ridiculous to assert that they discovered precession in AD 68 and inscribed their first text with a Long Count a year later in AD 67, for example.  Coming up with the Long Count would seem to be almost as involved as measuring precession, especially if (as John Major Jenkins finds ample evidence to believe) the Long Count was anticipating very accurately the alignment of a Winter Solstice sunrise with the birth canal of the Milky Way galaxy.

This information is something that really is staggering.  It upsets the entire conventional picture of the ancient timeline of human development.  It demonstrates a level of scientific achievement (and probably of spiritual awareness) at a far earlier date than conventional academia will admit any human beings possessed such capabilities.  

This amazing achievement of the Maya is completely overlooked in most of the hype and condescending media treatment of the renewal of the Maya Long Count on December 21, 2012.

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The Maya Long Count and Galactic Alignment: the work of John Major Jenkins

12  . 19   . 19  . 17 . 17

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As discussed in the previous post, the famous Maya Long Count is approaching that momentous point at which the final place rolls back to zero, increasing the place before it by one.  

In this case, that place before it also rolls back to zero when asked to increase by one, causing the place before it to increase by one, which again is already at the point at which it too will roll to zero when it increases by one.  This, of course, causes the place before it to also roll to zero, causing the first place in the five-glyph series to increase to 13, followed by four zeros -- the start of a new cycle.

As this is published, December 18th is just beginning here in California, and so the series of glyphs above shows a "17" (or two dots each representing a single tally and three bars representing five apiece) at the final space (this is the count for the 18th of December this year, according to most modern analysts of the Maya Long Count).  It can only go up to 19 before it rolls to zero and increases the count in the previous space -- it will reach 19 (four dots and three bars) on December 20th and "roll over" on the 21st.

Also mentioned in the previous post is my belief that the renewal of the Long Count has more to do with celestial renewal than with any supposed prediction of catastrophe, whether from being "cut off from the galactic center by the interposition of the sun" (as some have alleged to be the cause of impending disaster) or from the earth finally becoming fed up with supposed overpopulation and carbon emission (as others maintain).  

This assertion -- that the Long Count most likely commemorated the precessional cycles and anticipated the arrival of a new precessional dawning -- is also discussed in my 2011 book, and in the "Happy New Year 2012" blog message published at the end of December of last year.  The fact that the Long Count counting system described above appears to have been deliberately fashioned to incorporate certain precessional numbers (particularly 7,200) and to measure out roughly one-fifth of the entire estimated "Great Year" or "full circle" of precession appear to support the assertion that the Long Count points to precessional renewal (which, of course, can also point to both cosmic and individual renewal at all kinds of levels, based on the ancient teaching of the harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm).

As mentioned in other previous posts on this subject, I believe that the thorough and deliberate analysis of John Major Jenkins on this subject is extremely compelling.  John Major Jenkins has been studying the evidence related to the Long Count and its significance for nearly thirty years, including much time spent at ancient sites in modern-day Guatemala and Mexico and among the contemporary Maya themselves.  

His Galactic Alignment theory of the Long Count's celestial meaning (which he shows to have almost certainly had additional layers of significance relating to rebirth, renewal, and the transcending of the duality that many ancient wisdom traditions link to "the Fall") is perhaps best summarized in a 2001 article entitled "Izapan Cosmos: a brief survey of Izapan iconography and astronomy in the Group F ballcourt,"  which gives a short version of his theory and supports it with numerous diagrams, photographs and maps.

Using the evidence at Izapa, he shows that there are multiple reasons to believe that the Long Count was pointing to the time when the Winter Solstice sun (which is already a sunrise of annual rebirth, in that it marks the period in which the sun ceases its southern movement and shortening of days, and turns back towards the north and begins the lengthening of days) would rise against the backdrop of the Milky Way galaxy, and the Great Rift (or Dark Rift) in the galaxy near the bulge of the galactic center, which the Maya associated with birth (the bulge being seen as symbolizing an expectant mother, and the Great Rift as the birth canal).  

[Readers of this blog may want to go back and review the discussions of the sun's motion at Winter Solstice here, here, and here, and to check out the discussion of the concept of "heliacal rise" here and here].

Mr. Jenkins reviews the evidence in that article, which include the symbology of the monuments and the alignment of the Maya Ball Court (whose ball going through a circular goal almost certainly symbolizes the same solar rebirth, as Mr. Jenkins demonstrates), along with numerous photos and diagrams.  He expands on this evidence in much greater detail in his books (which can be found here on his website).

To understand the motion of precession that Mr. Jenkins is explaining, take a look at the drawing he includes right in the middle of the article linked above, just below his drawing of the Ball Court at Izapa and to the right of it Stela 60, and just above his full-color drawing of the dramatic Stela 67.  That drawing shows the rising band of the Milky Way galaxy in the east on the morning of the Winter Solstice sunrise at Izapa.  

The drawing shows the Milky Way drawn four times.  In the top position, marked as 6000 BC, the Milky Way band (with the galactic nuclear bulge and the Dark Rift or birth canal) is well above the horizon at Izapa as the Winter Solstice sun begins to rise.  However, as we have discussed in previous posts such as this one and this one, the mechanics of precession act to "delay" the celestial background over the centuries, such that the familiar landmarks slowly show up at a lower place in the sky on the expected day than they were before.  

Thus, as the drawing in the article shows, the Milky Way will be successively lower and lower in the sky on the morning of Winter Solstice sunrise, until it is lying along the Izapa horizon as the Winter Solstice sun begins to dawn.  This significant alignment, which the ancient Maya astronomers calculated to take place in 2012, creates a powerful astronomical picture of rebirth.  The Winter Solstice sunrise, already a symbol of annual rebirth, aligns with the birth canal of the galaxy.  It is such a powerful motif that we can understand why the ancient Maya were counting down towards 2012.

In another excellent article in which he summarizes and explains his theory, this time on the Graham Hancock website, John Major Jenkins says:

As I've been able to show through an interdisciplinary analysis of the academic literature, synthesizing material from ethnographic starlore, archaeoastronomy, linguistics, mythology, and iconography, the solstice-galaxy alignment was conceived as the union of the male principle (December solstice sun) with the female principle (the Milky Way's center). The region of the Milky Way that the solstice sun will unite with contains not only the nuclear bulge of the Galactic Center (which, by the way, is recognizable with the naked eye) but also a "dark-rift" feature caused by interstellar dust. The modern Maya call this dark-rift or Great Cleft the xibalba be- the Road to the Underworld. This feature is the key to understanding the rebirth metaphor of the 2012 end-date, for it was also conceived, in Maya symbology, as the birth canal of the Great Mother (the Milky Way).

The concept of Father Sun being reborn at the end of the age is very similar to the events in Maya Creation mythology (the Popol Vuh) in which First Father / One Hunahpu is reborn in the underworld ballcourt. The ballgame metaphor, too, encodes the alignment. If we look at accepted notions of ballgame symbolism, we learn that it is basically about the rebirth of the sun on the temporal levels of day, year, and World Age. The sun is reborn daily at dawn, yearly at the December solstice, and, in terms of World Ages, on December 21, 2012-when the December solstice sun aligns with the Galactic Plane, which is the precession cycle's "finish line." The dark-rift that lies along this plane is the "goal" toward which the December solstice sun, as the gameball, moves over many millennia. In this way, the Maya conceived of the gameball going into the goalring as a replication of cosmic time's end-game. Finally, yet another way that the solstice-galaxy alignment was encoded into basic Maya institutions involves King accession rites. Here, the king, as a shamanic journey, must be initiated into kingship my journeying into the "cosmic center"-something Siberian shamans have been doing for a long time. In the Maya tropical lands, however, the cosmic center is not the Polestar but the Galactic Center, identified by the nuclear bulge- the womb of the Milky Way mother toward which the "sun king" precesses. Precession reveals the king's slow procession to ultimate enthronement in the heart of time and space. But for the sake of kingship in local space-time, he makes an initiatory vision journey into the celestial heart to be anointed and given the power of rulership and sacred knowledge.

This is the core of how the solstice-galaxy alignment of 2012 was encoded by ancient Maya thinkers into their basic institutions. In my book I call this end-date idea-complex "the Galactic Cosmology."

The diagrams below may assist readers in further conceptualizing the mechanics that bring the December solstice sunrise into alignment with the glorious band of the Milky Way.   The first diagram shows the Age of Pisces, which is coming to an end (the exact end-year is a subject of debate and some disagreement). 

I have added a red line which indicates the constellation-signs in which the equinox sunrise takes place (again, remember the concept of heliacal rise -- a couple previous posts dealing with that concept are linked above).  The red letter "E" shown in Pisces (on the left) and Virgo (on the right) indicate that the equinox sunrise takes place in these zodiac constellations during the Age of Pisces.  For the northern hemisphere, the March equinox is the spring and gives the Age of Pisces its name.  During this age, the solstices (marked with a blue line) are in Gemini (at the top, marked with "JS" for "June Solstice") and Sagittarius (at the bottom, marked with "DS" for "December Solstice").  In the northern hemisphere, of course, the December Solstice is the Winter Solstice.

However, as the mechanism of precession slowly delays the backdrop of the heavens, the ages will finally shift as they have before, and the zodiacal constellation of Pisces at the Spring Equinox will be replaced by Aquarius (the "preceding" sign -- hence "precession"), ushering in the Age of Aquarius.  The situation will then be as shown in the diagram below:

Note that the red line of the equinoxes now indicates Aquarius (marked with a red "E" in the lower left) and Leo (red "E" at upper right).  The blue line of the solstices has shifted too, and now designates Taurus (June Solstice, upper left) and Scorpio (December Solstice or Winter Solstice, lower right).  

The important point to understand is that the Milky Way in the night sky rises between Sagittarius and Scorpio.  You can see these brilliant constellations in the stunning video linked at the top of this post: click on the image of the Milky Way lying almost horizontal above the eastern horizon.  This should help to imagine the celestial backdrop that John Major Jenkins is discussing in his articles, and which his theory maintains is the key to understanding the significance of the Long Count and 2012. 

Even if it is not yet the official start of the Age of Aquarius, you can now understand why the Maya understood the December Solstice sunrise to line up with a year in that transitional period in which we are shifting from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.  Because this shift brings the Winter Solstice sunrise from Sagittarius (in the Age of Pisces) to Scorpio (in the Age of Aquarius), that sunrise will pass through the band of the Milky Way (which rises between Scorpio and Sagittarius) at some point during that transition.  The Maya calculated it to take place THIS YEAR, on this December Solstice.

This discussion should help us to begin to understand the amazing significance of the Maya Long Count.  John Major Jenkins is to be commended for his diligent work in uncovering the evidence that supports this Galactic Alignment understanding of the Maya Long Count cycle.   Finally, this understanding of what the Maya Long Count may mean should also serve to raise our respect for the incredible astronomical and mathematical sophistication of the Maya who anticipated this event well over two thousand years ago, incorporating both a masterful understanding of the subtle motion of precession and also a profound awareness of the symbolic language of our earth, sun, and galaxy -- and the connections between macrocosm and microcosm spanning many levels of consciousness.

The Illusionists (December 2012)

"The Cage" was the intended pilot to the ground-breaking science fiction series Star Trek, but it was not originally shown prior to the launch of the series and was only aired later after being edited into a sort of "story within a story" that was called "The Menagerie."  However, it can now be seen in its original intended form, without the disruptive and somewhat contrived additional storyline, by purchasing it from various retail outlets on the web, or by watching it on a streaming service such as Netflix, which currently has it available in the "watch instantly" category as the first episode in the first season of the original Star Trek television series (all of the episodes can be viewed in streaming form under "watch instantly" on Netflix).

"The Cage" showcases many of the literary strengths that would mark the classic Star Trek series, including a philosophical examination of important questions of human existence.  In "The Cage," the captain of the Enterprise (in this case, Christopher Pike, Captain Kirk's predecessor) falls into the clutches of the super-intellectual and somewhat amoral denizens of Talos IV, who think nothing of imprisoning "inferior" species in their underground zoo, preferably both a male and a female, trying to find a species that is hardy enough and adaptable enough to serve as slaves for the survival of the Talosians.

The Talosians have developed remarkable powers of illusion, and they believe that by using these powers, they can make captivity pleasant for the humans and their future servitude palatable.  However, as the dismayed leader of the Talosians tells Captain Pike after remotely "assimilating" the records stored on-board the Enterprise:

We had not believed this possible.  The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity -- even when it's pleasant, and benevolent, you prefer death!  This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.

The question of whether one would choose "pleasant, and benevolent" captivity will surface again in another classic science-fiction film exploring this issue (and the power of illusion to enslave) -- The Matrix, released in 1999.

"The Cage" was filmed from the end of November through the middle of December, 1964, which means that it was being made at this time, forty-eight years ago.  It is always worthwhile to reflect upon the timeless themes explored in "The Cage" at any time, but it is particularly appropriate now, forty-eight years later, as we enter the portentious month of December, 2012, around which (rightly or wrongly) so much media hype has been built up.  

As I wrote one year ago at this time, in this previous post and also this previous post, I believe that the end of the Maya long-count cycle has more to do with changes in the heavens and the start of a new celestial age -- the "Age of Aquarius," which is the incipient precessional age, although when it officially begins varies depending upon who you ask -- than with cataclysmic destruction on earth.  

If the angle of the earth in relationship to the sun, stars, and planets has an impact on our life on earth (and it clearly does, as the ancients clearly taught and as changes in the tides and changes in the seasons clearly demonstrate), then the advent of a new precessional age (or "new Sun," as the Maya called the successive ages) might presage changes in human behavior and spiritual consciousness, and these changes may well be positive rather than catastrophic (many in fact believe that they will be).

However, the media typically dwells only on the "end of the world" aspect of 2012, with productions such as National Geographic's overly-sensational 2012: Countdown to Armageddon and similar apocalyptic fare. 

The Talosians in "The Cage" were able to use their powers of illusion and suggestion to manipulate the officers and crew of the Enterprise, making them think that their phasers were incapable of blowing a hole in the glass wall of their prison cell, or that a huge laser cannon seen only in that episode was ineffective at blasting through the rocks that guarded the entrance to the underground catacombs.  In one memorable scene, when Captain Pike manages to get his hands around the neck of the leader of the Talosians, the illusionist causes Captain Pike to see a powerful alien monster rather than the scrawny and relatively defenseless Talosian.

Just knowing that it was an illusion enabled Captain Pike to foil its power, knowing that reality was not what he was being shown.  This is an important principle, because -- while the human race has not yet developed unaided mental powers equal to the illusion-projecting capabilities of the Talosians -- modern technology allows the creation of illusions that might be nearly as convincing as those shown in 1964's "The Cage."  In fact, as we pointed out in a previous post, modern technology in 1938 enabled the broadcast of a radio program that actually convinced some people that earth had been invaded by Mars!

How difficult would it be for some group of modern-day Talosians to use current media or Hollywood technology (which today is far more advanced than anything that the creative producers had in 1938 or 1964) to create panic around an event centered on the prophecy of December 2012?  What kind of influence could the new computer-generated powers of illusion enable, if most people accept uncritically whatever they are shown or told by those "in authority," and never learn to practice their own "due diligence"?  

Captain Pike's actions show that the best way to defuse a powerful illusion is to refuse to go along with it -- even when it appears that one is confronted with overwhelming adversaryforce.  However, if you watch "The Cage" carefully you will also see that even Captain Pike could not defeat the illusionists all by himself -- he had to communicate what was going on to his companions, so that they could resist the illusions as well, and acting together they were able to demonstrate enough resolve to convince their captors that they would resist their enslavement, even to the death if necessary.

These are important themes to consider as we head into the month of December 2012 -- and beyond.

Chia and ancient wisdom

Some of the most brilliant constellations in the entire night sky now grace the eastern portion of the heavens in the hours after sunset and before midnight.  Even with a dazzling full moon taking place right now, the constellations of Orion and Gemini are clearly visible, and even some of the stars of Taurus such as red Aldebaran and bright Jupiter, in spite of the fact that the moon is currently right next to the Hyades. 

Even with the moon shining at full force, you can follow a nearly direct line from Orion to the Twins of Gemini, using his famous belt as a starting point and proceeding through reddish Betelgeuse in his shoulder (to the left of the belt as he rises in the northern hemisphere) towards the brightest foot of Gemini which is gamma Geminorum or Alhena and then (still moving along the same nearly horizontal line) to the two heads of Gemini, the bright stars Castor and Pollux (clearly visible even with the moon).

As the moon begins to wane over the upcoming nights, and as it also rises later and later each night, the spectacular stars of Orion and Gemini will become even more prominent in the pre-midnight sky.  

As has already been discussed in several previous posts, Gemini and Orion are extremely important in ancient myth, and de Santillana and von Dechend suggest in Hamlet's Mill that the Age of Gemini (in which Gemini and also Orion occupied the pre-dawn horizon at the rise of the March equinox sun).  

As they also mention, and as is explained in greater detail in my book, the equinoctial intersection of the ecliptic with the celestial horizon was encoded in mythology as blazing fire (and sometimes depicted as upright or downturned torches, as in the iconography of Mithraic temples).  Based on this understanding, they argue that the constellation described by Bernardino de Sahagun (1499 - 1590), a Franciscan friar who lived among the Mexica and learned their language and helped preserve their traditions, as the mamalhuaztli (which he notes were also called the "fire sticks") is none other than Gemini, the equinoctial constellation of the Golden Age (321 and footnote on 321, and following).

The Mexica people are often referred to as the Aztecs, although some scholars now assert that this is not necessarily accurate (see this discussion of terminology, and of the historical context of Sahagun's texts preserving the traditions of the peoples of Mexico during the 1500s).  It is fascinating to note that they may have associated Gemini with "fire sticks," particularly in light of the discussion that follows in Hamlet's Mill regarding the association of Gemini with "fire sticks" in the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh.   

How did two cultures so widely separated come up with the same mythological imagery?  Conventional historians will tell us that it was just a "coincidence."  However, I have discussed some very powerful connections to Gilgamesh (also involving Gemini!) among the legends and traditions of the Mesoamerican peoples in previous posts, and we have also seen numerous other pieces of evidence that strongly suggest that the conventional isolationist view is completely incorrect.

The texts preserved by Friar Bernardino de Sahagun also relate the importance of the chia plant as a source of food among the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica.  The diagram above is from the Florentine Codex, and it depicts a mature chia plant.  The portion of the codex which discusses chia can be seen here in this section of Book 11, from a 1965 copy prepared by the US Department of Agriculture.  There we read of chia:

It is hard, juicy, oily.  It is in twos.  It is that which can be broken up, that which fills out.  It is tasty, savory.  It is that of which pinole is made.  It is potable.

Although the pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica obviously knew of chia many hundreds of years ago, it is only recently being discovered by modern civilizations, primarily among athletes and healthy-food afficionados (so far).  

Chia seeds apparently have a very high concentration of omega-3 fatty acids -- even higher than that found in salmon.  Here is a recent article on the nutritional properties of chia seeds published earlier this year.

Chia sprouts have been famous for some time as the green hair that grows on "chia pets," which first hit stores in the late 1970s and grew into something of a craze in the early 1980s.  Chia sprouts can also be grown for food.  Mark M. Braunstein's outstanding sprouting guide book Sprout Garden discusses chia on page 69, grouped along with cress, flax and psyllium:

These four mucilaginous seed successfully sprout alone only with the clay Saucer Method.  Consult the instructions on pages 41-43 for a definitive discussion.

They will sprout by the otherwise trustworthy Jar Method only if combined in a portion of one part mucilaginous seed to four or five parts alfalfa or clover.  Sprout the alfalfa or clover a day or two alone, add the mucilaginous seeds, and continue sprouting as you would alfalfa.

Interestingly enough, this is somewhat similar to the ancient method described by Sahagun's Mesoamerican sources.  If you are interested in trying it for yourself, you can order chia seeds for sprouting at Sprout House, as well as at many other seed outlets.

This blog makes no dietary recommendations or nutritional claims -- that is up to each reader to decide for himself or herself.  However, going out to view the constellations (particularly Gemini and Orion this time of year) every night is highly recommended, as is considering the ancient wisdom that was apparently disseminated worldwide and preserved in the sacred texts and traditions of the world's far-flung cultures.

Plutarch, Demeter, and genetically-modified food

We have been examining together the arguments of Plutarch in his two (now fragmentary) discourses entitled "On the Eating of Flesh" (here is a link to part one and here is a link to part two). 

Some of Plutarch's arguments include the assertion that the eating of flesh is unnatural, that it is cruel, that it is unnecessary, that a large amount of the meat which cost another being its life is routinely wasted and left uneaten, that it is unhealthy and leads to grossness of body and mind and spirit, that animals raised for food are sometimes degraded and tortured in most inhumane fashion, and finally that we should be cautious of killing and eating animals in case there is any truth to doctrine of reincarnation or what he calls the possibility of "the migration of souls from body to body" (even if we are not convinced of this teaching, he says, the uncertainty should urge us to err on the side of caution).

In addition to all of the above arguments, one argument which comes quite early in the first discourse is the argument that the slaughter of animals for food betrays a lack of faith and gratitude to the gods responsible for the provision of bread and wine: Demeter and Dionysus.  Plutarch writes:

Why slander the earth by implying that she cannot support you? Why impiously offend law-giving Demeter and bring shame upon Dionysus, lord of the cultivated vine, the gracious one, as if you did not receive enough from their hands?

This is a very interesting argument, and one which should give us pause even in our jaded modern world.   While many modern readers might wonder how this argument carries any weight with moderns who do not believe in the existence of beings named Demeter and Dionysus, we should be careful not to dismiss this argument too quickly.  

First, it is quite possible that the ancients had a much more sophisticated understanding of the "powers" responsible for the production of bread and wine, which they named gods (or, in ancient Egypt, the neters or neteru).  Second, it is very possible to translate this argument of Plutarch's into whatever personal faith one may happen to believe and see that his caution about having a lack of faith and a lack of gratitude might indeed be worth considering on many levels.

Even setting aside for the moment the central thesis of Plutarch's argument, which questions the necessity and morality of killing animals for food, this "faith-based" portion of his argument would seem to apply quite fittingly to the debate surrounding genetically-modified plants for food.  We might modify Plutarch's argument somewhat and update it for this very important modern issue and imagine him asking:

Oh blessed and beloved of the gods, you who live now, what an age has fallen to your lot wherein you enjoy and assimilate a heritage abounding in good things! How many plants grow for you! What vintages you gather! What wealth you may draw from the plains and what pleasant sustenance from trees! Why, you may even live luxuriously without the alteration of plants in order to more readily spray them with insecticides and herbicides. But you who live now, what madness, what frenzy drives you to the pollution of mixing bacterial DNA and viral triggers into your corn and your canola, you who have such a superfluity of necessities? Why slander the earth by implying that she cannot support you? Why impiously offend law-giving Demeter, as if you did not receive perfectly good natural corn and soybeans from her hands? Are you not ashamed to mingle domestic crops with bioengineered monstrosities?

As we approach the holiday of Thanksgiving, in which we remember the fact that we should not and must not take our food for granted, and in which we reflect with thankfulness upon the abundance that we have been provided by a power that works through nature to meet our physical needs, the questions of Plutarch seem startlingly appropriate.

Interestingly enough, the authors of Hamlet's Mill find an ancient connection between the goddess Demeter and the mythological cornucopia, which is also a common Thanksgiving motif in the United States.  They write:

And here there is a proposition to be made.  In order to evaluate it, one has to consider the fact that alpha Aurigae is Capella, the Goat.  This remarkable figure was the nurse of infant Zeus in the Dictaean Cave, and out of her skin Hephaistos was later to make the Aegis: Amaltheia.  Capella-Amaltheia's Horn was the Horn of Plenty for the immortals, and the source of Nectar and Ambrosia.  Mortals called it "second table," dessert so to speak.  But there are two shreds of Orphic tradition which seem to be revealing, both handed down to us by Proclus.  The first says that Demeter separated the food of the gods, splitting it up, as it were, into a liquid and a solid "part," that is, into Ambrosia and Nectar.  The second declares that Rhea became Demeter after she had borne Zeus.  And Eleusis, for us a mere "place name," was understood by the Greeks as "Advent" -- the New Testament uses the word for the Advent of Christ.  Demeter, formerly Rhea, wife of Kronos, when she "arrived," split up the two kinds of divine food having its source in alpha Aurigae.  In other words, it is possible that these traditions about Demeter refer to the decisive shifting of the equinoctial colure to alpha Aurigae.  259.

In order to follow this line of argument (the authors of Hamlet's Mill are somewhat famous for leaving out some of the "stepping stones" that might help their readers to follow them from one side of the river to the other side, so to speak), it is helpful to understand what a "colure" is (this is explained, with numerous diagrams, in my actual Mathisen Corollary book), as well as to understand the mechanism of precession (which is described in this video using a metaphor of a dining room, which should be helpful). 

The short translation of their argument (I believe) is the assertion that the myths linking Demeter to Rhea (the wife of Kronos or Saturn, who ruled the Golden Age, and who is associated with Orion which is the constellation associated with Osiris) help explain her connection to the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer.  As this previous blog post explains (and shows with some diagrams), the action of precession slowly replaced Gemini and Orion (the rulers of the Golden Age) with Auriga and Taurus (who are located ahead of them in the sky -- preceding them, which is the origin of the word "precession), and this is why the authors of Hamlet's Mill spend so much time on chariot myths (such as the myth of Phaethon), which also relate to the end of the Golden Age brought about by the action of precession.

Thus the tradition that Rhea became Demeter who was then associated with the brightest star in Auriga must point to this transformation as taking place at the end of the Golden Age.  Demeter is associated with "separating" or "splitting up" the food of the gods -- she divides things up (note that in the most well-known myth about Demeter, she is responsible for "dividing up" the year into winter and summer).  She divides and she measures out (her name De-meter incorporates both of these functions, as the prefix di- has to do with division or "two-ness" and the word "meter" has to do with measuring; note that her former husband Kronos is also associated with "giving the measures").

Thus, through a rather esoteric line of reasoning, we can see the importance of Demeter's connection with the brightest star of Auriga, the star that was associated with the cornucopia or Horn of Plenty.  So Plutarch's argument (where we note that he calls Demeter "law-giving Demeter," which could also be translated as "rule-giving Demeter" or "measure-giving Demeter") that eating unnatural foods represents lack of faith and gratitude to Demeter, the giver of the Horn of Plenty, carries even more significance and symbol.

It is certainly an argument that bears careful consideration.  Happy Thanksgiving!