Ten reasons to suspect a close connection between ancient Roman Mithraism and ancient Roman Christianity

image: Mithraeum located under the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome. Wikimedia commons (link).

Conventional scholars continue to debate the origin of the Roman cult of Sol Invictus Mithras, which (based upon the archaeological evidence of the mithraea) arose circa AD 100 and ends in AD 396.  Although scholars today are more circumspect in their pronouncements regarding the origins of this institution than they have been in previous decades (prior to the 1970s), it is still common for well-regarded Mithraic scholars to assert that Mithraism and Christianity were bitter rivals.

For instance, this essay published in a collection in 1994 tells us that: "Between the second and fourth centuries C.E. Mithraism may have vied with Christianity for domination of the Roman world." The author continues:

The Christians' view of this rival religion is extremely negative, because they regarded it as a demonic mockery of their own faith.  One also learns of Mithraism from brief statements in classical Greek and Roman authors.

While it is certainly true that Christian polemicists, including Tertullian, attacked Mithraism on these grounds, this does not necessarily indicate that the two systems were indeed at cross-purposes. Author Flavio Barbiero, whose work is discussed in The Undying Stars and in this previous post, has put forward a theory which argues that the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras was actually the secret society through which decisions were made and strategy enacted to gain control of the "command-and-control" centers of the Roman Empire, and that this exclusive institution, whose proceedings were kept entirely secret, operated in the background, using literalist Christianity as a public and nonexclusive shield -- one that it controlled, and one that would take the brunt of those who wanted to stand against the underground campaign.

Flavio Barbiero offers a host of evidence to support this view of events, and the conclusion that this campaign was ultimately tremendously successful -- successful to the point that it shaped European history and then world history for the following seventeen centuries, and continues to do so to this day. The following points are taken from his 2010 publication The Secret Society of Moses: The Mosaic Bloodline and a Conspiracy Spanning Three Millennia. Many of these pieces of evidence are also discussed in his 2010 article entitled "Mithras and Jesus: Two sides of the same coin" on the website of Graham Hancock. 

Note that the following points are not intended to be aimed at any particular branch of Christianity as it has existed since the fourth century, but rather to shed light upon the possible origins of all of literalist Christianity, which deliberately chose to take a very different approach to the interpretation of the Biblical scriptures, and one which intentionally cut itself off from all the "pagan" traditions of the world as well as from the esoteric, gnostic, Sethian, Valentinian and Hermetic forms of Christianity which existed prior to this juncture in history.

• Mithraism was neither a "religion" nor a "mystery cult" -- unlike other ancient religions, it was extremely exclusive and met in special mithraea which were so small that, "At most, forty people could be seated in each of them" (158). The majority of mithraea could not hold more than twenty.
• Numerous mithraea have been found underneath ancient Christian basilica or churches, indicating that there may have been some kind of symbiotic connection between the leadership of the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras and that of the Christian church. While it is possible to explain this fact away by saying that the Christian church triumphantly took over the sites of its old rival and built churches on top of their sacred sites (as it later did around the world), there is evidence that this explanation was not the case for Mithraism and Christianity. Specifically, Barbiero notes that the Basilica of St. Peter on Vatican Hill was built above the Phrygianum, the most central mithraeum in Roman Mithraism, where the "Father of Fathers" (head of the entire order of Sol Invictus Mithras) held sway. Most significantly, the Christian Basilica of St. Peter was built by the emperor Constantine in AD 322, but the last "Father of Fathers" of Mithraism did not die until AD 384, and he continued to use the mithraeum in the Phrygianum for all those years! It would be remarkable if these two supposedly "rival religions" coexisted for even two years with their "headquarters" co-located, but the dates indicate that this coexistance lasted for sixty-two years. Barbiero writes: 

In this light, we are forced to conclude that Sol Invictus Mithras and Christianity were not two religions in competition, as we often read, but were two institutions of a different nature that were closely connected. Rather than being a simple hypothesis, this is practically a certainty. It is unthinkable that the Roman church continued to extend hospitality to the head of a rival pagan religion for more than half a century and at the heart of its most exclusive property, the basilica dedicated to the prince of apostles. The Mithraic pater patrum and the bishop of Rome must necessarily have been closely linked. 163-164.

• As the passage just cited indicates, the title of the supreme head of the Mithraic organization was pater patrum, or "Father of Fathers." The Mithraic system had a hierarchy of seven Mithraic grades, with the highest being the Pater or "Father" (the head of any particular mithraeum). The head of the entire system, of all the Mithraic "lodges," was the "Father of Fathers," or pater patrum (pa-pa, for short). It is most significant that, after the death of the last Mithraic pater patrum, in AD 384, the bishop of Rome adopted this same title, which is still used to this day (and which is rendered in English "the Pope," but in Italian and Spanish is still papa). This evidence is discussed in Barbiero, 163 and elsewhere.
• As part of the same discussion, Flavio Barbiero notes that specific aspects of Mithraic ritual and attire were adopted into the rituals of Christianity, including the distinctive headgear of Christian bishops, which is still called a mitre, a word with linguistic connections to Mithras or Mitra.   
• There is powerful evidence of early prominent Christian leaders who were also members of the Sol Invictus Mithras organization, right up to the point that they declared themselves Christians, or took holy orders to become high-ranking leaders of Christianity. The most prominent of these whom Barbiero notes is the emperor Constantine himself (Barbiero, 166-167). Others include St. Ambrose, whom Barbiero notes "passes directly from being a pagan to being bishop of one of the most important sees of the period" (166). St. Ambrose was the son of a father who was a member of Sol Invictus Mithras, as was the Christian apologist and polemicist Tertullian (AD 160 - AD 225), as well as church fathers St. Jerome and St. Augustine (Barbiero 167-168). This fact is highly significant and indicates that these early Christian "Fathers" were descended from the same family lines that Barbiero discusses in his thesis.
• Constantine continued minting coins with clear Sol Invictus symbology and imagery, even after his vision of the heavenly "Chi-Rho" sign in some cases minted coins containing both sets of symbology, Christian and Mithraic. This is a clear indication that the two systems were not actually seen as antagonistic, at least during the early stages of establishing Christianity as official to the empire (later, Mithraism would be dismantled and the family lines would use Christianity as their open system of control, the "underground" mechanism of Sol Invictus Mithras having served its purpose). This use of Sol Invictus symbology on his coins is discussed in Barbiero page 165, and is also attested to in the notes to a translation of the works of the Christian polemicist and apologist Eusebius (c. AD 260 - c. AD 340). On page 207 of this edition of the works of Eusebius, we read a note from the editor to Eusebius' mention of a chi-rho coin which informs us that Constantine claimed to have seen the Christian chi-rho sign in the sky "resting over the sun," and that thereafter Constantine "continued to commemorate [the sun] on his coins as Sol Invictus (see Bruun, 'Sol'), whether out of numismatic conservatism (Barnes) or as a sign of solar monotheism."
• There is evidence that early Christian leaders saw reverence to the sun as not at all incompatible with Christianity, with Pope Leo in a famous passage in his Christmas sermon of AD 460 declaring that: "This religion of the Sun is so highly respected that some Christians, before entering the basilica of St. Peter the apostle, dedicated to the one true living God, after climbing the steps that lead to the upper entrance hall, turn towards the Sun and bow their heads in honor of the bright star" (cited in Barbiero, 161). Tertullian also writes that "it is a well-known fact that we pray turning towards the rising sun" (Ad Nationes 1.13, cited in Barbiero "Two sides of the same coin," page 3). This connection between the sun and the "one true living God" described in the sermon by Pope Leo is in keeping with Constantine's use of both Sol Invictus imagery and Christian "chi-rho" symbology on his coins (Constantine evidently did not see anything contradictory or conflicted about the use of both).
• In AD 386, a decree by the emperor Aurelian changed the name of the Christian day of worship from "the day of the sun" (Sunday being the first day of the week, in a significant change from the seventh-day Sabbath of antiquity) to "the day of the Lord" (Barbiero, 237).
• The spread of the mithraea throughout the western empire (particularly in the vicinity of army barracks and organs of the government bureaucracy) parallels the spread of Christianity. Barbiero writes, "Wherever the representatives of Mithras arrived, there a Christian community immediately sprang up" ("Two sides of the same coin," page 9). Early bishop's sees were located in Britannia, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa -- the same places that legions were located and which are the sites of mithraea (Ibid).
• Barbiero traces the progress through which the new Roman class of equites or "equestrians," to which the descendents of the family lines who had come to Rome with Titus and Vespasian after the fall of Judea belonged, gained access to the Senate and then progressively grew more and more powerful in the Senate. Dedicatory inscriptions reveal that as this process took place, more and more senators were members of Sol Invictus Mithras. However, upon the death of the last pater patrum of Sol Invictus Mithras, Flavio Barbiero notes that the entire Senate, that "stronghold of the cult of Mithras, discovered that it was totally Christian" (163, see also 241). In other words, the transition was remarkably smooth and bloodless -- indicating that Mithraism and Christianity were not at all the bitter rivals that the conventional narrative often paints them as being. They were, as Barbiero says, "two sides of the same coin."

These are by no means all the pieces of historical evidence which Flavio Barbiero musters to support his assertion that the institutions of Sol Invictus Mithras and literalist Christianity actually worked "hand in glove." Further, while this is a central part of his overall theory, there is much more to the theory, and that "much more" is itself supported by still further extensive evidence from other aspects of history.

In short, there is so much evidence to support this thesis that it simply cannot be ignored, and deserves careful consideration by everyone who wishes to explore the possible reasons for the suppression of the ancient celestial system of allegory which (I believe) was meant to preserve and to convey a sophisticated shamanic-holographic cosmology that was once widespread around the globe and which flourished in "the west" right up until the fourth century AD. The loss of this ancient wisdom, an inheritance belonging to all of humanity, is an absolutely watershed event in human history, and one which continues to impact our lives right up to the present day.


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Special note: if you have not yet seen it, you might be interested in this previous post discussing possible connections between Mithraism and the later Knights Templar.

Common symbology between Mithraic temples and the Knights Templar, and what it might mean

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Previous posts have explained that in the ancient system of metaphor found in the world's ancient mythologies, the "summer half" of the year (in which days are longer than nights) was variously allegorized as a heavenly mountain, a high hill, a gleaming city, or the land of Paradise or Heaven.  

The "winter half" of the year (in which nights are longer than days) was variously allegorized as a deep pit, a land of bondage or toil or slavery, Tartaros, Hades, Sheol, the Underworld, Amenta, or Hell.

In between these two halves of the year were two "crossing points," where the fiery path of the sun (the ecliptic path) crosses the celestial equator each year -- the two equinoxes (one in the spring and one in the fall).  

Previous posts have demonstrated that the ancient systems of metaphor often depicted sacrifices at these "crossing" points (including, appropriately enough, the crucifixion of Christ, which is replete with both autumnal and vernal imagery). For more detailed examination of some of the equinox sacrifice metaphors, and the celestial clues which indicate that these sacrifices align with the equinox in the ancient esoteric system of astronomical allegory, please see the first three chapters of The Undying Stars, chapters which are available to read online here (in particular, you'll want to read the third chapter, which begins on page 26 of the book, using the page numbers as they appear on the book pages themselves).

However, the ancient system did not always depict these equinox crossing points with sacrifice myths: sometimes they involved passage through a narrow and dangerous doorway, gateway, or channel between two rocks (such as the Symplegades encountered by Jason and the Argonauts of Greek myth), and sometimes they involved other metaphors (see for instance the series of three examinations of Virgo myths through various ancient cultures, including those of Scandinavia, the Americas, and Japan).

Another way that the equinox "crossings" have been allegorized in ancient symbology is the use of figures with their legs distinctively crossed, in the symbolism employed in the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras. The cult of Mithras was an exclusive secret society, which met in underground grottos called mithraea, or in buildings designed to feel as if they were underground. As David Ulansey explains in his important 1989 publication, Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, the Mithraic mysteries were so secret that virtually nothing of their inner workings was ever written down -- or if it was, none of it has been known to survive into the present. He writes that they:

centered around a secret which was revealed only to those who were initiated into the cult.  As a result of this secrecy, the teachings of the cult were, as far as we know, never written down.  Modern scholars attempting to understand the nature of Mithraism, therefore, have been left with practically no literary evidence relating to the cult which could help them reconstruct its esoteric doctrines. 3.

However, he explains, the remains of the mithraea which have been discovered scattered throughout the lands of the former Roman Empire do provide important material for modern analysts to examine, in particular, the symbols found in the scenes which are found upon the walls of these ancient meeting-places.  Ulansey writes:

But the Mithraists did leave to posterity a key for unlocking the  inner mysteries of their religion.  For although the iconography of the cult varies a great deal from temple to temple, there is one element of the cult's iconography which was present in essentially the same form in every mithraeum and which, moreover, was clearly of the utmost importance to the cult's ideology: namely, the so-called tauroctony, or bull-slaying scene, in which the god Mithras, accomplanied by a series of other figures, is depicted in the act of killing a bull.  This scene was always located in the central cult-niche of the mithraeum. 6.

Professor Ulansey's 1989 book is important in that in it, Ulansey challenges the conventional theories that had been accepted up until that time regarding the origin of the symbols (which held that they must have come from Persia and ancient Persian myth, since most scholars accepted the idea that Mithraism somehow came into the Roman Empire from Persia, an idea which Ulansey shows to have been almost entirely championed in modern times by a single nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century scholar, Franz Cumont). 

Ulansey's text labors to advance an alternative thesis, that the symbolism of the tauroctony is almost entirely celestial and primarily zodiacal, and that its central scene of slaying the bull has clear ties to the precession of the equinoxes. Towards this end Ulansey musters overwhelming evidence, and it is safe to say that on this point his arguments are decisive in favor of the fact that the imagery present relates to the zodiac signs and neighboring constellations, and the ages-long motion of precession.

One of the extremely interesting parts of Ulansey's argument concerns his interpretation of two mysterious figures who appear in many (but not all) of the tauroctonies, two torchbearers known as Cautes and Cautopates (we know their names from dedicatory inscriptions, as Ulansey explains on page 62).  These figures often (but not always) have crossed legs, and in most (but not all) of the tauroctony scenes in which they appear, one of them (Cautes) has his torch pointing upwards, and the other (Cautopates) has his torch pointing downwards.  

Ulansey presents cogent arguments for identifying these figures, with their crossed legs and torches, as indicative of the crossing of the fiery arc of the sun's path down into the lower or wintery half of the year (at the fall equinox, indicated by Cautopates with his lowered torch) and up into the upper or summery half (at the spring equinox, indicated by Cautes).  I discussed Ulansey's arguments, along with supporting arguments from Hamlet's Mill (which show that fire-imagery is very common at the points of the equinoxes in many of the world's ancient sacred mythologies) in my first book, The Mathisen Corollary (in chapter 10).  Some scholars have challenged Ulansey's identification of Cautes and Cautopates with the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, but he presents counters to their attacks in his book.

You may be able to spot Cautes and Cautopates in the tauroctony scene above, which is from an ancient mithraeum and which is currently on display in the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna.

In that particular tauroctony, Cautes appears on the right side of the bull-slaying scene as we look at it, with his torch's flame pointing upwards, and Cautopates appears on the left as we look at it, with his torch's flame distinctly pointed downwards.  Below is another image of the same scene, this time with Cautes and Cautopates outlined with red rectangles, and the direction of their torches indicated by red arrows (the point of the arrow going towards the respective flames of the torches):

Below is another tauroctony scene from a different ancient mithraeum, which also features Cautes and Cautopates.  Can you spot them and their crossed legs and torches (one pointing down for Cautopates and one pointing up for Cautes)?

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

Once again, they should be relatively easy to spot.  Their crossed legs are very clear in the above image, due to the way they happen to stand out in the photograph.  Below is the same image, with boxes drawn around Cautes and Cautopates to indicate their location, and arrows on each torch pointing in the direction of the flame, which is pointing down in the case of Cautopates on the left, and up in the case of Cautes on the right:

Based on what we have discussed in many previous posts at this point, Ulansey's argument that these two figures represent the two equinoxes is almost certainly correct.  Below is the now-familiar image of the zodiac wheel of the year, which has a large "X" at each equinox to indicate a "crossing."

As I discussed with Henrik Palmgren in my most-recent interview on Red Ice Radio, Mithraism (the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras) may play a far more important role in world history than most people (or even most conventional scholars of Mithraism or of ancient history in general) realize at this time. Historian and author Flavio Barbiero has published a book entitled The Secret Society of Moses: The Mosaic Bloodline and a Conspiracy Spanning Three Millennia (2010) in which he presents evidence that the cult of Sol Invictus Mithras was used as an underground "nerve center" for certain former priestly families of Judea whom Barbiero argues were brought to Rome after the conquest of Judea and the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, at the hands of the general (and future emperor) Titus, who was prosecuting the military campaign in conjunction with his father, Vespasian.

Admiral Barbiero argues that Mithraism basically functioned as an extremely effective secret society, and one which spread through certain strategically-chosen institutions in the Roman Empire, including the Praetorian Guard, the Roman army at large, the centers of trade and commerce (in particular the ports and customs-facilities) and the organs of the political bureaucracy.  It took some time (almost two hundred years), but this "nerve center" eventually gained so much power that it was able to install and remove emperors at will.  The extensive evidence to support this amazing claim is discussed at length in Barbiero's book, and it is also discussed in The Undying Stars in conjunction with that book's examination of the question of "what happened to the ancient wisdom?" Interested readers can also get an overview of the theory in this article which Flavio Barbiero published in 2010 on the Graham Hancock website.

According to this theory, the nobility which controlled Europe during the Middle Ages (as well as the leaders of the western church) almost certainly descended directly from the same lines of priestly families who came to Rome with Vespasian and Titus after the fall of Jerusalem.  Interestingly enough, Barbiero finds evidence for this theory (in addition to the bigger pieces of evidence which are discussed in that linked article and which make up the bigger part of his argument) in the fraternal orders which formed among the European nobility during the Crusades -- including the most famous of these, the Knights Templar.

Those familiar with the history of the Knights Templar may have already been struck by the distinctive "legs crossed" symbology in the foregoing discussion, from the temples of Sol Invictus Mithras.  Barbiero argues that it was probably within "some associations of nobles in which the most authentic spirit of the original institution of Sol Invictus could have survived" (333).  He makes note of the connection between the fact that the funeral monuments of Templar knights represent their effigies with their legs crossed, and says "we cannot imagine that it is a simple coincidence that in all the mithraea there are always two characters with their legs crossed in the same way" (337).

That the members of the noble families who were descended from those original priestly lines who defended the land of Judea and the Temple of Jerusalem against the invading Roman armies under Vespasian and Titus would form dedicated military orders which had secret rituals and shared symbology with the ancient cult of Sol Invictus perfectly accords with Barbiero's thesis. In fact, he writes of knights who made up the top rank of these military orders (such as the Templars):

To all effects, they were professional warriors dedicated to war, which always appeared to be a striking anomaly in the Catholic religion, in flagrant contrast to the pacifism preached by Christ.  In reality, this was no anomaly, but was instead a perfect continuation of the traditions of the priestly family.  Josephus Flavius was a priest but also a warrior and a military leader.  The followers of Sol Invictus had taken control of the Roman army and were, first of all, military men. 335.

Below are some images of the tombs of various Templar knights. In the first one, for example, you can see that the two knights on the right-hand side of the photograph (as we look at it) have their legs crossed:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

Below is a drawing of another effigy of a knight from his tomb.  You can clearly see that his legs are crossed:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

And finally, one more drawing of effigies of knights from medieval tombs.  The tomb closer to the viewer clearly depicts an effigy with the legs crossed in the same distinctive manner:

image: Wikimedia commons (link)

There is much more to this subject, but this connection alone constitutes yet another piece of evidence supporting Flavio Barbiero's theory as presented in his book, a theory which is very important for the question of "what happened" to the common system of celestial allegory which underlies virtually all of the world's ancient sacred texts (including those which found their way into what today we refer to as the Bible), and to the knowledge that this ancient wisdom should actually unite mankind, instead of dividing us.

Does the Bible teach reincarnation?

Previous posts have presented evidence that the ancient scriptures and sacred teachings of the world are all founded upon celestial allegory -- see for example:

• "Mars, Venus, and the Pleiades" (Greek mythology, Roman mythology)
• "Dangerous liaisons: Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury" (Greek mythology, Roman mythology)
•  "Aristotle's 'ancient treasure'" (Greek mythology)
• "Heimdall" (Norse mythology)
• "Possible Egyptian and Babylonian connections to the Hero-Twins of the Maya Popol Vuh" (Egyptian, Babylonian, and Maya mythology)
• "The Great Square of Pegasus (and more evidence for ancient contact across the oceans)" (Norse, Babylonian, African, Sumatran and North American mythology)
• "Leo, the Lion King, Hamlet and Horus" (Egyptian mythology)
• "The Pythia" (Greek mythology) 
• "Why St. Peter was crucified upside-down" (New Testament / early Christian tradition)
• "Columba, the Dove" (Old Testament, Greek mythology)
• "The Beehive and its significance" (Old Testament, New Testament)
• "Gemini, Canis Minor, and the Hairy Twin" (Old Testament, Babylonian and North American mythology)
• And the discussions found in the first three chapters of The Undying Stars, which can be previewed online here.

Previous posts have also provided evidence that one of the reasons that the ancient sacred traditions of the world chose to use the motions of the sun, moon, stars and planets to convey their esoteric message is that those motions provide an almost perfect analogy for the successive incarnation of the soul (when they set, plunging into the western horizon and hence into the mire and clay of the material realm), as well as the triumphant exultation of the soul as it rises again at the end of each successive incarnation into the freedom of the heavenly realm of air and fire.  For posts which lay out the evidence for this argument, see for example:

• "Know thyself"
• "New Year's and the Egyptian Book of the Dead"
• "The horizon and the scales of judgement"
• And, "The undying stars: what does it mean?"

These posts provide plenty of exposition of the metaphors found in the ancient myths to support the thesis that they taught a vision of the human experience which involved the descent and incarnation of a pre-existing soul, the survival of that soul, and some number of repetitions of the incarnation process (i.e., reincarnation).

Those posts, and the new book The Undying Stars, also argue that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament reveal themselves to be close kin to the other sacred traditions of the world, in that they also consist of beautiful celestial allegories, and they also teach the descent and incarnation of a pre-existing soul, the survival of that soul, and some form of reincarnation.  

This thesis, of course, is completely at odds with the conventional teaching that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments differ markedly from the "pagan" mythologies, in that (among other things) they purport to describe historical, literal personages (rather than gods, goddesses, and other supernatural beings who personify forces of nature, which is the way "pagan" mythology is usually described in the conventional view), and in that the Old and New Testament supposedly teach that men and women live only once, and afterwards face judgement followed by an eternity in either heaven or hell (some traditions would argue that the Old Testament does not teach such a doctrine, but it is safe to say that the vast majority of the literalist Christian traditions do teach such a doctrine, and have for centuries argued that the Old Testament scriptures support them in their teaching of that doctrine).

The thesis that the Old and New Testaments are also allegorical, celestial, and meant to convey an esoteric message which includes reincarnation breaks down the wall which the literalists have erected between their literalist faith and the ancient traditions of nearly all of the world's other cultures.

But, is it really possible to claim that the Old and New Testaments can be interpreted as open to the doctrine of reincarnation -- or even that they positively intended to convey such a teaching?

In fact, it is quite possible to support such a claim.  

First, as some of the discussions in the previous posts linked above should demonstrate, the evidence that the Old and New Testaments are built upon celestial metaphor is extremely strong, and almost impossible to deny.  Thus, even if one cannot find any literal expression of reincarnation teaching in the texts themselves, it is possible to argue that the esoteric interpretation of these astronomical metaphors involves the teaching of successive incarnation of the soul in a body, as the second set of previous posts linked above all argue.

Beyond that, however, there are passages in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments which appear to indicate that reincarnation was once an aspect of the message they intended to convey, and that it was only later that the literalist doctrine -- with its full-scale denial of the doctrine of reincarnation, and declaration that such a doctrine constitutes heresy -- arrived on the scene.  

For instance, Chris Carter (author of Science and Psychic Phenomena, Science and the Near-Death Experience, and Science and the Afterlife Experience), points out in Science and the Afterlife Experience that "there are at least two references to reincarnation in the New Testament" (footnote on page 19).  He explains:

At one point the disciples ask Jesus if a blind man sinned in a previous life, and Jesus did not rebuke them (John 9:1-2); at another point Jesus describes John the Baptist as the prophet Elijah reborn (Matthew 11:11-15).  footnote, page 19.

Both of these examples are extremely notable, and worthy of careful consideration. Additionally, there is another passage in the New Testament in which Jesus has an opportunity to denounce the possibility of reincarnation, and again (as in John 9) does not do so, and that is the story concerning the "confession of Peter."  Here is the account as it is recorded in the gospel of Mark, chapter 8:

And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?
And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.  Mark 8:27-28.

At this point, if the concept of reincarnation were truly as erroneous and dangerous as the literalist church later portrayed it to be, we might expect the text to inform us that Jesus set the disciples straight by saying words to the effect that the people were way off base with those speculations, and that there is no such thing as reincarnation, and he is very disappointed that anyone would think that he could possibly be Elias (that is, Elijah) or "one of the prophets," come back again in a new incarnation.  

But, the text does not say anything of the sort.  Instead, the next verse tells us that Jesus then asks them "But whom say ye that I am?" and this is answered by Peter in his "confession of Christ," in which Peter says: "Thou art the Christ" (Mark 9:29).

In Lost Light, Alvin Boyd Kuhn points to a very significant verse in the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah -- a book which literalists often argue contains  a series of specific prophecies relating to the incarnation of a literal, historical Christ.  One of the oft-quoted chapters of Isaiah in this regard is Isaiah 53, a chapter which contains the well-known passage: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" -- beautiful and comforting and timeless teachings, although perhaps misinterpreted by the literalists these many centuries in some of the applications to which that they put these scriptures and other scriptures.

Later in the same chapter, verse 9 tells us: "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."

Strangely enough, the translators of the 1611 Authorized Version (often called the "King James Version") place a textual note here at the word "death" in verse 9, where they are candid enough to inform the reader that the original Hebrew actually reads "deaths" at this point:

If the Hebrew text actually says "deaths," then why would the 1611 translators render it as "death" in their English translation, instead of "deaths" the way the original scriptures say? Isn't strict accuracy of translation of the original texts considered extremely important to many literalists?   

One extremely obvious possible reason that this word is translated as "death" instead of "deaths" (even though the original Hebrew text admittedly reads "deaths") is that such a translation clearly invites a re-incarnational interpretation!  Had the King James Translators used "deaths," the verse would read: "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his deaths."

Alvin Boyd Kuhn remarks:

Here is invincible evidence that the word carries the connotation of "incarnations," for in no other possible sense can "death" be rationally considered in the plural number.  In one incarnation the Christ soul is cast among the wicked; in another among the rich.  This is a common affirmation of the Oriental texts.  And his body is his grave.  Lost Light, 173.

These prominent examples, from both the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, strongly suggest that the scriptures as originally taught, and as originally understood, were intended to teach a message of reincarnation, or successive incarnation -- but that later doctrine (literalist doctrine) arose which sought to suppress their allegorical, esoteric nature and to instead substitute a rigid literal interpretation of all the teachings (a literal interpretation such as the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell, which almost certainly has an esoteric and non-literal meaning, if one knows how to read the scriptures according to the system of metaphor which they and all the world's other sacred traditions anciently employed, as discussed here).   

Even more powerful evidence in support of this theory (if more powerful evidence is possible than that described above) can be found in the ancient texts which were rejected by the literalists in the formation of their canon of the New Testament, for example in the various gnostic texts which were declared to be the "invention of heretics" by literalist leaders during their struggle to marginalize and anathematize gnosticism and the gnostic teachers.  

Some of these texts, most of them now completely unfamiliar due to the fact that they were condemned by the literalists in the fourth century and lost to humanity during all the intervening centuries, were unearthed at the base of a cliff near the current Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi in the middle of the twentieth century.  They were probably condemned and rejected from the canon by the literalists because their teachings are either openly gnostic or because some of the stories they incorporate are so bizarre that they cannot possibly be interpreted literally, and must be esoteric in nature.  Some of them rather strongly suggest that a doctrine of successive incarnation was part of early teaching among those that the literalists later suppressed.  

Whatever community cherished these texts in ancient times probably took them to that remote location, sealed them in a jar and buried them some time during the fourth century AD, the same time that the literalists were forbidding "heretical" texts and persecuting those who taught from them or even kept such texts.  Perhaps those who buried them hoped someday to come back and retrieve them, or perhaps they simply could not bear to destroy them.  For whatever reason, they apparently never did come back for the buried library of codices, and they were preserved in their secret location for sixteen hundred more years before coming to light.

For example, in the Apocryphon of John (a title which could also be rendered "The Secret Teaching of John" or "The Secret Revelation of John") -- which is found twice in the Nag Hammadi library, in two slightly different versions (not being literalists, those originally in possession of the Nag Hammadi library apparently had no problem having different versions of a similar story or account).  In this text, the author (taking the persona of John) describes a vision after the teacher has ascended in which the heavens appear to open and a being descends, whom the text says is "the Spirit" but to whom John puts questions, often addressing it or him as "Christ" (or, in some versions of the Apocryphon of John, as "Lord").  This divine teacher at one point expresses a teaching which appears to establish a doctrine of reincarnation.  

Here is the "short version" of the two found in the Nag Hammadi library, which matches a version of the Apocryphon of John which did in fact survive outside of the Nag Hammadi jar and had already been known to scholars (part of the Berlin Codex, BG 8502,2).  In section 23, for example, the text says:

I said, "Christ, when the souls leave the flesh, where will they go?"
He laughed and said to me, "To a place of the soul, which is the power that is greater than the counterfeit spirit.  This (soul) is powerful.  It flees from the works of wickedness and it is saved by the incorruptible oversight and brought up to the repose of the aeons."
I said, "Christ, what about those who do not know the All -- what are their souls or where will they go?"
He said to me, "In those, a counterfeit spirit proliferated by causing them to stumble.  And in that way he burdens their soul and draws it into works of wickedness, and he leads it into forgetfulness.  After it has become naked in this way, he hands it over to the authorities who came into being from the Ruler.  And again they cast them into fetters.  And they consort with them until they are saved from forgetfulness and it receives some knowledge.  And in this way, it becomes perfect and is saved."
I said, "Christ, how does the soul become smaller and enter again into the nature of the mother or the human?"
He rejoiced when I asked this, and he said, "Blessed are you for paying close attention!  

[. . .]"

Clearly, these teachings are conveying something that seems very alien to those familiar with the literalist interpretation of the ancient scriptures but unfamiliar with texts which the literalists long ago condemned.  Although there is much here that clearly pertains to more than just the topic at hand, the passage can certainly be interpreted as teaching the possibility of multiple incarnations.  Note the teaching that the souls of those who do not yet "know the All" after they leave the flesh are described as undergoing "forgetfulness" followed by being "again cast into fetters."  This phrase is almost certainly describing incarnation -- that is to say, "imprisonment" of the soul in this body of flesh and blood.  Following this passage, the divine speaker (Christ or the Spirit) explains the way the the soul which is cast again into incarnation can encounter "another who has the Spirit of Life in it," and can follow and obey and then "be saved," after which "of course it does not enter into another flesh."

There are other ancient gnostic texts which also demonstrate that the concept of successive cycles of incarnation was accepted and taught, prior to being suppressed by those who were promoting a new approach to the scriptures, one which rejected the fact that they are esoteric in nature, and who taught that they must be interpreted literally and not esoterically.  They worked hard to eradicate the teachings and the texts which would show that this literal approach was in actuality the novel approach, but some passages in the New Testament -- and especially the verse in the Old Testament scroll of Isaiah discussed above -- survive to tell the tale of how the original intent of the scriptures was not what we have been led to believe.

The fact that the Bible has clear signs of once containing a doctrine of successive incarnation -- and their employment of the very same system of celestial allegory (albeit with different actors playing the metaphorical roles, in different costumes and upon different "stage") -- shows that the ancient scriptures of the Old and New Testament are very much part of the same continuity of ancient wisdom which flows through the sacred myths of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks, the Norse, the Maya, the Inca, and the Pacific Islands, and which informs the teachings of the ancient civilizations of India, China, Tibet, and many other cultures around the world.

It is the literalist interpretation which is relatively "new" and which seeks to cut the Biblical scriptures off from the rest of humanity -- and that interpretation may not be sustainable based upon the scriptures themselves.

Why would I care about this esoteric stuff?

image: Charlemagne.  Wikimedia commons

Regular readers of this blog probably do not ask themselves, "Why would I care about this esoteric stuff, anyway?"  However, they may at times find themselves trying to answer that question to a friend or family member.  

In order to provide a few answers to that question and two related follow-up questions -- and to help journalists, bloggers, and other writers wondering if The Undying Stars might be of interest to their readers -- here follows a list of some of those reasons (many more can be added to this list, but to make it less overwhelming, this particular list is limited to three groups of three):

Why would I care about this stuff?

• This may well be the biggest conspiracy in history, the one which ties up the loose ends of many others, the conspiracy which created the "noble" families of Europe together with a religious system designed to accumulate vast material wealth and power.  That wealth and power still drives world events and political decisions that impact your daily life.
• This conspiracy involves the creation of a literalist Christian religious system which threatens people with eternal damnation in a literal place called hell if they do not accept the existence and authority of a literal historical savior and his twelve disciples: that threat is still used to command obedience to this day, and yet it can be conclusively shown to be based upon a completely incorrect approach to the ancient scriptures of the human race.
• This literalist misinterpretation causes people to miss the fact that the human race once shared incredible ancient wisdom, wisdom that may help to explain the mysterious ancient monuments found around the globe (such as Stonehenge, Easter Island, Tiahuanaco, Giza, Angkor Wat, Nazca, and many others).

What new perspectives does The Undying Stars bring to this discussion?

• Clearly shows how ancient scriptures -- focusing especially those of the Old and New Testaments, but connecting them with the sacred traditions of other ancient civilizations -- consist almost entirely of esoteric allegories which depict celestial events: the motions of the sun, moon, stars and planets.  Other writers have discussed this in the past, but The Undying Stars clearly explains the way this system works, and does it with clear prose and over seventy illustrations.
•  Goes beyond just showing the celestial connection and explores the obvious next question of Why?  The Undying Stars explores the likelihood that these ancient sacred traditions were designed to convey secrets that the literalist misinterpretation has kept from humanity for at least seventeen centuries.
• Provides a detailed theory explaining the rise of literalist Christianity, and the use of a two-pronged strategy using both the secret Mysteries of Mithras and the open religion of literalist Christianity to take over the Roman Empire from the inside.  This aspect of the book draws heavily on the work of historian and analyst Flavio Barbiero, but connects his theory to the subject of the esoteric allegories and what they mean, a connection which has not previously been explored.

What are some of the implications, if this theory is correct?

• First of all, you probably don't have to worry about "going to hell when you die"! (or, to say it a bit differently, at the end of this particular incarnation).  The Undying Stars shows that the threat of a literal hell is based upon a misunderstanding of the esoteric nature of the ancient scriptures which came to be included in what is today called the Bible.  In fact, most of what the literal interpreters have been teaching for centuries can be shown to be very different from what the authors of those ancient scriptures actually intended to teach.
• If this theory is correct, it completely rewrites European history, or at least explains that history very differently from what almost everyone has been taught.  It reveals that a group of families which gained incredible wealth and power during the Roman Empire have been pursuing goals connected to the suppression of the information outlined above ever since the first century AD -- and almost certainly continue to do so today.
• Not only that, but it completely rewrites world history, especially very ancient history, and shows that there was an awful lot going on before the arrival of the first historically-known civilizations than we have been led to believe.  There are very good reasons that certain people would like to suppress the real history and replace it with a fictional narrative that, when examined closely, is full of king-sized contradictions and logical inconsistencies.

Piercing the fog of deception that hides the contours of history

image: Wikimedia commons

I believe that we are living at a crucial juncture in human history, but that in order to see why, it helps to have an accurate "map" of history, and of the contours and terrain which led up to this particular point in time.

Unfortunately, I also believe that the control of history has proven to be a powerful tool for those who want to control the thinking of others, and to condition their acceptance of certain actions and depredations and violations of human liberty and of natural universal law.  False historical narratives can be used to lend a "veil of legitimacy" to actions which are anything but legitimate.  These have acted like a blanket of fog to cloak the true outlines of history under a cloud of deception.

False historical narratives can act like a well-crafted movie, into which audiences immerse themselves and -- through the "suspension of disbelief" -- which huge numbers of people come to see as real, imbuing them with a kind of reality that is a function of their desire to believe that the narrative is true (the Star Wars movies might be a good example of fictional "fantasy" which large numbers of people imbue with enough reality that they actually take on a sort of life of their own, and are treated as if they are real events with real people inhabiting real places, even though they are clearly a work of fiction created in movie studios using cameras and special effects).

There is a huge amount of evidence which suggests that the conventional historical narratives which have been institutionalized in many "western" countries over the course of the past few centuries -- beginning during the "Enlightenment" and refined and reinforced and strengthened in each succeeding century -- are severely flawed, particularly with regards to ancient history but also regarding the history of "the west" since the so-called "fall" of the Roman Empire.  

Using such an intentionally false historical "map" to try to determine where we are in history will almost certainly lead to wildly incorrect conclusions.  This is why the control of the historical narrative is often a very central component of mind control and the control of populations not primarily through the threat of physical force but rather through propaganda, misinformation, and the creation of "fantasy worlds" which they buy into and imbue with a sort of artificial life.

The Undying Stars presents abundant evidence which suggests that the real narrative of history is far different -- and far more bizarre -- than the conventional fantasy narrative which is force-fed to the population (primarily through the school system from kindergarten through college, but also through various media outlets and historical programs).  Many aspects of this evidence have been discussed to some degree on the pages of this blog over the course of the past four years; below is a simplified list of some of the assertions explored in The Undying Stars, along with links to blog posts from the past which touch on the various assertions in the list.  The evidence examined strongly supports the following conclusions:

• The scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments are founded upon celestial allegories, ingeniously incorporating allegories relating to the human body at the same time, likely designed to impart profound esoteric teachings regarding the nature of the universe and the nature of human existence.
• The esoteric teachings and the system of celestial and human-body allegories indicate that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are in fact close kin to other ancient sacred traditions found the world over, designed to impart the same ancient wisdom to humanity (contrary to the conventional view that they somehow stand apart and are of a completely different character and convey a completely different message than that found in the "pagan" mythologies).
• These ancient traditions seem to have included an understanding of the universe that is what we today might call "holographic," and that it included the knowledge of the possibility and even of the necessity of various forms of shamanic travel or ecstasy, including contact with or travel to the "spirit realm," also described as the "hidden realm" or (in modern terms) the "implicate realm."  
• This ancient understanding of the universe may also have included advanced technologies very different from today's technology, and may help explain some of the amazing accomplishments of whatever civilization or civilizations preceded the known civilizations of history, accomplishments that the conventional historical paradigm absolutely cannot explain, and which include the construction of what appears to be a "world-wide grid" which demonstrates an understanding of our planet which appears to go beyond the full grasp of even our most modern science.
• While the full glory of this extremely ancient knowledge appears to have vanished before the arrival of the first historically-known ancient civilizations, some strong remnants of the ancient knowledge clearly survived into ancient historical times.  The end of the ancient understanding in "the west" -- and its attendant "shamanic-holographic" rituals and techniques, appears to closely coincide with the advent of the literalist-historicist interpretation of the ancient scriptures, especially those which we call today the Old and New Testaments.  
• The rise of literalism corresponded with a deliberate and sometimes violent suppression of the esoteric and the gnostic interpretation, and of those who were teachers of such an interpretation.  Evidence of the suppression of texts that were difficult or impossible to paper-over with a literalist interpretation include the texts that were found buried at Nag Hammadi.  However, the scriptures that did survive into the Old and New Testaments, while given a literalist spin, still testify clearly to their original esoteric origin and intent.
• On the European continent, the new literalist religion (wedded to the power of the Roman Empire) waged long and bloody but ultimately successful campaigns to absorb the Germanic and Celtic cultures and others in the broader region, and replace their original sacred traditions with the literalist religion.
• The suppression of those who understood the shamanic-holographic vision and who opposed the literalist revolution may have led to the escape of at least some of the non-literalist contingent westward across the oceans -- to the lands we call the "New World" (which had been known to the ancients for many centuries, even prior to the literalist revolution we are discussing here).  There is evidence that they interacted with the native American people and cultures they encountered there.
• Later, when the literalists gained enough power and the technology to do so, they also crossed the ocean, and treated the people they found there with ferocious violence and barbarity -- possibly because they were still incensed at the escape of many non-literalists to that continent, centuries before.  They also deliberately destroyed as much of their literature as they could get their hands on, perhaps as part of the cover-up for the literalist revolution they had perpetrated and the legitimacy of which they still wished to maintain.
• The suppression of the shamanic-holographic and of the esoteric appears to continue to this day.  With it, of course, comes a suppression (and oppression) of men and women, a suppression of freedom, and a suppression of the pursuit of consciousness.

I hope that you will take the time to examine the evidence and lines of argument presented in The Undying Stars.  I believe that if replacing the truth about the history of mankind with a fabricated cover-story can act as a component of mind control, then seeing through this cover-story and beginning to perceive the outlines of the real contours of human history can be an important step on the pathway to freedom, consciousness, and the escape from mind control.

The Smithsonian Cover-up

John Wesley Powell (1834 - 1902, image above from Wikimedia commons) was made the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology in the United States in 1879, which was established that same year by an Act of Congress, a position he held until his death in 1902.  

That bureau, which changed its name to the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1897, was directly connected to the Smithsonian Institution, which had been established in 1846 through the will of the British chemist James Smithson (1765 - 1829) and funded by his bequest of 105 sacks of about 1,000 gold sovereigns each, and pursued the mission of organizing all the anthropological research in the nation.

In his first year as head of the Bureau of Ethnology, Powell submitted the first of his Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, dated July 1880 and covering the Bureau of Ethnology's efforts for 1879-1880.  The entire report can be seen online here among other places.  

Beginning on page 73 of that publication is a famous essay by Powell entitled "On Limitations to the Use of Some Anthropologic Data."  In it, Powell sets forth the doctrine which would become the guiding principle of his Bureau of American Ethnology and of the Smithsonian at large all the way through the present day, a strictly isolationist doctrine which flatly declares that it is "illegitimate" to entertain any line of analysis which attempts to connect any artifacts found in the New World with any "peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other portions of the world."  

A reproduction of the letter, with the passages emphasizing this isolationist doctrine highlighted in yellow, can be found online here as well.

The motivations behind this strict imposition of the isolationist paradigm and flat rejection of the examination of any possibility of diffusionist explanations (which propose the possibility that there was contact across the oceans prior to the arrival of Columbus) can and have been debated.  Many biographers and vignettes emphasize the "tremendous respect" Powell had for the native tribes of North America and some have suggested that his support for an isolationist doctrine was based upon that respect for the Native Americans and the view that any theory proposing ancient pre-Columbian contact with "peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other portions of the world" must automatically be disrespectful to the native peoples here, or even based upon some kind of racist animus.  

It is certainly likely from some of the episodes of Powell's life that he did in fact have tremendous respect for the Native Americans.  However, it is undeniable that Powell's own 1879 essay displays some extremely paternalistic and disrespectful generalizations, including his assertions in the second part of the essay (entitled "Picture Writing," beginning on page 75 of the above-linked version of the 1879 report) that the "pictographs" found in North America are "simply the beginning of pictorial art" and in almost all cases "simply mnemonic" -- possessed of no systematic or as Powell calls it, "conventional," structure by which ideas could be preserved using symbols that possessed a common meaning agreed upon by all who understood that system (i.e., whose meaning was agreed-upon by convention across a large number of people, thus constituting a writing-system).  

In this astonishing denial of the existence of writing systems, Powell explicitly includes even the obvious writing-systems of the Maya and the Inca and other cultures of Central and South America, whose artifacts were by no means unknown to him and to the other employees of the Bureau of Ethnology (in fact, the 1879 report contains long sections dealing with "Central American Picture Writing," and many of the other annual reports discuss the artifacts and culture of the Maya and Inca and other civilizations in detail).  Nevertheless, Powell asserts in his letter that:

To some slight extent pictographs are found with characters more or less conventional, and the number of such is quite large in Mexico and Central America.  Yet even these conventional characters are used with others less conventional in such a manner that perfect records were never made.

Such a statement is extremely paternalistic, and effectively denies the existence of any true systematic writing systems, even among the cultures of Mexico and Central America!  Based upon this false assertion, Powell then declares: "Hence it will be seen that it is illegitimate to use any pictographic matter of a date anterior to the discovery of the continent by Columbus for historic purposes."  By this declaration, Powell effectively discarded any and all artifacts containing writing from consideration of historic analysis, and in doing so protected his earlier declaration that any contact with peoples from "other portions of the world" is plainly "illegitimate."  

Thus, none of the numerous inscriptions and artifacts which clearly attest to the possibility of ancient contact -- many of which have been discussed in previous posts on this blog and many more of which have been detailed in numerous published books -- could be considered as evidence which might challenge the isolationist dogma.  Some of those artifacts containing evidence of writing which strongly supports the possibility of ancient contact are discussed in the following previous posts:

• "Have you heard of this artifact? The Grave Creek Stone"
• "Chief Joseph, 1840 - 1904"
• "Beltane and ancient inscriptions in the New World"
• "Ogham inscriptions in Colorado"
• "The staggering implications of the ancient inscriptions at Hidden Mountain near Los Lunas, New Mexico"
• "The case of the Micmac hieroglyphs: a powerful blow to isolationist theories"

And there are hundreds of other examples which could be discussed in addition to the evidence discussed in those posts.  To simply refuse to consider any such evidence at all is unscientific to the extreme, and yet it has been the implicit or explicit policy of the Smithsonian since the days of John Wesley Powell.

The fact that the Smithsonian has not changed their policy of refusing to consider any artifacts which might suggest the possibility of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact with the "New World" is evident from the controversy over the Bat Creek Stone found in 1889 in Tennessee, which the Smithsonian recently (early in 2014) called "an obvious fraud" in their response to Scott Wolter's discussion of the artifact on his America Unearthed program on the History Channel.  Scott Wolter's response to the Smithsonian's dismissive belittling of his examination of the Bat Creek Stone, and their ad hominem attacks on Wolter himself as lacking in "qualifications and reputation as a researcher," can be seen here.  His response also includes expressions of regret towards the Smithsonian's dismissal of the Bat Creek Stone from representatives of the Cherokee people, who did possess a system of writing and who told the Smithsonian that if they are so sure that the stone is a fraud, the Cherokee can take the stone back and rebury it where it was found out of respect to those who originally produced it.

Recently, a new aspect of the Smithsonian's policy of refusing to countenance any artifacts that might pose a challenge to Powell's "doctrine" of isolationism has received a lot of publicity in light of the publication of Richard Dewhurst's new book Ancient Giants Who Ruled North America: the Missing Skeletons and the Great Smithsonian Cover-Up (briefly discussed in this previous post).  Richard Dewhurst used the capabilities of modern search engines to examine the archives of US newspapers going back to the early 1800s and found hundreds of published descriptions of giant skeletons being unearthed across the North American continent, many of them containing photographs.  

He also found evidence that, while the Smithsonian in its early years was an enthusiastic documenter of such discoveries, the arrival of John Wesley Powell marked a dramatic change in the Smithsonian's attitude and policy towards such finds, to such an extent that Dewhurst was forced to conclude that: "What my research has revealed is that the Smithsonian has been at the center of a vast cover-up of America's true history since the 1880s" (3).  He documents numerous cases in which representatives from the Smithsonian arrived on the scene of any reported discoveries of giant skeletons with remarkable rapidity (sometimes within one or two days, even in the late 1800s and even when the archaeological find was in remote regions of the American west) and in which skeletons reported as being turned over to the Smithsonian were never seen again.  

Today, if one searches the internet for the terms "Smithsonian cover up," the predominant results will have to do with the cover-up of giant skeletons.   Richard Dewhurst believes that the motives for what he calls the "Powell doctrine" of suppressing and denying any archaeological evidence that could indicate the presence of other ancient peoples in the Americas or contact with ancient cultures from across the oceans may have sprang from the fact that John Wesley Powell's father was a Methodist preacher in Palmyra, New York (Powell himself was obviously named after John Wesley, 1703 - 1791, the founder of Methodism), where Joseph Smith first published the Book of Mormon in 1830 and where the early enthusiasm of the people of the area for the new revelations caused Powell's father to lose his congregation (as Richard Dewhurst explains in a footnote on page 6 as a likely motive for Powell's animus towards any diffusionist theories).

Richard Dewhurst also believes that the distasteful US policy of "Manifest Destiny" and the efforts of the federal government following the Civil War to seize the territory to the west of the Mississippi and to suppress the Native Americans who lived there played a role in the Smithsonian's (and Powell's) desire to characterize the native peoples of the continent as primitive barbarians, incapable of producing anything more than "the most rudimentary picture making," (Dewhurst, 6).  Dewhurst proposes that such a doctrine may have been deployed in order to help convince the population to support the aggressive plans to exploit the lands of the Native Americans.

If so, then the "Powell doctrine" probably did not originate with Powell himself, but would have likely been the determined policy of a number of other government officials.  At the front of Powell's first annual report (containing his essay declaring as "illegitimate" any attempts to connect any artifacts found in the New World with cultures from anywhere else) is an introductory letter from Powell to Spencer F. Baird, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, in which Powell says the following: 

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith the first annual report of the operations of the Bureau of Ethnology. 

By act of Congress, an appropriation was made to continue researches in North American anthropology, the general direction of which was confided to yourself.  As chief executive officer of the Smithsonian Institution, you entrusted to me the immediate control of the affairs of the Bureau.  This report, with its appended papers, is designed to exhibit the methods and results of my administration of this trust. 

If any measure of success has been attained, it is largely due to general instructions received from yourself and the advice you have ever patiently given me on all matters of importance.

I am indebted to my assistants, whose labors are delineated in the report, for their industry, hearty co-operation, and enthusiastic love of the science.  Only through their zeal have your plans been executed.

Much assistance has been rendered the Bureau by a large body of scientific men engaged in the study of anthropology, some of whose names have been mentioned in the report and accompanying papers, and others will be put on record when the subject-matter of their writings is fully published.

I am, with respect, your obedient servant,

J.W. POWELL

While this introductory and dedicatory letter may simply be an example of "polite formalities" or conventional platitudes within a government bureaucracy, in keeping with the style and traditions of the period, it is also possible in light of the topic being discussed that it contains evidence that Powell's doctrine did not originate with Powell himself, but was part of a policy transmitted by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution whose office was in Washington, DC, and of other men in Washington as well.  The highlighted areas (all highlighting is my own and is not found in the original document) seem to support such a possibility, with Powell referencing a "general direction" which "was confided" to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Spencer Baird by some unnamed parties (presumably parties connected with Congress, whose authorizing act for the creation of the Bureau of Ethnology was mentioned immediately prior to this mysterious assertion), and "the advice you have ever patiently given me on all matters of importance," and his declaration that "your plans [have] been executed."

The likelihood that what Dewhurst calls "the Powell doctrine" has roots far deeper than Powell himself (or even Powell's animus towards diffusionist theories due to the loss of his father's congregation) is evident from the fact that the Smithsonian's policy of refusing to entertain any possibility of ancient contact across the oceans and its haste to declare any artifacts containing inscriptions which might employ the known writing systems of ancient Mediterranean cultures as frauds or hoaxes has continued long after the death of John Wesley Powell, and continues to this day.  

This continuing refusal to examine artifacts containing inscriptions such as those mentioned in the list of previous posts above and reflexive labeling of such artifacts as either fraudulent or the products of post-Columbian contact cannot be explained by the Powell family's personal experiences in Palmyra, New York.  Nor, it seems, can the benighted and repulsive nineteenth-century belief in "Manifest Destiny" be the reason that the Smithsonian continued to enforce the "Powell doctrine" throughout the twentieth century, long after the United States had seized all of the lands of the Native Americans between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, and most of the citizens of the country had forgotten that their land had once belonged to someone else.  Is it possible that there is some other motive which lies behind the Smithsonian's ongoing policy of anti-diffusionism?

Personally, I am not an expert on the "giant skeletons" controversy.  While it certainly seems, based upon the prodigious volume of reports and descriptions and even photographs (see, for instance, the photograph below from 1940 published in the San Antonio Express), that such skeletons have been found throughout the Americas in some numbers, and that the absence of any such skeletons on display at the Smithsonian National Museum is suspicious, I also believe it is a mistake to focus entirely on giant skeletons when talking about a "Smithsonian cover-up."  

The easiest way for defenders of the Powell doctrine to deflect such cover-up arguments is to argue that such "giant skeletons" were simply the remains of some isolated individuals exhibiting traits of giantism, to point out that enthusiasm over giants and the possibility of ancient trans-oceanic contact was rife in the nineteenth century (much of it fueled, it must be noted, by religious agendas and a desire to support literalist interpretations of the Bible or by the newly published Book of Mormon), and to argue that whatever skeletons may have been uncovered in those early decades were lost or crumbled to dust and were not maliciously squirreled-away in the bowels of the Smithsonian's warehouses.  

I certainly do not agree that these counter-arguments settle the case, and believe that Richard Dewhurst's analysis of the evidence of giant remains (and other such analysis by other researchers, such as the analysis in this essay found in several places on the web) is extremely valuable and worthy of careful consideration.  I also believe that all dogmatic declarations that the facts of the matter are settled and that no further analysis is legitimate (whatever the subject) should be treated with great suspicion (see discussions to that effect in previous posts such as this one, this one, this one and this one, for example).  Nevertheless, I also believe that the "giant skeleton" aspect of the "Smithsonian cover-up" question could become a huge red herring which falsely divides the debate in the eyes of the general public into two camps, those who believe America was once home to a race of giants, and those who generally side with the Powell doctrine.  

The Powell doctrine excludes a whole lot more evidence than giant skeletons, as the recent Bat Creek Stone controversy demonstrates.  There is abundant evidence that there was ancient contact across the oceans, most of it involving human beings of what we might call "normal" (or at least non-gigantic) stature.  As far as I know, no one is maintaining that the giants whose skeletons have been found throughout the Americas were the authors of inscriptions using known "Old World" writing systems including Hebrew, Egyptian (both hieroglyphic and hieratic), Phoenician/Punic, Ogham, cuneiform, runic, Iberian, Libyan, and Roman, but many of these have been found in the Americas and conventional scholars either ignore them, declare them to be frauds or hoaxes, or explain them away as artifacts which were brought to the Americas by Europeans after Columbus and either lost or given to Native Americans (this is the explanation for the small cuneiform tablet which Chief Joseph had in his possession when he surrendered to the US Army, described in this previous post linked above).  Many other forms of evidence for ancient trans-oceanic contact have been found, such as the amphorae at the bottom of Guanabara Bay in Brazil, and the mummies and other evidence listed in this previous post describing the "Calixtlahuaca head" (which is itself another artifact attesting to ancient trans-oceanic contact).

To the extent that the Powell doctrine and the ongoing policy of the Smithsonian and the rest of conventional academia ignores or devalues these artifacts, and discourages their honest appraisal by professional scholars, the search for the truth is greatly inhibited.  What professional scholar wants to risk ridicule and marginalization by publishing an examination of any of these pieces of evidence, at least one that reaches conclusions which contradict the oppressive official policy of the Powell doctrine?

Clearly, the so-called Powell doctrine did not originate with John Wesley Powell alone, and its ongoing enforcement throughout academia (and at the Smithsonian) is evidence that its roots go far deeper than John Wesley Powell himself.  Its continuing effect of suppressing open-minded examination of the evidence cannot simply be explained by Powell's personal views of the Native American peoples, or the personal impact his family may have experienced due to the "lost tribes" enthusiasms of the nineteenth century in general and the beginnings of the Mormon religion in particular.  Nor can its continuing impact be attributable to the nineteenth-century doctrine of "Manifest Destiny" (although perhaps related to the latest incarnation of that vicious doctrine).   

I believe that there is a bigger reason why powerful forces believe that evidence of ancient trans-oceanic contact must be suppressed, one that involves the spreading of illusions about history which powerful interests find extremely valuable for the public to accept.  The control of history can certainly be a form of very powerful mind control -- and the single-mindedness evident in the efforts of John Wesley Powell (and of the Smithsonian Institute since 1879) demonstrates just how important this control of history must be to someone's agenda.

Alfred Watkins and Ley Lines, 20 June 1921

In New View Over Atlantis, writer John Michell gives this description of an influential inspiration that took place this day, some ninety-two years ago:

One hot summer afternoon, 20 June 1921, Alfred Watkins was at Blackwardine in Herefordshire.  On a high hilltop he stopped and looked at his map before meditating on the view below him.  Suddenly, in a flash, he saw something which no one in England had seen for perhaps thousands of years.

Watkins saw straight through the surface of the landscape to a layer deposited in some remote prehistoric age.  The barrier of time melted and, spread across the country, he saw a web of lines linking the holy places and sites of antiquity.  Mounds, old stones, crosses and old crossroads, churches placed on pre-Christian sites, legendary trees, moats and holy wells stood in exact alignments that ran over beacon hills to cairns and mountain peaks.  In one moment of transcendental perception Watkins entered a magic world of prehistoric Britain, a world whose very existence had been forgotten.  22-23.

Alfred Watkins (1855-1935) was an Englishman who delighted in traveling the countryside of his native Herefordshire, and in the country people he met and the stories they told -- stories that were often handed down for generations.  His keen eye and open mind (he was also an accomplished photographer and inventor) and his love of the countryside of his native England enabled him to perceive the network of alignments running for miles and miles and connecting ancient megalithic sites, landmarks, monuments, and natural features such as mountain peaks and high hills.  He called these lines "ley lines," or "leys," because (as Michell explains):

A peculiar feature of the old alignments is that certain names appear with remarkable frequency along their routes.  names with Red, White and Black are common; so are Cold and Cole, Dod, Merry, and Ley.  The last gave Watkins the name of the lines, which he called leys.  24.

As Michell goes on to explain, "The idea of leys found little sympathy among Watkins's archaeological contemporaries.  It contradicted all their assumptions about the nature of prehistoric life" (25).  If that was true in 1921 and in 1969 (when John Michell published his first edition of View Over Atlantis), it is still true today.  The idea of leys turns on its head the conventional timeline of human history.  How could such precision and vision and engineering capability be possible to the "primitive" denizens of the British Isles in the days before Stonehenge and Avebury were even contemplated?  Note that this system must have been created before Stonehenge and all the other ancient sites in Britain were erected, since it ties such sites together with perfectly straight lines that would be impossible to design after the fact.

While these straight leys are often attributed to the engineering skills of the later Roman invaders, Michell notes that many Roman roads have been found to have much older paving stones underneath the layers of Roman construction, indicating that the Romans found the lines when they arrived and then sometimes built on top of them. Also, leys are present in Ireland, where the Romans never conquered.

Modern skeptics continue to try to write these alignments off to mere coincidence, or the human mind's tendency to find patterns in random sets of data.  For example, the Wikipedia entry on ley lines makes sure to cast frequent aspersions on the original concept and on John Michell's later examination of the phenomenon, saying: "Both versions of the theory have been criticised on the grounds that a random distribution of a sufficient number of points will inevitably create 'alignments'."  The Wikipedia entry then goes on to cite critics who say that "given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that 'connect' sites is trivial, and ascribable to coincidence. A statistical analysis of lines concluded that 'the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites." ^[18]"  

While these criticisms sound valid if Wikipedia is your only source of information about this concept, the interested reader is invited to read through John Michell's books (as well as the earlier books by Watkins and his contemporaries, and the many others that have been published since) and analyze the evidence for himself or herself.  The aerial photographs in Michell's books alone should be sufficient to dispel the notion that these alignments are the product of coincidence or trivial "dot-connecting" -- lines can be seen going for miles and miles and disappearing into the distance, and incorporating hilltops, gates, church steeples, and other landmarks.  

Further, as John Michell demonstrates, this phenomena is by no means isolated to the British Isles, but can be found around the world.  He provides extensive evidence from China and from North and South America to support the idea that the ancients appear to have created ley line grids around the globe.  Previous blog posts which have touched on the undeniable world-wide geodetic networks apparent in ancient monuments and sites include "Did mankind known the precise size and shape of our earth many thousands of years ago?" and "Rock Lake, Wisconsin and the Code of Carl P. Munck."

Again, this is a subject where individuals are encouraged to examine the evidence and analyze the situation for themselves.  The conclusions drawn by Alfred Watkins (and expanded upon by John Michell) have profound paradigm-shifting implications.  It is a subject too important to simply ignore, or to "outsource" to someone else to decide.  

Surely June 20th is an appropriate day on which to spend some time in consideration of the important subject of ley lines!